Stella 3.0 released

[+stephena]

I decided to make a sort of composite image for the 32-in-1 cart that would show all 32 screen shots in one, so I loaded up the screen shots in Photoshop, put them together and saved the .png file to my stella/screenshots folder.

 

When I stared Stella to see if it worked, it didn't. The image was trashed, not the file itself, it's just that Stella can't display it.

I saved it first as a non-interlaced png then I tried the interlaced png, still didn't work.

So, I copied the image to MSPaint and saved, and it worked.

 

I've attached all the files so you can check 'em out.

I'm using Photoshop CS2 v9.0.2 if that helps.

I've already received a report that PNGs generated by programs other than Stella won't load (the person was trying to use game labels instead of snapshots in the ROM launcher). But this is the first report of saving in an external application and having it work in Stella (in this case, MSPaint). So I definitely have something to work with now. Could you please report this bug in the Stella tracker, to make sure I don't lose it?

 

EDIT: And of course, thanks for the image

[Buzbard]

I've already received a report that PNGs generated by programs other than Stella won't load (the person was trying to use game labels instead of snapshots in the ROM launcher). But this is the first report of saving in an external application and having it work in Stella (in this case, MSPaint). So I definitely have something to work with now. Could you please report this bug in the Stella tracker, to make sure I don't lose it?

 

EDIT: And of course, thanks for the image

 

Hmmm, I don't think I've ever seen that before. I was thinking Tracker? where the hell is the Tracker?

Then I found it.

 

For others that haven't found it yet, it's at the top of this page.

Edited December 23, 2009 by Buzbard

[Carpenter]

Hey guys. Taking the opportunity of having you all here in this thread I would like to consult with you. Stella doesn't start anymore on my computer (WinXP). When I launch Stella I can see some hard disk activity then it stops. Already tried reinstalling and downgrading without success. Any clue? Thanks and sorry for the off-topic

[e1will]

I thought I'd make a feature request...

 

When Stella encounters an unknown ROM, I believe it performs some heuristics to determine the bank-switching method used.

 

Could it also perform some heuristics to determine what type of controller(s) should be used? For example, the presence of LDA/LDY/LDX INPT2 would suggest paddles, the presence of STA SWCHA would suggest a SaveKey, etc.

 

Ideally there could be a configuration option to turn off the heuristics and just assume joystick as it does now.

 

Thanks,

--Will

[+stephena]

Hey guys. Taking the opportunity of having you all here in this thread I would like to consult with you. Stella doesn't start anymore on my computer (WinXP). When I launch Stella I can see some hard disk activity then it stops. Already tried reinstalling and downgrading without success. Any clue? Thanks and sorry for the off-topic

You can try deleting the config file, just in case it contains something causing an error. For WinXP and v/3.0, the config file is in %APPDATA%\Stella\stella.ini. Sorry I can't be any more specific; I don't have access to Windows XP anymore.

[+stephena]

I thought I'd make a feature request...

 

When Stella encounters an unknown ROM, I believe it performs some heuristics to determine the bank-switching method used.

 

Could it also perform some heuristics to determine what type of controller(s) should be used? For example, the presence of LDA/LDY/LDX INPT2 would suggest paddles, the presence of STA SWCHA would suggest a SaveKey, etc.

 

Ideally there could be a configuration option to turn off the heuristics and just assume joystick as it does now.

 

Thanks,

--Will

This idea has been suggested before, and some sample code has been written. However, we could never reliably do it for all controller types. I'm not opposed to looking into this again at some point, but I don't really have time to do anything right now. Also, this should be added to the Tracker as a 'new request' (see the Tracker link at the top of the page).

[Shannon]

That reminds me... How does one go about getting Astroblast to run in joystick mode?

[+Random Terrain]

That reminds me... How does one go about getting Astroblast to run in joystick mode?

You just use the joystick. That's how it works for me. Hit the fire button and play.

[Carpenter]

Hey guys. Taking the opportunity of having you all here in this thread I would like to consult with you. Stella doesn't start anymore on my computer (WinXP). When I launch Stella I can see some hard disk activity then it stops. Already tried reinstalling and downgrading without success. Any clue? Thanks and sorry for the off-topic

 

Nevermind! I've just installed Win7 on my computer.

[+Random Terrain]

I've been using the Stella search box a lot recently and it seems you can't double click to highlight text in the box so you can quickly type new text. Right now, it seems the only way to type new text is to delete the old text using either the delete key or the backspace key. If you could double click in the search box to highlight any text within it, then start typing the new text (which would instantly delete the old text and replace it with whatever you're typing) it would make searching faster and more enjoyable.

 

 

Thanks.

[+stephena]

I've been using the Stella search box a lot recently and it seems you can't double click to highlight text in the box so you can quickly type new text. Right now, it seems the only way to type new text is to delete the old text using either the delete key or the backspace key. If you could double click in the search box to highlight any text within it, then start typing the new text (which would instantly delete the old text and replace it with whatever you're typing) it would make searching faster and more enjoyable.

 

 

Thanks.

Being able to do this ties into selecting text with the mouse and doing copy/cut/paste. This is in the TODO list, but isn't yet complete. However, other shortcuts do exist. If the cursor is at the end of the text, pressing Control+u will erase to the beginning. And if the cursor is at the beginning, pressing Control+k will erase to the end. These shortcuts (and many others) are described in the manual under the Keyboard section.

[+Random Terrain]

I've been using the Stella search box a lot recently and it seems you can't double click to highlight text in the box so you can quickly type new text. Right now, it seems the only way to type new text is to delete the old text using either the delete key or the backspace key. If you could double click in the search box to highlight any text within it, then start typing the new text (which would instantly delete the old text and replace it with whatever you're typing) it would make searching faster and more enjoyable.

Being able to do this ties into selecting text with the mouse and doing copy/cut/paste. This is in the TODO list, but isn't yet complete. However, other shortcuts do exist. If the cursor is at the end of the text, pressing Control+u will erase to the beginning. And if the cursor is at the beginning, pressing Control+k will erase to the end. These shortcuts (and many others) are described in the manual under the Keyboard section.

Thanks. With 4 scrolled pages worth of keyboard shortcuts, it can be hard to track down the right shortcut.

 

When clicking on Options in Stella, I see there is a blank space for a button. When you get a chance, maybe you could add a Manual button so it would be faster and easier for people to get to the manual when they are running Stella.

[vdub_bobby]

I was hoping Meltdown would emulate correctly now, but it still appears corrupted. I've never looked at the code to see what tricks it is using, but I know others have.

It's because of writes being done to NUSIZx while drawing is already in progress. This is noted in the TODO as one of the major things to fix for 3.1.

Thought I'd cross-post this since the Tracker forum seems to have almost zero visibility on the main forum page, but I did some extensive testing of how NUSIZx writes affect graphics that are currently being drawn and I posted a bunch of pics and my thoughts here: http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?app=tracker&showissue=121&gopid=493&st=0entry493

 

I'm hoping to fix this in Stella, but it is more complicated than I thought at first...