Atari800Win PLus 4.1 beta 2

[Mclaneinc]

Really nice to see Atari800win Plus getting an update, I had presumed it long dead to be honest.

 

What I don't understand is that its still the emulator of 'choice' for some, surely the best emulator to use is the one that is the most emulation exact and most feature filled for both player and coder. I know there are people who are familiar with Win Plus and use it for that reason but if you had a 'choice' surely you would go for the better emulator at the moment?

 

Now don't get me wrong, if you look in the Win Plus help file you will see me and many from in here in the thank you's for help and idea's, I was an avid follower / beta bloke from the original Atari800win all the way to what seemed its death. I would really love to see two or more Atari emulators out there but until Win Plus gets feature updated I'll still play around with it but Altirra will be my fist choice because its the logical choice.

 

As they say, each to their own, just make sure to try both.

Edited December 27, 2011 by Mclaneinc

[Rybags]

It's still probably the easiest to configure and use.

 

If game playing and the odd demo/graphics/music is all you use it for then it's fine.

 

The accuracy of emulation is sufficient for probably 99% of what's out there.

[Mclaneinc]

It's still probably the easiest to configure and use.

 

If game playing and the odd demo/graphics/music is all you use it for then it's fine.

 

The accuracy of emulation is sufficient for probably 99% of what's out there.

 

I guess so, I'm just one of those people who wants the experience to be the best possible, being that the Atari was not only a hobby but my work as well has left me wanting the best. For what I can't play on my XL Altirra offers me a stunning alternative and for messing around I just love Altirra as I don't have an Omnimon in the XL.

 

Yes, I'd suspect a lot of what I play would look and sound roughly the same on Win Plus but as I'm a perfectionist at heart I use Altirra.

 

Bottom line is now both are back in production its a great time for those poor souls who do not own a real machine.

[atx4us]

Really nice to see Atari800win Plus getting an update, I had presumed it long dead to be honest.

 

What I don't understand is that its still the emulator of 'choice' for some, surely the best emulator to use is the one that is the most emulation exact and most feature filled for both player and coder. I know there are people who are familiar with Win Plus and use it for that reason but if you had a 'choice' surely you would go for the better emulator at the moment?

 

Now don't get me wrong, if you look in the Win Plus help file you will see me and many from in here in the thank you's for help and idea's, I was an avid follower / beta bloke from the original Atari800win all the way to what seemed its death. I would really love to see two or more Atari emulators out there but until Win Plus gets feature updated I'll still play around with it but Altirra will be my fist choice because its the logical choice.

 

As they say, each to their own, just make sure to try both.

 

I agree that you need to try both. Actually, I also tried the other ones, too (i.e. Atari800, Atari++). Altirra's keyboard repeat seems to be sluggish and it still does not support subdirectory paths for the H: drive which I depend on.

[atx4us]

It's still probably the easiest to configure and use.

 

If game playing and the odd demo/graphics/music is all you use it for then it's fine.

 

The accuracy of emulation is sufficient for probably 99% of what's out there.

 

I guess so, I'm just one of those people who wants the experience to be the best possible, being that the Atari was not only a hobby but my work as well has left me wanting the best. For what I can't play on my XL Altirra offers me a stunning alternative and for messing around I just love Altirra as I don't have an Omnimon in the XL.

 

Yes, I'd suspect a lot of what I play would look and sound roughly the same on Win Plus but as I'm a perfectionist at heart I use Altirra.

 

Bottom line is now both are back in production its a great time for those poor souls who do not own a real machine.

 

Many of us here do also own real machines. But, the emus are still quite convenient to have. I can keep multiple windows of the emus open for programming and compiling which is a real time saver. I can't do that on a real machine.

[atx4us]

I'm trying out the Atari800Win PLus 4.1 beta 4 version and it seems to run at 100% for the PAL mode but only at ~86% in the the NTSC mode on my Win7 system. My H/W should be more than adequate so I don't suspect that this is a H/W setup / performance issue.

[Jaskier]

You are right. NTSC version runs at PAL speed only in DirectSound mode (Anyone can confirm that? My home PC cannot run WaveOut mode). I don't know why. I didn't broke anything. I'm innocent.

Looking into that problem right now.

[scotty]

First off, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE the emulator. I am so glad to see that you are reviving it. THANK YOU!!!!

 

I only have 2 requests... Neither of which are a big deal, but here goes...

 

I have color issues on Windows 7.... First, when you start it up, screen colors are off, no matter if it is Memo Pad in OS A or B, or Self test in the XL/XE. Then when I move the mouse over the drop down menus, IT points to what I want, but it does not highlight the selection. I have a dual boot system, and neither color is a problem in XP, just in 7. AS soon as I click on the menu, color is fine, no big deal there, just would be nice to kill this bug. THe second issue, again, no big deal, but even though I know it is buggy, how about support for the 1200XL rom? It will work in the XL slot, but gives you the checksum message. How about the ADDITION of the 1200 rom in the the selection screen, so you will have OSA, OSB, 1200XL, XL, 5200 and Basic? No bigge, just would be nice to complete the family.

[phaeron]

While doing some speed comparisons against Altirra I found a couple of other bugs which appear to be regressions relative to A8WP 4.0:

• The app uses some CPU at idle, about 2.5% of one core, where 4.0 didn't use any at all. This includes paused state, switching away with "stop when inactive" set, and stopping in the debugger. This may be an issue with the core as I can repro this with the SDL version of Atari800 as well.
  
• The debugger > prompt is a bit messed up: it displays after the command is entered. I think there may be a missing fflush() on stdout or stderr.
  

 

BTW, it is suspicious that a computer might not be able to run the emulator in WaveOut mode. waveOut and non-exclusive DirectSound have gone through the kernel mixer for a long time (since Windows 98 SE?) and starting with Windows Vista they are entirely emulated on top of WASAPI. For reference, Altirra always defaults to the waveOut APIs and I haven't heard any reports of requiring a switch to DirectSound mode, so this may be a bug in the A8WP sound code.

[Heaven/TQA]

Jaskier, does it make sense to do an update? seems a lot more work than only "compiling" the new core... and Altirra is a good replacement... even I switched to it since good WUDSN integration

[+MrFish]

Actually I still prefer it to Altirra for most emulation needs, as it still has features not found in Altirra and I like the Palette scheme that A8WP uses better. I use version 4.0 though, as none of the later ones were stable enough. I'm leary of installing this version too because I know it's going to jack all my registry settings for 4.0 and since it's just a test it'd be a hassle. Maybe I can test it out on my laptop instead.

 

I use Altirra more for the things that aren't covered in A8WP (VBXE, GTIA sound, proper NTSC pixel scaling, etc.)

[Mclaneinc]

Just tried the beta 4 and I still get the crash to the monitor when I search for system roms on my USB G: drive, it finds them but the second you press ok it looks like its booting the system and blam, it dies.

 

All you can do is shut it down..

 

If I then boot the emulator again I don't get the "your session crashed last time do you want to rest the settings" dialogue, it just tries to boot and again crashes as before. Its the exact same rom images that work for a normal HD. You also cannot change the rom settings once its hit the crash DOS box, you have to close it and delete the registy key.

 

You can however load games from the USB drive without issue..Weird...

[Jaskier]

Hi folks,

 

Lot's of people discussing here. So in order of appearance:

 

@atx4us - it seams that in NTSC mode the latency has to be at least 3. I will make it default for NTSC and 2 for PAL.

 

@scotty - never experienced problem with no colours at start. Tested on XP, Vista and 7. It is in windowed mode or fullscreen? I've never used fullscreen. These modes requires major rework.

Since atari800 core doesn't support atari1200 separately I cannot make it by myself, sorry.

 

@phaeron - you are right again, fflush was missing.

Since on my PC emu uses 2% when working, I am not sure if I can measure the percentage when idle. Task manager should use float variables

I blame my sound card for waveout problems. It's ASUS Xonar D1. I have MMSYSERR_NOTSUPPORTED no matter what options I choose.

I will look into that anyway.

 

@Heaven - hi friend. There is similar discussion on polish forum. My answer is: since preparing new version of Atari800Win requires much less time than doing new port of atari800 on windows there is simply no reason not to do it. I can only wonder why no one took over the responsibility for Atari800Win during these 6 years. And we cannot let phaeron to have exclusivity and establish monopoly.

 

@Mclaneinc - you mean that it's not the emu that crashes but the atari inside emu? Only then it goes to the monitor. I cannot see a reason why it hangs when reading from USB other than it's a hardware problem. It seams to me that file read from USB is corrupted somehow.

[Mclaneinc]

Yup, it crashes to the inbuilt monitor ie the emulation crashes and not the emulator. Sadly once its done the monitor crash you have no option but to close the process and delete the reg key.

 

What makes me wonder is that I can load games from that drive but the roms somehow fail????

 

I have no clue as to why and buy the sound of it I'm the only one having this issue, as far as I can see the drive is fine and its classed as healthy with no driver problems.

 

Who knows, I'll play around and see if I can spot a reason..

 

 

EDIT: Just went back and got the last final before the updates of yours and it fully crashes when you try and search for roms, the seond the search is pressed it dies, with or without the USB drive in...

 

I'm suspecting I need to do a system setup from scratch, I usually do one every few months just to clear out the rubbish of me testing one hundred and one programs, I'm always looking at free tools and games and I'd guess they leave behind a load of nonsense or change files for older ones etc.

 

I'll give that a go later in the week.

Edited December 28, 2011 by Mclaneinc

[Jaskier]

Sorry Mclaneinc for forcing you to reinstall. I usually do it every 3 years or so.

 

I've put beta 5 on github. This time also with full installer (just to check if it works).

 

Changelog:

-Printer patch is now compiled (forgot to turn it on).

-Slight changes in monitor.

-Increased buffer for DirectSound so NTSC mode can run smoothly even with latency 2.

[Roydea6]

This is great. P: now working good. Sound now has fewer clicking popping sounds. My game cartridge rom's are loading okay.

plus 1 for this upgrade.

[phaeron]

@Heaven - hi friend. There is similar discussion on polish forum. My answer is: since preparing new version of Atari800Win requires much less time than doing new port of atari800 on windows there is simply no reason not to do it. I can only wonder why no one took over the responsibility for Atari800Win during these 6 years. And we cannot let phaeron to have exclusivity and establish monopoly.

 

Heh... I'm too stubborn for that to happen. Besides, Atari800WinPlus 4.0 was my favorite Atari emulator before I wrote Altirra, and there is no better way to debug an emulator than with another emulator.

 

Since on my PC emu uses 2% when working, I am not sure if I can measure the percentage when idle. Task manager should use float variables

I blame my sound card for waveout problems. It's ASUS Xonar D1. I have MMSYSERR_NOTSUPPORTED no matter what options I choose.

I will look into that anyway.

 

I use Process Explorer from Windows Sysinternals whenever I need more precise CPU measurements -- it displays CPU usage to two decimal digits. unlike Task Manager which is almost useless on an 8-way Core i7.

 

As for the waveOut issue, 4.1 beta 5 no longer works for me in waveOut mode either. github shows this suspicious change in sound_win.c which is passing an invalid device ID to waveOutOpen():

mmResult = waveOutOpen( &s_hWaveOut, 2, &s_wfxWaveFormat, 0, 0, CALLBACK_NULL );

 

I think this is a new regression though since it is a BADDEVICEID error rather than NOTSUPPORTED.

[Jaskier]

Oh gosh, I thought I've removed that. Silly me.

I've checked all my devices by hand. I have 3 devices (as waveOutGetNumDevs says) and device 0 gives error, 1 and 2 doesn't give error but doesn't produce sound at all.

I thought I changed it back to WAVE_MAPPER.

 

Never drink and write.

[+bf2k+]

Jaskier:

Any plans to improve R: support in A800Win+?

[serj]

great emulator!

I used the atari 800winplus since 2001 and I am delighted that the project came to life again.

... but altirra still better.

[w1k]

yes, R: will be good.. a800win is my first emulator i use, maybe in 2005

[Mclaneinc]

Jaskier...My problem is solved...

 

Its very strange but the issue was actually pointing it to the directory called roms on the G: drive, if I do that which seemed logical it caused the crash, if I however just pointed the search to the local directory called atari that contains the roms folder, then it works fine.

 

I just thought I was being helpful by pointing it to the roms dir

 

Seems AtariWinplus wanted a bit more of a challenge to find the roms

 

As for the re-install, as said I play about with different browsers, firewalls, virus checkers and loads of other free utils so every so often I do a re-install to freshen the load, its only a 40 min ish thing where I'm back to full installed set of basic stuff I use and online again.

 

It breaks the painful boredom of being ill all the time

 

Having a working machine is boring, trying to make it crash is more fun

Edited December 29, 2011 by Mclaneinc

[Jaskier]

Hi all,

 

I've uploaded beta 6. This time I've removed the introduced bug in waveOut. Palette now changes when switching PAL<->NTSC and SYNCHRONIZED_SOUND now works almost properly.

Unfortunately I cannot do much with existing emu architecture so I think I will start 4.2 branch soon.

 

@bf2k+ & w1k - I've never used R: so I'm not familiar with this device. Atari800Win uses it's own implementation, atari800 has similar I think. Should I switch to atari800 version? What improvements do you require? Any special dialog for configuration?

[+bf2k+]

...

@bf2k+ & w1k - I've never used R: so I'm not familiar with this device. Atari800Win uses it's own implementation, atari800 has similar I think. Should I switch to atari800 version? What improvements do you require? Any special dialog for configuration?

 

I can only explain it like this...

 

In the emulators, the R: device uses a Winsock connection to go allow incoming/outgoing internet connects instead of thru a modem.

 

I run a BBS (Express PRO) on an emulator. I used to run on a800win 2.5c which worked OK however it required the waitcall program to be modified to answer the incoming connection and the port itself was not monitored so a lost connection would not recycle the BBS - the missing keystroke timeout would recycle it eventually so this worked somewhat.

 

Versions of a800win > 3.0 never worked properly due to the R: port eventually locking up after a connection and requiring a reboot of the emulator. This limited me to always running on 2.5c. (Originally I ran the BBS on a800 but cannot remember any issues or problems with it because this was 1999 and I only ran it very briefly... a few days... before switching to a800win.)

 

Altirra has MUCH better R: support which now allows me to run an unmodifed (stock) WAITCALL program to answer the connection and altirra monitors the R: port correctly and recycles the BBS upon a lost connection. However Altirra uses LOTS of system resources when running a BBS (35-50% usage when running by itself on a Pentium 4 running Windows XP).

 

Sorry if this isn't much help...

[serj]

checked the emulator Atari 800winplus 4.1 beta 6, I did not like the sound.

in altirra sound a more qualitative.

in atari 800win sound a bit distorted.

and when you switch modes waveout to directsound or vice versa starts beeping sound.

see this video: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=LB3LPDUE

Edited December 31, 2011 by serj