+GoldLeader Posted May 13, 2018 Share Posted May 13, 2018 ^I'll bet he meant Muddyfunster right below your post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
up2knowgood Posted May 13, 2018 Share Posted May 13, 2018 SWAG: July 7 (7/7) or August 26 (A26) Remind me what A26 is please. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted May 13, 2018 Share Posted May 13, 2018 To be able to play Atari 2600 games in crystal clear HD with no RF interference is a dream come true! It's also been a reality for some time already. Myself, the wife, and our buddies always thought Stella started getting good around the last 3.x.x releases. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted May 13, 2018 Share Posted May 13, 2018 (edited) Remind me what A26 is please. A26 (Atari 2600) would be a file extension name for early rom dumps. Combat.A26 instead of Combat.BIN. That's really all it is. Edited May 13, 2018 by Keatah 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted May 13, 2018 Share Posted May 13, 2018 A26 would be a file extension name for early rom dumps. Combat.A26 instead of Combat.BIN. That's really all it is. Actually it would be cool to have an (extensible) non raw format for Atari 2600 ROMs. This could contain all relevant information within the file instead of external databases. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted May 13, 2018 Share Posted May 13, 2018 (edited) I agree. And not meaning to go off-topic or anything - I think a lot of emulators could use formats/containers that hold extra metadata. Much like the limited Apple II .DSK format. It doesn't specify the volume number of a disk. And that's basic information. Yet we've been stuck with it for ages, decades. It started out as any other format, and through multiple simultaneous historical choices it just kinda stuck around. The main issue I see is all the momentum built up around these old formats. And the want to store ONLY the rom data itself. Once you start tacking on metadata, it tends to become proprietary and attached to one program/emulator. Especially this late in the game. There have been attempts to include similar information alongside the rom, in a text file. Both being packed into a .zip file. --- I also see a difference in mindset among people doing the rom dumps vs people curating the metadata. They're, just, different. --- In the meantime we're stuck with: 1- information packed into the filename (RomHunter's collection) 2- information included as a supplemental text file (4am's Apple II cracks) 3- existing database files that identify the roms via checksum and then supply information (Stella) 4- game paks (Higan) Edited May 13, 2018 by Keatah 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insertclevernamehere Posted May 13, 2018 Share Posted May 13, 2018 Too bad, I guess this mans that you are sticking with Stella 4, so you are missing out on the new TIA core. As of version 5.1.1, Stella 5 is neither experimental nor unoptimized; it simply requires more CPU resources because the new core is a very accurate cycle-by-cycle simulation of the TIA, and it fixes many known defects in several games and demos, including e.g. Meltdown and Pole Position. DPC+ audio in Stella 4 is off as well, and you need Stella 5 in order to run CDF games (Draconian, Super Cobra Arcade and Mappy). The next version of Stella will contain a new, cycle accurate audio implementation that fully matches real hardware (including E.T., Ms. PacMan and many other games). There are tons of other improvements as well. That's disappointing as Draconian and Super Cobra Arcade are the only homebrews I have and Mappy is likely to be my next whenever it's released. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted May 13, 2018 Share Posted May 13, 2018 If the Hyperkin guys chose hardware that has extra reserve power, then it sounds like it could be upgraded in the future to play those games, and future homebrews. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+GoldLeader Posted May 13, 2018 Share Posted May 13, 2018 Honestly, Whatever it plays or doesn't play... I'M IN!!! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted May 14, 2018 Share Posted May 14, 2018 Actually it would be cool to have an (extensible) non raw format for Atari 2600 ROMs. This could contain all relevant information within the file instead of external databases. The 7800 scene has just this sort of thing with the .a78 rom format. It's very useful, especially for new homebrews. (and emulator authors that don't want to maintain databases) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted May 14, 2018 Share Posted May 14, 2018 The latest bin file games that now have ARM code in them (where Stella ignored it before for DPC+) Stella now has the Arm emulated. Whenever someone creates a new bank switching format the newer versions of Stella get that added. Bout time they added this. Now we don't need incremental updates every time someone builds a new version of the Melody driver. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted May 14, 2018 Share Posted May 14, 2018 Thanks for your support, guys! Just to be clear, we had some porting difficulties with the latest version of Stella (lots of new modules so it would take longer to refine everything), so we decided to roll back a bit (about one year), and to use a slightly older build for the consumer release. Technically there's nothing wrong with using the latest version, but on our end it makes more sense to have a stable build shipped with the system rather than an unoptimized / experimental one. So, my Draconian and Super Cobra Arcade carts won't run? Too bad, I guess this mans that you are sticking with Stella 4, so you are missing out on the new TIA core. As of version 5.1.1, Stella 5 is neither experimental nor unoptimized; it simply requires more CPU resources because the new core is a very accurate cycle-by-cycle simulation of the TIA, and it fixes many known defects in several games and demos, including e.g. Meltdown and Pole Position. DPC+ audio in Stella 4 is off as well, and you need Stella 5 in order to run CDF games (Draconian, Super Cobra Arcade and Mappy). The next version of Stella will contain a new, cycle accurate audio implementation that fully matches real hardware (including E.T., Ms. PacMan and many other games). There are tons of other improvements as well. While it is possible to backport the DPC+ and CDF changes, the new TIA core (including audio once we release it) cannot be backportet piecemeal; it is a rewrite of considerable parts of the old code. Do you plan to upgrade the console to Stella 5 in the future, or are there more fundamental issues? Andrew, please check to be sure the Retron77 has enough horsepower to run Stella 5.x. I understand the reasons for not having it baked into the initial release, but we need the ARM emulation for future homebrew releases. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted May 14, 2018 Share Posted May 14, 2018 September 11 (2600 launch date) Also the anniversary of a sinister, unfortunate event. Product launches on September 11th (post-millenial) are bad luck... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+stephena Posted May 14, 2018 Share Posted May 14, 2018 Bout time they added this. Now we don't need incremental updates every time someone builds a new version of the Melody driver. We've talked about this before. Stella still needs to be updated each time that the Melody driver changes. There's no way around this, for reasons that I've went into in depth before. So no, it's not "Bout time they added this". The way you word your response makes it seem like we're a bunch of slackers that can't be bothered to do things right. There are very real reasons why it can't be done, and I'm not going to go into them again. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted May 14, 2018 Share Posted May 14, 2018 (edited) I think KS mis-understood where the arm code actually resides. Mis-understanding bought on by discussion of a new rom & container file format. Arm code is part and parcel 100% integrated into the game rom itself. It *is* the game. It's the language. Stella acts as the interpreter so to speak There isn't a separate section of arm code that resides in a different bank or a part of the emulation or a "2nd rom". There isn't going to be a container-type file or new format of rom file that will have arm code tacked on like metadata or stored at the end of a rom file. Arm code in a VCS game isn't like a DLL library, it's still part of the .exe executable. --- I'm fairly certain that when IE said "The latest bin file games that now have ARM code in them" he meant to say that a game uses ARM instructions as part of the main flow of code. --- I hope that makes sense and straightens things out. Edited May 14, 2018 by Keatah 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndrewHyperkin Posted May 14, 2018 Share Posted May 14, 2018 (edited) No, it's definitely not September 11 - we aren't crazy. But there is actually a correct answer in this thread. As for the platform technical capabilities - it's really hard to tell. In the beginning of our work even quite advanced development boards did not show satisfactory results, and even earlier versions of Stella weren't up to our performance standards out of the box. By removing irrelevant Linux stuff and leaving just the barebone well-optimized core and porting / updating libraries we were actually able to run lots of things on a dev board identical to the hardware we'd ended up using, including latest versions of Stella (I remember it was version 5-something). But running it is one thing, while bringing it to the point of good user experience is an entirely different thing. So we simply opted out for something stable and easy to be able to release this product earlier and shorten our development time. But since we managed to get our optimizations done and to bring the system to satisfactory performance levels with a year-old version of Stella, I'm quite optimistic about it running latter versions as well. Since currently only about 20-25% of this hardware platform potential is used (Allwinner H3 actually), I'd say there's a good chance it will run 5.x. As a gamer myself I'd love to see it running the latest version flawlessly but as a business, we simply need to justify investing more resources into the project. Since it's not going to be a very expensive product, we expect to rely on its good reception and sales to go on developing for it, and to work on further updates. And of course since it's an open-source project, we also hope for the community to get on board with development. Also, I'd like to thank everyone who PM'ed me about the games, I've forwarded your info to our dev team; they are mega busy right now, but they should respond soon if they haven't yet. Edited May 14, 2018 by AndrewHyperkin 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted May 14, 2018 Share Posted May 14, 2018 September 11 (2600 launch date) Wikipedia says this, but without a source. Does anyone know how we know this? Seems pretty precise. Also the anniversary of a sinister, unfortunate event. Product launches on September 11th (post-millenial) are bad luck... Yup. Even if the game being launched doesn't involve steering thru tall buildings. We've talked about this before. Stella still needs to be updated each time that the Melody driver changes. There's no way around this, for reasons that I've went into in depth before. So no, it's not "Bout time they added this". The way you word your response makes it seem like we're a bunch of slackers that can't be bothered to do things right. There are very real reasons why it can't be done, and I'm not going to go into them again. Shouldn't this be in the FAQ? Then you could just direct people there. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inky Posted May 14, 2018 Share Posted May 14, 2018 September 11 (2600 launch date) I really hope this is 100% true. That would be the only good thing to happen on my birthday. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndrewHyperkin Posted May 14, 2018 Share Posted May 14, 2018 Inky, fingers crossed - earlier than that. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted May 14, 2018 Share Posted May 14, 2018 The Allwinner H3 is used in the Orange Pi Zero I think. Imagine Raspberry Pi 2 performance levels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allwinner_Technology#H-Series_%28OTT_box_application%29 https://web.archive.org/web/20150102161039/http://www.allwinnertech.com/en/clq/H_series/501.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mali_%28GPU%29 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atarifan88 Posted May 14, 2018 Share Posted May 14, 2018 No, it's definitely not September 11 - we aren't crazy. But there is actually a correct answer in this thread. Inky, fingers crossed - earlier than that. (Sept 11, 2018) So the only other guesses before Sept 11, 2018 are these: July 7th, 2018 Aug 26th, 2018 Given these answers, we can deduce it will be out by the end of August this year! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toiletunes Posted May 14, 2018 Share Posted May 14, 2018 That answers When and What- now all we need is Where 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+stephena Posted May 14, 2018 Share Posted May 14, 2018 It's probably possible to get the latest Stella running on this hardware, but of course we won't know until it's released, and we can try it. The main issue is that the Stella 5.x versions are using more resources than old versions, but we are getting near-perfect emulation because of it. Stella 5 is slower because of a cycle-exact TIA emulation, and 5.2 (or whatever we call it) will be slower again because of cycle-exact sound emulation. Of course, another issue is that not all games are created equally. Running a vintage-era game like Combat or River Raid is not the same as running a homebrew game like Draconian or Super Cobra. More recent games that use DPC+ or CDF schemes have to emulate an ARM CPU as well. And they have to be emulated, even though the host CPU (in this particular hardware) is actually ARM too. So we'll see what we see, I guess. Also, on the topic of ARM code in DPC+ and CDF. Note that there are two potential blocks of ARM code. One is actual game code/logic, and the other is code that tells the Harmony how to implement the bankswitching. The former is emulated by Stella; indeed, if it wasn't, you wouldn't be able to play a game at all. The latter is NOT implemented in Stella, nor will it ever be (for reasons mentioned elsewhere). This was the part I was talking about above. So updates to Melody firmware or implementation of new ARM-based BS schemes will require a new release of Stella. There's no way around this, and not something we will be pursuing. To be clear, if/when a new BS scheme is developed, Stella has to be updated too. This is not a problem for us ... 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted May 14, 2018 Share Posted May 14, 2018 How often does a new bankswitch scheme come out? It would seem to me that with recent homebrews it's been 1:1. New game = new bss. Not that there's anything wrong with it. It is what it is. And I don't think (much) about it when jamming games. --- When people buy this they will likely sooner or later learn it is based on an emulator. Or know it already. There's going to be demand for firmware updates, especially in today's world of subscription software, and apps, and daily Windows updates. And, naturally, recent hombrews requiring 5.x are going to be creating a real demand for updates. How will updates be performed? Load from the microSD card? --- How difficult/involved is it going to be porting new releases of Stella to the RetroN77? There's gonna be people seeing new Stella come out for the PC/whatever and then want it instantly on R77! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+stephena Posted May 14, 2018 Share Posted May 14, 2018 Spiceware seems to be one of the few people developing new ARM-based BS schemes, and he has said that he won't be doing another one for quite some time (if ever). So I guess CDF is sufficient for their needs, and maybe no new schemes will be released again. In any event, we can get them added to Stella relatively quickly. As for logistics of updates for the R77 (how to do them, how often they will happen, etc), that really depends on (a) how the hardware works and (b) who takes responsibility for doing it. So I can't speak to either of those questions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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