A7800 - the Atari 7800 Emulator

[+Karl G]

14 minutes ago, RevEng said:

I'm developing under Linux Mint 20.3, which is based on Ubuntu 22.04. I don't have the issue... based on a bit of googling, I think it's likely aggressive power management turning off your audio device, and then turning it back on when it's needed. (the fade-in) Try out the fix from the top reply in this thread.

Eureka! That did the trick. Thank you muchly! 🙂 

[351cougar]

was there ever a win 32 build of this? 4x versions did. The 5x series I can only find 64bit versions.

[RevEng]

Yeah, we cut out the 32-bit build for windows after 4.0. I believe there was a build system replacement, and since all of the Windows 32-bit OSes have reached end of life, dropping 32-bit just made life easier.

[351cougar]

yeah, you have to do what works for you. I am not a fan of the 'have to's' get the 64 core cpu, up to 1TB ram, quad video card setup. just to play 70's tech emulators. Like I said though, its your emulator, you provide the source, if I had an idea how to try and compile it I would but I don't , so this is a me problem. 

[Trebor]

3 hours ago, 351cougar said:

yeah, you have to do what works for you. I am not a fan of the 'have to's' get the 64 core cpu, up to 1TB ram, quad video card setup. just to play 70's tech emulators. Like I said though, its your emulator, you provide the source, if I had an idea how to try and compile it I would but I don't , so this is a me problem. 

64-bit Windows first arrived ~20 years ago. 

17 years later, back in 2020, Microsoft completely stopped offering 32-bit Windows and updates for such.

A powerhouse of a computer is not required to run a 64-bit OS. 

 

$110.00 provides:

-Dell OptiPlex 9020-SFF

-Intel Core i5-4570 3.2GHZ

-16GB RAM

-128MB Intel HD graphics

-512GB SSD Solid State

-DVDRW

-Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

 

The above will play many emulators perfectly fine, A7800 included.

 

Nonetheless, to each their own.

[+fdr4prez]

2 hours ago, Trebor said:

64-bit Windows first arrived ~20 years ago. 

17 years later, back in 2020, Microsoft completely stopped offering 32-bit Windows and updates for such.

A powerhouse of a computer is not required to run a 64-bit OS. 

Fun fact (from wikipedia):

Windows 10 is the final version of Windows that supports 32-bit processors (IA-32 and ARMv7-based) and devices with BIOS firmware. Its successor, Windows 11, requires a device that uses UEFI firmware and a 64-bit processor in any supported architecture (x86-64 for x86 and ARMv8 for ARM).

 

I knew that Microsoft kept Win7/8/10 32-bit OS support for many countries that requested it, and for some countries (like the US) they simply didn't offer 32-bit OS to the people.

 

but it sounds like that recently ended with Win11.

[Shannon]

6 hours ago, Trebor said:

64-bit Windows first arrived ~20 years ago. 

17 years later, back in 2020, Microsoft completely stopped offering 32-bit Windows and updates for such.

A powerhouse of a computer is not required to run a 64-bit OS. 

 

$110.00 provides:

-Dell OptiPlex 9020-SFF

-Intel Core i5-4570 3.2GHZ

-16GB RAM

-128MB Intel HD graphics

-512GB SSD Solid State

-DVDRW

-Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

 

The above will play many emulators perfectly fine, A7800 included.

 

Nonetheless, to each their own.

 

 

Can it handle Xenia Canary, Xemu and whatever the PS3 emulator is called ( CEMU? ).

 

[Trebor]

14 hours ago, Shannon said:

Can it handle... 

14 hours ago, Shannon said:

Xenia Canary

Regarding the Xbox (360) emulator, per the Xenia (Canary) minimum requirements:

OS: Windows 7 or higher, 64-bit
CPU: Any capable of AVX(2) (Check with CPU-Z.)
GPU: Any capable of Direct3D 12 or Vulkan (Check from this list.)
RAM: 4 GBs

 

OS, CPU, RAM, and GPU (Integrated Intel® HD Graphics 4600), which includes Vulkan support, is present.

14 hours ago, Shannon said:

Xemu 

 Its homepage contains a broad general statement:

"xemu runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux systems. An OpenGL 4.0-compatible GPU is required. Most recent integrated GPUs will work."

 

The OptiPlex 9020 covers that (See above).

14 hours ago, Shannon said:

CEMU

The Wii emulator, Cemu, requirements are as follows:

-Windows 7 (x64) or above
-OpenGL 4.5 or Vulkan 1.1
-RAM: 4 GB minimum, 8 GB or more recommended
-Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 X64 Redistributable: vc_redist.x64.exe

 

The OptiPlex 9020 meets being able to handle the above.

 

14 hours ago, Shannon said:

whatever the PS3 emulator is called

RPCS3 minimum requirements:

"As of August 18, 2022, the emulator requires a 64-bit version of Windows 7 or later, a modern Linux distribution, macOS 11.6 or later, or a modern BSD distribution. The PC must have at least 4 GB of RAM, 8 GB recommended, an x86-64 CPU and a GPU supporting one of the supported graphics APIs: OpenGL 4.3 or greater, or Vulkan, the latter being recommended. Apart from the game itself to be run, the emulator requires the PlayStation 3's firmware, which can be downloaded from Sony's official website."
 

The above too is met with the OptiPlex 9020.

 

Nevertheless, expectations of high performance or being able to turn on many advanced graphic features or enhancements is likely out of the realm of possibilities.  Do not want to start turning this thread into a support of more recent generation emulator support either...lol.

 

The point is while no one has to upgrade anything, certainly a pricey expensive system is nowhere near required, if one does decide to go from a 32-bit to 64-bit Windows OS.  An extremely affordable machine, slightly above $100, available right now, more than handles running a 64-bit Windows OS respectfully.

[zzip]

3 hours ago, Shannon said:

 

 

Can it handle Xenia Canary, Xemu and whatever the PS3 emulator is called ( CEMU? ).

 

Cemu is a Wii U emulator.   The best PS3 emulator is RPCS3 and it has fairly high requirements for good performance.   The site recommends 6 core / 12 threads.   The CPU in the Optiplex PC falls short of that.

 

 

[Shannon]

ok.. thanks for the info guy.

 

I was just wondering how much I would have to cough up to use the higher end emu's.  I don't have anything now currently that can even handle Xemu or Xenia.  Although the one can do dolphin pretty well.

 

Everyone may resume with their regular A7800 talk. 

 

[Keatah]

4 hours ago, Shannon said:

 

I was just wondering how much I would have to cough up to use the higher end emu's.  I don't have anything now currently that can even handle Xemu or Xenia.

Not to worry. In the next year or two at most, a lot of off-lease business machines will become available for super cheap. Expect to see 7th and 8th gen units. And today's tech should be cheaper than ever as it reaches end of retail/profit life. The window of availability for the latter is, however, smaller than it used to be. Retailers are more likely to pull the stuff from the shelf and replace it with current gen material. So to get "yesterday's tech" deals you've got to poke around Amazon or something.

[351cougar]

ive had a few periods in the last 40 + years where I cared about the newest things. Always looking at computer shopper or similar mags. going to weekend computer shows , checking all the up coming cool stuff. After a while I got tired of that. That goes for atari 8 vs commodore in 85. They were getting all the cool games, but I couldnt leave atari. So, ST it was, until 90 or so when Amiga did the same. I have a W98 box, a Wxp box and a win 7 box. All with the same desktop screen. all with the (mostly) same drive layout and installed apps. I have this issue at work , as well. Several dissimilar systems, win 2K thru win 10 and linux systems. I know, the above doesnt speak to 32 or 64 bit, but it kinda does as I will have to at minimum install win 10, but as I've mentioned already, i'm that increasingly smaller fractional percent. The issue is mine and mine alone. Once enough of the emulator and various app people stop making versions I can use, well then , i'll have to make a choice. 

[Keatah]

4 hours ago, 351cougar said:

ive had a few periods in the last 40 + years where I cared about the newest things. Always looking at computer shopper or similar mags. going to weekend computer shows , checking all the up coming cool stuff. After a while I got tired of that.

Took me a long long time to get tired of that. But I've saved tons of money and sanity. It was a big roundabout rat race. So all is well now.

 

4 hours ago, 351cougar said:

That goes for atari 8 vs commodore in 85. They were getting all the cool games, but I couldnt leave atari. So, ST it was, until 90 or so when Amiga did the same. I have a W98 box, a Wxp box and a win 7 box. All with the same desktop screen. all with the (mostly) same drive layout and installed apps. I have this issue at work , as well. Several dissimilar systems, win 2K thru win 10 and linux systems. I know, the above doesnt speak to 32 or 64 bit, but it kinda does as I will have to at minimum install win 10, but as I've mentioned already, i'm that increasingly smaller fractional percent. The issue is mine and mine alone. Once enough of the emulator and various app people stop making versions I can use, well then , i'll have to make a choice. 

Gaming by emulators is a uniquely grand experience, for many reasons stated in my previous rants. Once the bulk of your gaming is done through emulation you'll have reached that next level.

 

Now that we're 30 years into it, migration & virtualization are some things we need to be aware of and learn about. Hardware and OS'es are changing. Guided more and more by capitalism, e-commerce, internet, social media, and other undesirable forces, backward-forward compatibility is not as important as it once was.

 

Thankfully powerful i5s and i7s are rather cheap. Allowing the latest emulators to work rather nicely. And virtualization will help pickup and keep alive the older operating systems like DOS-80 and DOS through XP and 7. This should enable older emulators to remain functional if we need them.

 

While I still use XP as a daily driver, I also think it's past high time that everyone adopt 10/11 and the upcoming 12 in their 64 bit flavors.

[+TwentySixHundred]

So my two cents...

 

Main interest these days is having a capable PC for my needs so i can emulate up to PS2 and coding some homebrew as a hobby. Series X Console for modern software, without breaking the bank and worrying about PC specs (got over that years ago).

 

3 years ago i spent about $500AUD which covered all may needs. It really isn't all that expensive if you build your own and budget accordingly to your needs.

 

Was:

Cheap MSI motherboard

1TB SSD

AMD 3600g CPU

8GB of mid tier RAM

Tower and 500w PSU

 

About 6 months ago i upgraded:

Patriot 16GB RAM @3200MHz - $60AUD

AMD 5600g CPU - $200AUD

 

The good thing about AMD is their integrated graphics are actually decent with these chips. Even before i upgraded those parts the system ran up to PS2 no worries solid 60FPS. I haven't tried PS3 or Wii U emulation as it's just not an interest of mine.

 

Anyway i agree with others that it really isn't all that expensive to upgrade to a capable modern system. I think many start looking at prices then add a dedicated GPU and instantly think 'nope'.

[RevEng]

Of the higher-requirement emulators, I've played around with Xemu, Yuzu (switch), Cemu (wii u), Dolphin (gc,wii), and Citra (3ds). I'm running a Ryzen 5 5500, which is a modern capable-but-budget cpu.

 

There's a mantra that modern emulation is cpu dependant, which is mostly true, but in my experience with Xemu and Yuzu I went from unplayable framerates (on my desired games) to full framerates by switching from a very potato gpu (gt 1030)  to a somewhat less potato gpu (rx 550). So emulation is cpu dependant, so long as it's not gpu dependant. My older gpu is more capable than the highest Intel integrated graphics, and pretty close to on-par with the current highest AMD integrated graphics. IMO it's better to budget for a discrete gpu if you're looking at higher end emulation, though there's nothing wrong with starting integrated to see what you can do with it, and then upgrade later if you need it.

 

The latest lifehack for budget gpu gaming is to pick up a second-hand RX 580 8G for less than $100. (almost certainly ex-miner gear, so buy on a platform where you feel safe to return) The 580 more than capable for emulation and has the required API support. It's likely that driver support for the 580 won't last a whole lot longer, so if you're also looking for modern AAA gaming, it might be better to stretch for something more modern and powerful. (a 580 will play almost all current AAA titles fine at 1080p and mid to low visual settings, though it's days are probably limited here too.)

 

I agree with TwentySixHundred that diy is a good way to go, especially if you're interested in keeping up with modern gaming. Ex-business PCs are fantastic value, but they have limits, and if your needs exceed those limits then expansion is either impractical, expensive, or impossible. e.g. the power-supplies and motherboards typically have proprietary connectors, physical space limits what gpu you can use, limited ram slots, etc. When you outgrow one of these systems, you can't salvage the case, power-supply, motherboard, cooler, etc., unlike a diy system.

 

Last point - some games are heavier than others on any given emulator. However much you spend, there will be some game that you try to run that will disappoint you. The emulators I mentioned, with the exception of Dolphin, aren't perfectly optimised and have games that won't run well, even on top-end PCs. (God of War III on RPCS3, I'm looking at you) Of course, there are also a bunch of games that don't run at all.

[Zonie]

The OSX version is a fucked up mess to configure.

[RevEng]

Thanks for the kind words of encouragement. No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.

[Trebor]

23 hours ago, Zonie said:

The OSX version is a fucked up mess to configure.

Great detailed report.  Unfortunately, there is no 'unfuckupmess' patch available.

 

However, here are some other patches to look for and install under OSX that might fix the issue.  Reporting back to the thread and posting the associated log file, after applying the respective patch or patches, should the experience still persist, would be appreciated:   

 

-There is OSX 'missionarypositiononly' patch that might align the application experience better to what you were expecting.  

-If that does not work, try the 'noménageàtrois' patch.  

-The more encompassing 'setorgy2no' patch may be needed, if the messiness still did not clear.

-OSX is notorious for incorporating felines, and dependent on how the OS is behaving with the application, it may require the 'thundercatsho' command to get the desired results aligned, or if the issue worsens, the 'stopthebestality' update may be required.

 

When all else fails, there is a last measure to try, which is pretty extreme, the 'restorehymen' fix.  Honestly though, I have not come across any claims of success with it.

 

Looking forward to some additional fantastic feedback after all the above is tried.

[Zonie]

Funny...

Sorry but that was out of frustration of trying for hours among several attempts to get this thing to work. Pro system setup was relatively easy. I ended up with so many useless directories trying to get this to work. I found the files it was looking for. I put them where it was looking for them, Nothing. Nada. Zip. Just the same error every time.

This is supposed to be fun, right?

 

Is it an M1Pro issue?

 

I'm not a programmer, but this is not user friendly in any way.

 

The available docs didn't seem to help.

[RevEng]

4 hours ago, Zonie said:

Funny...

Sorry but that was out of frustration of trying for hours among several attempts to get this thing to work. Pro system setup was relatively easy. I ended up with so many useless directories trying to get this to work. I found the files it was looking for. I put them where it was looking for them, Nothing. Nada. Zip. Just the same error every time.

This is supposed to be fun, right?

 

Is it an M1Pro issue?

 

I'm not a programmer, but this is not user friendly in any way.

 

The available docs didn't seem to help.

The situation you've described would have been a reasonable complaint or criticism in the first place, and you would have gotten a reasonable non-jokey non-critical response back. I get the reason for your frustration, but I hope you get the reason for the response to it.

 

Starting over... I don't know why you got the error without more details as to what the exact error was. Maybe it's an M1Pro thing, or maybe something else. Give us some details and we'll try to figure it out as best we can.

 

i say "as best we can" is because Mac OS is always the most painful platform to support with open dev tools, so it could be another innovation they're throwing out there to push open devs into paying for the full apple developer experience. or not. Some days I'd pick a kick in the nuts over the struggle to build binaries for this platform that will run on a variety of their OS releases, and that's not hyperbole.

[john_q_atari]

15 minutes ago, RevEng said:

 Some days I'd pick a kick in the nuts over the struggle to build binaries for this platform that will run on a variety of their OS releases, and that's not hyperbole.

 

[Zonie]

36 minutes ago, RevEng said:

The situation you've described would have been a reasonable complaint or criticism in the first place, and you would have gotten a reasonable non-jokey non-critical response back. I get the reason for your frustration, but I hope you get the reason for the response to it.

 

Starting over... I don't know why you got the error without more details as to what the exact error was. Maybe it's an M1Pro thing, or maybe something else. Give us some details and we'll try to figure it out as best we can.

 

i say "as best we can" is because Mac OS is always the most painful platform to support with open dev tools, so it could be another innovation they're throwing out there to push open devs into paying for the full apple developer experience. or not. Some days I'd pick a kick in the nuts over the struggle to build binaries for this platform that will run on a variety of their OS releases, and that's not hyperbole.

Thanks, I get that. But also have been used to most OSX stuff being really easy to setup And I can usually figure this stuff out, but it kicks my ass. I was pretty content with Prosystem, but some of the dev stuff you guys are posting just doesn't work in it and I wanted to try and see some of it.

 

So what I need is a basic outline of the file structure... What goes where, and which extension type (.bin, .a78, or .zip)

 

such as:

 

a7800/

bios/

roms/

etc./

etc./

 

I started with what was unpacked from the downloads but nothing seems to work. I tried putting roms in several places to see if it would find them.

I played with different location for 7800.u7 to no avail.

A few screenshots of a working file structure and what goes where would be ideal and hopefully not have to config stuff in terminal...

This has been as frustrating as some of the ardiuno library path stuff.

 

Edited August 26, 2023 by Zonie

[Trebor]

On 8/26/2023 at 6:05 PM, Zonie said:

Thanks, I get that. But also have been used to most OSX stuff being really easy to setup And I can usually figure this stuff out, but it kicks my ass. I was pretty content with Prosystem, but some of the dev stuff you guys are posting just doesn't work in it and I wanted to try and see some of it.

 

So what I need is a basic outline of the file structure... What goes where, and which extension type (.bin, .a78, or .zip)

 

such as:

 

a7800/

bios/

roms/

etc./

etc./

 

I started with what was unpacked from the downloads but nothing seems to work. I tried putting roms in several places to see if it would find them.

I played with different location for 7800.u7 to no avail.

A few screenshots of a working file structure and what goes where would be ideal and hopefully not have to config stuff in terminal...

This has been as frustrating as some of the ardiuno library path stuff.

 

A couple of things:

1.  The "Additional_Files_a7800_v0188-01" is an outdated pack that was aligned with the first release of A7800, back in 2017. 

 

See this post for the most recent "Additional Files" - currently appropriately named "Optional Files".  For convenience, the current optional files distributable is available here: https://archive.org/download/a-7800-optional-files-20220628/A7800_Optional_Files_20220628.zip

 

2. Try starting fresh/clean, following the directions from here: http://7800.8bitdev.org/index.php/A7800_Emulator#OS_X

 

That should hopefully get you up and running without issue.

 

It may be better to leverage ROMs that are verified to have appropriate headers, which is available here: http://7800.8bitdev.org/index.php/Trebors_7800_ROM_PROPack

 

[Zonie]

Thank you. That's the thing, You don't ever know what is current... I'll give it a try.

[diamax]

I installed it on a recent laptop and my laptop is connected to a 27 inch display that is setup to be the main screen, but when i start the game with the emulator , it always displayed on the screen of my laptop and I don't want that, I want the ganm to be displayed on my 27 inches monitor , any fix for that please ?

Edited January 4 by diamax