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Stella 6.0 released


stephena

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Will be addressed in https://github.com/stella-emu/stella/issues/352 for 6.1. And hopefully after that, it will be the last time this topic comes up.

I'm happy that its being addressed in a favorable manner this time. I mentioned it once before (IIRC) and it was dismissed. As emulators continue to take on more options and functionality, configurability/customization become more important than ever.

 

FWIW I experimented around with the multi-thread option and noted a very slight few percent increase with it on. On a single core single thread processor too.

Edited by Keatah
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@ieposta: Can you post all your video settings, please? (screenshots would be nice)

 

It was only when using built-in video, and then only when scanline setting _ Interpolation was not checked: 1st & 2nd Pictures.

Third picture shows built-in video with x Interpolation checked is perfect.

 

When using the laptop's NVIDIA graphics, checked or unchecked it is perfect.

post-29575-0-65988600-1547071070_thumb.png

post-29575-0-19733700-1547071088_thumb.png

post-29575-0-64205000-1547071109_thumb.png

flush-40years-v1.0.bin

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  • 3 weeks later...

While going thru and viewing all the nominations for the 2018 Atari Awards, I ran into the following issue when trying to run Mappy in Stella 6:

 

post-42568-0-54862900-1548387084_thumb.png

 

It seems to happen with other CDF and DPC+ roms too.

 

Running Windows 7 with the 32-bit version of Stella 6.0.

 

EDIT: Just tried 64-bit version of Stella and it happens there too.

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Some of the developer options really are dialed up to 11, and pick up on many things. This is a very good thing for developers, but obviously is not as useful for an end-user that just wants to play a game.

 

That being said, the fact that errors are being thrown may indicate a problem with the code, and while obviously not relevant to most people, perhaps the developer of Mappy would like to know about it. Can you confirm which specific option was causing the issue, or did you just turn them all off?

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Some of the developer options really are dialed up to 11, and pick up on many things. This is a very good thing for developers, but obviously is not as useful for an end-user that just wants to play a game.

 

That being said, the fact that errors are being thrown may indicate a problem with the code, and while obviously not relevant to most people, perhaps the developer of Mappy would like to know about it. Can you confirm which specific option was causing the issue, or did you just turn them all off?

 

Probably the it was the Random Startup Bank setting. Then, since the hardware used for Mappy always starts in bank 6, this is no bug.

 

i can confirm that for Mappy and other DPC+/CDF games, the issue was the random startup bank setting. I'll just have to keep this is mind when switching between playing and developing games :)

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Why is the player/developer settings radio button inside the tabbed groups when it applies across the tabs?

 

I found this to be a bit confusing for two reasons:

  1. I didn't realize that you could have settings for both. The UI layout doesn't really give much indication of this, since the options are indented under the Developer option... So, at least I thought that they only applied when developer was set. If they were laid out horizontally with a separator line underneath, it would make more sense.
  2. I didn't realize that the Time Machine debugging facility defaults to off when in player mode, partly because I didn't realize that these tabs all had the radio buttons and that they stayed set when switching tabs. If the radio buttons lived above the tabs, I may have realized that I need to make sure the other tabs had the settings I wanted set when I switched between Developer and Player.

With that said, it's really cool that you can have two sets of settings.

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Thanks for providing feedback about the UI. This is always helpful. Here is why it is as it is now:

  1. Arranging the buttons horizontally is no problem, but I think that is even more confusing. I had thought about a checkbox, but that also doesn't work well.
  2. Putting the buttons above the tabs creates a problem with the Debugger tab, because that one has no separate options (they make no sense there).

Maybe a master tab for each setting would work, which then contains the current sub tabs (except for Debugger). But I am not sure here and the current framework doesn't support such a layout.

 

I am open for more suggestions.

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The idea with the two sets of settings is for developers to be able to quickly change to 'player' mode to test games normally, and then to 'developer' mode to do development. And toggling it all with one button is much more convenient.

 

That being said, the breakdown of what belongs where, and the UI to present the info, is still in flux.

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I am open for more suggestions.

 

Personally, I would opt for moving the debugger tab to the user interface settings window since that contains mostly UI options. The only odd-man out setting is the "Trap on ghost reads"... but that could potentially be remedied by moving it to the Time Machine tab and renaming that tab "Debugger". Although it's kinda nice that the tab is currently labeled Time Machine.

 

 

The idea with the two sets of settings is for developers to be able to quickly change to 'player' mode to test games normally, and then to 'developer' mode to do development. And toggling it all with one button is much more convenient.

 

Yeah, now that I see how it works it's a nice feature to have. Maybe it would be best if the settings were split into two different windows and then have a set of radio buttons on the ROM launcher itself to toggle between the two?

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At some point, someone really needs to sit down and do a proper tutorial of using Stella as a developer. I feel there are dozens of features that people are only finding by accident, but when they do find them, they end up being very useful.

 

Stella is becoming the '2600 developers emulator', and there is quite a lot of functionality there (and we have plans for more in the future). But I guess we need to advertise these features more often.

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At some point, someone really needs to sit down and do a proper tutorial of using Stella as a developer. I feel there are dozens of features that people are only finding by accident, but when they do find them, they end up being very useful.

Everything is documented in the accompanied two documents. If people do not read these documents, I doubt they will read your tutorial.

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  • 1 month later...

Hi Stephena, im having an issue with the debugger crashing. It seems to be random however crashes 90% of the time and the other 10% working.

 

When clicking on TIA tab i get the crash yet every other tab works fine. The only way i have worked out how to get it working again is to keep opening other ROM's until success. It's short lived though as changing to another ROM it will crash again.

 

Not sure if its a 6.0 thing however i haven't needed to use the debugger since 5.x anyway and never had the crash before. This is the screenshot and im using 64bit Win7.

 

post-30687-0-75554000-1551593003_thumb.png

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Looks like a bug. But I have an idea. Can you do the following (in that order):

  1. Can you post a complete screenshot, which includes the whole Stella window, please?
  2. In Stella.ini: What is set for "dbg.res"?
  3. In Options/Developer/Debugger: What is set for Launcher height?
  4. Increase that value by 40, does that cure your problem?
  5. What's the minimum value for Launcher height that works?
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Looks like a bug. But I have an idea. Can you do the following (in that order):

  1. Can you post a complete screenshot, which includes the whole Stella window, please?
  2. In Stella.ini: What is set for "dbg.res"?
  3. In Options/Developer/Debugger: What is set for Launcher height?
  4. Increase that value by 40, does that cure your problem?
  5. What's the minimum value for Launcher height that works?

 

 

Ok so,

1) I have a windowed screenshot but part of the bottom is cut off. Im assuming as the settings are not my native resolution.

 

post-30687-0-48986700-1551610844_thumb.png

 

2) I cannot seem to find a Stella.ini file in the installed directory

 

post-30687-0-59279300-1551611049_thumb.png

 

3) Launcher 1160x724 and i can change the width to 1366 however it wont alow me to change the height to 768 as my native res is 1366x768

 

post-30687-0-24650200-1551610913_thumb.png

Edited by Tony The 2600
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So i managed to stop Stella from crashing. Firstly it wouldn't allow me to change the height at all and still doesn't. Most likely my video drivers and being and 2011 era laptop the video graphics allow next to no customization. Still yet to try on my desktop PC but im fairly sure the desktop wouldn't have the issue, now knowing it's video card/resolution related.

 

Although i have changed the font size within Stella's debugger settings from medium to small and that seems to have done the trick. Still doesn't allow the height to be changed but with auto taskbar hide and small font everything fits and doesn't crash.

 

Thanks for the quick response and help Thomas

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