Jimmygtr Posted August 3, 2019 Share Posted August 3, 2019 Has anyone attempted to upgrade the version of Stella on Flashback 9? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+bcombee Posted August 4, 2019 Share Posted August 4, 2019 There's info in the pinned thread: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arenafoot Posted August 4, 2019 Share Posted August 4, 2019 1 hour ago, bcombee said: There's info in the pinned thread: But does this upgrade Stella from Stella 3.x to Stella 6.0+??? or just upgrade it to more playable ROMs on the screen? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmygtr Posted August 4, 2019 Author Share Posted August 4, 2019 But does this upgrade Stella from Stella 3.x to Stella 6.0+??? or just upgrade it to more playable ROMs on the screen?Yeah, I think it's a bios upgrade but not a full Stella Upgrade (i.e. Stella 3.x to 6.0x).Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+stephena Posted August 4, 2019 Share Posted August 4, 2019 It's almost certain that you can't upgrade from Stella v3 to v6 simply by updating a binary. There is much more work behind the scenes needed to accomplish that. We had to go through that for the Retron77, and it was quite a bit of work. That being said, Stella 6.1 will likely fully support RetroArch, and I believe the software on this console is running some version of that. So we may get an upgrade that way. However, this also depends on the hardware being fast enough, so it would likely happen only in a new Flashback release, not the current one. Disclaimer: I don't actually know anything about what AtGames is planning, but I obviously do know about Stella and its compatibility with various systems. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmygtr Posted August 4, 2019 Author Share Posted August 4, 2019 That makes sense Stephen. I'm not saying it would not be tricky but we seem to have lots of clever folks here (smarter than me).Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+stephena Posted August 4, 2019 Share Posted August 4, 2019 Well, it's also related to speed of hardware. And no amount of cleverness will fix that issue Stella 6 uses hardware acceleration, and needs a 3D card to work (Stella 3 used software rendering). And Stella 5/6 do much more accurate emulation, and as a result are more demanding on hardware. This is something we noticed in porting to the R77. It just happens that the hardware is just fast enough for it. So while I have no doubt that someone could port the latest Stella to this device (if they have access to the dev environment), there's no guarantee that the hardware is sufficient. That's why I think it will be for a future release of this product. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmygtr Posted August 4, 2019 Author Share Posted August 4, 2019 Well, it's also related to speed of hardware. And no amount of cleverness will fix that issue Stella 6 uses hardware acceleration, and needs a 3D card to work (Stella 3 used software rendering). And Stella 5/6 do much more accurate emulation, and as a result are more demanding on hardware. This is something we noticed in porting to the R77. It just happens that the hardware is just fast enough for it. So while I have no doubt that someone could port the latest Stella to this device (if they have access to the dev environment), there's no guarantee that the hardware is sufficient. That's why I think it will be for a future release of this product.It seems so weird to say enough hardware power when we are emulating 40 year old technology of the 2600 but either way I very much appreciate your explanation.Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+stephena Posted August 4, 2019 Share Posted August 4, 2019 9 minutes ago, Jimmygtr said: It seems so weird to say enough hardware power when we are emulating 40 year old technology of the 2600 but either way I very much appreciate your explanation. Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk It's the difference between generic emulation and cycle-exact emulation. To emulate every nuance requires doing so at a much lower level. And the lower the level you go, the faster a computer you need. That being said, the computer doesn't need to be extremely fast. The R77 has a 1.2GHz ARM CPU and an ~8 year old GPU. Any computer made in the past 10 years can probably handle it, as can any new phone made in the past 5-6 years or so. It's just that these consoles from AtGames aren't always very fast, due to being low cost. That will probably change each year, as faster hardware becomes cheaper and cheaper. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmygtr Posted August 26, 2019 Author Share Posted August 26, 2019 Given the announcement that the FB10 will not have an sd card any other thoughts on getting FB9 to the latest Stella version?Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atarifan88 Posted August 27, 2019 Share Posted August 27, 2019 We still need working paddles for the FB9 as promised by ATGames! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmygtr Posted August 27, 2019 Author Share Posted August 27, 2019 We still need working paddles for the FB9 as promised by ATGames!True, but at least we are able to modify older paddles with a lower resistance potentiometer. I have no clue how Stella could be upgraded!Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atarifan88 Posted August 27, 2019 Share Posted August 27, 2019 1 hour ago, Jimmygtr said: True, but at least we are able to modify older paddles with a lower resistance potentiometer. I have no clue how Stella could be upgraded! Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk That might be good enough for others, but not for me. Apparently Stella cannot be upgraded because of hardware limitations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmygtr Posted August 27, 2019 Author Share Posted August 27, 2019 14 minutes ago, atarifan88 said: That might be good enough for others, but not for me. Apparently Stella cannot be upgraded because of hardware limitations. What are the actual hardware specs of the FB9? How do these specs compare to the actual Retron 77 specs? It would be nice to see exactly where the short fall is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+stephena Posted August 27, 2019 Share Posted August 27, 2019 It may be fast enough for ordinary ROMs, but perhaps not for CDF/DPC+ games (ie, ones that use an ARM coprocessor). Unfortunately, those games are some of the more recent, sought-after ones (Draconian, WoW, Mappy, Super Cobra, Galagon, etc). But don't quote me on any of this. I don't actually know what hardware the FB9 uses, as I never did receive a test console. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmygtr Posted August 28, 2019 Author Share Posted August 28, 2019 10 hours ago, stephena said: It may be fast enough for ordinary ROMs, but perhaps not for CDF/DPC+ games (ie, ones that use an ARM coprocessor). Unfortunately, those games are some of the more recent, sought-after ones (Draconian, WoW, Mappy, Super Cobra, Galagon, etc). But don't quote me on any of this. I don't actually know what hardware the FB9 uses, as I never did receive a test console. I'll probably end up with a Retron 77 but I really want to understand if the FB9 has a possible upgrade path first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmygtr Posted February 10, 2021 Author Share Posted February 10, 2021 On 8/27/2019 at 12:25 PM, stephena said: It may be fast enough for ordinary ROMs, but perhaps not for CDF/DPC+ games (ie, ones that use an ARM coprocessor). Unfortunately, those games are some of the more recent, sought-after ones (Draconian, WoW, Mappy, Super Cobra, Galagon, etc). But don't quote me on any of this. I don't actually know what hardware the FB9 uses, as I never did receive a test console. Any chance this Stella upgrade was pursued further for the FB9? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draxxon Posted February 10, 2021 Share Posted February 10, 2021 (edited) It was looked at again for the AFBX. So far it has been a no go to get it running. And, like Stephena said, its probably not going to work. But, quickness, gen+GX, and finalburn alpha cores have been added to the AFBX. But, you are limited to just the "one-button" games due to the Atari FB Joystick. Edited February 10, 2021 by Draxxon 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmygtr Posted March 3, 2021 Author Share Posted March 3, 2021 It was looked at again for the AFBX. So far it has been a no go to get it running. And, like Stephena said, its probably not going to work. But, quickness, gen+GX, and finalburn alpha cores have been added to the AFBX. But, you are limited to just the "one-button" games due to the Atari FB Joystick.Still so strange to me that it takes so much 21st century CPU processing power to emulate a chip from 1977. [emoji51]Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draxxon Posted March 3, 2021 Share Posted March 3, 2021 well, they got stella 6 point something ported over to the AFBX, but so far games run about 1/2 speed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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