Atari Flashback X Custom Firmware for USB roms and boxart

[rocketfan]

8 minutes ago, Draxxon said:

You could also change just the extension (and matching ini entry and art) to .a26x to make any game load with the retroplayer.x.

Another option to experiment is put a copy of the paddle game rom in the /game folder and rename it to <game>.a26x.gme - to see if the paddles start working using the original retroplayer when you launch it from the USB entry.

[Draxxon]

18 minutes ago, rocketfan said:

Another option to experiment is put a copy of the paddle game rom in the /game folder and rename it to <game>.a26x.gme - to see if the paddles start working using the original retroplayer when you launch it from the USB entry.

sheyeah, sure, the testing/game folder. well if you want to do it the easy way. but how can i get other people to learn how to add to the Nexus if i tell them the easy way  lolol.

Seriously, though, I didnt even think of that. I wonder how many other things Im doing the Hard Way??!? lol. We keep flopping back and forth on retroplayers because we are still trying to find the best way.

Edited May 1, 2021 by Draxxon

[Velvis]

Is retroplayer the actual emulator or a front-end? I was under the impression it was similar in function to something like Retroarch.

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[Draxxon]

2 hours ago, Velvis said:

Is retroplayer the actual emulator or a front-end? I was under the impression it was similar in function to something like Retroarch.
 

yes, pretty sure it is retroarch

[Velvis]

What determines which emulator is used?

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[rocketfan]

3 minutes ago, Velvis said:

What determines which emulator is used?

The file extension is used to decide which emulator combination (core, and front-end) is used.  There is an extension on the file which must mach the entry for the file in the all-games.ini for the folder where the rom sits.  Draxxon published a big list of extensions a page or two ago, but you can also just look in the emulator/runcommand script.  It is a Linux script and you can look at it or modify it with any text editor.

 

The easy way to expermint is just to place roms in the /game folder and rename the extension then also add .gme to the end - as mentioned previously.  Say you have "battlezone.a26x.gme" in the /Game folder.  The extra .gme extension is just a hack which allows us to support as many types of files in the /game folder as we have - not just three extensions like the original menu allows. 

 

First the .gme is stripped off, we get:  battlezone.a26x    Now the retroplayer.x  is used to run it with the stella_libretro.so core (because it is extension .a26x). 

 

So IF retroplayer.x really fixes your paddle problem you can rename the roms for the specific games impacted to .a26x extension AND modify the artwork names and the all-games.ini entries for those files to match.  You do not want to just change the default in my opinion, because it will break other things in other games.

[rocketfan]

20 hours ago, MrFister said:

replacing the (1st slot) bezel00 address in retromenu to the custom bezel switch command which would turn custom bezels on and off

This is not a bad thought.  I went through the retromenu with a hex editor before when first looking at this, and just re-verified it again - the way this is implemented is not 4 or whatever discrete slots where we could just hex edit the path to the one we want.  It's more done with integer variable saying you want slot "4" for your bezel then you will get "bezel04.png" or whatever.  I mean it appears to use a variable and like printf() to build the path dynamically - just the kind of thing that can't be hex edited because it is not hard-coded.

 

Once again - if anybody could please publish sources to retromenu then this type of change would be like falling off a log.  (Well, maybe not really - 'cause I'm still not sure about building it - full executables are different than shared libraries).

Edited May 1, 2021 by rocketfan

[Velvis]

So renaming warlords and Medival mayhem to a26x and moving it to the game folder with the paddles plugged into port 2 immediately pops up the connecting paddles message and both games work fine with paddles.

Anyway this info could be helpful with the mame games paddle support?

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[rocketfan]

12 minutes ago, Velvis said:

Anyway this info could be helpful with the mame games paddle support?

It is definitely helpful.   Thank you for sticking with this!  It mainly tells you to always use .zim  (which is currently using retroplayer.x) and stay away from .zim9, and .ziml which won't have a chance with paddles.  BTW, for a while the .zim extension was using one or both of the other retroplayers - the last change back to x was when the one fellow noticed some Atari arcade games were running too fast.  We have now settled on the plan of using using .ziml on games that really need the performance. 

 

I have been looking into other issue with the retroplayers and basically concluded the retroplayers are doing the low-level handling for the controllers.  So it makes sense that the Retroplayer.x - which came from the Flashback X will work better with paddles on that system.  Probably you are also going to have best results with retroplayer.9 if you are using a flashback 9.  I personally like retroplayer.9 because it does not have the missing sprite issues in some/many games - and I don't have paddles (yet).

 

In short - if you are going to experiment with paddles in mame, you should probably stick with using the .zim extension.

 

@Draxxon maybe a good idea to switch all the .a26 paddle games to .a26x...

 

 

BTW,  the retroplayers are libretro front-ends - sort of a first cousin of retroarch, which is the libretro "reference" front-end.  The retroplayer plus a core makes an emulator.  Neither one can work alone.

 

https://docs.libretro.com/development/frontends/

 

 

[Draxxon]

Sounds like all the paddle games need flipped to .a26x to work. Im on it.

Also, I wonder if the AFB9 modded paddles will work with the retroplayer.9? Rodney H. was just asking about this the other day. I was always told the paddle issue was in hardware and not software, but hearing this makes me think its in the retroplayers.

Edited May 2, 2021 by Draxxon

[Velvis]

I changed Mame Warlords to Zim and I get the message the wireless joysticks need to be disconnected, so it is detecting the paddles are plugged in. However when setting game controls for paddles only the buttons are detected.

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[Velvis]

I went back to visit the paddles only test Draxxon put together and found a bit more detail regarding the paddles. Arkanoid FBA does not work with a joystick. It does work with the paddles, but is very slow moving. In addition one direction moves a bit slower than the other.

 

Is there anyway to hard code paddle values?

 

[Draxxon]

Here is a FBNeo paddle test
FBN_PADDLE_TEST.rar

 

Here is a modified runcommand running FBNeo with the retroplayer.x
keep the old one if you want to go back to running FBN with RPL.
It goes in your /emulator folder.

runcommand

 

 

I have no idea about the hardcoding of paddle values, I can make boxart, tho.

Edited May 2, 2021 by Draxxon

[Velvis]

Does this work with the original paddle test from a few weeks ago or does it need nexus 5.5?

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[Draxxon]

i would try it in 5.5, just keep your old runcommand. I'm hoping maybe Neo has different paddle settings by default.

Edited May 2, 2021 by Draxxon

[Velvis]

When using the alternative runcommand the system just booted as if it didn't have the USB in.

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[Draxxon]

All I did was change the FBNeo retroplayer from the RPL to the RPX, I just changed one letter from L to X. IDK.

Go into your original runcommand, open it with notepad, look for the .zin and FBNeo core and change the retroplayer from L to X and save it.

 

  "zin")
      fnew=$(basename $gm | sed s/.zin//)
      ln -s $gm /tmp/${fnew}.zip
      /usr/bin/startx /tmp/retroplayer.l ${dev}/emulator/fbneo_libretro.so  /tmp/${fnew}.zip >${dev}/output_zip.txt
      rm /tmp/${fnew}.zip
      ;;

 

CHANGE IT TO THIS:
  "zin")
      fnew=$(basename $gm | sed s/.zin//)
      ln -s $gm /tmp/${fnew}.zip
      /usr/bin/startx /tmp/retroplayer.x ${dev}/emulator/fbneo_libretro.so  /tmp/${fnew}.zip >${dev}/output_zip.txt
      rm /tmp/${fnew}.zip
      ;;

Edited May 2, 2021 by Draxxon

[Velvis]

FBN detects that the paddles are plugged in but only the buttons are recognized in game play.

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[Draxxon]

Rocket, does neo have any core options?

[rocketfan]

5 hours ago, Draxxon said:

Rocket, does neo have any core options?

Yes, but they are kind of hard to find documented.  I looked at source code for the core.

 

Try this in the [Core] section of the retroplayer.ini.

 

fbneo-analog-speed=200%

 

The value can't be above 200%, legal values are 5% to 100% in increments of 5, then 110% to 200% in increments of 10.  You must have the percent sign.

 

 

It sounds like it is normally used to slow things down.  Like in the case your arkanoid paddle is going way too fast - you would set it to 25.  It appears the default is 100%.

 

[rocketfan]

BTW, other possibly useful core options:

 

fbneo-samplerate=48000  (audio sample rate:  11025, 22050, 44100, 48000)  Setting lower might help games with laggy sound.  MANY emulators use 44100.

fbneo-diagnostic-input="Hold Start"   - might be interesting to see if that gets us into a config menu of some kind.  Hold Start is the default - don't know how LONG you have to hold start down though.

fbneo-cpu-speed-adjust=100%  (set a percentage 5-200% like analog speed)  "Change emulated cpu frequency for various systems, by increasing you can fix native slowdowns in some games, by decreasing you can help performance on low-end devices"

fbneo-frameskip=0  (or 1, 2, etc)  "Skip rendering of X frames out of X+1"

fbneo-frameskip-v2=disabled (set to disabled/Manual/Auto lower case d on disabled)  I suspect Auto won't work right for us.  "Skip frames to avoid audio buffer under-run (crackling). Improves performance at the expense of visual smoothness."

fbneo-frameskip-v2-threshold=33 (leave off the percent for this legal values are 15, 18, 21,24,27,30,33,36,29,42,45,48,51,54,57,60.)  "When 'fbneo-frameskip-v2' is set to 'Manual', specifies the audio buffer occupancy threshold (percentage) below which frames will be skipped. Higher values reduce the risk of crackling by causing frames to be dropped more frequently."

 

Frameskip could help if you REALLY want to play a game that is out of the AFBX/LFB's league.

 

One other one I'm not sure if we have, because it has to be compiled in with a special switch:

 

fbneo-cyclone=enabled    (enabled or disabled)     "Use at your own risk, it could improve performance on some emulated systems for low-end devices, but there are known side effects : savestates won't be compatible with normal interpreter, and some systems won't work"

 

 

[Draxxon]

Is it possible to have an ini file that points to games in different folders across the board?

 

EX:
A new folder/category called "Favorites": /rom_favs - and inside there maybe a data folder? and a single ini file.

entries in the ini file would need to point to /rom_hb or something and not /rom anymore? not a biggie. just an idea. 

If people could easily create their own "Playlists" in a Custom folder doing nothing more than creating an ini file, and

not having to clone roms, they could make ex: activision or imagic only folders, whatever they want, and you may

not feel the need to start a new project from scratch as, you wont have to source, cut, copy or paste stuff.

Edited May 4, 2021 by Draxxon

[rocketfan]

9 hours ago, Draxxon said:

Is it possible to have an ini file that points to games in different folders across the board?

Yes, neat idea.  I think this is doable in a way.  See my PM. 

[DoesItMatter]

I'm very confused & lost.

I've had an Atari Flashback X since summer 2020. I want to add the entire Atari 2600 roms collection to it. I saw a tutorial video on Youtube where the guy showed step-by-step how to add the roms by unscrewing the console and opening it then pressing some button that's inside.

I was going to do this until he said that there won't be any box art for the added roms. I was very disappointed by that. I really want box art for all the added roms too.

 

So I did some googling and came across this thread. I started reading from the beginning of the thread. As I got further into the thread, I became more and more confused. I'm at the point now where I really don't know what to do. I just want to easily add the roms with box art.

 

I saw that someone in this thread said that they purchased a Flashback X recently and that he doesn't have to unscrew and open the console or press that little button. That he can do it straight from the USB flash drive.

 

So basically what I'm asking now is..... Has an easier way been discovered to add more Atari 2600 roms with box art without having to open the console? Is there a simpler way? I'm completely lost. Can someone please help me?

[Draxxon]

what version AFBX (standard or Deluxe) do you have, what is the firmware version number in the about screen? do you have a hole on the bottom of your unit labeled reset?