Which is the best Atari ST emulator for pc?

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Legolas119,  please describe your settings of Steem . What TOS version you use, how much RAM is set ? Also floppy emulation settings in Disk Manager.

[legolas119]

sure! here my config. I changed some setting followinf a set up guide on youtube..

[legolas119]

do you think that some of these settings are wrong? with Skrull I have same issue as in Outrun that I posted some post ago: when I start the game, it appears this screen

Edited November 1, 2020 by legolas119

[ParanoidLittleMan]

"when I start the game, it appears this screen"  - well, should be obvious that game did not start automatically, after you inserted disk. Actually it will never start self if just insert/change disk while computer is on. You need to press reset. And best to perform cold reset. Then about 60% of games will start self . The rest may show Desktop like on screenshot, usually with highlighted file, with which can start game. So yes, you need to perform double click on that SKRULL3.PRG ?

Some games will not open any disk content window (like A:\ ) , then user need to do it, and look with what file can start game. It is usually *.PRG or *.TOS  .

 

Automatic start can be done in 3 ways:  boot from disk - usually used when no regular files on disk - and lot of games is such - you will not see there any files in Desktop. Only way to start is reset.

AUTO folder start. When there is folder named AUTO in root of disk, all *.PRG files will be run automatically before Desktop start - used a lot by games. But then AES (graphical user interface of Atari is not activated), so no usual windows, menus, even mouse needs to be activated in program self .

 

Automatic start of AES SW via DESKTOP.INF file - that works only at TOS 1.04 and can set in Options/Install Application, after that need to Save Desktop, of course.

 

Your settings are mostly OK. Recommended is to 'Disconnect Drive B' . Some games may need Accurate Disk Access Times (Slow) - in Steem work with 'floppy' is way faster than on real machines with default 'non accurate' .

[zzip]

On 10/27/2020 at 10:43 AM, ParanoidLittleMan said:

OK, I made test with brandnew Mint Linux Cinnamon AMD 64. My Ubuntu install from some 3 years ago was destroyed by some recent Win install, and no big deal, since I barely used it. Mint install took much more time than Ubuntu (even if ISO is shorter), but seems easy to get in with. So, depacked Steem 3.2 for Linux and TOS 1.04 UK and just one floppy image - for quick test.

Aspect ratio is OK all time (monitor Full HD, HDMI conn., AMD Radeon graphic card on ASUS mainboard - that means standard HW, so better chances that it will work well) . Can not set any emulator resolution you want, but full screen is OK too - AR perfect (unlike in Win 7 and later). And bad thing - no sound at all, and playing with setting helps not. But it is 16 years from Steem 3.2 release, and many things changed. Likely it can be solved with some drivers or whatever. I would say that this is very good SW compatibility.

 

I tried to adjust the aspect ratio through nvidia settings.  Learned a few things.    The nvidia card can use GPU scaling to create pretty much any graphics mode you can think of,  and it ususally gets the aspect ratio correct.   If it doesn't, you can define the dimensions of the mode.

 

But it also appears to have three hardware modes,  probably still there so that legacy OSes can still boot:  640x480,  800x600 and 1024x768.  On my setup, 640x480 mode has no aspect correction.  800x600 has some aspect correction, but not enough,  and 1024x768 has perfect aspect correction.   None of the settings I've tried seem to override the aspect of these hardware modes.

 

I also tried my own test code for setting resolutions.   There's an old way to set them, and a new preferred way.  The old method will give me the hardware modes with their aspect problems,  the new method will give me perfect 640x480 or 800x600 modes.

 

So the issue is still the STeem build is so old and does things the legacy way, and YMMV depending on your setup.  It just really needs an update on Linux.

[legolas119]

On 11/2/2020 at 8:32 AM, ParanoidLittleMan said:

"when I start the game, it appears this screen"  - well, should be obvious that game did not start automatically, after you inserted disk. Actually it will never start self if just insert/change disk while computer is on. You need to press reset. And best to perform cold reset. Then about 60% of games will start self . The rest may show Desktop like on screenshot, usually with highlighted file, with which can start game. So yes, you need to perform double click on that SKRULL3.PRG ?

Some games will not open any disk content window (like A:\ ) , then user need to do it, and look with what file can start game. It is usually *.PRG or *.TOS  .

 

Automatic start can be done in 3 ways:  boot from disk - usually used when no regular files on disk - and lot of games is such - you will not see there any files in Desktop. Only way to start is reset.

AUTO folder start. When there is folder named AUTO in root of disk, all *.PRG files will be run automatically before Desktop start - used a lot by games. But then AES (graphical user interface of Atari is not activated), so no usual windows, menus, even mouse needs to be activated in program self .

 

Automatic start of AES SW via DESKTOP.INF file - that works only at TOS 1.04 and can set in Options/Install Application, after that need to Save Desktop, of course.

 

Your settings are mostly OK. Recommended is to 'Disconnect Drive B' . Some games may need Accurate Disk Access Times (Slow) - in Steem work with 'floppy' is way faster than on real machines with default 'non accurate' .

thanks, understood! they works!  Now only Dragon Spirit doesn't work, I don't know why. I tried different disk version, but every time it continue to appear the LOADING title...the game doesn't start. I don0't know how to solve this strange issue, probably there is a wrong setting in my emulator

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Dragon Spirit: lot of problems with it. See this: http://atari.8bitchip.info/ASTGA/D/dragspir.php

DL floppy version and hard disk version. It's complete game, without errors at end - that did cost me lot of time, btw.

It seems that I tested floppy version with Steem so, that Pasti was activated, and then it works - some 5 secs  after 'LOADING' title screen will appear. So, good chance to install that Pasti ...

In Hatari works well, btw.  But in regular Steem, without Pasti will not go farther than that LOADING screen. The reason if for sure not so good floppy code of game (it does not use TOS disk functions). 

But better would be to use hard disk version - that will work well in Steem from GEMDOS hard disk partition (as set in Disk Manager) .

I can look that floppy code and correct, but that can be lot of time, and as told, it can work in Steem - with Pasti activated, or hard disk version.

 

 

[legolas119]

thanks, i tried the ST image, but still the same problem: LOADING screen..

I'm sorry...what I have to do to activate Pasti in SteemDV ?

 

many thanks

[leech]

On 10/21/2020 at 7:42 AM, zzip said:

Aranym has sucked on Linux for years too.  I keep going back to an old build because the newer ones don't work correctly

 

Yes, I used to use it,  worked very well.   Had problems with it on newer Linux distros though

Yeah, this is the reason I stopped using Steem as well on Linux.  As it was a binary, it depended on libraries that were no longer shipped.  Depending on the license that the source was released as, I wonder if we could get it sponsored to be updated for some modern distros...

 

Anyone remember STonX?  That was the first one I ever used.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Here is pasti.dll : Pasti.zip

Just unpack it in your Steem directory and will have it's settings in Disk Manager. Max accuracy recommended.

And pls. try hard disk version - much easier to set and use.

[zzip]

13 hours ago, leech said:

Yeah, this is the reason I stopped using Steem as well on Linux.  As it was a binary, it depended on libraries that were no longer shipped.  Depending on the license that the source was released as, I wonder if we could get it sponsored to be updated for some modern distros...

Steem 3.2 (the last version of the original before Steem SSE) works for me on Ubuntu 18,  but I have issues with aspect ratio handling as I mentioned earlier in this thread.   Sound still uses OSS, so you will need the modules loaded or daemon for that.   Yes it really needs an update to modernize it

 

13 hours ago, leech said:

Anyone remember STonX?  That was the first one I ever used.

Yes, I used to use that.  It was super fast for GEM apps,  not so great for games.

[legolas119]

On 11/5/2020 at 6:38 AM, ParanoidLittleMan said:

Here is pasti.dll : Pasti.zip

Just unpack it in your Steem directory and will have it's settings in Disk Manager. Max accuracy recommended.

And pls. try hard disk version - much easier to set and use.

thanks, I unpacked it and now when I start SteemDV, it appears this warning pop up: is it possible to deactivated this pop up?

 

Then I tried the disk version of the game, launching it with Pasti activated:

 

and it works now!  Do you think that it could be better to leave Use Pasti option permanently activated?

 

many thanks!

 

[ParanoidLittleMan]

 Pasti is mostly for copy protected floppies. And it can not write in images, so you will lose for instance game saves. + it works slower.

 

This with Dragon Spirit is very rare case. 99% of games will work fine from ST, MSA images when it is cracked properly.  And Pasti is not 100% guarantee that it will work. Some protection systems are not covered. And STX images may be with errors too.

 

Don't like that warning pop up ? That's on man who wrote that SW, known as ijor here .

[legolas119]

ok, thanks!

[Techman]

ChatGPT says this.

 

Here's a simplified address map for the Atari STE:

```
0x00000000 - 0x0007FFFF: RAM (512 KB)
0x00080000 - 0x000FFFFF: Expansion ROM (512 KB)
0xFF80000 - 0xFF9FFFF: MFP Registers
0xFFA0000 - 0xFFBFFFF: DMA Controller Registers
0xFFE4000 - 0xFFE5FFFF: I/O Port Registers
0xFFE8000 - 0xFFE9FFFF: ACIA Registers (RS-232 Port 1)
0xFFEA000 - 0xFFEBFFFF: ACIA Registers (RS-232 Port 2)
```

This is a basic overview and may not include all possible memory-mapped peripherals or expansion options. Refer to the Atari STE documentation for a complete and accurate address map.

 

Is the Atari STE technical document available on line?

 

 

[TGB1718]

I only have the STE Field Service Manual and STE Field Diagnostics v19