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Concerto firmware thread


batari

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41 minutes ago, tep392 said:

There seems to be a bug in the menu.  I noticed that if you add more files to the root directory, you will be able to scroll farther down the settings menu.  I originally had two files in the root and could only scroll two line down the settings screen.  I noticed this last night and sent a PM to Fred about it.

Ah yes I think that might have been the case with me too. I only had a handful of files at the time and thought the settings weren't accessable yet. Will confirm ?

 

5 hours ago, mimo said:

Hi, I have tested all the games you listed half a dozen times each on PAL and NTSC and not one failure. I tried them on my 2gb PNY card too, again no failures but I did get menu freeze several times. Maybe there is a timing issue with old slower cards? I see that your Verbatim card is 80mb/s compared with my stable SanDisk 120mb/s card 

Thanks Mimo - I'll see what other cards I have on hand or can pickup. Saying that both cards I have show the same symptoms but worth helping out trying various cards ?

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I have slowed down the SD card access speed to hopefully support older, slower cards. All of my cards work, even a 10+ year-old 2GB card, so this is just a test firmware for those who have troublesome cards.

 

If this isn't the problem, it's probably the driver that is supposed to hand control over to the menu. This is one of the things I haven't been able to build yet, but will work some more on this once the outstanding orders are out.

 

No need to install this firmware unless you are having trouble with older SD cards. All it changes is the access speed of the SD card.

 

EDIT: I thought I would add that the settings menu is a stub and the settings can't be changed yet from the menu. Sorry that I was not clear on that before.

 

concerto_0.94.SDcardspeed.cbi hbios_concerto_0.94.SDcardspeed.bin

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The fix above was to try to address the inability to read some older SD cards. The menu freezes, however, may be related to something else. I got a report that the menu freezes do not occur if you use a 2600 joystick. If that is the case, that might be a hint at a possible solution.

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Just now, batari said:

The fix above was to try to address the inability to read some older SD cards. The menu freezes, however, may be related to something else. I got a report that the menu freezes do not occur if you use a 2600 joystick. If that is the case, that might be a hint at a possible solution.

I use a original Atari CX-40 with mine no problem.  I'll bust out an one of my 2-button atari joypads and test.

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11 minutes ago, batari said:

The fix above was to try to address the inability to read some older SD cards. The menu freezes, however, may be related to something else. I got a report that the menu freezes do not occur if you use a 2600 joystick. If that is the case, that might be a hint at a possible solution.

Last night, when the loader wasn't transferring to my cart, I tried running the bin file from the menu, which had been copied to the SD card. It would give the message that it was not a valid file type. When I would press the button to continue, it would almost double-click. No matter how fast I'd try to release, it would usually click the bin file again. It seemed that playing with the right button helped me break free once. I hope this might help.

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My recently ordered concerto hasn't arrived yet, but when I had one before from PCGE sale, I had similar issues with sd card variances. Oddly enough, the one that performed the best was a really old 256mb MMC card I had leftover from the CC2 days. 
 

I got my shipment confirmation yesterday, and mine should be here by Monday, so CPUWIZ - be prepared to have to allow a ton of posts from me In this thread as I start testing the crap out of mine.

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38 minutes ago, batari said:

With some private testing, some problems were found in the joystick button handling code and they are being corrected. A new version should be going up soon that so far seems to help solve the menu freezing.

I'm guessing that you can roll back to a previous firmware if needed? at the moment I'm pretty happy with 0.93 but will flash newer versions to help with testing 

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2 minutes ago, mimo said:

I'm guessing that you can roll back to a previous firmware if needed? at the moment I'm pretty happy with 0.93 but will flash newer versions to help with testing 

 

At the time of this writing, if you have 0.92 or above, you can install any version 0.92 or above via the menu but not earlier versions.

 

The reason is that the firmware updates through the menu do not update the bootloader at this time, and versions 0.91 and below require a different bootloader. This is the same reason why 0.91 or below can't update to 0.92 or above through the menu (you need a USB cable.)

 

When I am able to build the Concerto OS, I will be able to address this limitation.

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4 hours ago, batari said:

With some private testing, some problems were found in the joystick button handling code and they are being corrected. A new version should be going up soon that so far seems to help solve the menu freezing.

 

Cool.  Will this also include the SD card fixes from 0.94?

 

Just trying to keep track of what's changing so that if regressions and/or known bugs turn up they can be handled appropriately.

 

(Ex-QA manager from many, many years ago.  It's a reflexive action for me :D )

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6 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

 

Cool.  Will this also include the SD card fixes from 0.94?

 

Just trying to keep track of what's changing so that if regressions and/or known bugs turn up they can be handled appropriately.

 

(Ex-QA manager from many, many years ago.  It's a reflexive action for me :D )

I am not sure yet, as nobody has stated whether these changes actually help with their older cards or not. Do they?

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The 0.94 firmware made no difference with my SD cards. Lexar Platinum II 4GB SDHC class 6 and Sandisk 4GB SDHC class 4 still don't work at all.  My Sandisk 16GB SDHC class 1 works perfectly.  Never fails to load. I also played around with the menu's, which I've never had freeze, and they still work fine.  I've used both Proline and CX40 joysticks.  So far the cartridge is working great with all the 7800 games I've thrown at it.  I haven't tried any 2600 games yet.

 

Is the HSC supposed to work?

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Just a small update.

 

I've done some additional testing on my UAV modded machine and my other stock 7800 using a europad/joypad.  No changes to how things are working for me in that games sometimes not load, sometimes start and crash, sometimes graphically corrupt or otherwise occasionally load fine. Again the menu always works fine everytime and have no locking up issues there + the europad/joypad is working fine with no button issues at all (either button).  Tested both bios 0.93 and 0.94.

 

I went back to the original thread and grabbed the 7800 utility cart on my UAV modded machine.  When that loaded (5 different tests), 4 showed no issues on the integrity test, but 1 did (I think I can put that down to the flaky loading I'm having).

 

Bought a new card and no additional changes to the other 2 cards I have.

newcard.thumb.jpg.a28bfafa5dfc8cfd7b356dc4048b8cf9.jpg

 

 

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Fired up Scrapyard Dog and played it without issue.  Power-cycled the 7800, and it came back up to the 'no files' screen I'd experienced before.  Had to do the USB dance to get Concerto to display the directory & file list again.

 

Firmware is 0.94; still using the Sandisk 64GB SD Card.

Edited by x=usr(1536)
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I noticed something today. Currently running 0.94.  If I power cycle the 7800 while a POKEY game is running with music playing, the POKEY will continue to play a tone after the power cycle.  The tone will continue thru the boot process, into the menu and won't shut off until I start a new game. It appears the Concerto is not reseting the POKEY during the boot process.

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24 minutes ago, tep392 said:

I noticed something today. Currently running 0.94.  If I power cycle the 7800 while a POKEY game is running with music playing, the POKEY will continue to play a tone after the power cycle.  The tone will continue thru the boot process, into the menu and won't shut off until I start a new game. It appears the Concerto is not reseting the POKEY during the boot process.

I was able to recreate this issue and I'm still running 0.93.

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OK, dumb question.....    I will be getting a donor Pokey chip from a fryed 800XL over the weekend.   I know there is a screw holding the concerto together.  What is the process for opening the shell?   I assume there is some kind of trigger in the slot close to the screw?   Just do not want to damage it after waiting years to get it.  TIA.

 

 

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7 hours ago, scotty said:

OK, dumb question.....    I will be getting a donor Pokey chip from a fryed 800XL over the weekend.   I know there is a screw holding the concerto together.  What is the process for opening the shell?   I assume there is some kind of trigger in the slot close to the screw?   Just do not want to damage it after waiting years to get it.  TIA.

 

 

Squeeze hard on the lower edges near the cart end and prize open. I didn't use the screw on mine, it's not going to come apart without it 

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I ran the test program on my updated concerto, and I saw a graphics glitch on one screen and at least one error I thing on the cart integrity test.  First two rows are unmodified A78s, the third row is my composite modded A78.
Not sure if the error is from the cart, or if it could be my system?

 

tests.thumb.jpg.d8871c270d14867d7ef64004fd533db9.jpg

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