Using the VCS for Emulation

[zzip]

31 minutes ago, scottyy said:

newbie here to the Atari VCS... 

right now I play games from the Ultimate cart using my Atari 400... (pictured below)

will it be easy to install, navigate and play these type of games on the VCS? 

thx!

You would need to install the Atari800 Emulator or Altirra under PC Mode and then copy the contents of that (does it use SD card?)

[scottyy]

yes, it uses a SD card....

have you installed the Atari800 Emulator on yours?

I am interested on how it looks on the screen once the games are downloaded into the VCS...

Is it easily navigated and user friendly?

[Keatah]

Does anyone see the VCS as becoming the ultimate All-In-One system? Personally I've been retrogaming on a Windows AIO SFFPC for ages and love every moment.

 

Perhaps an alternate question is, is the VCS OS supportive of emulators in any way shape or form? Or is it simply best to load Windows/Linux and go from there?

 

In the future it would be nice to see Atari come up a successor, using the other 8-bit model numbers and the XL/XE badges.

[zzip]

2 minutes ago, scottyy said:

yes, it uses a SD card....

have you installed the Atari800 Emulator on yours?

I am interested on how it looks on the screen once the games are downloaded into the VCS...

Is it easily navigated and user friendly?

Yes I've installed it on mine

 

It has a built in menu for configuration/selecting media that looks and feels like an Atari application:

 

There are a lot of display options available to tweak to your liking,  you can enable scanlines and give it the fuzzy look like a CRT TV, or a sharp look,  you size the screen to your liking, select PAL/NTSC, run in full-screen or window, enable/disable artifacting (extra colors in high-res modes that show up on a TV but not a monitor-- same games use these), adjust aspect ratio all from that menu,  and save the results when you like them

 

There are screenshots of other games and demos running on it at the official website.   

 https://atari800.github.io/screenshots.html

 

 

 

 

[scottyy]

that's awesome! I'm assuming a wireless keyboard is required?

thx for the information.....

[zzip]

14 minutes ago, scottyy said:

that's awesome! I'm assuming a wireless keyboard is required?

thx for the information.....

To get the most out of it, yes.  

 

Since my VCS is in the living room,  I use a small keyboard like this which is about the size of a game controller (has built in touchpad for mouse too)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07QNPX8C2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

But whatever type of keyboard you go with, I'd recommend going with a wireless USB rather than Bluetooth.   A BT keyboard doesn't pair in time to tell the VCS to boot into PC mode rather than AtariOS.

[hoagtech]

I was wondering if people had recommendations for emulator settings for Dolphin. 

 

I can get a decent experience sweitch from Open GL to Direct 11 and changers texture loading to Hybrid instead of default, as well as rendering at 720p instead of 1080p. 

 

Do you know if most games would run smoother with less hitches on older version of dolphin and is there a setting like a frame skip that could eliminate audio and graphics hitches for the games that play smoothly most of the time? 

 

Also I have Windows 11 and was wondering if there was way to boot directly into the emulator or front end like Gameboost used to do the in the early 2000's? 

 

If you have any recommendations for Wii gameplay specifically. I would love to adjust my experience to the Atari VCS 800. 
 

 

 

[zzip]

On 2/11/2022 at 8:14 PM, hoagtech said:

I was wondering if people had recommendations for emulator settings for Dolphin. 

 

I can get a decent experience sweitch from Open GL to Direct 11 and changers texture loading to Hybrid instead of default, as well as rendering at 720p instead of 1080p. 

 

Do you know if most games would run smoother with less hitches on older version of dolphin and is there a setting like a frame skip that could eliminate audio and graphics hitches for the games that play smoothly most of the time? 

 

Also I have Windows 11 and was wondering if there was way to boot directly into the emulator or front end like Gameboost used to do the in the early 2000's? 

 

If you have any recommendations for Wii gameplay specifically. I would love to adjust my experience to the Atari VCS 800. 
 

 

 

Dolphin works pretty well for me.   Most games run well, a few have some stuttering.

 

First 60fps is absolutely essential,  if your display is running at 30, everything will lag.

Ignore the so-called "stable" builds,  I'm using a "development" build from sometime last year.

 

I don't remember all my settings, but I followed guides such as these:

https://dolphin-emu.org/docs/guides/performance-guide/

https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-unofficial-laptop-performance-guide

[THX-1138]

On 2/2/2022 at 4:37 PM, Keatah said:

Does anyone see the VCS as becoming the ultimate All-In-One system? Personally I've been retrogaming on a Windows AIO SFFPC for ages and love every moment.

 

Perhaps an alternate question is, is the VCS OS supportive of emulators in any way shape or form? Or is it simply best to load Windows/Linux and go from there?

 

In the future it would be nice to see Atari come up a successor, using the other 8-bit model numbers and the XL/XE badges.

It doesn't need a successor machine yet as it still hasn't been globally released or it's potential realised in any way.  The Atari OS is Linux so theoretically it supports any emulators that exist and support Linux now, dosbox and MAME are already being used on the VCS to support DOS and Atari 7800 games.  Any further emulators Atari could add as they provide games for the appropriate system, ie. they could bundle the atari800 emulator if they wanted to sell the original 8-bit Star Raiders for example.

For me, the VCS is a successor to the original 8-bit and ST home computers.  To get the most from it I run Linux of an M.2 I installed and I loaded it up with the Stella, atari800 and Hatari emulators and software/games etc. 

[hoagtech]

On 3/4/2022 at 8:42 AM, THX-1138 said:

It doesn't need a successor machine yet as it still hasn't been globally released or it's potential realised in any way.  The Atari OS is Linux so theoretically it supports any emulators that exist and support Linux now, dosbox and MAME are already being used on the VCS to support DOS and Atari 7800 games.  Any further emulators Atari could add as they provide games for the appropriate system, ie. they could bundle the atari800 emulator if they wanted to sell the original 8-bit Star Raiders for example.

For me, the VCS is a successor to the original 8-bit and ST home computers.  To get the most from it I run Linux of an M.2 I installed and I loaded it up with the Stella, atari800 and Hatari emulators and software/games etc. 

Certain emulators run better on Direct X 11 Support in Windows 

 

That's the only reason I haven't switched to Linux or a frontend OS like Batocera 

 

On 3/4/2022 at 7:08 AM, zzip said:

Dolphin works pretty well for me.   Most games run well, a few have some stuttering.

 

First 60fps is absolutely essential,  if your display is running at 30, everything will lag.

Ignore the so-called "stable" builds,  I'm using a "development" build from sometime last year.

 

I don't remember all my settings, but I followed guides such as these:

https://dolphin-emu.org/docs/guides/performance-guide/

https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-unofficial-laptop-performance-guide

 

I agree for a lot of them. But my favorite Wii game is Mario Galaxy 2. And the Atari supports the original Wii motes and sensors. I found that changing shaders to skip drawing and enabling the 30FPS mode through gecko code helps.. 

 

My Beast GPU dock should be in tomorrow. I'm hoping its going to be a game changer 

Edited March 7, 2022 by hoagtech

[sirlynxalot]

So... Anyone try to emulate every atari console system and arcade game on the vcs yet?  Seems like it has more than enough juice to play everything that came from the companies calling themselves atari from the 80s and 90s other than stuff like Jaguar CD which doesn't have a suitable emulator at this time. 

 

The fact that we actually have "atari" hardware that could theoretically play almost every vintage and retro atari game is pretty neat. 

Edited July 6, 2022 by sirlynxalot

[Keatah]

I don't own a VCS, but from the specs and stuff, it should handle the REAL VCS through PS2/Wii without problem. Just put it into PC mode and stuff it with emulators. Altirra, Stella, Mame, good comprehensive Atari coverage right there.

[zzip]

17 hours ago, sirlynxalot said:

So... Anyone try to emulate every atari console system and arcade game on the vcs yet?  Seems like it has more than enough juice to play everything that came from the companies calling themselves atari from the 80s and 90s other than stuff like Jaguar CD which doesn't have a suitable emulator at this time. 

 

The fact that we actually have "atari" hardware that could theoretically play almost every vintage and retro atari game is pretty neat. 

I have.    I ported my emulator setup to it.   Yes it can emulate every other Atari platform very well, other than for the Jag emulation issues that affect every other platform.

 

The most modern system I emulate is the Wii.   Works really well with real Wiimotes and everything.   There are a handful of Wii games that stutter sometimes though.

[Paul Holbrook]

On 1/15/2021 at 11:23 PM, WAVE 1 GAMES said:

This is DKC Tropical Freeze running in glorious 4K on the Wii U emulator at 60 FPS.

 

I tested several other Wii U games all ran nearly perfect.

 

To all the Atari VCS haters, this thing is the real deal. It's the ultimate emulation machine.

 

Tropical Freeze!!!!

 

(Side note I do have the max 32 GB of RAM now and that is using the Vulkan plugin on the Cem U emulator)

 

 

How did u get the emulators on it?

[Wizzard]

14 hours ago, Paul Holbrook said:

How did u get the emulators on it?

Batocera or Retroarch in Linux/Windows?