Any long time Atari 8-Bit users try the MiSTer core yet?

[bfollowell]

On 2/6/2022 at 8:07 PM, SegaSnatcher said:

Just curious if anyone here who has a lot of experience with the original hardware has tested the core on MiSTer yet.   How do you feel it compares. 

I don't have any reference to go by, but so far my experiences with the core has been great.  

 

I haven't, sorry. No interest here. I prefer working on real, original hardware. In those rare instances that I don't, for whatever reason, I'd much prefer to work with Altirra. That's just a personal preference though.

 

[+DjayBee]

4 hours ago, eightbit said:

 

It wouldn't work on a 400 or 800 if they are stock models. BBSB requires a 64k machine IIRC.

 

My comment was targeted at "do you run it in XL mode?".

 

Meanwhile I tested it on my Éclaire and my MiSTer.

 

It works on the Éclaire, therefore it is not a problem of the core itself but by the port to the MiSTer.

 

The MiSTer, as expected, did not work. At first I suspected the fast-SIO-patched OS but after I replaced it with a stock XL v02 OS, it still did not work. I also updated the core to the current one, dated a few days back.

 

@remowilliams you appear as a contributor to the MiSTer core on GitHub.

Do you have any insights why BBSB XEXs do not work? (The cart cannot because its banking seems unsupported.)

[eightbit]

I have had the opportunity to try various rips of the game (basically everything I could find online and what I have had in collections) in both .XEX and .ATR formats and not a single one will work.

 

It would be nice to see this working. This is really a fantastic game for those who never played it. 

 

I can play it on my real 65XE at least But, would be great to see it in RGB via FPGA.

[youxia]

Try this one, works on my MiSTer.

Bounty Bob Strikes Back!.xex

[darwinmac]

4 hours ago, youxia said:

Try this one, works on my MiSTer.

Bounty Bob Strikes Back!.xex 40.05 kB · 3 downloads

Unfortunately, I could not get this version to work on my MiST core either. Sorry, I do not have a MiSTer. I will see if @eightbit has any luck with this XEX file on his system. 
 

Bob C

[eightbit]

Thanks. I'll give this a try tomorrow. It is worth noting that the 800 core on the MiST is 11 months old and the latest core on the MiSTer is 2 days old. So I would imagine a lot of changes have happened in the past year. Someone may just need to port a newer release.

 

Even still the most current MiST core gives me no problems with any software that I can see....but BBSB

[darwinmac]

It sounds like other people have maintained the MiSTer core besides the original core developer. Unfortunately, on MiST, I don’t think anyone else has taken over support so I don’t expect anything to change soon. 
 

Bob C

[eightbit]

12 minutes ago, darwinmac said:

It sounds like other people have maintained the MiSTer core besides the original core developer. Unfortunately, on MiST, I don’t think anyone else has taken over support so I don’t expect anything to change soon. 
 

Bob C

 

Worth a shot to ask in the Atari Forums. Slingshot has been doing a lot of good on the MiST front lately so maybe he would be interested to compile an updated core.

 

If not no real loss. BBSB is a great game, but the core is pretty compatible otherwise so the lack of that one game working does not bother me. Still, that said, it would be neat to see it function one day. I remember back in the day having problems with this game even on real hardware (was it the XEGS? I can't remember) so it is a quite unique game and situation.

 

EDIT: I posted in the forums and bumped the core thread. Crossing fingers it gets updated one day!

 

 

Edited February 23, 2022 by eightbit

[darwinmac]

@eightbit - We’ll see. Slingshot has already done work on the core to standardize it to work like the other MiST cores. 
 

It’d be great if someone else was willing to update the core. Otherwise, I assume the original developer will eventually have time to investigate the remaining problems. Overall, it’s a very good core. I bought the MiST primarily for Slingshot’s updated ST core. Actual ST hardware is crazy expensive now. The 8-but core is a nice bonus. Most of my 8-bit gaming is done in my XEGS. I only use the MiST for games that can’t run on it. 
 

Bob C

[ijor]

8 hours ago, eightbit said:

It is worth noting that the 800 core on the MiST is 11 months old and the latest core on the MiSTer is 2 days old. So I would imagine a lot of changes have happened in the past year.

That doesn't mean anything. MiSTer cores are updated frequently with changes on the framework. The framework is the code common to all cores that handles such things as the scaler, IO interface, menu, etc. Those changes typically will not enhance the core itself or improve compatibility. Now, I didn't actually check exactly what was updated or not. Just noting that a newer core in itself doesn't necessarily means what you think.

[eightbit]

3 hours ago, ijor said:

That doesn't mean anything. MiSTer cores are updated frequently with changes on the framework. The framework is the code common to all cores that handles such things as the scaler, IO interface, menu, etc. Those changes typically will not enhance the core itself or improve compatibility. Now, I didn't actually check exactly what was updated or not. Just noting that a newer core in itself doesn't necessarily means what you think.

 

Except for the fact that the 11 month old core does not play BBSB, but the latest core does....at least so it seems.

 

Core updates constantly improve (and break) compatibility. I have witnessed that which both MiSTer and MiST core updates. Checking this core however I do not see a change on github...so something else is happening.

 

Maybe the 15 versions of this game I have are problematic Someone in the Atari forums says theirs works, so once I have that filename I can try this again.

 

EDIT: It works!

 

Only by using disk #49 from the Homesoft collection that is:

 

http://www.mushca.com/f/atari/index.php

 

 

Edited February 23, 2022 by eightbit

[+DjayBee]

50 minutes ago, eightbit said:

Except for the fact that the 11 month old core does not play BBSB, but the latest core does....at least so it seems.

For me this latest MiSTer core did not work and the core on my Éclaire is v37 which is some 2 years old (and, as far as I understood, should be the basis of the MiSTer core).

 

But since you found a working XEX, all is good now.

[eightbit]

6 hours ago, DjayBee said:

For me this latest MiSTer core did not work and the core on my Éclaire is v37 which is some 2 years old (and, as far as I understood, should be the basis of the MiSTer core).

 

But since you found a working XEX, all is good now.

 

Well, it wasn't a working XEX, but rather a working copy of the game on a compilation ATR disk

 

There is still an issue there however as these XEX versions work on real hardware so even though my personal issue of running this game is resolved, there is still an underlying issue somewhere.

[darwinmac]

I completely agree that there is an underlying problem since I have seen a few other games with problems. Unfortunately, until the core developer has time to look at the problems, we will need to be patient. 
 

Bob C

[Nolium]

On 2/23/2022 at 3:21 AM, darwinmac said:

Unfortunately, I could not get this version to work on my MiST core either. Sorry, I do not have a MiSTer. I will see if @eightbit has any luck with this XEX file on his system. 
 

Bob C

F10 is Reset and F8 is Option key. After you mount XEX, press F10 while holding F8. Game won't run with Basic in this case.

https://github.com/mist-devel/mist-binaries/tree/master/cores/atari800

 

Same on both, Mist and Mister. Almost everything (if not all) should work, even ATX files.

[darwinmac]

2 minutes ago, Nolium said:

F10 is Reset and F8 is Option key. After you mount XEX, press F10 while holding F8. Game won't run with Basic in this case.

https://github.com/mist-devel/mist-binaries/tree/master/cores/atari800

 

Same on both, Mist and Mister. Almost everything (if not all) should work, even ATX files.

I’m aware of those keys and have used them. However, except for the Homesoft version, the other versions of BBSB do not work. In addition, the MiST core does not support ATX files. 
 

Bob C

[Nolium]

Well I'll be damned. I haven't run Atari 800 on mu Mist for a while now and you are right, no ATX support. Mister has one, and Bounty Bob XEX works fine on Mister.

 

Now the fun part. On Mist I can run only NTSC over VGA cable, but can switch to PAL with SCART cable. And this Bounty Bob XEX apparently works only on PAL.

[Nolium]

Here is the NTSC version.

 

Bounty Bob Strikes Back! (1985)(Aackosoft)(NL)(en)[64k].xex

[invisible kid]

Been having a blast with mister. I was going to poke around with making changes. I installed Quartus Lite from here:

 

https://download.altera.com/akdlm/software/acdsinst/17.0std.2/602/ib_tar/Quartus-lite-17.0.2.602-linux.tar

 

And it's asking for a license. Do I need to use this? Should I pick the 30-day trial? Do I have to buy it after the 30 days? Any help appreciated.

[foft]

Quartus lite is free to use, no need for a licence.

[invisible kid]

I get this error when I try to build:

 

292025 License file is not specified.
293001 Quartus Prime Full Compilation was unsuccessful. 1 error, 0 warnings
 

Going to try getting 17.0 lite from Quartus.

Edited May 17, 2023 by invisible kid

[foft]

Yeah I normally download it from the intel site. It does ring a bell that old versions needed to register for a free licence, but it's not been like that for years iirc. 

[invisible kid]

lol yep, scraped that version from older readme. I bet the new version works.

[invisible kid]

Bah, no such luck. I'm on linux, maybe that's the difference. I run the ./setup.sh file but it hangs when finished installing the help system. I can cajole it passed that and get an install, but I get the license error. Maybe someone will come along that can help.

 

Yeah, the installer hangs, even when Help is unselected to install. Maybe it isn't finding something on my system and it's not getting to the part where it configures the license or lack thereof.

Edited May 17, 2023 by invisible kid

[invisible kid]

Got it working. Deselected Help and ModelSim and had to ctrl-c when it hangs at the end. Got a different initial license pop-up, and now it builds. Thx!

 

Took a bit to finish!

Info (293000): Quartus Prime Full Compilation was successful. 0 errors, 30 warnings

Edited May 17, 2023 by invisible kid