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Stella 6.7 released (and concerning the future of Stella)


stephena

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Lack of feedback is actually a hallmark here of how Stella is so well polished and refined.  Honestly, I cannot recall the last time I've encountered any sort of issue with it.  There will always be another bell and whistle that could possibly be added, but Stella is already chock-full of them.

 

Thank you @stephena, @DirtyHairy, @Thomas Jentzsch, and any others who have played and continue to play a part in bringing Stella to the masses.  It is very much appreciated; an overall awesome emulator and a wonderful piece of software!

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I guess without Stella many of the modern Games wouldn't be there, so it's not only a Loss emulation-wise but also for the whole VCS-Scene?!

As a not very talented hobby-Programmer, I wasn't able to put any efforts to the Project. Emulation in Stella itsself has been perfect in my humble opinion since many years and the Team, especially Stephen was always ahead of development: If something came to your mind to be added, it was probably already in the Program ;-) Thomas & Christian gave great new Input and Progress to the Emulator in the last years, too and boosted the Project!

 

So, all I could do is give several monetary contributions to the Project, and I guess more people could have done so ("If I had a Dollar for every..."). It wouldn't take back the Stress-Level and time to work on it, but it would have shown that there is support from the silent majority of the Community.

 

What happens if Stella doesn't get updated in the future? I don't like to think about it, 'cause there is no other Emulator for that system anymore (especially not on this Level). z26 and PCAE cannot compete with it and were not regularly updated themselves...

 

Thanks to the Stella-Team for bringing back Atari to modern Days and helping to develop new Games!

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First, a big "Thank You!" for a the positive responses. Feedback is always helping the motivation.

 

Second, a big "But". While we regularly get general feedback, specific feedback is missing almost completely. For me personally that means, I have no idea if the effort I did put into Stella was justified. Does anyone even care for specific enhancements? Without any such feedback, I feel like I am more or less acting on my own. 

 

Here is a (quite incomplete) list of enhancements I mean. Most of them got little to none feedback:

 

For the players:

  • high score saving
  • web links for many games (thanks @alex_79 for helping with these)
  • context-sensitive help
  • global hotkeys
  • revamped launcher
  • PlusROM support
  • auto fire mode
  • Time Machine (together with @stephena, at least here we got a little feedback) 
  • controller auto detection
  • UI tool tips

For developers:

  • ARM cycle counting
  • TIA glitches emulation
  • enhanced disassembly (multi bank)
  • numerous new debugger commands and pseudo-registers
  • enhanced prompt auto complete
  • value tool tips

Don't get me wrong, I usually have a lot of fun when developing. But eventually you want to show your results to someone else. And then you are hoping for constructive criticism. The worst thing that can happen is silence. And that silence happened too often to keep up my motivation. That's the main reason why I need a break now.

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I never liked the SQL database thing. Feels bloated and overcomplex. As an archivist I also was hoping to get a CRC32 of the rom displayed in the launcher information. As a player I pretty much think Stella is a feature-complete done deal. I'm not sure there's anything to be added at least for me.

 

I believe that smartphone "apps" create the illusion of Stella being old and stodgy and PC'ish too much. Smartphone apps appear out of nowhere on an app store. They work at the speed of social media. And they can be installed and uninstalled instantly. Disposable. And there is little in the way of setup & configuration to do. Rather than being labeled as the special program it is, and providing the grand experience it does, Stella gets thrown in the pile of disposable apps.

 

All of that has taken away meaning and importance and presence. People always say or complain about emulation being bits on a hard drive. The whole notion of something special or unique doesn't really exist here. Too bad because emulation is the way forward. Original hardware won't last forever, it fades away by slow attrition, very slow in the case of the VCS because it is built rather well. No one has or can make a proper replica. FPGA doesn't even begin to cut the mustard here.

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5 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

First, a big "Thank You!" for a the positive responses. Feedback is always helping the motivation.

 

Second, a big "But". While we regularly get general feedback, specific feedback is missing almost completely. For me personally that means, I have no idea if the effort I did put into Stella was justified. Does anyone even care for specific enhancements? Without any such feedback, I feel like I am more or less acting on my own. 

The revamped launcher is certainly appreciated - it's a big improvement. The other UI enhancements are also appreciated. I suppose some of them get easily overlooked because they're often bypassed quickly by those of us just looking to load up a game and get playin'. :)  I suspect if they went away though, people would really miss them.

 

I do want to give a huge shoutout for Time Machine though. I gave some feedback during its development, and I use it a lot. For helping devs track down bugs it's irreplaceable. If I encounter a bug, just rewind, take some before and after screenshots and save states, and they can see exactly what happened.

 

But where it comes in really handy for me specifically, is in recording games for AA's YouTube channel, or capturing screenshots for game manuals. I don't have to hit F12 and hope I get a decent screenshot for a game manual now - I can play a game, go back to a specific "scene", and get the exact screenshots (or video recording) I need. For videos I used to have to screen capture entire (long) games then fuss around editing down the video. This is so much better!

 

At my job, when I make technical improvements or enhancements to the spaces that I'm responsible for (computer labs and classrooms), I often don't get feedback either. But usually, it's because what I set up is working and the faculty and staff are just able to get their work done. More often, I get feedback if something isn't working. So I usually take silence to mean I did it right. ;)  (Of course the big difference here is - I'm paid to do this.)

 

 

- Nathan

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1 hour ago, Keatah said:

I never liked the SQL database thing. Feels bloated and overcomplex.

We were having regular issues with settings on the R77 that were corrupted because the device was switched off while a write to the settings file was still being flushed to disk. The same problem existed on other platforms, but less dramatic (as people usually don't switch them off while Stella is still running). That's why we introduced sqlite: it is designed to deal gracefully with incomplete writes.

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When I first appeared on this forum I was looking for feedback on my own emulator, 6502.ts. I got a lot of valuable feedback, and by suggestion of Thomas I joined Stephen and Thomas to port my TIA core to Stella. A lot of people tested the new core and helped perfecting it, and the result eventually became Stella 5. This was an awesome time, and a lot of fun.

 

The next big thing that we added to Stella after that was cycle exact audio, which made Stella and 6502.ts the first software emulators to support this, and already there we got much less feedback. We added many more improvements to Stella, and the perceived interest in those declined with every release that we did over the last years. There are also other 2600 projects that I did, including the R77 port and contributions to the Unocart firmware, and interest in those also is a mixed bag. The R77 in particular attracted a lot of interest, but after the initial novelty subsided, what remains (naturally) are complaints about stuff that is broken at the hardware level and (rightful) complaints about event handling bugs. I have also done more work on 6502.ts, but interest in that has pretty much been zero.

 

Now, I am not writing that because I want or need to be cheered at. My primary motivation in doing such projects is curiosity and the satisfaction of solving problems, and not fame (retrocomputing probably isn't the best way to rock stardom anyway ;)). However, this kind if intrinsic motivation is not a constant, but it comes and goes over time, and when it is low extrinsic motivation in the form of interest and feedback helps a lot. Currently, my intrinsic drive to work on 2600 projects is pretty low, and as the worst thing to do to something enjoyable is turning it into a chore I'll take a step back for some time. I definitely won't be going away, and I will resume doing 2600 related stuff sooner or later, but at the moment the spare time that I have (which currently is a scarce resource anyway) feels more rewarding when put into other projects.

 

That said, there are a lot of people that have provided tons of constructive feedback, sparring and help over the years, and I am very much indebted to those. And then, there's also Stephen and Thomas who are doing an awesome job on keeping Stella alive and well even after decades of development, and who are an awesome team to work with. Thanks to all of you!

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I love Stella.  I love it on every OS, phones, tablets, emulation handhelds, CFW PSP, RetroArch, Lakka, and my most recent acquisition of a RetroN 77.

 

The lack of constructive feedback is likely because of the impressive maturity of the project due to all of the years of excellent work.  I use Stella on a regular basis and I have absolutely nothing to complain about.  It is more reliable and compatible than my original hardware and my MiSTer.  On modern OSes it works with any controller I choose including all of my adapters for original controllers. 

 

The only thing I have wished for over the many years is UI improvements, although I never thought these issues were enough to warrant complaints or instigating feedback.  As I believe in constructive criticism and had no constructive suggestions, I refrained from any feedback on the issue.  The recently added options to change themes and tweak the UI have resolved everything I would have commented on.

 

Thank you all for the years of amazing work making Stella what it is. 

 

It actually makes sense that you might take a break from development, as Stella is a mature and reliable.  It would definitely be better to kick back than to pull an Adobe and change things only for change's sake.

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My feedback is that Stella is awesome, and I always appreciate the fact that you folks are so accessible here on AtariAge.

 

Take a break and come back later.  The community needs you working on something here.  Do something you love.

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I guess I should give my feedback, since one of the main issues is that we're not receiving much ourselves.  First of all, I appreciate the thanks and support from everyone that commented.  Certainly gives me something to think about.

 

My main issues have been lack of feedback (as mentioned my @Thomas Jentzsch and @DirtyHairy).  As @DirtyHairy said, there is personal interest, and interest from the outside.  The latter is somewhat lacking over these past few years, and some of it has been non-constructive and even aggressive.  This has mostly applied to the R77 port, and I guess wasn't totally unexpected when Stella moved outside our circle of users more into the 'mainstream'.  This type of thing really saps my energy and interest in the process.  Stella has had many 'firsts' for 2600 emulation, but isn't always recognized as such.

 

Regarding my own interest, it comes and goes.  I have a lot going on personally, in work, and also some medical issues.  Personally, I don't remember the last time I sat down and actually played a game in Stella or on a real console.  Of course I do all kinds of testing or ROMs, etc, but actually using the system, not so much lately.  So honestly, it's starting to become more like work than like play.

 

There are also issues with how long I've been working on Stella. 20+ years is a long time to be doing anything.  Sometimes it gets tiring, and a break is needed.  Related to this, there's the issue of the codebase being 26 years old.  While I've tried to keep the codebase clean and upgradable (and I think I've done a reasonable job), some features are getting harder to add.  Basically, we've mostly picked the low-hanging fruit, and some new stuff is getting harder to add.  For example, for the technical-minded people here: a lot of the things in Stella are custom-made.  Stella doesn't use a UI toolkit, so whenever we want a new 'widget', we have to code it ourselves.  So when we needed a textbox, we need to code everything about it; how to draw it (lines, background/foreground colours, event handling, copy/paste), where to place it onscreen, etc.  In a normal UI toolkit, this would be a few lines of code.  For Stella, we have to implement the entire thing.  Similarly for networking, filesystem, etc stuff.  A lot of it is not built into C++, and we either have to write it ourselves, or find external C++ libraries.  So there is a lot of maintenance.

 

Anyway, sorry for sounding so down.  As a developer, and perhaps many here can agree, when you work on something, all you see are the flaws.  While others can praise the product, all you see are what you left out, what could work better, etc.  That's sort of my mindset at the moment; hopefully it can improve for the future.

 

Thanks again for the support we have received.

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On 6/24/2022 at 10:41 PM, Nathan Strum said:

The revamped launcher is certainly appreciated - it's a big improvement.

Can you detail which changes are most important for you here?

On 6/24/2022 at 10:41 PM, Nathan Strum said:

I do want to give a huge shoutout for Time Machine though.

You already did before. :) Such feedback, with details how you use a feature is most valuable for a developer. Thanks!

On 6/24/2022 at 10:41 PM, Nathan Strum said:

At my job, when I make technical improvements or enhancements to the spaces that I'm responsible for (computer labs and classrooms), I often don't get feedback either. But usually, it's because what I set up is working and the faculty and staff are just able to get their work done. More often, I get feedback if something isn't working. So I usually take silence to mean I did it right. ;)  (Of course the big difference here is - I'm paid to do this.)

Its very similar (in general!) in Germany too. No feedback means, everything is fine.

 

However the culture on AA is very different (especially regarding homebrews). And then no feedback feels totally different.

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On 6/18/2022 at 4:35 AM, Trebor said:

Lack of feedback is actually a hallmark here of how Stella is so well polished and refined.

Maybe that's the problem. From outside Stella looks done, everything added now is just bell and whistles.

 

From a developer perspective, every software needs constant maintenance. Else it ages and will (slowly) stop working or be replaced with something better. E.g. without maintenance Stella wouldn't work (well) on modern Apple devices using the M1 CPU. 

 

Also software is never considered done. The world of emulators doesn't stand still. Other emulators (not necessarily for the 2600) introduce new features. And eventually some of these features are requested for Stella too.

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On 6/16/2022 at 2:36 PM, DirtyHairy said:

Thanks alot for building, though ;) As Thomas says, I still want to iron out a few issues with paddles attached directly to the R77, plus a switch to disable overclocking before I release. I guess I'll have a release ready sometime next week.

Thank you so much for updating the R77 version before the hiatus.  Thank you again for all your (and everyone else’s) great work on this project.  

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  • 2 weeks later...
1 hour ago, DeafAtariFromKansas said:

it works now..

I think that's just a coincidence, as that option only changes the aspect ratio of the display, but doesn't affect the way a rom plays.


The problem is caused by a bug in the game:
Gunfight expects the carry flag to be clear at startup, but this is not guaranteed, as the initial status of the CPU flags is undetermined.


Stella by default randomizes the carry at startup and so the rom doesn't work all the times. Just keep reloading it with CTRL+R until it starts properly.

 

This is correct emulation as the rom crashes randomly on real hardware too if, for example, you flash it on an Hamrony cart in single image mode (so that it will behave just like a normal cart). The solution is the same: power cycle the console until it starts properly.

It's much less noticeable on real hardware, as even a game without bugs might sometimes fail to start because of oxidation/bad electrical contact of the cart port or the power switch.

 

A simple fix for the rom is to change the byte at address "25C" from "78" to "18" with an hex editor. (this works for both PAL and NTSC versions).

 

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3 hours ago, alex_79 said:

I think that's just a coincidence, as that option only changes the aspect ratio of the display, but doesn't affect the way a rom plays.


The problem is caused by a bug in the game:
Gunfight expects the carry flag to be clear at startup, but this is not guaranteed, as the initial status of the CPU flags is undetermined.


Stella by default randomizes the carry at startup and so the rom doesn't work all the times. Just keep reloading it with CTRL+R until it starts properly.

 

This is correct emulation as the rom crashes randomly on real hardware too if, for example, you flash it on an Hamrony cart in single image mode (so that it will behave just like a normal cart). The solution is the same: power cycle the console until it starts properly.

It's much less noticeable on real hardware, as even a game without bugs might sometimes fail to start because of oxidation/bad electrical contact of the cart port or the power switch.

 

A simple fix for the rom is to change the byte at address "25C" from "78" to "18" with an hex editor. (this works for both PAL and NTSC versions).

 

Not only Gunlight, other games like Silhouette cause it become unplayble under Stretch mode which previous version of Stella I marked for PAL games, (not noticeable on NTSC) to be stretched to full screen until I decided to upgrade version of Stella to 6.7.. so I unchecked on stretch mode in Video & Audio after I figure it out.

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  • 2 weeks later...

replies vs non replies is a pickle. pretty much all responses to any project will be problems. you dont see many because your program doesn't suck. it doesn't suck so much that it has ran all other 2600 emulators out of the business. you can, and should do things on your own time and interest level. seriously no one should expect anything else. 

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