Gamestation Pro

[fluxit]

3 hours ago, big_guitar said:

Whoa.. after all that, I was able to get CoolCV to load, very cool! will post details when I can, have to get ready for work now... using lowercase 'games' folder again.  I used a dummy "bin" file, trapped 'coleco' folder, changed the rom name to ".col", and it worked like a charm!  I only tested this with one game so far, but it worked.

Pressing 'Start' caused a the PAUSED! message to come up, but I ran Carnival and it was playable, no issues.  The stick moved the shooter, A button fired... 

 

Nicely done!  I guess I should have suggested using a new copy of runme.sh.  I considered it briefly. Doh!

Edited December 26, 2023 by fluxit

[big_guitar]

29 minutes ago, fluxit said:

I guess I should have suggested using a new copy of runme.sh.

I was going to start a new file from scratch, but saw it was all good once the tabs were removed. 

I have not gone back to test bluemsx, but I think CoolCV is better and more recent.

 

The coolcv_retroarch_mac_pi.zip file from nanochess is here (below), dated January 2022.  I used most of his recommendations for custom cfg and used my own coolcv_mapping.txt I had from windows, although I changed the file to unix end-of-line version, haven't messed with customizing that yet, and I can't confirm yet if that mapping file is definitely recognized. But I think my custom cfg file is recognized, since it points the system_directory to where I have the bios located.

 

Of course your patch file is required to update the firmware.  If myarcade makes another update, which I imagine they will, I'm not familiar enough with those tools to generate another patch if needed, so we'd be looking to you for that, if you're still messing with GSP at that time.

  

I will test if coolcv accepts the rom files as .bin, will be simpler if it does.

 

 

 

[Shannon]

Oh wow..  It'd be nice if the CoolCV retroarch version was available in some other version.  Did the guy release the source?  Retroarch only has one emulator that can handle SGM games and ones that have VDP issues on other emulators.  ( FBNeo ) but it is limited to games the add in their database.  I would think that adding CoolCV into retroarch for other platforms would be fairly easy.

 

[big_guitar]

So CoolCV accepts the CV roms with renamed .bin extension, no need to pass a file with .col extension to it, so that's good.

With my current settings, I loaded Bruce's Controller Tester.

GSP Controller: 

A=Fire2

B=button #1

C=Fire1

Stick=directional pad

--

Xbox controller (stellar shift tested)

A=Fire2

B=button #1

X=Fire1

d-pad and left-analog works with Tester, but the actual Carnival game did not work, might require tweaking the coolcv_mapping.txt file which might be doable under Windows version of CoolCV (I believe F7 reveals values for buttons selected), since I don't think I configured that. 

HOWEVER, the good news is the LEFT or RIGHT BUMPER with XBOX controller brings up the # selector menu popup in the left corner (keep pressed down), to select 0-9, * and #, where you can select with d-pad the option, then press A I think to register that # pad, will have to test further to verify that's actually working properly. So far I was not able to get F3 or F4 to fire with either controller.

 

Edited December 26, 2023 by big_guitar

[8bitwidgets.com]

Does anyone know if this could drive Intellivision Games?  I could imagine at least in a few niche situations..  imagine if the 8 directions on the second controller were assigned to numbers 123, 4,6,7,8,9 for games like Tron Deadly Discs, Night Stalker, and AD&D.  and then a few other key things like 1 and enter could be assigned to some buttons..  

Edited December 26, 2023 by 8bitwidgets.com

[big_guitar]

1 hour ago, 8bitwidgets.com said:

Does anyone know if this could drive Intellivision Games?  I could imagine at least in a few niche situations..  imagine if the 8 directions on the second controller were assigned to numbers 123, 4,6,7,8,9 for games like Tron Deadly Discs, Night Stalker, and AD&D.  and then a few other key things like 1 and enter could be assigned to some buttons..  

I see freeintv_libretro.so.zip out there for armhf, so that could certainly be tested.

[8bitwidgets.com]

10 minutes ago, big_guitar said:

so that could certainly be tested.

very cool, I just got mine the other day.  I'm not going to have time to play with it for a bit, but when I do I'd like to see about it.  My thought is being able to configure the control input to assign player 2 joystick to player 2 buttons..  hopefully it's not like the NES emulator which requires firmware changes to reassign input controls to different buttons.  

[big_guitar]

6 minutes ago, 8bitwidgets.com said:

very cool, I just got mine the other day.  

So you must have borrowed GSP controllers to make your coupler that I just received today? 

btw, the right side catches under where the battery latch is, can make it difficult to remove from that side... 

Edited December 26, 2023 by big_guitar

[8bitwidgets.com]

@big_guitar That is correct    yea I'm actually working on an improvement for that..  i moved the latch from the original which was tough to remove because of less leverage.  moving it over was meant to help mitigate that some.. but because i didn't have the joysticks anymore I didn't realize (till last night when I tested the newer one you have) that it almost comically was EXACTLY the size of that dumb recess under the joystick.  /facepalm.  

 

I'm going to do a quick hack on one of the copies I made.  I'm 99% sure you could actually just clip off most of that clip and it will still stay in firmly and be easier to remove.  if you have a pair of wire cutters you could just clip off a smidge of it..  but let me try it on one of mine first..  you could do it to both of them making both of them easier to remove.  If that doesn't help to my satisfaction (IE it better be still holding it in well AND easier to remove), I will send you a replacement free of charge.  

 

I'm making a revision on top of that that gives 1mm of extra gap to hopefully make removing it a bit easier..  AND more importantly now you will be able to insert the joystick in sideways to play games like NES games like Smash TV and Crazy Climber without having to mess with CFG files and such.   

 

I'm considering also making a new / alternative version that allows users to use USB C wired connection, but this is going to take more RnD to insure the middle joystick can slide in / out with USB C plugged in and safely enter / leave without harming anything and still being durable.  

[big_guitar]

33 minutes ago, 8bitwidgets.com said:

but let me try it on one of mine first

Sounds good!  Yeah I think my left side is decent if I don't push it in quite all the way, but probably could trim both and it would likely stay firm enough by the sides. I was concerned for a bit that I'd never get the right side out without damaging something, got it out, but I imagine it will likely be good if I trim that front clip. Thanks for the update! 

Edited December 26, 2023 by big_guitar

[samwars95]

Do you think we will be able to use a newer version of stella for the new homebrews ? I think My Arcade is doing a great job so far.

 

[8bitwidgets.com]

1 hour ago, big_guitar said:

Yeah I think my left side is decent if I don't push it in quite all the way, but probably could trim both and it would likely stay firm enough by the sides.

So yea just clip the piece off.  It stays in fine without it.  I'll iterate on this and likely make it little more than a rounded nub for good measure.  

 

Also @big_guitar PM me your address and I'll ship you the new NES friendly version (for Smash TV, etc).  It has a few improvements and yea I clipped off the same lip off thiss iteration off of it too for good measure and it's noticeably easy to remove now and I get no sense that this controller is slipping out while playing a game.  

 

Bonus game!  You can also play spy hunter (2600 version) as intended with The left joystick rotated 90 degrees and the other straight on.  

Edited December 27, 2023 by 8bitwidgets.com

[Domeshtan]

15 minutes ago, 8bitwidgets.com said:

Bonus would be that you can also play spy hunter (2600 version) as intended with one joystick rotated and the other straight on.  

I just thought of one. Didn't 2600 Stargate use both sticks? 

[8bitwidgets.com]

yep it did use dual joysticks.  almost thought I forgot that one but I have it listed in my etsy..  but now that we can insert sideways for Smash TV (NES) and others, we can also play spy hunter as originally meant too from the 2600..  

Edited December 27, 2023 by 8bitwidgets.com

[Domeshtan]

1 hour ago, big_guitar said:

I was concerned for a bit that I'd never get the right side out without damaging something,

Yeah, it was catching a bit on the one I tried. The sticks were in VERY tight at first. I was afraid of snapping something trying to take the sticks out. I left them in the coupler overnight and they seemed a bit easier to take out since then. Like maybe part of it got to stretch out a bit?

[8bitwidgets.com]

7 minutes ago, Domeshtan said:

Like maybe part of it got to stretch out a bit?

yea it's a fine line between too tight and too lose with these things..  but yes it's definitely confirmed that you can clip off those nubs that hold the controller in and it won't slip out while playing games, but will come out easier when you do want to remove it. 

 

The new version with the rotation capability is that much better as I did bring in the nub by 1mm.. which didn't make a radical difference, but once I snipped off the nub..  it was quite a bit better.. i'm going to round off the edge of it in the next iteration.  

Edited December 27, 2023 by 8bitwidgets.com

[Atari8264]

DEFENDER ARCADE JOYSTICK CONFIG FILE UPDATE

 

Here is an updated config file for arcade Defender that uses the 2 joysticks. The second joystick starts the game.

 

Action    Joystick 1

======    ==========

Thrust      A

Reverse     B

Fire        C

Smart Bomb  Start

Hyperspace  Select

Up          Up

Down        Down

Add 1 coin  Select

 

Action           Joystick 2

======           ==========

Start 1 player game  Select

Start 2 player game  Start

Add 4 coins          A 

 

 

While playing the game, pressing Hyperspace will add one credit to the game.

 

defenderGSPjoysticksFinal.cfg.gsp

[big_guitar]

CoolCV update:

According to the developer, the coolcv_mapping.txt file is not implemented in the Retroarch implementation (unfortunately).  Supposedly it works like FreeIntv's gamepad configuration, but I've found that's either wrong, or the GSP disables some functionality of pads in their retroarch, such as right analog, perhaps there is a setting in retroarch.cfg that can override this.  This will likely be a similar issue under FreeIntv.  The menu popup is only implemented in the retroarch version of CoolCV, which evidently is also there for FreeIntv.

Out of the box, here is how a 'Gamepad/Xbox' controller is behaving in CoolCV (see BLUE text for current behavior in GSP): 

 

Edited December 27, 2023 by big_guitar

[big_guitar]

OK, so FreeIntv worked, although it is wounded with the same limitations as I mentioned with CoolCV in the graphic.  I had to place bios files in my games/intellivision subdirectory, which I used to trap for using FreeIntv.

GSP controller was fine with Astrosmash.  But the stick only recognizes 8 positions on the GSP controller.

Using a controller tester, the xbox left-analog DID recognize all 16 positions.  The d-pad recognized 8 positions as expected.

 

 

For some reason, execution is attempting to create an "intellivision" subdirectory where it can't (twice or 2 locations?), but the game files still load.

 

stdout redirect below: 

mkdir(/intellivision) error: Read-only file system.
Failed to create directory: "/intellivision".
mkdir(/intellivision) error: Read-only file system.
Failed to create directory: "/intellivision".

 

Edited December 27, 2023 by big_guitar

[Elvis]

The Joysticks are decent. I like them. But for certain games what third party controller's work the best?  

[Riko]

I read somewhere on the 2600 you can get Paddle games working if you rename them say Warlords.a26 . Can you do the same with the 5200? Or will that only work with 2600 titles?

[fluxit]

7 hours ago, big_guitar said:

For some reason, execution is attempting to create an "intellivision" subdirectory where it can't (twice or 2 locations?), but the game files still load.

 

stdout redirect below: 

mkdir(/intellivision) error: Read-only file system.
Failed to create directory: "/intellivision".
mkdir(/intellivision) error: Read-only file system.
Failed to create directory: "/intellivision".

 

From what I've seen, the retroarch front-end that is included with the GsP almost always attempts to write to the read only squashfs root, and complains when it fails.  It does appear to be a custom build, based on the strings in the binary.  I can't imagine why you'd ever want to be arbitrarily creating directories in a Linux system's root.  This must be a bug.

[+Mocotechprfl]

6 hours ago, Elvis said:

The Joysticks are decent. I like them. But for certain games what third party controller's work the best?  

I have the Xbox Elite Controller 2 and absolutely love it. It’s expensive though. it works wired just fine except that the Y button is hard mapped to the GSP controller’s Save/Pause button which I don’t like.
Certain PlayStation controllers work well too from what I’ve read but I do not own one myself.

[big_guitar]

Well, on the Colecovision front, I was able to finally get bluemsx working.  I had to:

1. Use a modified cfg file pointing to a system directory I defined on the sdcard with Machines and Databases subfolders (the latter has an xml file with SHA1 values on the game roms).
2. Rename the incoming ROM file variable to a ".col" extension (unlike CoolCV, which accepted the .bin files as CV, but Bluemsx treats .bin as Sega). 

The controller mappings are much different by default.  For example, even with both configured for the A button as being value "304" (cfg file), they are recognized differently. The A button mapped to #2 keypad in bluemsx, where with CoolCV this mapped to Fire button2. 

In summary, at the moment I'd say CoolCV is more ideal for now since with the GSP's default retroarch.cfg, it has B mapped as #1 keypad (although not meant to be this by the developer), which is ideal for selecting 1 player games, although it's not needed since the bumpers can bring up a customer numeric assignment to place on the B button. 

 

I haven't figured out the "values" to get the Fire3 and Fire4 buttons recognized (can be needed for Super Action games), but it may just take more experimenting.  But I messed with config files enough to get some sort of activity happening on the analog right-stick of my xbox stellar shift controller, although I haven't quite perfected how those settings should be ideally configured. The only game I tried so far (in coolcv) with right analog kept moving the player to the right regardless.

Edited December 27, 2023 by big_guitar

[Teke184]

I’m attempting to test out a lot of existing games on the SD card under the 1.3 firmware using a PS Mini controller, which is the most reliable controller I have so far.

 

I’m finding that the mapping for TG16 / PC Engine seems to be especially obnoxious, as I keep finding that some titles seem fine (Blazing Lazers / Gunhed special edition) while others have either no controls past Run (Devil’s Crush) or have incomplete controls (Aero Blasters, R Type, Legendary Axe all have the I or II button unmapped).

 

 

Most other consoles I have tried so far appear to be fine (NES, GBC, GG, SMS, 5200, 2600, etc.), but I have not gotten to the SNES yet.

 

 

I find, for testing purposes, that shoot ‘em ups with 360 degree movement seem to be good for testing controls since I found out an otherwise good controller would go up and to the left whenever I dropped bombs in Fantasy Zone on SMS.