Gamestation Pro

[+sramirez2008]

1 hour ago, GaryH917 said:

Dropped many quarters in the Pole Position Cockpit Cabinet back in the day! It was the highest grossing Arcade Game in 83/84. Also translated extremely well to the 5200 and the CX-52 joystick. Great work with everyone working on making the GSP even better!

 

 

We have a Pole Position Cockpit cabinet at one of our local "Game Preserve" arcades. Whenever I'm there, I never miss an oppotunity to play it. Totally agree that the CX52 works well with Pole Position. IMO the CX52 works well with Defender, Pole Position and Qix.

Game-on everyone!

[Atari8264]

15 hours ago, Marky316 said:

OMG TY TY TY for this . this drove me nuts... lol Now I can enjoy this classic...it's funny out of all the games Pole 1 and 2 was a never working right, even the 5200 Pole is not right always stuck in Low gear. At least I had Pole 2600 and Pole 2 7800 working but nothing beat the Arcade... Again Thank You now I got to stop crashing on that 1st turn again... all the quarters I spent on this game back in the day!!! 

When you load Pole Position 1 from the SD card, let it run the short demo and load the high scores before playing.  Otherwise, if you beat the high score on your first game, it is lost.

[Marky316]

59 minutes ago, Atari8264 said:

When you load Pole Position 1 from the SD card, let it run the short demo and load the high scores before playing.  Otherwise, if you beat the high score on your first game, it is lost.

I will and TY so much, do have a dumb question is there a GSP control fix for the arcade Tron games to use the paddle??

[Atari8264]

20 minutes ago, Marky316 said:

I will and TY so much, do have a dumb question is there a GSP control fix for the arcade Tron games to use the paddle??

Tron arcade cannot use the paddle.  But, I will upload a file later I made for Tron where C fires and A & B aim.  

[Atari8264]

TRON Arcade Gamestation Pro GSP controller file

 

Here is a config file for Tron.  The C button fires.  The A & B buttons rotate the aim.  Rename the file to tron.cfg and place the file in the cfg directory where your tron.zip file is located. 

 

 

tron.cfg_GSP

[WaverBoy]

1 hour ago, Atari8264 said:

TRON Arcade Gamestation Pro GSP controller file

 

Here is a config file for Tron.  The C button fires.  The A & B buttons rotate the aim.  Rename the file to tron.cfg and place the file in the cfg directory where your tron.zip file is located. 

 

 

tron.cfg_GSP 1.07 kB · 1 download

Why won’t the paddle dial work? So bloody maddening. The powers-that-be just can’t get it right.

Edited March 19 by WaverBoy

[Marky316]

1 hour ago, Atari8264 said:

TRON Arcade Gamestation Pro GSP controller file

 

Here is a config file for Tron.  The C button fires.  The A & B buttons rotate the aim.  Rename the file to tron.cfg and place the file in the cfg directory where your tron.zip file is located. 

 

 

tron.cfg_GSP 1.07 kB · 1 download

TY very much again

[clyde]

15 hours ago, Atari8264 said:

TRON Arcade Gamestation Pro GSP controller file

 

THANK YOU.. Tron is probably my most sought-after game. Having a spinner would be killer, but this is a great alternative.

   

I was able to beat all stages (except the MCP cone) using the GSP stick. Should be interesting using A & B to rotate!

[Airwolfman]

On 11/15/2023 at 1:32 PM, Domeshtan said:

I was using "discontinued MAME artwork" from Mr. Do!'s Arcade website. For MAME0.61 to MAME0.106.

Downloaded and copied into artwork. However, is there any reason you can think of why, when I use these same older zipped .art artwork files from Mr. Do's website on my stock GSP, they look incredibly alaised/pixelated? They appear to be the correct aspect ratio and the games do play within the bezel, but the artwork looks like a tiny GIF that has been been enlarged.

Nothing I've tried seems to fix it. For example, I've been experimenting by lowering the resolution of both the artwork and masc to 720p at both 4:3 and 16:9 which still looks pretty good on the computer. Still pixelated in GSP. Can't make sense of it.

[Vic20Ian]

14 hours ago, Airwolfman said:

Downloaded and copied into artwork. However, is there any reason you can think of why, when I use these same older zipped .art artwork files from Mr. Do's website on my stock GSP, they look incredibly alaised/pixelated? They appear to be the correct aspect ratio and the games do play within the bezel, but the artwork looks like a tiny GIF that has been been enlarged.

Nothing I've tried seems to fix it. For example, I've been experimenting by lowering the resolution of both the artwork and masc to 720p at both 4:3 and 16:9 which still looks pretty good on the computer. Still pixelated in GSP. Can't make sense of it.

Try resetting the game to vertical, it was mention in this thread I think

[GB_Baker]

Interesting note.  If you plug in the GSP controller to a Raspberry Pi 5 with RetroArch 1.18, the controller works including the spinner using udev driver.  Spinner registers as axis +/-5.

[Headin West]

On 3/10/2024 at 4:57 PM, Atari8264 said:

POLE POSITION I and II Arcade Gamestation Pro controller configuration files

 

The buttons on the GSP controller do not accelerate the car in the Pole Position arcade games.  I created a cfg file for each game.  Copy the files to the cfg directory where the arcade game roms are located on the SD card.

 

A button = Accelerate 

B button = Gear Shift

C button = Brake

 

poleposa.cfg 1.55 kB · 19 downloads poleps2a.cfg 1.51 kB · 19 downloads

Thank You!!  I was quite bummed to not see a way to play these

[big_guitar]

20 hours ago, GB_Baker said:

Interesting note.  If you plug in the GSP controller to a Raspberry Pi 5 with RetroArch 1.18, the controller works including the spinner using udev driver.  Spinner registers as axis +/-5.

Interesting, are referring to the "paddle" on the GSP controller then?  Have you tried a 1.18 build on the GSP yet? 

Edited April 3 by big_guitar

[big_guitar]

As this is under the general "GSP" thread, I thought I'd mention that I established a windows interface for firmware 1.30c that makes it a bit easier to use other library cores... or even other flavors of retroarch for linux-arm.

 

Further details here.

[big_guitar]

6 hours ago, big_guitar said:

Interesting, are referring to the "paddle" on the GSP controller then?  Have you tried a 1.18 build on the GSP yet? 

@GB_Baker continuing on this paddle related matter,

outside of "stella" related emulators, have you been able to get the GSP paddles to work on any other cores on the GSP? (either the original or your own RA builds?)

I believe some cores simply will not allow for proper handling of paddles, as some cores are pre-configured to recognize a limited amount of event types, or just are not sufficient to provide for a means to handle axis settings.

What kind of core  were you testing with your RPi5 where the paddles worked as +5/-5?  

[GB_Baker]

20 hours ago, big_guitar said:

@GB_Baker continuing on this paddle related matter,

outside of "stella" related emulators, have you been able to get the GSP paddles to work on any other cores on the GSP? (either the original or your own RA builds?)

I believe some cores simply will not allow for proper handling of paddles, as some cores are pre-configured to recognize a limited amount of event types, or just are not sufficient to provide for a means to handle axis settings.

What kind of core  were you testing with your RPi5 where the paddles worked as +5/-5?  

I have been able to activate the paddles on the GSP when initiating the runme.sh to launch my Retroarch 1.17 build from a GSP paddle menu game, but it was very inconsistent. 

 

I will try to build 1.18 for GSP soon. 

 

On RPi5 Stella cores work great with the GSP paddle controller.  Mame2003 and Mame2003-plus work but are tricky to calibrate the sensitivity for games like Tron and Arkanoid. 

[big_guitar]

1 hour ago, GB_Baker said:

I have been able to activate the paddles on the GSP when initiating the runme.sh to launch my Retroarch 1.17 build from a GSP paddle menu game, but it was very inconsistent. 

So you may have been using a newer stella core for RA if that was working through retroarch and not stand-alone stella?  I have seen that older stella cores for RA did not handle paddles properly.  

1 hour ago, GB_Baker said:

On RPi5 Stella cores work great with the GSP paddle controller.  Mame2003 and Mame2003-plus work but are tricky to calibrate the sensitivity for games like Tron and Arkanoid.

The fact that ANYTHING other than 'stella-related' apps could handle paddles such as with the GSP controllers, is definitely good news! 

1 hour ago, GB_Baker said:

I will try to build 1.18 for GSP soon. 

Great, it will be interesting to see if the behavior is any different with udev/udev vs sdl2/udev on the controller1/2 duplication thing with your 1.18 build.

The 1.17 build you made that was dated Feb 25 with sdl2/udev settings is good outside of the fact that I haven't gotten a keyboard to work with mine yet.

 

[GB_Baker]

9 hours ago, big_guitar said:

So you may have been using a newer stella core for RA if that was working through retroarch and not stand-alone stella?  I have seen that older stella cores for RA did not handle paddles properly.  

The fact that ANYTHING other than 'stella-related' apps could handle paddles such as with the GSP controllers, is definitely good news! 

Great, it will be interesting to see if the behavior is any different with udev/udev vs sdl2/udev on the controller1/2 duplication thing with your 1.18 build.

The 1.17 build you made that was dated Feb 25 with sdl2/udev settings is good outside of the fact that I haven't gotten a keyboard to work with mine yet.

 

Retroarch 1.18 build for GSP attached.  Seems to be no conflict with multiple controllers using udev for the joystick driver as long as input driver is set to SDL2.  With input set to udev the keyboard works where it still does not if input is set to SDL2.   One neat new thing in 1.18 is that remote retropad was updated.  You can now visualize the analogue stick directions for an xbox style controller.  1.18 also seems to be a bit better about clearing memory.

 

Reminder.  In order to use this you need to run it from your sdcard using either @fluxit's or @Brad_from_the_80s's modified firmware.  I personally use @fluxit's patched firmware to execute the /sdcard/agsp/runme.sh script that for me looks as follows:

 

/sdcard/retroarch/retroarch --menu -c /sdcard/retroarch/retroarch-sd.cfg

 

You need to get your own assets from https://buildbot.libretro.com/.

retroarch1.18.7z

Edited April 5 by GB_Baker

[big_guitar]

49 minutes ago, GB_Baker said:

With input set to udev the keyboard works where it still does not if input is set to SDL2.

I thought you said your keyboard works in both scenarios before?

50 minutes ago, GB_Baker said:

as long as input driver is set to SDL2.

So 1.18 on it's own (vs 1.17) doesn't fix the controller duplication issue when configured as udev for both driver parms...

[GB_Baker]

13 minutes ago, big_guitar said:

I thought you said your keyboard works in both scenarios before?

So 1.18 on it's own (vs 1.17) doesn't fix the controller duplication issue when configured as udev for both driver parms...

I realized I was mistaken.  When both drivers are set to udev, keyboard works but the GSP controller will send keyboard directions as opposed to hat directions.  So if you have an xbox controller in port 1 and GSP controller in port 2, the GSP controller in port 2 will send directions as both player 1 and player 2.  Only the directions get confused this way.  Setting input to SDL2 kills the keyboard, but allows two GSP controllers to not conflict.  If you are only ever doing 1 player, then setting input to udev to enable the keyboard isn't an issue.

[big_guitar]

5 hours ago, GB_Baker said:

I realized I was mistaken.  When both drivers are set to udev, keyboard works but the GSP controller will send keyboard directions as opposed to hat directions.  So if you have an xbox controller in port 1 and GSP controller in port 2, the GSP controller in port 2 will send directions as both player 1 and player 2.  Only the directions get confused this way.  Setting input to SDL2 kills the keyboard, but allows two GSP controllers to not conflict.  If you are only ever doing 1 player, then setting input to udev to enable the keyboard isn't an issue.

OK sounds good thank you for the follow up. 

 

I have noticed additionally sometimes having my keyboard plugged in would cause the controllers to behave differently, so I had to unplug it for things to go back to normal. I don't remember exactly, but that might have been when I was using 2 GSP controllers in tandem, as if their device input numbers changed or something. Either way, I wasn't planning to use a keyboard permanently, but only as needed to assist with configs. I don't recall having the kbd-controller conflict when using the Xbox controller. I did notice issues at times using hat specific references, so I took all those out of my configs.

Edited April 5 by big_guitar

[big_guitar]

In trying to establish a way to make paddles work, there's definitely something unseen going on, for both stand-alone stella or jungle2003.

 

It's NOT simply the executed command line. 

It's NOT an environment variable.

It's NOT the retroarch.cfg files used for RA+Mame (e.g., super breakout). 

So what else is going on?  Something equivalent to a windows registry value being set, or a temp file perhaps?

 

Taking a working game rom example that by default works with paddles in GSP, and hard defining the same cmdline in a script will only work if the initially selected item also meets the criteria (e.g., under Atari 2600 Paddle, and is a legit matching paddle game).

 

The detail of what's being done in the matching circumstances are unclear, but it's not enough to put just any file in a qualifying folder to cause the script to fire, and then hardcode the script for execution. That doesn't work, even if the script is trying to run the same exe cmdline that matches working examples.  The initial selected item to trigger the script events MUST themselves qualify.

 

Edited April 6 by big_guitar

[Atari8264]

3 hours ago, big_guitar said:

In trying to establish a way to make paddles work, there's definitely something unseen going on, for both stand-alone stella or jungle2003.

 

It's NOT simply the executed command line. 

It's NOT an environment variable.

It's NOT the retroarch.cfg files used for RA+Mame (e.g., super breakout). 

So what else is going on?  Something equivalent to a windows registry value being set, or a temp file perhaps?

 

Taking a working game rom example that by default works with paddles in GSP, and hard defining the same cmdline in a script will only work if the initially selected item also meets the criteria (e.g., under Atari 2600 Paddle, and is a legit matching paddle game).

 

The detail of what's being done in the matching circumstances are unclear, but it's not enough to put just any file in a qualifying folder to cause the script to fire, and then hardcode the script for execution. That doesn't work, even if the script is trying to run the same exe cmdline that matches working examples.  The initial selected item to trigger the script events MUST themselves qualify.

 

I was wondering why the Super Breakout sbrkout.zip rom file can be anywhere on the SD card, loaded from the standard blue menu, and it uses the paddle.   

[GB_Baker]

On 4/6/2024 at 11:27 AM, big_guitar said:

In trying to establish a way to make paddles work, there's definitely something unseen going on, for both stand-alone stella or jungle2003.

 

It's NOT simply the executed command line. 

It's NOT an environment variable.

It's NOT the retroarch.cfg files used for RA+Mame (e.g., super breakout). 

So what else is going on?  Something equivalent to a windows registry value being set, or a temp file perhaps?

 

Taking a working game rom example that by default works with paddles in GSP, and hard defining the same cmdline in a script will only work if the initially selected item also meets the criteria (e.g., under Atari 2600 Paddle, and is a legit matching paddle game).

 

The detail of what's being done in the matching circumstances are unclear, but it's not enough to put just any file in a qualifying folder to cause the script to fire, and then hardcode the script for execution. That doesn't work, even if the script is trying to run the same exe cmdline that matches working examples.  The initial selected item to trigger the script events MUST themselves qualify.

 

I think there is some kind of udev/evdev rule that gets triggered by the GSP game binary or particular games.  I have used jstest-sdl to see when the paddle (axis +0) is active.  If you are using the patched firmware to launch into RetroArch from any game in the GSP paddle game menu, the paddle will be active and available to any retroarch core.  There is something funny going on because my RPi 5 sees the GSP paddle as Axis +/-5.  

[Airwolfman]

On 12/25/2023 at 12:37 AM, big_guitar said:

Thanks for that! So did you find it necessary to make a full copy of the retroarch subdirectory based on where the so file was called from?

If this worked, then the shared object file must have the boot image embedded I suppose, or else Handy handles it by other means. But it seems bluemsx does require the 2 system subfolders based on libretro documentation.

So your example would fire regardless of what file you selected from the sdcard.  I suppose I could make dummy files that are selectable, and then use the prefix after trapping with an if statement and call the same name with a different extension recognized by the shared object core module (in cases where a matching extension is required by the core).  I might try invoking Handy without copying the folder to test behavior differences. Thanks again!

 

On 12/26/2023 at 8:01 AM, 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...

  

On 1/16/2024 at 5:53 PM, big_guitar said:

I was able to get FreeIntv (Intellivision) working on the GSP as well as CoolCV and blueMSX (both ColecoVision) using the @fluxit firmware patch.  I believe @fluxit also tested a Lynx core himself, but I don't know to what extent. 

 

For FreeIntv & CoolCV there are some mapping limitations that might hamper the ability to play some games like Tron (IV) where you need to select a number very quickly, but otherwise there are means to bring up a menu to select the # to assign to a button. You can use a right-analog stick (xbox controller in my case) to select most numbers as well, except not [#0,#5,Clear,Enter] but you could assign one of those 4 to another specific button, which may be good enough in some cases.    Neither of these CV cores support the Blue or Purple buttons (extra super action controller buttons).  I haven't found a working library for LINUX-ARM that implements those additional CV features.

 

Here are some general references in this thread, but since page 33 or so in this thread, there are additional related comments mixed within:

 

FreeIntv: https://forums.atariage.com/topic/354966-gamestation-pro/?do=findComment&comment=5374631
CoolCV: https://forums.atariage.com/topic/354966-gamestation-pro/?do=findComment&comment=5374075
bluemsx: https://forums.atariage.com/topic/354966-gamestation-pro/?do=findComment&comment=5374961

 

So I've been wanting to add CV to my GSP with 1.30c as well, and I've been trying to make sense of all the instruction scattered around the topic's 52 pages, partially as shown above, from a layman's point of view. I've been running ColEm, Bee and BlueMSX on my PC for a while, all of which play CV roms, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to pull it all together on GSP.  For example, I can't figure out how to follow the details such as these from @big_guitar

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).

Would someone be willing to list step-by-step how to write, install and configure the files from A to Z, or even ZIP up the file structure into a downloadable?

 

What I'm figuring so far:

BlueMSX goes in data/Games/Atari_Games/ColecoVision

ROMs go in data/Games/Atari_Games/ColecoVision/roms

I would love display both the box art and screenshot in Atari-like fashion or do you select your game through the BlueMSX emulator's interface? Any simplified set of steps to follow would really help this old gamer.

 

@jonreddick wouldn't this make a great GenXGrownUp YouTube tutorial?