Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration - (12 extra games)

[scifidude79]

10 hours ago, MrTrust said:

That's interesting.  I've been using the PC-mode-on-a-stick thing, whatever the Linux drive they sell is called.  The downloading of the update didn't take nearly so long as installing it did, and moving those 7.5 good to that drive and back again are where the bulk of the time came in.

 

I assume an external SSD would be faster, but that's a fraction of the time it took me.  Weird thing is, the games run from the drive without any perceptible increase in load times.  Transferring files between it and the internal drive doesn't hang up under Debian, but I'm wondering if there isn't a problem with my unit or my thumb drive.

I'd say the write speed of the USB stick is your bottleneck. Using USB automatically creates a bit of a bottleneck VS internal storage, but we're both using USB and the ports on the VCS are all USB3, which helps, so that can't be it.

 

The write speed on my Samsung SSD is up to 1,000 MB/s. Not knowing the specs of the drive that Atari is using, I looked up some USB 3.0 flash drives from top brands, (SanDisk, PNY) and it looks like they write at 40 to 60 MB/s. Assuming the drive Atari used is that speed or less, that's definitely where you're experiencing a slowdown.

[scifidude79]

6 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

And I don't have "a problem" with the VCS. I have a problem with people that keep on complaining about modern gaming and "the big 3", and on convincing themselves that the VCS is better for some reason, then complain because it was clearly not designed as well as systems that benefit from the support or a far bigger, more competent company. If you enjoy the VCS for what it is, good for you, but accept there will always be a few caveats for that kind of niche system.

I follow some gaming channels on YT and the biggest complaints I see about the newer Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo consoles are the fact that physical media is being phased out, overall prices of games, especially modern re-releases of older game collections at higher prices than people want to pay, and the fact that you frequently need to download large updates just to play a game. However, I've never seen anyone say that the VCS is better than those consoles, either in a video or in the comments section. Most people know that the VCS is a niche console for Atari enthusiasts and people who like having a console that's also a small form factor PC for playing PC games and media on a TV. Also, most of the people who complain about the state of modern gaming either continue to do it anyway, or they go all retro. (at least they claim that's what they do) Of those big complaints, the VCS is definitely guilty on the phasing out of physical media front, as it's an entirely digital console. Game costs isn't high, but the selection is much more limited when compared to the digital stores of the other consoles. And, for the most part, large updates aren't a big thing, unless you have issues with this update like @MrTrust did.

Edited December 8, 2023 by scifidude79

[RollOut]

A bit off topic (but still directly on topic for the tread), I am really glad they added Warbirds back to Atari 50 (yes, I know it wasn't on the original VCS release, and that an update removed it from the other ports).  That is such an impressive technical feat for the Lynx. The game could use more depth (especially single player), but I'm still amazed that this game was made for a handheld console from the early 90s. I'm sure this is old hat for the Lynx fans among you, but I've never played one myself, so I am very impressed.

[Atari_JaguarVCS]

43 minutes ago, RollOut said:

A bit off topic (but still directly on topic for the tread), I am really glad they added Warbirds back to Atari 50 (yes, I know it wasn't on the original VCS release, and that an update removed it from the other ports).  That is such an impressive technical feat for the Lynx. The game could use more depth (especially single player), but I'm still amazed that this game was made for a handheld console from the early 90s. I'm sure this is old hat for the Lynx fans among you, but I've never played one myself, so I am very impressed.

The Atari Lynx is a beast of a handheld! I have a few of them in my collection and still play them regularly. Its impressive having Warbirds in Atari 50 and being able to enjoy the game that way but when you see and play the game on real hardware that's when you can appreciate it even more. Quite a few Lynx games are mind blowing the console was seriously ahead of its time and could pull of all sorts of weird voodoo when it came to running games that shouldn't have been possible on the system 😀

[MrTrust]

1 hour ago, scifidude79 said:

The write speed on my Samsung SSD is up to 1,000 MB/s. Not knowing the specs of the drive that Atari is using, I looked up some USB 3.0 flash drives from top brands, (SanDisk, PNY) and it looks like they write at 40 to 60 MB/s. Assuming the drive Atari used is that speed or less, that's definitely where you're experiencing a slowdown.

 

I dare say you're right.  200 read, 60 write are the specs for this.  I have an extra SSD I could probably format and try that out and see if it improves the performance.  Won't be as convenient, but if it improves the speed of moving things around, I guess it will be worth it.

 

1 hour ago, scifidude79 said:

Most people know that the VCS is a niche console for Atari enthusiasts and people who like having a console that's also a small form factor PC for playing PC games and media on a TV. Also, most of the people who complain about the state of modern gaming either continue to do it anyway, or they go all retro. (at least they claim that's what they do) Of those big complaints, the VCS is definitely guilty on the phasing out of physical media front, as it's an entirely digital console. Game costs isn't high, but the selection is much more limited when compared to the digital stores of the other consoles. And, for the most part, large updates aren't a big thing, unless you have issues with this update like @MrTrust did.

 

Most of my gripes with the VCS are things that make it more like current consoles, i.e. delistings, broken software, magic bean carny nickle-and-dime tactics.  Okay, egg on my face for not knowing the slow write speed of the drive I was using, but be that as it may, you still shouldn't have to re-download the entire package and I should be able to write directly to it regardless which, apparently, is something I'd also be complaining about if I were a PS4/5 owner.

 

Part of the reason I don't own those machines, aside from just not being that interested in modern games, is that by the time of PS3, I was already getting sick of the headaches of dealing with new consoles, storage, DRM, peripheral compatibility, etc.  It was already getting to be as much of a pain as dealing with a PC, with continually diminishing benefits.

 

Unless you want to just stick to old physical media machines, which is getting increasingly impractical, there's very little way around these issues, unfortunately.

 

58 minutes ago, RollOut said:

A bit off topic (but still directly on topic for the tread), I am really glad they added Warbirds back to Atari 50 (yes, I know it wasn't on the original VCS release, and that an update removed it from the other ports).  That is such an impressive technical feat for the Lynx. The game could use more depth (especially single player), but I'm still amazed that this game was made for a handheld console from the early 90s. I'm sure this is old hat for the Lynx fans among you, but I've never played one myself, so I am very impressed.

 

Yes, and since it's back, it would be nice to know why it had to be removed in the first place.  Having it there makes the Lynx section feel less like an afterthought.  It's also weird how games like Dirty Larry and Desert Falcon even though Atari appears to have the rights as they're on Antstream.  If they really want to make it complete, they've got to get some of those old Atari Games titles back from WB.  That's where the best of the Lynx games are, and that's definitely the best Atari stuff through the late 80s/early 90s.

[RollOut]

I agree with your sentiments about the Lynx titles @MrTrust. I'm excited for what we have, and am hoping more titles find their way over to the VCS. I don't personally own a Lynx, 5200, or 7800 (or any of the computer lines), so those title are the ones I'm most excited to play when they get released on the VCS (either individual game downloads or in compilations). I don't know much about who holds the rights to which games, but I would love to see more of the Lynx on the VCS, myself.

[scifidude79]

1 hour ago, RollOut said:

A bit off topic (but still directly on topic for the tread), I am really glad they added Warbirds back to Atari 50 (yes, I know it wasn't on the original VCS release, and that an update removed it from the other ports).  That is such an impressive technical feat for the Lynx. The game could use more depth (especially single player), but I'm still amazed that this game was made for a handheld console from the early 90s. I'm sure this is old hat for the Lynx fans among you, but I've never played one myself, so I am very impressed.

Heck yeah! Hours of fun can be had with Warbirds. I love flying games.

[zzip]

11 hours ago, MrTrust said:

On the other hand, why do people have such a problem with this thing?  It was late beyond what is CoVid-excusable, and it was very overpriced at launch.  They did some questionable things like advertise Tempest 4000 without having a real agreement.  These are fairly minor scandals in the history of video games.  I just purchased one of these for less than the price of an SNES Mini.  People act like this is the rip-off of the decade; it's nothing even close.

In the beginning, there were some people convinced it was a scam because the guy behind the Coleco Chameleon was behind this.  Even when Atari proved them wrong, most of them looked for other reasons to hate it.

 

I've seen accusations that the amico people were spreading FUD about the VCS that contributed to the hate.   Don't know if it's true, but since this kind of astroturfed crap goes on all the time online, nothing would surprise me!

 

Some people are angry at actions taken by previous Atari management and hold a grudge for that reason.

 

And then there's the ridiculous "not the real Atari" debate.   Funny, I haven't heard many people use that argument against the 2600+ though.

 

 

As for price...  Covid's chip shortage drove the price up of many mini-PCs, so the VCS wasn't quite so expensive anymore.    Plus I bought mine with covid stimulus funds, so it was basically free to me .    I don't think the prices are terribly ridiculous since people will pay a little extra for Atari branded stuff (look how quickly the $35 Atari flashdrives sell out).   Atari branded stuff also holds its value better.   You can't give old generic PC hardware away, but people will pay a lot for an old STe, Falcon or Jaguar that nobody wanted back in the day....)

 

 

[zzip]

20 hours ago, MrTrust said:

Fine, then whatever amount of space you need is what it should say you need on the download page when you go to download it.  How am I supposed to know how much more than the uncompressed game files I'm going to need space for?

That would be useful,  but companies seem to resist giving too much technical information these days.   Doesn't help that the average user doesn't understand the different between storage space and RAM.

 

21 hours ago, MrTrust said:

Those are issues, and it's an issue that you can't run the game without updating it, and it's an issue that you can't install things directly to external media, which I am fine with having to have.  I don't care that you can't do it on PS5; you should be able to do it on this console.  You can do it on Switch.  You can do it on PC.  Someone needs to explain to me the reason that this cannot be otherwise, or I stand by this.

I guess what would be needed is the updater given the ability to figure out if there are multiple volumes attached, which volume(s) should be used for downloading and uncompressing data.    And ideally the user would flag which partitions can be used..   I wouldn't want Atari OS writing crap to my Linux partitions.   And should usb sticks be used?  What if its USB 2.0?  That would be slow.   It's doable, but I haven't seen a system handle multiple volumes particularly well.    PC is a little different in that you can tell Steam where it's primary disk is, rather than it telling you like most consoles do.   But even Steam doesn't deal with multiple storage volumes well in my experience.

 

The worst I've seen is Android- at least older versions.   Even if move apps to an SD card, some of it remains resident on the primary storage, and if the app updates, it reinstalls everything to primary and you had to move the app again.

 

Anyway if Atari was to prioritize fixing bugs, I'd say fix the delta issue before worrying about the decompression, that alone would probably make this issue go away in most cases.

 

7 hours ago, MrTrust said:

11 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

I have a problem with people that keep on complaining about modern gaming and "the big 3", and on convincing themselves that the VCS is better for some reason

 

Like who?

This guy:

 

There may be the occasional user who naively thinks the VCS is some kind of challenge to the big 3, but I don't think most VCS fans expect that.

[roots.genoa]

9 hours ago, MrTrust said:

you wouldn't be in here every time

Oh, not every time, believe me. 😑

 

9 hours ago, MrTrust said:

Like who?

Take a wild guess. 🙂

[MrTrust]

4 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

Oh, not every time, believe me. 😑

 

Take a wild guess. 🙂

[82-T/A]

21 hours ago, MrTrust said:

On the other hand, why do people have such a problem with this [Atari VCS] thing?  It was late beyond what is CoVid-excusable, and it was very overpriced at launch.  They did some questionable things like advertise Tempest 4000 without having a real agreement.  These are fairly minor scandals in the history of video games.  I just purchased one of these for less than the price of an SNES Mini.  People act like this is the rip-off of the decade; it's nothing even close.

 

I bought a second unit, so I will probably start tinkering with my first one more, but I really didn't want to mess with it too much.

 

Totally agree... Atari was getting SO MUCH FLACK for the VCS here on Atari Age. It seemed like people were shitting all over it day in and day out. I was an early adopter, and was so excited for it to eventually come out. Like you, I bought a second one also. I'm thrilled with it. It's one of my favorite systems. This, and the GameStation Pro are kind of the only two gaming systems I actually play...

 

[MrTrust]

The Chad VCS Owner

 

 

- Benevolent patriarch.  Domestic bliss.

- Manages the 2nd largest photo development chain in all of northern Iowa.

- Hair perfectly coiffed.  Well groomed.  Stylish turtleneck/blazer combo.

- Modest bourgeois lifestyle.  Lives within means.

- "Wow!  Looks just like the machine at the pizza parlor!" (game, in fact, looks nothing like arcade version)

- Has TFM.  Does not R.

- Can clear 3 boards on one man

- Only plays Golf and Bowling

 

Vs. The Virgin Modern Gamer

 

 

- Proud cat dad.  "Open" relationship.

- Girlfriend makes more money.  Relies on her to buy him his toys

- Unstylish crewneck sweatshirt.  Bald, and yet hair not perfectly coiffed.

- $10k in credit card debt to finance trip to Mario theme park

- "Oooooh, minimal stairstepping on FOW objects with a hint of ambient occlusion, buttery notes of HDR lighting complete the delicious tableau."

- Lol, actually watches all the cutscenes.  Does not "play games," only "has experiences."

- Currently Twitch streaming his glitch-free, all-Vegan speedrun of Zelda.  Literally uses the word "yum."

 

[+jeremiahjt]

On 12/8/2023 at 10:23 AM, MrTrust said:

Yes, and since it's back, it would be nice to know why it had to be removed in the first place.

It was there for the Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch consoles on their discs/whatever the Switch uses from the beginning. Atari had to do the day one update to take it off. Warbirds, along with Math Gran Prix, was sold to Tommo in 2013. Atari got the rights back in April this year with the Accolade deal. Presumably Atari thought the deal would go through before the release.

[barr985_77693]

I feel goofy. How do I get the update? I can't seem to find out how.

[roots.genoa]

10 hours ago, barr985_77693 said:

I feel goofy. How do I get the update? I can't seem to find out how.

On what platform? It should be downloaded automatically.