John Stamos Mullet Posted February 20 Share Posted February 20 (edited) I have to say at least for the NTSC side of things, with the speed boost in the latest experimental firmware, this thing finally feels like a worthy competition for a real 2600/7800 video modded through a good HDMI scaler like the Retrotink. Now to just work out those pesky dumper issues for known incompatible games and it's near perfect. Edited February 20 by John Stamos Mullet 14 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrChickenz Posted February 20 Share Posted February 20 59 minutes ago, John Stamos Mullet said: I have to say at least for the NTSC side of things, with the speed boost in the latest experimental firmware, this thing finally feels like a worthy competition for a real 2600/7800 video modded through a good HDMI scaler like the Retrotink. Now to just work out those pesky dumper issues for known incompatible games and it's near perfect. I agree 100% ! I can’t wait till next year maybe Atari will put out the Darth Vader 2600+! I would be first in line! Lol! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billiesan Posted February 20 Share Posted February 20 Firefox is throwing a virus warning when I try to download this firmware. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Varanis Ridari Posted February 20 Share Posted February 20 43 minutes ago, Billiesan said: Firefox is throwing a virus warning when I try to download this firmware. Because it's unsigned software. I got that too, but Atari didn't ransomware me or drain my (paltry) bank account when I installed, so it's safe. They get enough of my money in official merch, so they don't exactly have to twist my arm for more money. 🤣 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KainXavier Posted February 20 Share Posted February 20 (edited) 21 hours ago, DEANJIMMY said: Downgrade of the dumper is possible, I did it without touching the SW to marrow down issues. Thank you for letting me know! I was able to narrow down what caused Juno First to stop working for me. Unfortunately, it was some change introduced in the dumper firmware. The game will run just fine on Rev 2 with dumper v1.1.0.4. I'll post about it on the main firmware thread. Edit: @MrChickenz Isn't that GameFuel branded variant essentially a Vader? Edit #2: Wait no, I stand corrected. The wood grain panel was obscured by the products included in the box. Edited February 20 by KainXavier 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shane857 Posted February 20 Share Posted February 20 9 hours ago, pseudografx said: Not only are the colours wrong, but the game seems to be stretched to fullscreen on a widescreen TV. Therefore graphics looks blockier than it should. Yeh, personally I leave the 2600+ in 4:3 ratio and set my TV to all directional zoom. I just prefer games with less borders. The colours don't seem to be fixed yet for this specific game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted February 20 Share Posted February 20 1 hour ago, shane857 said: Yeh, personally I leave the 2600+ in 4:3 ratio and set my TV to all directional zoom. I just prefer games with less borders. The colours don't seem to be fixed yet for this specific game. The issue, as stated, is the dumper not reading certain 7800 Crossbow carts fully. You liked the post where this was explained. Colours will appear fine, and the game will sound fine, after the dumper is able to read all the data from the cart. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shane857 Posted February 20 Share Posted February 20 12 minutes ago, Trebor said: The issue, as stated, is the dumper not reading certain 7800 Crossbow carts fully. You liked the post where this was explained. Colours will appear fine, and the game will sound fine, after the dumper is able to read all the data from the cart. Ok. No problem. Guess I'll just have to live with it until the dumper is improved... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Atari_Warlord Posted February 20 Share Posted February 20 Some more debug info for the Coleco Turbo prototype and Megaboy cartridge. Sorry if it is difficult to read, I'm using my 5 inch screen at the moment. Turbo has the red bars and Megaboy the orange stripes. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larsvonhier Posted February 20 Share Posted February 20 (edited) On 2/19/2024 at 3:23 AM, RevEng said: The console is having difficulty reading the cart, and you got lucky on one dump. Cleaning the cart may or may not help 2600 games actually vary in framerate, depending on how many scanlines they use for the display. If you run H.E.R.O in stella and hit Alt-L you'll see the game is 263 scanlines, which causes the game to run at 59.8 Hz. If you do the same with California Games, it's 262 lines and 60Hz. The occasional blip you're seeing with games that aren't 60Hz is due to HDMI not having a corresponding 59.8 Hz mode, so a frame needs to be dropped somewhere to match. (in this case, 0.3 % of frames) Leading up to the drop the FPS will be a little above the target FPS value, and after the drop it will be a little below the target FPS value. Here´s another take on NTSC frame rates. Originally starting with 60 interlaced frames per second (30Hz full frame) in b/w times, the standard later changed to 59.94 interlaced frames per second to avoid color and other interferences... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC And yes, for the VCS (and emulation) there is no "true" fixed rate, it all depends on number of generated scanlines ("kernel" programming). Edited February 20 by larsvonhier 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lroby74 Posted February 20 Share Posted February 20 22 hours ago, John Stamos Mullet said: Because i hate HDMI screens for old games born on CRTs, and Svideo quality will always be better than original RF or modded composite. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Stamos Mullet Posted February 20 Share Posted February 20 (edited) 1 hour ago, lroby74 said: Because i hate HDMI screens for old games born on CRTs, and Svideo quality will always be better than original RF or modded composite. But the 2600+ is a console that ONLY puts out HDMI. Down converting it to S-video doesn't magically make it now display at native resolution. You're now forcing a game written for RF output to be digitally emulated, converted UP to HD, and then taking that HD signal and downconverting it. The only thing you're going to end up with is screen lag that makes it unplayable. T You should get a real Atari 7800 and plug it into your CRT directly if that's what you're after. Edited February 20 by John Stamos Mullet 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariYMás009 Posted February 20 Share Posted February 20 13 minutes ago, John Stamos Mullet said: The only thing you're going to end up with is screen lag that makes it unplayable. I have to say that I'm also using my 2600+ on a crt, but via a hdmi to composite adapter, and that didn't give me any lag and the games are fully playable and as smooth as on an HD TV Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Varanis Ridari Posted February 21 Share Posted February 21 On 2/19/2024 at 2:14 PM, John Stamos Mullet said: Some people just do things on hard mode. 🤷♂️ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Stamos Mullet Posted February 21 Share Posted February 21 I can confirm my Time Pilot (Coleco white cart) is working on this experimental firmware. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrChickenz Posted February 21 Share Posted February 21 Any one have Robot City to try on experimental firmware? Player 2 has no response in the latest beta firmware. I have not downloaded the experimental firmware yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 On 2/19/2024 at 12:34 AM, raz0red said: Great to hear! @RevEng added SC-RAM detection for games delivered via the dumper (which fixed Aardvark, and hopefully others). It will be part of the next experimental update. Chris. Yeah, I sent Ben several games, including Aardvark, hoping they could work out a solution for this issue. The other games are: Cave-In Defender Arcade Dragon's Descent Millipede Trak-Ball Seaweed Assault The Byte Before Christmas Venture Reloaded ..Al 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thran Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 I'm not sure if the debug version is supposed to give codes for 7800 games, I tried it with my copy of Possible Mission and all I get is an FPS counter. It still gets stuck on a black screen after the title screen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEANJIMMY Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 3 hours ago, Thran said: I'm not sure if the debug version is supposed to give codes for 7800 games, I tried it with my copy of Possible Mission and all I get is an FPS counter. It still gets stuck on a black screen after the title screen. I get the same. Md5 hash and the size of the dump is displayed for 2600 games only. The 7800 games show only the fps counter, I guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raz0red Posted February 22 Author Share Posted February 22 19 minutes ago, DEANJIMMY said: I get the same. Md5 hash and the size of the dump is displayed for 2600 games only. The 7800 games show only the fps counter, I guess. Hold both buttons and push up for 5 seconds to enter debug screen on 7800. Chris. 4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 On 2/19/2024 at 7:34 AM, raz0red said: @RevEng added SC-RAM detection for games delivered via the dumper (which fixed Aardvark, and hopefully others). It will be part of the next experimental update. Do you know if the dumper was changed or Stella? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raz0red Posted February 22 Author Share Posted February 22 27 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: Do you know if the dumper was changed or Stella? It was a change made within Stella based on the way SC-RAM carts are being dumped. Chris. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 1 hour ago, raz0red said: It was a change made within Stella based on the way SC-RAM carts are being dumped. Chris. That is a good idea. The requirement to get sensible data from the write-to-ram area is absurd. But if the dumper tries to read from the write-to-ram area then the read-from-ram area is garbage as well... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Atari_Warlord Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 17 hours ago, MrChickenz said: Any one have Robot City to try on experimental firmware? Player 2 has no response in the latest beta firmware. I have not downloaded the experimental firmware yet. I'm on one of the experimental firmwares and was able to influence the computer tanks with the second joystick. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Atari_Warlord Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 12 hours ago, Albert said: Cave-In Defender Arcade Dragon's Descent Millipede Trak-Ball Seaweed Assault The Byte Before Christmas Venture Reloaded On the experimental firmware I was able to load these properly now: Dragon's Descent Millipede Track-Ball Venture Reloaded I didn't have Cave-In or Defender Arcade handy to try and Seaweed Assault and The Byte Before Christmas still failed to load. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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