Great Hierophant Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 I think that the z26 emulator is the king of accurate emulators and for functionality and compatibility all other emulators should look up to it. Not a game I know of refuses to play, and I have not recently observed nary a glitch. Kid Vid, Supercharger, Pitfall II, weird bankswitching, all are no problem with the z26. Am I somehow wrong? The only thing still needed is easy functionality through a GUI. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StanJr Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 its my emu of choice, but it takes screenshots in PCX which my computer can't seem to make heads or tails of, so that is my single gripe. Otherwise, its tops. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max-T Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 Z26 is a fantastic piece of software. But there is one feature of another emulator called PC Atari which is pretty cool -- it has a built-in Record to AVI video function. So you can prove to your friends that you really did beat the world record score on Space Invaders. I don't think it's being actively developed anymore, and there are some games it won't play, but the recording feature is unique, I think. Glad to know that a new version of Z26 is out, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindfield Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 PCAE is indeed very good, and just as compatible. I beta tested it for a while, and it's made some great strides. Not to diminish the great z26, of course, but PCAE is my personal choice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uosipa llamxew Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 Studly Stan wrote: it takes screenshots in PCX which my computer can't seem to make heads or tails of, so that is my single gripe. I think you can use commandline -B to enable .bmp format for screen captures. z26 Emulator, what can't it do? I'm still waiting for a commandline option to make toast... oh, and netplay would be nice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StanJr Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 I use a front end so unless I REALLY need to get screenshots via z26, I'll probably just keep using Stella for my screenshots. But thanks for the tip, there are a few things I can ONLY run via z26, and one of those I just happen to need a screenshot FOR! Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
israelg Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 What I really want to see in the next Z26 version is render filter options Like: 1. Scanlines 2. Linear interpolation filters like u have in mame32, to make the output more like a TV screen and less pixelated... Israel Geron T. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uosipa llamxew Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 I use a front end so unless I REALLY need to get screenshots via z26 x26 is a good frontend for z26, and all the commandline options are easily switched on and off. I am not sure if the frontend has been updated for the newest release of z26 yet, however. But some emulators work better on different computers... and so I know how it is to be partial towards one over another. Besides, I'm having a love affair with z26, and don't want to share! (too many beers, me thinks) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NE146 Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 Z26 last I checked could not do SAVESTATES. Essential in any emulator I think. If it is there now, forgive me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy_Dude Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 what can't it do? Haven't tried the latest one (must get around to that ) But I'd guess it still can't play Missile Command T.B. (please tell me I'm wrong ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjk7382 Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 I truly love z26 when it comes to an emulator. With no other emulator can you play the kid vid games with full tape support. Which I have tried..... no comment.... The emulator works fine with those games, but the games themselves suck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uosipa llamxew Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 Haven't tried the latest one (must get around to that :-) ) But I'd guess it still can't play Missile Command T.B. (please tell me I'm wrong :-) ) The new version added support for the three types of Atari Trak-Ball controllers, so that the Missile Command hacks can now be played. commandlines -)TB or -)ST -)ST works for me. Now I know that I must buy myself a copy of Thomas's Missile Command TB hack! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy_Dude Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 Haven't tried the latest one (must get around to that :-) ) But I'd guess it still can't play Missile Command T.B. (please tell me I'm wrong :-) ) The new version added support for the three types of Atari Trak-Ball controllers, so that the Missile Command hacks can now be played. commandlines -)TB or -)ST -)ST works for me. Now I know that I must buy myself a copy of Thomas's Missile Command TB hack! Alright. Lets hope this translates into more trackball games Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 The new version added support for the three types of Atari Trak-Ball controllers, so that the Missile Command hacks can now be played. commandlines -)TB or -)ST -)ST works for me. Actually the ROMs should be autodetected by z26 as Trak Ball games. Did you try them without any parameters? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vic George 2K3 Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 Paddle emulation on the Z26 now isn't what it used to be. I do like that trackball control for Missile Command TB is now supported. And they did get around to fixing the Booster Grip control for Omega Race, though I will miss having pretty much every button on my controller being the action button. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 Paddle emulation on the Z26 now isn't what it used to be. What's wrong with it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uosipa llamxew Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 Actually the ROMs should be autodetected by z26 as Trak Ball games. Did you try them without any parameters? LOL! I didn't even try to run it without the parameters. I just did, and it works just the same. That'll teach me to read the docs! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kisrael Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 Studly Stan wrote:it takes screenshots in PCX which my computer can't seem to make heads or tails of, so that is my single gripe. I think you can use commandline -B to enable .bmp format for screen captures. Also, consider downloading the (freeware!) program IrfanView, which you could kind of think of as the Z26 of image viewers...the only thing it doesn't do well is pixel-by-pixel editing, but resizing, rotating, every dang image and most movie formats, making image galleries, viewing thumbnails, batch processing, color adjusting, etc etc it does great. And most of the major viewing options are keyboardable, so you don't have to keep figuring out where to click. My main gripe with it is its default icon is a runover cat. Not that I like cats that much, or am bothered by the concept in general, but sometimes it's difficult to explain to other people. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kisrael Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 PCAE is indeed very good, and just as compatible. I beta tested it for a while, and it's made some great strides. Not to diminish the great z26, of course, but PCAE is my personal choice. PCAEWin's debugger was super useful in letting me extract Pterry's sound from Joust for JoustPong. And recording AVIs of other games (which I can then examine frame by frame) has been great as well....and the emulation is very good. Is it still undergoing active development? I'd say the program suffers most from is a UI that is astoundingly engineerish in outlook...in the sense of built by an engineer because some things seemed 'logical', not the kind of UI that even an engineer would want to use...for instance, loading a ROM doesn't start up the emulation. Now to an engineer this kind of makes sense, because they might want to load a saved state or something, but to a user, they're just wondering why things haven't started. Similar situations w/ the controller configuration (*I* can't even figure it out, and i'm pretty good with this kind of thing) and the Preferences screen (IMO, *way* too many options are presented...in general, it's better to have good defaults for fonts and colors and then, if anything, sort of hide away the options to change them in some "advanced" mode, if even include them at all) And the debugger is just a few steps away from true greatness. It uses an oddball way of numbering memory, and it presents TIA memory locations with no labels, even though it can bring up a list that lets the user look up the labels him or herself. There are a few other issues as well, like it could really use a one click "advance one frame" button...and it would be a Gift from the Gaming Gods for homebrewers if it could read in a DASM listfile and show labels and what not rather than just memory locations. Now, some of these criticisms relative to Z26 might not seem fair, since they aren't even things that z26 presents a UI for...there's no debugger (just dumping to giant files), there's np UI for controller configuration, it's all command line switches...but somehow Z26 ends up looking a little less user hostile. So PCAEWin is a very good emulator...I just wish I could get in contact w/ the author and see if they were open to some overhauling of the UI...and if they could add just a few things into the debugger, I predict they would become one of the two or three most important tools for a homebrew developer. As it is, the debugger is more of a novelty. (Heck, if I had any confidence in my abilities in Pascal, I might look into trying to adapt some of it.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nateo Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 Has there yet been a 2600 emulator that works with Windows XP and an ATI graphics card? I have yet to find one, and that's been kinda tickin me off, so I've been havin to go in my basement to fire up the ol Pentium II and use a six year old version of PCAE. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Csonicgo Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 z26! ok, a gripe on z26... scisicide won't work, nukey's new breakout hack won't work. it's as if z26 isn'e even listening to the mouse at all! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uosipa llamxew Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 ok, a gripe on z26... scisicide won't work, nukey's new breakout hack won't work. it's as if z26 isn'e even listening to the mouse at all! Hmm, odd. Now that you mention it, I can't seem to force the paddle emulation on with the commandline either. Luckily I have the older version here too, and it seems to run Nukey's hack nicely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great Hierophant Posted March 28, 2004 Author Share Posted March 28, 2004 PCAEwin does not play Pitfall II's sound without skips and stutters on my machine. I assume that z26 includes cycle accurate emulation of the TIA with all its quirks. An X-box port of it with functionality improvements would be very welcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vic George 2K3 Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 Paddle emulation on the Z26 now isn't what it used to be. What's wrong with it? It used to run smoothly using the control stick or mouse, but now it can't use the mouse, and the stick just makes it jump around. That's all I know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NE146 Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 OK I checked it out and Z26 still definitely does not have Savestates. It's the one single failing of the emulator. PCAE has it still however. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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