Stella 1.4.2 released

[+stephena]

This is a minor bugfix release. I wanted to release it now because there will be some big changes to the codebase in the next month or so.

 

Anyway, here's the Changelog:

 

* Updated the sound system. All popping and cracking sounds that previously occurred at program start/stop and when entering/exiting menu or pause mode have been eliminated.

 

* Fixed the gl_fsmax argument to mean "switch to desktop resolution on fullscreen OpenGL", instead of to the maximum possible resolution (the two are not always the same).

 

* Added Alt [ and Alt ] keys to dynamically adjust the sound volume during emulation.

 

* Added Control 0, Control 1, Control 2, Control 3 keys to dynamically change which paddle the mouse should emulate.

 

* Added video_driver argument. This accepts the different options that can be specified for SDL_VIDEODRIVER (see SDL homepage for more information). Basically, it eliminates the need to set the SDL_VIDEODRIVER environment variable.

 

* Made sure screen is refreshed before taking a snapshot. This eliminates the problem with new snapshots containing the text "Snapshot saved".

 

* For the Windows port; added windib and directx as options for 'video_driver' when using software rendering. The 'windib' option is now the default, and in many cases it's up to 10 times faster than using 'directx'.

 

* For the OSX port; added 'Cmd-R' key to reload the currently loaded ROM.

 

 

Have fun, and please report any bugs. We can't fix it if we don't know about it.

 

Steve

[Albert]

Awesome, thanks for the update! The screenshot and Cmd-R changes alone will save me some trouble.

 

..Al

[Albert]

Here's a handy link to the emulator:

 

http://stella.sourceforge.net/

 

..Al

[Albert]

Our Stella OSX ninja, Mark Grebe, has found the cause of the application hangs in Stella for OSX.

 

A 1.4.2a release for OSX will be released sometime tonight, which will contain the fix.

 

Thanks,

Steve

 

That's awesome, I just had to kill it twice again today when testing a few binaries. Thanks for the update!

 

..Al

[AtariAger]

Pardon...Can someone tell me how to change the game window to a full screen....thanks!

 

Tom

[+stephena]

Our Stella OSX ninja, Mark Grebe, has found the cause of the application hangs in Stella for OSX.

 

A 1.4.2a release for OSX will be released sometime tonight, which will contain the fix.

 

Thanks,

Steve

 

That's awesome, I just had to kill it twice again today when testing a few binaries. Thanks for the update!

 

..Al

 

The new 1.4.2a release of Stella for OSX is now on the Sourceforge page. I may take a few hours to propagate to all the servers.

 

Changes include:

 

* Fixed problem in timing loop which was causing crashes after 15-30 minutes.

 

* Turned optimization on in compiler settings, which had somehow gotten turned off.

 

Have fun,

Steve

[Albert]

I'm using the latest version now, thanks. One thing I just remembered when playing another ROM to take some screenshots--if a sound is playing when you open one of the OS X menus, that last "note" is stuck until you go back to the emulator. This is especially annoying when you are fishing around looking for another binary to load. Is it possible to suppress the audio while the game is frozen while rummaging around through the (native) UI?

 

..Al

[atwwong]

Pardon...Can someone tell me how to change the game window to a full screen....thanks!  

 

Tom

With Windows XP:

Toggle fullscreen/windowed mode: Alt + Enter

 

In windowed mode (you can't do this in full-screen mode):

Resize window to next larger size: Alt + =

Resize window to next smaller size: Alt + -

 

For other keyboard layout info see the stella.html file in the docs directory that comes with it.

[Albert]

Pardon...Can someone tell me how to change the game window to a full screen....thanks!  

 

Tom

With Windows XP:

Toggle fullscreen/windowed mode: Alt + Enter

 

In windowed mode (you can't do this in full-screen mode):

Resize window to next larger size: Alt + =

Resize window to next smaller size: Alt + -

 

These also work in OS X, although substitute "Cmd" for "Alt".

 

..Al

[ATARImarcus]

remark for german keyboard, to get the next bigger size its

Alt + -

[+Nathan Strum]

In 1.4.2a for OS X, there's a curious redraw bug in software mode. It appears when I reload the ROM for Fall Down (using command R), or run it after some other ROM. It doesn't show up using OpenGL, nor was it present in 1.4.1.

 

It's leaving streaks after the sprites:

 

Kind of a cool effect, if the real hardware could do that.

 

I'm running a 20" iMac G5, OS X 10.3.7.

[AtariAger]

Pardon...Can someone tell me how to change the game window to a full screen....thanks!  

 

Tom

With Windows XP:

Toggle fullscreen/windowed mode: Alt + Enter

 

In windowed mode (you can't do this in full-screen mode):

Resize window to next larger size: Alt + =

Resize window to next smaller size: Alt + -

 

For other keyboard layout info see the stella.html file in the docs directory that comes with it.

 

Thanks... !

[+stephena]

I'm using the latest version now, thanks.  One thing I just remembered when playing another ROM to take some screenshots--if a sound is playing when you open one of the OS X menus, that last "note" is stuck until you go back to the emulator.  This is especially annoying when you are fishing around looking for another binary to load.  Is it possible to suppress the audio while the game is frozen while rummaging around through the (native) UI?  

 

..Al

 

This should be relatively easy to fix, but I think this problem will disappear in the next version anyway.

 

StellaOSX is actually the first version of Stella (for any platform) able to (re)load a ROM while the program is still running.

 

The codebase really wasn't designed for this, and this is just another symptom. Stella assumes that, when it runs, it will not be interrupted until the emulation is finished, the game is over, and the application exits. Obviously, this isn't true in the case of browsing for a ROM, since the application is still running but no game is being emulated.

 

I commend Mark Grebe on his work in getting Stella to run multiple games per invocation. But the problem is really in the core code, and that's where it needs to be fixed.

 

So to make a short story long , it should be as simple as pausing sound when exiting a game, and unpausing when starting a new game.

 

But the overall better solution (which I'm working on now, and will be part of Stella 1.5) is to let Stella play multiple games per invocation, and then it will just know when to play sound and when not to.

 

Steve

[+stephena]

In 1.4.2a for OS X, there's a curious redraw bug in software mode. It appears when I reload the ROM for Fall Down (using command R), or run it after some other ROM. It doesn't show up using OpenGL, nor was it present in 1.4.1.

 

It appears to be a problem in the redraw code. Software mode makes use of dirty rectangles, whereby only the parts of the screen that changed are updated. OpenGL mode redraws the full texture each frame.

 

Are you saying that it only happens when you play it after playing some other game? Specifically, does it happen the first time you play the ROM?

 

Steve

[+Nathan Strum]

Are you saying that it only happens when you play it after playing some other game?

 

Correct. Or if I reload the ROM without quitting Stella.

 

Specifically, does it happen the first time you play the ROM?

 

Nope. If it's the first ROM played in Stella, it's fine.

 

I haven't tested it on a wide range of ROMs, either. So far it only happens with Fall Down.

 

And by the way - a big thanks to you (and everyone) who works on Stella. It's very much appreciated!

[+stephena]

Are you saying that it only happens when you play it after playing some other game?

 

Correct. Or if I reload the ROM without quitting Stella.

 

Specifically, does it happen the first time you play the ROM?

 

Nope. If it's the first ROM played in Stella, it's fine.

 

I haven't tested it on a wide range of ROMs, either. So far it only happens with Fall Down.

 

And by the way - a big thanks to you (and everyone) who works on Stella. It's very much appreciated!

 

OK, this is another symptom of the fact that Stella was originally designed to play a ROM and then exit, not load another one and continue. Obviously, something isn't being reset when stopping one ROM and starting another.

 

This will be fixed for the next release, which is coming along surprisingly quickly.

 

Steve

[Albert]

But the overall better solution (which I'm working on now, and will be part of Stella 1.5) is to let Stella play multiple games per invocation, and then it will just know when to play sound and when not to.

 

Thanks for the update and detailed explanation. Do you have an ETA for version 1.5? Can you divulge some of the other changes that are being incorporated?

 

..Al

[+stephena]

But the overall better solution (which I'm working on now, and will be part of Stella 1.5) is to let Stella play multiple games per invocation, and then it will just know when to play sound and when not to.

 

Thanks for the update and detailed explanation. Do you have an ETA for version 1.5? Can you divulge some of the other changes that are being incorporated?

 

..Al

 

There are things I know for sure that will be there, and things I'd like to be there.

 

One thing that will be there for sure is an integrated GUI and ROM browser. Think of the interface in ScummVM, which incidentally is where I lifted most of the code and ideas from This is coming along surprisingly quickly, which I guess is a testament to how well the ScummVM code was written. This is what I'm working on now, and barring any major problems, it should be ready in 3-4 weeks (remember, I probably only get an hour a day to work on this stuff).

 

So, the result of the above change is that the StellaX and KStella frontends will be made obsolete. I don't really mind that much about StellaX, since it's crusty, 5 year old code that was due to be discontinued at some point anyway. And it didn't have many features. The loss of KStella is more important, since that one has features now that the next version of Stella won't have, so those people using it will notice a slight loss of functionality in Stella 1.5 (at least in the short term).

 

Brad Mott has mentioned some TIA and Sound changes, to make the emulation more accurate. I don't have the specifics on that yet.

 

For now, that's it for the definites. Now for the likes.

 

An integrated debugger has been requested since the early days of Stella, sometime in 1999. This may make it into Stella 1.5, but it will depend on the help I get. We need an integrated GUI to do it anyway; that's why I started with that. It may be that the above changes are enough for a relatively fast 1.5 release (say, two months), and debugger support will wait for the next major release (maybe 2.0).

 

I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting some other features.

 

Steve

[+stephena]

In 1.4.2a for OS X, there's a curious redraw bug in software mode. It appears when I reload the ROM for Fall Down (using command R), or run it after some other ROM. It doesn't show up using OpenGL, nor was it present in 1.4.1.

 

I know this is typically a no-no, but where can I get this ROM? I've just reworked Stella to load another instance of a ROM from within the same invocation, and I'd like to test with this ROM (since it's the only one reported to have a problem).

 

Or, is there another more well known ROM that exhibits similar behaviour?

 

Steve

[+Nathan Strum]

Aaron (the author) has posted it in this thread. Offhand though, I don't recall if it was the 4k or 8k version.

[Albert]

Aaron (the author) has posted it in this thread. Offhand though, I don't recall if it was the 4k or 8k version.

 

The binary attached to this message contains the 8K version of the game.

 

..Al

[+stephena]

In 1.4.2a for OS X, there's a curious redraw bug in software mode. It appears when I reload the ROM for Fall Down (using command R), or run it after some other ROM. It doesn't show up using OpenGL, nor was it present in 1.4.1.

 

Thanks to Nathan and Al for providing this ROM. This problem no longer happens with the current CVS version of Stella. So it will be fixed for the next release.

 

Steve

[+stephena]

I'm using the latest version now, thanks.  One thing I just remembered when playing another ROM to take some screenshots--if a sound is playing when you open one of the OS X menus, that last "note" is stuck until you go back to the emulator.  This is especially annoying when you are fishing around looking for another binary to load.  Is it possible to suppress the audio while the game is frozen while rummaging around through the (native) UI?

 

This has been fixed in CVS. When we go to ROM browser mode, the sound is muted.

 

The new code is coming along nicely

 

Steve

[Albert]

Great, glad to hear about the progress being made. At this point are you not going to release a new version until 1.5?

 

..Al

[+stephena]

Great, glad to hear about the progress being made.  At this point are you not going to release a new version until 1.5?

 

..Al

 

We'll probably do a minor release again for OSX (1.4.2b, or something). At this point, I can't do a new release based on the CVS code because I've forked for version 1.5, and the OSX and Win32 parts don't compile yet.

 

Steve