Stella Version 2.0 Released

[+stephena]

It crashes with a runtime error when I hit F12 on the Windows version.  What is F12 supposed to do?

949952[/snapback]

Confirmed. You have to make sure that snapshot path is set to something, otherwise F12 causes a crash. For now, just set it from the ROM launcher to some valid directory on your system. I'll probably do a minor bugfix release over the weekend to take care of the problems that people find during this week.

 

Incidentally, that's why we were doing Stella nightlies for the last month, and this is the result of nobody testing those nightlies

[atwwong]

Like I said in the new StellaList, THANKS!!!

 

I didn't know you could load a new rom without quitting. I have to read the docs now!

 

*Update*

 

You need to update the html manual (the Console Controls table) to read that pressing the ` key (on my Windows keyboard, at least) opens up a menu that allows you to select a new rom to play, along with the choice of selecting all the 2600 console options and more.

 

*Update*

Nevermind, I seemed to have remapped my keys.

Edited October 18, 2005 by atwwong

[yuppicide]

UPDATE: Got it working.. had to retell the program what rom directory to use and now it works. Program runs very smooth! I think I notice an improvement over the old one. The old one I also had to change some file to make it full screen. This one automatically does full screen. Awesome!

 

So is "stella.exe" with the green screen what I should be loading?! It shows up as a DOS file for me, unlike 1.4.2's "stellax.exe" which showed up as a Windows program for me..

 

Anyway great work..

Edited October 18, 2005 by yuppicide

[yuppicide]

I want to try out some "frying".. what is a few good games to try frying out with?! Do I just hit reset to try and fry?!

 

Some games don't seem to play right.. not sure if this is Stella's fault or not. I tried Pitfall! and Pitfall! II and they don't full screen. They get cutoff on the right side. Looks kind of weird. They're not cutoff, but don't utilize the full screen like other games.

Edited October 18, 2005 by yuppicide

[supercat]

Also adding to that, in Official Mode 1, disable print screen, and when you take a snapshot, it prints either HSC or High Score Club, or something similar directly onto the picture.

 

Are you thinking that print screen is an effective back-door pause? Perhaps the game should keep track of the maximum time between frames, and squawk if any consecutive thirty seconds of game time ever take longer than, say, 32 seconds.

 

In case some people's systems would have problems with this, maybe there could be an "Official Mode 3" with unrestricted pausing and less-restrictive frame-rate monitoring.

 

EDIT: Maybe even with this, say when you take the print screen it will say Official mode 1 or something, and then it can be a official way to do scores for the Twin Galaxies!

950079[/snapback]

 

A snapshot (RAM/register image) would be even better than a print-screen, especially if it contained authenticating information to protect it from alteration. A screenshot, after all, can be altered with any paint program. A snapshot couldn't be altered without an altered copy of Stella (if all the creators of Stella would allow it, a special closed-source version of Stella could help protect against even that).

[keilbaca]

Also adding to that, in Official Mode 1, disable print screen, and when you take a snapshot, it prints either HSC or High Score Club, or something similar directly onto the picture.

 

Are you thinking that print screen is an effective back-door pause? Perhaps the game should keep track of the maximum time between frames, and squawk if any consecutive thirty seconds of game time ever take longer than, say, 32 seconds.

 

In case some people's systems would have problems with this, maybe there could be an "Official Mode 3" with unrestricted pausing and less-restrictive frame-rate monitoring.

 

EDIT: Maybe even with this, say when you take the print screen it will say Official mode 1 or something, and then it can be a official way to do scores for the Twin Galaxies!

950079[/snapback]

 

A snapshot (RAM/register image) would be even better than a print-screen, especially if it contained authenticating information to protect it from alteration. A screenshot, after all, can be altered with any paint program. A snapshot couldn't be altered without an altered copy of Stella (if all the creators of Stella would allow it, a special closed-source version of Stella could help protect against even that).

950134[/snapback]

 

Ah, very good ideas.

 

I meant using print screen to take the picture, but being it would add the extra stuff, that statement will be disregarded.

[potatohead]

Re: Cheats, none of these ideas are going to make one bit of difference. The high scores are an honor system thing. Nothing short of a real video capture is going to erase doubt --and even then there is doubt. Maybe scanned photos?

 

As for disabling the print screen, use VNC to remote the computer desktop --done.

 

Pausing? Run the whole works in a virtual machine --done.

 

All kinds of fun can be had with patch roms too.

 

I suppose one could get nasty and try the video overlay bit --like for DVD's. That's a lot of extra code that is rendered moot with a hacked or friendly driver.

 

There is some little evil workaround for all of the cheat protects, why bother? Either there is some honor in the high score or their isn't.

Edited October 18, 2005 by potatohead

[mos6507]

It crashes with a runtime error when I hit F12 on the Windows version.  What is F12 supposed to do?

 

Also, I tried using it to open a zip file of Colony7 but it wouldn't work.  Do zips only work if the only content of the zip is the bin?  Colony7 had the sourcecode in there also.

949952[/snapback]

F12 takes a snapshot. I'll have to investigate why it crashes. What version of Windows are you running? And what type of CPU?

Seems like a .0.1 version will be coming.

949984[/snapback]

 

Windows XP

Pentium IV 2.4ghz w/hyperthreading

ATI AIW 8500DV

[vdub_bobby]

I can't believe you guys are freaking out over using Stella in the HSC. The HSC doesn't even require screenshots, for heaven's sake.

 

And ever heard of Photoshop? Besides, Stella (and/or z26?) allowed object-disabling already, and an hour spent hacking almost any game, with freely downloadable tools, could get you unlimited lives or a max score or whatever, and nobody could ever tell from a screenshot (which isn't required anyway).

 

[NightSprinter]

Back on topic: I noticed that parts of some games go way too fast. Such as starting a new stage or life in any of the various incarnations of "Space Invaders", or when you die in "Hack-Em" or "Ms. Hack". Any reason for this odd behavior?

[supercat]

...and an hour spent hacking almost any game, with freely downloadable tools, could get you unlimited lives or a max score or whatever, and nobody could ever tell from a screenshot (which isn't required anyway). 

950197[/snapback]

 

Hence the suggestion of including an MD5 hash of the ROM image.

 

I don't doubt that a motivated person could alter Stella to allow cheating while still 'signing' screenshots or snapshots. On the other hand, unlike "trainer" versions of games, I don't see any legitimate demand for such a version of Stella, and suspect the people with the knowledge to produce one are neither going to be motivated to cheat nor help anyone else do so. Thus, while a cheater might not have much trouble finding a "trainer", I think they'd more likely have trouble finding a "cheater" Stella.

[+batari]

Incidentally, that's why we were doing Stella nightlies for the last month, and this is the result of nobody testing those nightlies

950080[/snapback]

I would have, but I was waiting for an OSX build, which wasn't being built nightly (or at all, I think.)

 

But at any rate, thanks for releasing 2.0, I'm playing around with it now...

[midget35]

I would like to express my own thanks for the zip support. It's a great release! I hope updates continue!

 

Many many thanks!

[carpecarne]

I'm using the OSX version and it's definitely an improvement! A few updating pains (mostly getting used to the new GUI) but other than that, it's great! I like how the mouse dissapears behind the window.

 

Jr PacMan runs at full speed (in OpenGL version), the sound of the lasergun in solaris is more accurate, the mouse Paddle control isn't as sensitive as it was before (a good thing! I can actually play Atari Circus now) and when you take a hit in Battlezone, the distorted screen doesn't take 5 minutes to complete!

 

A few questions though: how can you make it so the game pauses whenever you click outside the window? It's not on default and I lost at SCSIcide when I went to IM a friend. :-( Also, the screen size always goes back to this default window size when you choose another ROM. Is there anyway so I don't have to keep resizing the window everytime I want to play? (1.42 always remembered the last window size you used)

 

A few bugs: the checkmarks aren't showing up at Controllers -> Paddles -> Mouse is Paddle.... ; and resizing the screen is no longer command and +/- but command+shift and +/-. Also, the Stella.pro listing for the NTSC version of Pitfall 2 is confusing me. According to the ROM I have, the MD5 is 448c2a175afc8df174d6ff4cce12c794 whereas your Stella.pro file is listed as 6d842c96d5a01967be9680080dd5be54 and another listed as f939780714db69dc69a80fbefe350e0d and yet another as 48eb1fcde4caf6a2dce059c98bd2e375. Is it possible to have so many MD5 names for a single game!?

 

PS: I wrote all of this last night and my internet died, sorry if this has been addressed already.

[+stephena]

A few questions though: how can you make it so the game pauses whenever you click outside the window? It's not on default and I lost at SCSIcide when I went to IM a friend.

I'd have to check if there's an SDL event for this (window loosing focus). If so, it should be easy to add support for it.

Also, the screen size always goes back to this default window size when you choose another ROM. Is there anyway so I don't have to keep resizing the window everytime I want to play? (1.42 always remembered the last window size you used)

Press 'TAB', then go to 'Video Settings'. You can adjust the zoomlevel there, and it will become the new default.

A few bugs: the checkmarks aren't showing up at Controllers -> Paddles -> Mouse is Paddle.... ;

I assume this is OSX specific code? If so, I'll have to speak to the OSX maintainer.

and resizing the screen is no longer command and +/- but command+shift and +/-.

Sorry, didn't realize that. I can switch it back easily.

 

Also, the Stella.pro listing for the NTSC version of Pitfall 2 is confusing me. According to the ROM I have, the MD5 is 448c2a175afc8df174d6ff4cce12c794 whereas your Stella.pro file is listed as 6d842c96d5a01967be9680080dd5be54 and another listed as f939780714db69dc69a80fbefe350e0d and yet another as 48eb1fcde4caf6a2dce059c98bd2e375. Is it possible to have so many MD5 names for a single game!?

Different dumps of the ROM. As long as the one you have works, you needn't worry about the others. Stella.pro is meant to be cover all possible ROMs, as someone else may not have the same ones as you do.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I really love the debugger. But how can I single step without using the mouse. Is there a key?

 

And I noticed a minor display bug in Splatform 2600. At the left side, the platforms don't disappear smoothly, but they should.

[Laner]

Why change to the SCUMMVM UI? Just a personal pet peeve, but it really bugs me when emulators use a homegrown UI (ScummVM, ZSNES, etc.) as opposed to one that matches the OS being used. At least the old one was somewhat consistent with the Windows UI.

Edited October 18, 2005 by Laner

[carpecarne]

I really love the debugger. But how can I single step without using the mouse. Is there a key?

 

And I noticed a minor display bug in Splatform 2600. At the left side, the platforms don't disappear smoothly, but they should.

950364[/snapback]

 

For the Mac version it's the ` key. Don't know about the other versions...

[+stephena]

I really love the debugger. But how can I single step without using the mouse. Is there a key?

From the manual:

 

Alt s - step instruction

Alt t - trace instruction

Alt f - frame advance

Alt l - scanline advance

 

And I noticed a minor display bug in Splatform 2600. At the left side, the platforms don't disappear smoothly, but they should.

I'll investigate this one and let you know.

[+stephena]

Why change to the SCUMMVM UI?  Just a personal pet peeve, but it really bugs me when emulators use a homegrown UI (ScummVM, ZSNES, etc.) as opposed to one that matches the OS being used.  At least the old one was somewhat consistent with the Windows UI.

950366[/snapback]

In a word, portability. Stella can be compiled from the same codebase on Linux, OSX, and Win32, and there are ports in progress for the PSP and WinCE. If we had to use platform-specific code, I'd have to write code for Windows (Win32 API), OSX (Cocoa), and Linux (pick your choice of GUI toolkit, which would annoy those users whose GUI I didn't pick). And I say I, since when it comes to GUI issues in Stella, I'm the only one working on it.

 

It's relatively easy to write a cross-platform commandline application. It's quite a bit harder to do a GUI one. Believe me, we debated this decision for months, and I knew we'd receive some flack for going with a custom GUI. But long story short; if we went with platform-specific GUI toolkits, the debugger wouldn't contain half the features it does now, and wouldn't be released yet. Besides, most games released today use their own GUI, and nobody complains about that.

 

Finally, I anticipated these problems, and adapted Stella so that if launched with a ROM from the commandline, it doesn't use the ROM launcher. So someone could write a platform-specific frontend, and Stella would still work with it.

[+stephena]

And I noticed a minor display bug in Splatform 2600. At the left side, the platforms don't disappear smoothly, but they should.

950364[/snapback]

I'm not sure I can reproduce this, but I notice jittering when using software mode. Unfortunately, this is due to SDL not supporting retrace-synced screen updates, as other emulators (including z26) do the same. Using OpenGL results in smooth operation if you can turn on retrace-synced flips.

 

Otherwise, I'm not sure what you're experiencing.

[Trebor]

Finally, I anticipated these problems, and adapted Stella so that if launched with a ROM from the commandline, it doesn't use the ROM launcher.  So someone could write a platform-specific frontend, and Stella would still work with it.

 

 

And that I *gratefully* appreciate. I use Game Launcher for all my emulators:

http://www.dribin.org/dave/game_launcher/

 

Still works beautifully with Stella. Happy camper here

 

-Trebor

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Alt s - step instruction

Alt t - trace instruction

Alt f - frame advance

Alt l - scanline advance

Thanks, I had overlocked that.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I'm not sure I can reproduce this, but I notice jittering when using software mode.  Unfortunately, this is due to SDL not supporting retrace-synced screen updates, as other emulators (including z26) do the same.  Using OpenGL results in smooth operation if you can turn on retrace-synced flips.

I don't think it has do do with syncing problems.

 

When scrolling, the platform pieces disappearing on the left should be blanked by the ball, so that they disappear smoothly. But in Stella, they aren't blanked. The blanking area should be 8 pixels wide. If you compare the scrolling with z26 or on the real thing, the difference should become obvious.

 

It seems that the ball width is not set correctly.

[+stephena]

When scrolling, the platform pieces disappearing on the left should be blanked by the ball, so that they disappear smoothly. But in Stella, they aren't blanked. The blanking area should be 8 pixels wide. If you compare the scrolling with z26 or on the real thing, the difference should become obvious.

 

It seems that the ball width is not set correctly.

950404[/snapback]

OK, if this is a core problem, it will take a little more prodding. I'll look into it further.