Altirra 1.6

[phaeron]

Last week I was playing with the PacMan games because of the High Score Club postings and tried to play DeRePacMan.xex and it locked up the emulator.

 

 

DeRe Pac-Man.xex

 

I think that it may be a converted basic game.

 

Seems to work for me on XL/XE 64K, but it's prone to crashing on other settings, like HLE, OS-B, or 48K. Are you sure the emulator locked up, or did it drop to the debugger?

[ilmenit]

If I can get algorithm descriptions, perhaps. For various reasons I don't use third party code in Altirra, however, so I can't integrate them that way.

 

Interesting... I did some tests and the hqnx filters produce very low quality output on the Atari graphics! This is caused by the double horizontal size of the pixels and only the graphics 8 mode scales smoothly.

This is best visible on the Yoomp main screen (compare the picture and the texts below).

The original hqnx algorithm has to be modified to get proper results.

[ilmenit]

Here is the difference of applying hq3x filter on the double width pixels and proportional. The second picture was scaled to 50% width to get the square pixels, then the filter was applied, then the picture was scaled to 200% width to get the proper size.

Edited May 13, 2010 by ilmenit

[ilmenit]

The scale2x algorithm produces much better results on Atari pictures.

http://scale2x.sourceforge.net/

[Mclaneinc]

Personally, I'm not a big fan of these filters, for me they look washed out, the only filters I like are blurring so they look like it did on an old TV under composite...

[Atarigmr]

Personally, I'm not a big fan of these filters, for me they look washed out, the only filters I like are blurring so they look like it did on an old TV under composite...

 

Seconded.

[ilmenit]

Personally, I'm not a big fan of these filters, for me they look washed out, the only filters I like are blurring so they look like it did on an old TV under composite...

 

There was a lot of discussion about filters when they were developed for other emulators.

Hardware purists, who have the old machines, expect from an emulator the closest perception of the original hardware.

Purists, even having a perfect emulation prefer to use a real computer, because it's real.

Other users may just want to play some great old games on modern computers and huge pixels are not what they want.

Filters were created simply to attract more people by enhancing visuals.

[+Philsan]

I like pixels, so I use these settings: View/Filter Mode/Point and View/Stretch Mode/Integral Square Pixels.

[ilmenit]

I started to use Altirra as a main emulator and I see that the audio in Atari800Win sounds more "clear". Is it just my personal feeling?

[phaeron]

I started to use Altirra as a main emulator and I see that the audio in Atari800Win sounds more "clear". Is it just my personal feeling?

 

You're probably mainly hearing the non-linear mixing curve -- Altirra by default uses a compression curve that's needed to properly emulate some channel mixing effects like triangle waves. It can be toggled in System > Audio > Non-linear mixing.

[t1n]

@phaeron is it possible to pump in arbitary serial port data in Altirra, either via the serial port or via some TCP/IP emulation?

[Roydea6]

It would be nice if there were a command line switch to load a cartridge (ala.. SDX442) at the same time I am loading /bootrw SDX.ATR then I wouldn't need the extra reboot.

 

 

 

 

[phaeron]

@phaeron is it possible to pump in arbitary serial port data in Altirra, either via the serial port or via some TCP/IP emulation?

 

Currently, no. Altirra does not emulate an 850 interface and the SIO interface is internal-only.

[phaeron]

It would be nice if there were a command line switch to load a cartridge (ala.. SDX442) at the same time I am loading /bootrw SDX.ATR then I wouldn't need the extra reboot.

 

Turns out there's a very simple way I can allow this... can't push out a test release right now as I've got part of the sound system gutted, but the next version will allow multiple image arguments on the command line.

[+therealbountybob]

How do you play a BASIC game using Altirra ???

 

have basic rom in the directory [or path]

click

SYSTEM

click FIRMWARE

click-----------------BASIC checked

 

REBOOT with your game ATR

SHIFT+F5

at ready prompt type:

 

RUN "D:my favorite basic game.BAS

Installed Altira for first time today Like the window scaling. Having problems getting BASIC ATRs working; enabled firmware, tried ROM file in Altira folder but just goes to DOS sreen on with with simple autorun.sys/menu.bas or flashes like crazy when runing autorun/menu.bas with atari users' filemenu2. (Win XP PC)

 

Is it technically possible to autodetect basic I ask as Picodos boots with basic but can run xex or bas files etc without booting with option

 

When you do the screen print function would be nice to have a 'quick' option that saves to a default file name in one click. This would be great for taking screen-shots for the HSC without having to name the file etc.

 

This emulator should make it much easier for non atari folk to get interested and not have to worry about all the file types. Keep up the great work

[Roydea6]

Make sure SHIFT is pressed first then holding shift down press F5, and if you don't need basic press shift + option then F5. There is a file program that will swap basic in and out on one of my disks I will see if I can find it and post here..If you don't already have it..

[+therealbountybob]

Make sure SHIFT is pressed first then holding shift down press F5, and if you don't need basic press shift + option then F5. There is a file program that will swap basic in and out on one of my disks I will see if I can find it and post here..If you don't already have it..

I did! I have various menus that run basic or not etc but can't get altira to work with the two basic menus I have on many existing ATRs etc. It is getting as far as the autorun.sys trying to run the menu

[Mclaneinc]

Make sure SHIFT is pressed first then holding shift down press F5, and if you don't need basic press shift + option then F5. There is a file program that will swap basic in and out on one of my disks I will see if I can find it and post here..If you don't already have it..

I did! I have various menus that run basic or not etc but can't get altira to work with the two basic menus I have on many existing ATRs etc. It is getting as far as the autorun.sys trying to run the menu

 

Bob, could you post these menu's so I can have a play?

[phaeron]

Make sure SHIFT is pressed first then holding shift down press F5, and if you don't need basic press shift + option then F5. There is a file program that will swap basic in and out on one of my disks I will see if I can find it and post here..If you don't already have it..

I did! I have various menus that run basic or not etc but can't get altira to work with the two basic menus I have on many existing ATRs etc. It is getting as far as the autorun.sys trying to run the menu

 

If you are using the HLE firmware, try switching to XL/XE. The autorun program may be using a hack to invoke BASIC that isn't compatible with the fallback ROM.

[+therealbountybob]

I don't know what HLE firmware is so am using default values with BASIC ticked. The two ATR's are here in the HSC and the 'Kendallsoft Klassics' one on the gwobby website. Also on the single game images here such as Mite.ATR i've used a custom program from Page 6 magazine to display a loading message when booting and these fail too. (All DOS 2.5 Imaged from 1050 drive)

 

Thanks

 

I'm using the ppjoy driver (WXP) and this works fine with Altira. Another feature request would be for the 2nd joystick to be mappable to the same (first) joystick so you could play two player games using one joytsick

[+Philsan]

The two .atr images mentioned work perfectly.

As written, you must select System/Firmware/600XL/800XL instead of HLE.

 

From Altirra's website:

Altirra has an internal kernel that can be used to run Atari software, and thus you can run demos, games, and productivity software without needing any Atari ROM images. However, this kernel is reimplemented from scratch, and has some compatibility problems. Therefore, you may want to consider hooking up real kernel ROM images, which will greatly increase Altirra's software compatibility. I'm afraid I can't offer these for download, but if you have downloaded ROM images from your Atari, Altirra uses the same format and filenames as most other popular Atari 8-bit system emulators.

 

In other words, to have full compatibility, you have to put A8 system roms in Altirra's folder.

[phaeron]

Another feature request would be for the 2nd joystick to be mappable to the same (first) joystick so you could play two player games using one joytsick

 

You can already do this -- clone the port 1 input map, change its bindings to target port 2, and enable both maps at the same time in the input manager. You can also clone the mappings within the same input map to do it in one input map.

[+therealbountybob]

Another feature request would be for the 2nd joystick to be mappable to the same (first) joystick so you could play two player games using one joytsick

 

You can already do this -- clone the port 1 input map, change its bindings to target port 2, and enable both maps at the same time in the input manager. You can also clone the mappings within the same input map to do it in one input map.

Thanks. I amended "Gamepad2 ->Joystick (port 2)" and switched it to "Game Controller 1" and this works fine for two players on Mr. Do!

[+therealbountybob]

The two .atr images mentioned work perfectly.

As written, you must select System/Firmware/600XL/800XL instead of HLE.

 

From Altirra's website:

Altirra has an internal kernel that can be used to run Atari software, and thus you can run demos, games, and productivity software without needing any Atari ROM images. However, this kernel is reimplemented from scratch, and has some compatibility problems. Therefore, you may want to consider hooking up real kernel ROM images, which will greatly increase Altirra's software compatibility. I'm afraid I can't offer these for download, but if you have downloaded ROM images from your Atari, Altirra uses the same format and filenames as most other popular Atari 8-bit system emulators.

 

In other words, to have full compatibility, you have to put A8 system roms in Altirra's folder.

Thanks I was missin the other ROM files in the altira folder

[LYNXGUY]

What are all the files associated with Altirra ??

 

.bin

.xex

.atr

 

.stx ??