Atari800 4.1.0 for Falcon and clones released (update!)

[mikro]

Hi,

I'm happy to announce that my work from a couple of years ago has been finally released. During my stay in Australia I'd completely fixed, rejuvenated, extended and generally brought up to date current atari800 source code for the Falcon target. Unfortunately we couldn't have synced with Petr to make a proper release so at the last year's Atariada he has released 4.0.0 just when I was travelling back home. Only to realise that 4.0.0 is unable to compile for our machines. :)

This time everything went right and we can present you all the previous fixes and improvements and even some new. The Falcon version is so far the only binary available, making it an exclusive release: https://github.com/atari800/atari800/re ... I800_4_1_0

So what are you going to find there:
- speed optimised version
- full featured version
- SDL version
- FireBee version (!)

Hopefully the non-FireBee versions will work also on the Milan, Hades and Aranym. They are not only SuperVidel compatible but they take use SuperVidel's resolution to the max offering 100% emulation speed including sound and smooth scrolling (1:1 VBL mapping). With SuperVidel surely give "-videl" parameter a go, without SuperVidel I also recommend using "-delta" and/or "-refresh 2" parameter which greatly improves the overall performance.

[Kroll]

@mikro awesome, thank you veeru much it is working very good with CT63, I can run some atr files without any problems

[Estrayk]

Thank you very much mikro. It works perfectly

Captured from a real Falcon 060

[CiH]

Thanks for doing this. The older versions of this emulator were already awesome.

[marss]

Thanks

[MacFalcon]

Thank you so much Was fun to help you fix the last bug

[TheNameOfTheGame]

Many Thanks!

[jury]

Is anyone able to set 320Kb? As when I try to set any of those two 320K settings and then go to loading menu ( F1 ) all I get is a crash and only reset button helps. Same for MiNT and TOS. ( I for sure was able to set 320K many, many years ago in version 2.1.0 )
Anyway, great work from mikro and the a800 team! In 64K it works so far flawlessly.

[Playmobil]

Just tested under Aranym Windows... Mint+XaAes (Beekey/BeePi setup from Faucon_2001)

Just the SDL version working fine but without sounds...

[mikro]

jury: yes, there is something strange going on, I have noticed it on Atariada, too. But I was busy with other lousy issues so I didn't care. :-P As a stupid workaround you can set the 320 KB Atari, F5 to reset, then F1 for menu and set the rest.

Playmobil: Aranym/Windows setup issue, works great here (Linux+Aranym+latest FreeMiNT).

EDIT: Btw, while speaking about the SDL version: don't forget to disable the new POKEY emulation in the menu (it's very performance heavy even in Aranym JIT). It is done automatically for the plain Falcon version but the SDL version uses defaults for all SDL platforms.

[ijor]

I don't have a Falcon myself. But this is certainly an awesome achievement. Congratulations.

[vido]

Thank you Mikro!
Finaly

Well ... I wait for FireBee binaries

[mikro]

I wait for FireBee binaries :)

So your wait is over as the FB binary is included in the archive. :)

[vido]

Thanks Mikro!
I tought there is only Falcon binaries. I didnt check the archive

[mikro]

I agree, it's a bit confusing - "falcon" represents the name of the platform (like SDL, Android, Windows, ...) but it covers everything from the actual Falcon to FireBee. You see, calling it "atari" would be equally confusing as we are actually emulating an atari. ;)

[wongck]

use "falcon and beyond"

[viking272]

or a picture says 1,000 words
http://www.yardley.cc/atari/falcon-and-beyond.jpg

[jury]

jury: yes, there is something strange going on, I have noticed it on Atariada, too. But I was busy with other lousy issues so I didn't care. As a stupid workaround you can set the 320 KB Atari, F5 to reset, then F1 for menu and set the rest.

Yeap, this workaround works. Thanks.

[Cyprian]

great news Mikro

[mikro]

Good news, everyone!

I have managed to find the culprit of the freezing. Petr agreed to re-release the binaries without further changes so please re-download the archive for all Atari platforms.

I'm not exactly happy about the fix, though. The culprit was using -O3 -fomit-frame-pointer optimisation options together (removing/changing either of them produces good code again), namely for file ui.c. I think this is the last time I have used -O3, I have burned myself in the past, too (as other people did). Nice bonus about using -O2 is that every binary lost about 90 KB what is always good to hear. :)

[mikro]

I'm not exactly happy about the fix, though. The culprit was using -O3 -fomit-frame-pointer optimisation options together (removing/changing either of them produces good code again), namely for file ui.c. I think this is the last time I have used -O3, I have burned myself in the past, too (as other people did). Nice bonus about using -O2 is that every binary lost about 90 KB what is always good to hear. :)

Actually I owe gcc an apology here (the usual deal when programmer tends to blame everything but the code ;)).

I was able to reproduce the bug even with released binaries so I had to dig deeper into that. And it took only one full day of painful debugging to get some results. Not only I found a decade old bug in atari800 (basically was there from the beginning) but thanks to czietz's clarification in http://atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... 59#p372623 I was able to fix another bug in the SDL versions. So by the end of the day I can say that all versions run reliably with memory protection enabled (knock-knock).

4.1.1 is nearing. ;) In the meantime, ehem, don't run atari800 in FreeMiNT with memory protection.

[Eero Tamminen]

4.1.1 is nearing. In the meantime, ehem, don't run atari800 in FreeMiNT with memory protection.

On quick search, I did not notice any later update on this site (among all the cert warnings), but I noticed that 4.2 was released few years back in GitHub: https://github.com/atari800/atari800/re ... I800_4_2_0

There's also 5.0.0 released few last month, but it did not provide Falcon version: https://github.com/atari800/atari800/releases

Is that due to new AV1 & MP3 recording features?

[DarkLord]

Any chance we'll see this for "other" high end Atari's?

I mean, 68030 equipped ST's running at 40-50mhz, 8 megs of ALT-RAM (or more)
6888x chips, etc,...

[1st1]

Oh, that's something to try... the first ATARIs emulated on the last one. I remember in early 1984 that a classmate used to have a 600XL and we spend many hours in his little room with that.

[CiH]

Any chance we'll see this for "other" high end Atari's?

I mean, 68030 equipped ST's running at 40-50mhz, 8 megs of ALT-RAM (or more)
6888x chips, etc,...

It does run on Centurbo 2 class hardware, which includes a 50Mhz cpu, just a tad slowly. Around 10 to 20 percent of full speed? Afterburner 040 was quoted at 40 percent by the original author, back in the day. Bear in mind the original isn't closely optimised for Atari 68k in the first instance.