The NEW Build Your Own Arcade Controls
Main => Software Forum => Topic started by: unclet on July 06, 2006, 10:28:46 pm
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I tried MESS, and that thing is a mess regarding Atari 5200 emulation...... only plays a little handful of games.
I like "jum52" since this plays a bunch of games, however, it does not display correctly on my TV ..... it does not allow me to play around with the resolution settings, so my TV card interface displays two small game images on the left side of the screen, rather than one big fullscreen image. This occurred on a couple other emulators I had, but once I played around with the resolution settings, I was able to find a match which worked.
Also, I still can not find a 5200 emulator which plays "Wizard Of Wor", "Pitfall" and "Pitfall2". I remember loving "Wizard of Wor" when I was much younger ..... but can not find one to play now....
I downloaded the "vss" emulator but it had horrible sound, although if I use the VDMSound2.1.0 application (as "vss" recommends), I can correct the sound problems but then I can not figure out how to configure a frontend to use the VDMSound interface?
Basically, does anyone know of any other 5200 emulator which plays games well?
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I discovered "Atari800WinPlus4.0" and it plays all the Atari 5200 games (except Pitfall, Wizard of Wor, Star Trek) as well as the Atari 800XL games and interfaces with my TV in fullscreen excellently.
I guess I could play Pitfall on another console platform, but I am still bummed about not being able to play Wizard of Wor. All three games do come up but no keyboard keys (or mouse) can control the characters. Oh well....
Thing is ..... I could not figure out what the command line parameters were for this emulator. It originally seemed like a windows GUI only application, however, I looked at the code and found the following command line options available:
-configure Update Configuration File"
-config <file> Specify Alternate Configuration File"
-atari Emulate Atari 800"
-xl Emulate Atari 800XL"
-xe Emulate Atari 130XE"
-320xe Emulate Atari 320XE (COMPY SHOP)"
-rambo Emulate Atari 320XE (RAMBO)"
-5200 Emulate Atari 5200 Games System"
-nobasic Turn off Atari BASIC ROM"
-basic Turn on Atari BASIC ROM"
-pal Enable PAL TV mode"
-ntsc Enable NTSC TV mode"
-osa_rom <file> Load OS A ROM from file"
-osb_rom <file> Load OS B ROM from file"
-xlxe_rom <file> Load XL/XE ROM from file"
-5200_rom <file> Load 5200 ROM from file"
-basic_rom <fil> Load BASIC ROM from file"
-cart <file> Install cartridge (raw or CART format)"
-run <file> Run Atari executable file (COM, EXE, XEX)"
-state <file> Load saved-state file"
-refresh <rate> Specify screen refresh rate"
-nopatch Don't patch SIO routine in OS"
-nopatchall Don't patch OS at all, H: device won't work"
-a Use OS A"
-b Use OS B"
-c Enable RAM between 0xc000 and 0xcfff in Atari 800"
-v Show version/release number"
Anyway, I use the following command line parameters to launch a game:
atari800win -5200 -ntsc -cart "D:\myGamePath\game.CAR"
atari800win -xl -ntsc -run "D:\myGamePath\game.exe"
IMPORTANT NOTE: Originally my Atari 5200 game roms had an extension of "bin" (or "a52"). What you need to do is start each game in the Atari800Win emulator manually by going into the "File\Attach Cartridge" menu and selecting the bin (or a52) game file. If the game is not considered a "true" cartridge file (ie: does not have specific cartridge header information included) then the emulator will ask you to select whether the game is a "One chip 16KB 5200 cartridge" or "Two chip 16KB 5200 cartridge". You can try either and see which one works. Once you find which one works you can go into the "Misc\Convert" menu and select "ROM to CART" option. This will allow you to convert a BIN (or a52) file to a cartridge (CAR) file (ie: will append the correct header cartridge information to your file). Dont worry, it will nto overwrite your existing ROM .... it will ask you to save it to a different file ..... just save it as extension CAR. Once converted the file you can try to attach the CAR cartridge file and will now see that the emulator starts the game automatically.
Converting does not take long since the Atari5200 only has about 90+ games......
Anyway, thought I would inform everyone that a good Atari5200 emulator does exist...... enjoy!
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Yes it would be nice to have a working Atari 5200 emulator that can play pitfall.
Such a random thing to have an emulator not be able to play such a major title when it's a mature as it is...
Does a prior version work with pitfall?
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I remember loving "Wizard of Wor" when I was much younger ..... but can not find one to play now....
The Arcade Version is in MAME.