Let's Talk Atari 5200 Emulation

[kostas]

i manange to make altira run perfectly through launchbox for 5200 but i wanted to press esc on keyboard and close the program from launchbox as with other emulators and i gone to keyboard shortcuts option with altira and i put esc key shortcut for close window but instead it just made my altira screen grey how to revert this pls help ?

[Lordmonkus]

Use an AutoHotkeyScript

$Esc::
{
	Process, Close, {{{StartupEXE}}}
}

 

[kostas]

3 minutes ago, Lordmonkus said:

Use an AutoHotkeyScript

$Esc::
{
	Process, Close, {{{StartupEXE}}}
}

i copy this to the hotkey script in the emulator edit? also can i use a hotkey script like that for full screen some games dont oppen in fullscreen other is ?

 

[Lordmonkus]

Just now, kostas said:

i copy this to the hotkey script in the emulator edit?

Yes

1 minute ago, kostas said:

also can i use a hotkey script like that for full screen some games dont oppen in fullscreen other is ?

Yes

Here is a thread with different AHK scripts for different tasks. If something you need isn't there please feel free to ask in that thread and hopefully someone has one for it.

AutoHotkeyScripts can be used for a lot of things that certain emulators lack.

[kostas]

1 minute ago, Lordmonkus said:

Yes

Yes

Here is a thread with different AHK scripts for different tasks. If something you need isn't there please feel free to ask in that thread and hopefully someone has one for it.

AutoHotkeyScripts can be used for a lot of things that certain emulators lack.

Thank you Lordmonkus!!:)

[Lordmonkus]

No problem.

[FlightRisk]

I am trying to run Atari 2600 and 5200 using colpipes no intro setup (for the most part). Not having luck in either. Could be the games I am trying, but I load "Airlock" on the 2600 and there are 2 issues. I can't jump and get the left thing hanging down like I can on the right, and secondly, the timer doesn't work correctly. It starts at 49 seconds but time out after only 20 seconds run off the clock. This uses RA and Stella. Next I tried Choplifter on the Atari 5200 and it lives up to its name, choppy graphics. The logo screen comes up fine, but then the game screen "jumps" like an old TV with the vertical hold not adjusted. You can play the game as the main screen is static, but copies of that screen pop in and out vertically misalinged.

[FlightRisk]

How does RetroArch know which emulator to use? Maybe that was in a config file I got from colpipes, but there is no core set in LB that I can see, it just automatically uses Stella. How can I try different cores? Not sure I can do an F1 and change cores when the game is running. It lets me, but not sure it "takes" when i say "restart" the game. In any case, it was the same result. Most games don't run and there is a large lag and jumping seems slow.

[neil9000]

7 minutes ago, FlightRisk said:

How does RetroArch know which emulator to use? Maybe that was in a config file I got from colpipes, but there is no core set in LB that I can see, it just automatically uses Stella. How can I try different cores? Not sure I can do an F1 and change cores when the game is running. It lets me, but not sure it "takes" when i say "restart" the game. In any case, it was the same result. Most games don't run and there is a large lag and jumping seems slow.

The emulator in that set is set to Rocketlauncher, so you would have to tell Rocketlauncher which Retroarch core it should use.

[FlightRisk]

Does RA have a config that tells it what to use by default? I have always set it up in the past manually. In RLUI, I see RA as the default emulator, but I see nothing in "Atari 2600, Emulators, Default Emulator, Edit Global Module Settings". On the Atari 2600 tab of that screen, libretro core is blank. That is where I would set it, no?

I think on my Pi, I set RA (or maybe Emulation Station does it), I hit a button to go to a setup screen and tell it to use a different emulator. On the Pi I have everything in Arcade running MAME, except for some games which I tell RA to use a different core, or run a different emulator entirely (like I set all the vector games to use AdvanceMame)

[Lordmonkus]

I updated the first post of this thread with some new info on an updated Kat5200 which resolves the resolution switching issue and has some support for some GLSL shaders. This is now my recommended 5200 emulator for most people.

[Anshul Rana]

Hello. I am amazed to see how much of the people are still looking to play those Atari 5200 games till now. I would like to help you in this. I have recently posted an article to help people find good emulators for them. Please review this article and see if it can help you. Atari 5200 Emulator. Thank you.

 

[bundangdon]

3 hours ago, Anshul Rana said:

Hello. I am amazed to see how much of the people are still looking to play those Atari 5200 games till now. I would like to help you in this. I have recently posted an article to help people find good emulators for them. Please review this article and see if it can help you. Atari 5200 Emulator. Thank you.

 

This was a pretty lengthy and interesting article, but it would have been more helpful if you provided some testing results, compatibility reports, personal reccomendations based on experience, pros-cons, etc.

[Lordmonkus]

18 minutes ago, bundangdon said:

This was a pretty lengthy and interesting article, but it would have been more helpful if you provided some testing results, compatibility reports, personal reccomendations based on experience, pros-cons, etc.

I still stand by my original post in this thread.

Altirra is regarded as the most accurate and controls are annoying to setup, Kat5200 is extremely good and easy to setup while Mame is ok it has issues like broken controls in certain game. I cannot comment on Rainbow as I have never used it or even scene it talked about before. I have used the 800 core in Retroarch and it is fine and functional from my use but that is all I can say.

My personal favourite of the 4 I have experience with is Kat5200, easy to setup and supports some basic 1 pass shaders from Retroarch (if you care about CRT effects).

[Zombeaver]

I've never used it for 5200, but for what it's worth I've used Atari800 (standalone and in Retroarch) extensively for Atari 8-bit emulation (100+ games) and like it quite a bit. I use the Retroarch core in the majority of cases, the only exceptions being weird things like games that need to be set to NTSC mode for the correct colors (few and far between) which I never got to work quite right in Retroarch. I would assume that 5200 emulation is good with it as it would presumably be the simpler of the two. It's a bit on the weird side to setup (in Retroarch) though since the Atari800 menu (separate from Retroarch's internal core option menu) is still used for some things (kindof like the MAME core). Thankfully, the majority of the important stuff is accessible from core options though.

[Anshul Rana]

On 2/28/2020 at 11:24 AM, bundangdon said:

This was a pretty lengthy and interesting article, but it would have been more helpful if you provided some testing results, compatibility reports, personal reccomendations based on experience, pros-cons, etc.

Okk. I will update this one. Thanks for the suggestion.

[jallen99]

Responding to this thread as it's one of the few places where people are discussing the Atari 5200. I'm using Kat5200 as well. I think it's great and has solved 95% of my issues, but I still have a couple of problems with a few games, and google doesn't seem to help:

1) Can't get "Bounty Bob Strikes Back" to run at all, even though there's a selection for running it in "40k" mode designed for the game.

2) I can't get the trackball to work for "Missile Command", I've made all the "correct" selections but my trackball still doesn't work.

3) I don't understand how to call each of these separate controller configurations from LB so that everything gets the correct setup. I would need a config for Missile Command w/trackball, one for Bounty Bob w/the memory setting, one for Gorf (which requires some condition changes), and one for everything else. Thanks for any helpful replies!