[drvenkman]

Okay, I solved my Tankstick issues, mostly, in case anyone else is having difficulty.

First thing, however – the trackball does NOT work in MAME4ALL, period. I understand some folks have gotten it to work by unplugging the other USB connector first, and then starting MAME4ALL. Remember, the Tankstick uses two USB ports – one for the joysticks, one for the trackball. I haven’t tried this as it’s too much of a pain in my rear and is a work-around at best. Now having said that, the trackball works fine in AdvMAME, so I play all my trackball games using that emulator instead.

How I got the joysticks working properly was to go into the Retropie Setup menu and DISABLE the Xarcade2jstick service. This is weird because I’ve been using that option ENABLED since 3.0 Beta 1 without problems. However, with it enabled, I cannot get any Retroarch emulators to recognize the Tankstick buttons or joystick. Again, this was NOT a problem until I updated to the latest binaries a few days ago.

Anyway, with the Xarcade2jstick service disabled, I then used the Retropie Setup menu to install the joypad configurations (not sure if this is actually needed or not) and then everything works okay. In MAME4ALL and AdvMAME I had to reconfigure the inputs the first time I launched them, and then customize anything per game the first time I played them, but at least it all works again.

Again, it’s kind of a pain and I did not have to do this with prior versions of the 3.0 beta – the Xarcade2jstick service basically took care of it all. But it’s all working now after going through the motions to configure things manually.

[drvenkman]

Until the other night, things were working fine with my Tankstick. I started off with 3.0 Beta 1 and periodically did binary updates to keep things current. After the last update I did a couple nights ago, my Tankstick is basically useless for most things. It’s working okay in AdvMAME and MAME4ALL, but all the Retroarch emulators don’t work at all – they all default to keyboard inputs and I can’t get settings to “stick” when I reconfigure them from inside each emulator. Something is borked.

[drvenkman]

Okay, the two bars (vertical bars?) sound like what happens when you turn on a VCS without a cartridge inserted, or when you pull a cart from a running system. Do you have a permissions problem with your roms or the directory they’re stored in?

[drvenkman]

Thanks for the reply, Floob, but I don’t think I quite understand. You say to look in the /opt/retropie/configs/{systemname}/ directory, but in my case, the problem is that the emulator doesn’t seem to be saving the configuration after I make changes and redefine things. So in my case, using Stella-lr, my retroarch.cfg file in opt/retropie/configs/atari2600/ looks like this:

#include "/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg"
# All settings made here will override the global settings for the current$
input_remapping_directory = /opt/retropie/configs/atari2600/

[drvenkman]

Yep, I’m running into this same thing. It’s causing a MAJOR pain in my butt. Using any of the Libretro-based emulators in combination with my Tankstick (using the XArcade2Jstick service) gives some VERY odd button and keyboard defaults that are entirely unintuitive and unsuited for the classic games I like to play. Each time I boot the emulator from the menu -basically every time I select a new ROM! – I have to redefine everything.

I wish we had some indication this is being looked into, or might be fixed in another Beta. For that matter, 3.0 Beta 2 has been out for a good while. Has anyone seen any indication of a new release or possible 3.0 Final that would fix this bug?

[drvenkman]

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

Seriously, no one knows how to get to the Stella menu in Stella-lr? If I use ordinary Stella, I can get to the options and change things around, use the default keyboard commands, etc. But Stella-lr seems to ignore most of my keyboard commands, I can’t set the buttons or mouse emulation options to use my trackball, etc. There’s gotta be a way to get that setup properly.

Also, does anyone know how I might be able to get Stella updated? The version in RetropPie is 3.9.something. The current release version is 4.6.1.

EDIT: Okay, if I disable the XArcade2jstick service, I can access the RetroArch menu from inside the emulator – but if I do THAT, then all my input settings have to be redone for every single one of my other emulators individually. Surely there’s SOME way to access the Stella-lr menus with the Xarcade driver service active … I’d just say “The hell with it,” and use regular Stella (not Stella-LR) but I really like the scanline overlays on my LCD monitor. It might be time to break down and buy a composite cable and just play everything on an old TV …

[drvenkman]

[quote=97042]Upgrading from 2.6 to 3.0 can be awkward in terms of config files – can you just use the RetroPie 3 image instead?

[/quote]

Ultimately that’s what I did; I just reformated my SD card with the 3.0 Beta 1 image (which was current at the time) and went from there. No further problems, aside from having to copy over all my roms for all my emulators and re-set controller configurations for each of them.

[drvenkman]

In my case, I cannot get ANY games to recognize my trackball controller in MAME4ALL. But AdvMAME recognizes it just fine as long as I don’t have a mouse plugged into the Pi. So for all the classic trackball games like Centipede, Millipede, Missile Command, etc., I use AdvMAME. Fortunately, those all run great in AdvMAME. For that matter, since the only games I play regularly were all made before the late 80’s, pretty much anything I want to play runs great in AdvMAME.

[drvenkman]

Okay, the .xex files are 8-bit Atari binary load files. That’s the kind of file RetroPie and EmulationStation THINK the Atari800 emulator program needs; put at least one .xex file into the appropriate file folder and “Atari 800” will appear as an option. Fortunately, once you launch the emulator, you can press F1 and navigate through the options and configuration screens and set things up however you like.

I’m running the RetroPie 3.0 Beta but the file paths are probably the same. Put at least one .xex file into /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/atari800 and you should be good to go.

.atr files are Atari disk images. If the .atr file is a self-booting disk (such as most disk-based software) you’ll be able to boot straight into it when you launch the emulator, assuming you’ve got your config files setup to allow it. If not, you can navigate through the Atari800 configuration menu (F1) to insert the virtual disk image into a drive and then reboot the emulated Atari to run whatever is on the disk.

.BAS files are BASIC program files. Again, if you’ve got your Atari800 emulator configured right in the options menu, you can boot the system to a BASIC prompt and load those files, but there are complications. First, you’ll need an Atari BASIC cartridge ROM (ataribas.rom) – once you point your emulator configuration (that F1 menu) to the right BASIC ROM image, you can set your Atari system to an XL or XE machine and it can boot directly to BASIC. If you have the system set to a 400/800 type machine (atariosa.rom or atariosb.rom), you will need to tell the emulator to insert a virtual BASIC cartridge. Most Atari carts out there loose in the wild are in .bin format but you might also find .car files or something else. The Atari800 version in RetroPie works fine with .bin files. So you’ll need a verson of Atari BASIC (Rev A, Rev B or Rev C) in .bin format. Stick that wherever convenient in your file structure. You can point the emulator to the appropriate file directory through the configuration menus.

So insert your virtual BASIC cart through the Atari800 menu screens and reboot your virtual Atari. You’ll get a READY screen and you can type and run BASIC programs. To save files you’ll probably need a virtual disk image, an .atr file. This gets into a HOWTO for Atari DOS, but to run an Atari from a floppy disk (real or virtual) you’ll need an Atari DOS (or something comparable like SpartaDOS, MyDOS, DOS XL …) They’ve all got their pluses and minuses but they’re all available out on the net in .atr format. For our purposes Atari DOS 2.5 is probably your best bet – it’s ubiquitous, compatible and works with most stuff most of the time.

So find a DOS 2.5 .atr file and “insert” it through the menus into your system and then boot – once you get to the READY prompt, you should have DOS loaded and be able to access files on an .atr disk image. If you’ve got an .atr virtual disk that contains the BASIC program you want, use the Atari800 emulator menu screens to “insert” that disk into Drive 2. Then at the READY prompt, you can type LOAD D2:xxxxx.BAS, where xxxx.BAS is the name of the BASIC program you want to load. Atari BASIC actually doesn’t care what you name your files, and neither does Atari DOS, with just a couple of exceptions (DOS.SYS, DUP.SYS, and one or two others). When your BASIC program is loaded, you can type LIST to list it out or RUN to run it.

.cas files are cassette images. I haven’t actually used them with Atari800 on the Pi. On other Windows or OS X emulators you can boot them or save files to them from BASIC and I presume you can do the same here but I just haven’t tried.

Anyway, I hope the above helps a bit. If you have more specific questions once you get into the emulator config screens, let me know.

[drvenkman]

[quote=87285]Have you got this solved? I haven’t been able to get 5200 roms to work either (or atari 800 for that matter).[/quote]

I haven’t seen this thread before now, but I’ve had no trouble at all getting Atari800 to work – I can play an 400/800/XL/XE games just fine, either as cartridge roms or disk images (.atr files). I only have a handful of 5200 roms but they play fine as well.

I installed the 3.0 Beta 1 SD image on my Pi 2, and simply added the system rom files and game roms and disk images to the appropriate directories. The key is having actual Atari OS roms. Press F1 the first time you load Atari800 and navigate the menus to set the file paths for system roms,cartridge roms and system OS roms; set system configuration options (OS version, memory settings, etc), and screen display options, controller configuration, etc.

PM me if you have specific questions (except where to get roms).

[drvenkman]

Well I tried disabling the Xarcade2jstick service then making all the suggested changes – ugh. I could no longer navigate the EmulationStation UI without determining which random buttons or joystick movement did what … despite double-checking the .cfg file twice and rebooting twice, it just didn’t work. The hell of it was I couldn’t even get further than the Centipede attract screen – nothing I was trying, on either the Tankstick or the keyboard, would start the game.

I finally had to give up and reinstalled the Xarcade2jtick service – I’ll just stick to AdvMAME for my trackball games.

[drvenkman]

I installed it under Beta 1 after asking for support. It was added to the list of Experimental emulators. Go to the RetroPie config menu and see if you can install it that way?

[drvenkman]

[quote=94246]Same here, trackball is working fine with Xarcade2jstick in other emulators and I’m using MAME4ALL too.[/quote]

Alright then – this is good info. I’ll dig into the config files over the weekend when I have a little time and give it a try. Thanks!

[drvenkman]

[quote=94162]I have the tankstick working with 2.6 with the trackball.
After following the steps below, you will need to remap your keys in MAME with the MAME TAB menu.

(snipped)
[/quote]

To be clear, is this in MAME4ALL? Because the trackball is already working in AdvMAME and the Xarcade2jstick service has things working very well in the rest of my usual emulators (Stella, ProSystem, Hatari, VICE …)

[drvenkman]

[quote=94037]many thanks to “Patrick” for this post, as I’ve found this real
oh just a quick question, are shaders set for each individual emulator or universal, one for all?
[/quote]

I also would like to know the answer to this.

On a probably-related note, in Floob’s reply, what is the purpose of the line:

input_remapping_directory = /opt/retropie/configs/megadrive/

in the provided configuration file?

[drvenkman]

Can someone explain where the default ES scraper stores images and meta-data? For some weird reason the databases accessed by the scraper don’t have information for such common launch-titles as Dig Dug and Ms. Pac-Man, as well as a some random commons like Donkey Kong Jr. I’d just as soon find box art and meta-data elsewhere and manually save them.

Thanks in advance.

[drvenkman]

My Tankstick trackball works great in AdvMAME so long as no other mouse is plugged into the Pi. I haven’t played Golden Tee but I use it in the Atari classics Centipede, Millipede and Missile Command without any problems, as well as with Tempest (I don’t have a true spinner). Check to make sure you’ve got the analog control sensitivity in MAME set high enough. You will probably have to experiment to get the feel right.

And if that doesn’t do it, check the Tankstick with a regular PC or Mac. The trackball will show up as a USB mouse and should work just like one. If it doesn’t work with a regular computer, something may be up with your trackball mechanically or electrically.

[drvenkman]

I guess I”m not picky either; for all the stuff I care about (late 70’s – mid 80’s, especially Trak-Ball games) it runs great. No lag on my end. I did have to crank up the sensitivity settings for analog controls to get the proper feel, but I have to do that with my MAME 0.157 setup on my MacBook Pro too.

[drvenkman]

I’m using an X-Arcade Tankstick and the RetroPie Xarcade2jstick service. Works great for most thing I’ve tried. Sadly mouse/trackball support seems not be present in MAME4ALL, but it works great in AdvancedMAME, so I use that for all the classic Trak-Ball games (Missile Command, Centipede, Millipede …).

[drvenkman]

As a follow-up to my own post, after googling, it appears as if there simply is no trackball/mouse support in MAME4ALL. The Tankstick works fine with AdvanacedMAME provided there is no other mouse plugged into the Pi. Since I have a Pi 2 and don’t play anything newer than about the mid-80’s, I’ve essentially just defaulted to using AdvancedMAME with my .106 roms for my favorite games. Shame, really, but I just don’t know if there’s a solution. I was hoping one of the RetroPie experts would be able to chime in definitively. It’s not like the trackball or a mouse is such a unique accessory for MAME.

[drvenkman]

Okay, I figured out how to get the joysticks and buttons registered for MAME4ALL. I guess I can figure out each of the rest of the emulators individually.

So my question now boils down to this all-important one: how do I enable trackball support in MAME4ALL? Centipede and Missile Command just ain’t right with the joystick!

[drvenkman]

[quote=92957]a simple question, is it possible to activate/desactivate scanlines? I don’t talk about other filters. i suppose it has to be done on every emulator.[/quote]

Yes, at least it is for MAME4ALL.

Go to /opt/retropie/emulators/mame4all and edit the mame.cfg file. Look for the line display_effect=0 and change the 0 to 1.

[drvenkman]

The 7800 has an incredibly vibrant homebrew scene, and a lot of them end up being placed on carts and sold at retail to retro-hobbyists. Anything by Bob DeCredenso (sp?) is worth looking at! Most of the homebrew 7800 ROMS can be found on AA – the developers usually make them (or very late beta versions) available for download and play testing. Sometimes they release final versions a few months after the carts go on sale just because they want to give back to the gaming community. I have a slew of them – I highly recommend Beef Drop (an excellent Burger Time port) and Asteroids Deluxe, among many others.

Now I just gotta find the config settings to get my X-Arcade Tankstick to work properly …

[drvenkman]

[quote=92924]
Are you running .bin or .a78, or do both work?
[/quote]

I know you didn’t reply to me, but I tested a Xevious rom in .a78 and it plays great.

As you and I both noted, the colors appear off, in my case too bright as if gamma is too high. Probably something configurable somewhere. I intend to dig into it tomorrow.

[drvenkman]

[quote=92917]I have added it to experimental section. Please let me know how it works for you. You can “optionally” install “7800 BIOS (U).rom” – works without but you don’t get the atari logo then[/quote]

Works pretty well, thanks, complete with rainbow Atari boot screen. I tried one ROM just as a test (Xevious) – I noticed some tearing in the vertical scrolling as compared to my real 7800 and cartridge, but that may be an artifact of playing on a bigger LCD (I usually play on a 13″ CRT). The colors appear kind of bright and washed out, as if the gamma is too high, but I’ll fool around with configuration options and see if I can tweak that.

Thanks!!!

[drvenkman]

Well, the code I’m referring to is here – it hasn’t been updated in over 6 years but it’s still archived and downloadable, and it functions quite well (at least the version compiled to run in OpemEmu under OS X does).

http://www.zophar.net/a7800/prosystem.html

I downloaded a copy myself so I know the link is still alive/working. I haven’t seen that thread at AtariAge but I’ll check it out, thanks!

[drvenkman]

Yes, I am using the 3.0 beta just freshly downloaded tonight. I am using an older Logitech multimedia keyboard that came with my son’s gaming rig about 8 or 9 years ago, so I selected “Logitech Multimedia Keyboard” and just standard U.S. defaults for everything else.

(For what it’s worth, I realized the defaults were fubar when I tried to comment out a line in /boot/config.txt and kept getting the symbol for Pounds-Sterling, lol.)

[drvenkman]

I ran into the English (UK) keyboard bit myself earlier tonight. I was able to fix it with raspi-config. Did you run it as superuser?

[drvenkman]

I’m getting the same error for every rom I try to use in MAME4ALL. Other emulators seems to be working okay. Googling has been singularly unhelpful so far.

[drvenkman]

Jeez, I’m an idiot. Thanks!

[drvenkman]

I think I’ve run into this same problem. I just installed RetroPie yesterday. Upon my first run of emulationstation from the console, I get a screen asking me to configure my keyboard (Up, Down, Left, Right … etc.) At the end of this process there is an OK button I cannot seem to navigate past.

Any ideas for troubleshooting?

[Author]

Posts