I just tested and the options don’t work for the core unfortunately. But it seems once you set up the BIOS roms and load a 5200 rom it loads it directly, at least it did that with most of the roms I tried. that works for me 
So after you setup the BIOS, it will load roms for the 5200 in ES ? Can you give a little more detail on setting it bios so I can do this ?
Last time I played with the 800 core the other day, it would give me an error that I needed a TRUE Atari OS/system
So tonight, trying to see if I can even play QIX, I played with these again.
With a lot of playing and a bunch of trial and error, I got libretro-atari800 (From @r-type ) to play QIX but, I could not play it because no controls were available even though I enabled Joystick in the Atari Control panel. Saving settings would not re-load next time I loaded it accept minor things like the BIOS location and even that was hit or miss. One time it would be there, the next time it would not be there. This took me about 30-40 min of trial and error to get QIX to even run.
Under my testing, IF I was able to get controls to work, this would be an unacceptable option unless there was a way to load it each time and found some funkiness. If you loaded a 2 chip 5200 cart, some games would load but, others would lock up the system, then if you selected 1 chip, those games would play. There would be no way to make easy to work with because of this alone. The more I play with this, the more I see this is not a good option to play 5200 games.
Then I go back to the ONLY thing I was able to play games with is mess_libretro.dll (with the directions from @Thatman84 ) . This is working in Emulation Station but, TO A POINT. For Example QIX that is a dual chip 5200 game, would come up to the Atari logo, then the blinking logo would go away and it would lock up the game. Other games, assuming a 1 chip, seemed to play fine. Controls were a little funky but, I could live with them at this point as I am only testing. The games were not 100%, random game lockups were common.
I did find a BAD DUMP of QIX and for the heck of it I tried it… IT WORKED, I got to play for about 5 min then it crashed on me…Oh, well the quest is still on.
I did try the Mame2000 through Mame2016 cores (step by step, trying at least 3 different roms on each), I got nothing but black screens on all of them. And the update that I had BIG HOPES for mess2014_libretro.dll, never would load, when ever trying to run a 5200 game, I will get the “this application has crashed” window… so no matter what rom I it will crash.
All these cores were updated in RetroArch so they are the newest.
I only have about 18 games setup for the 5200 in Emulation station right now, was hoping for more but, it’s looking like I have a LONG way to go before I get there.
I am really starting to think adding a 3rd party option for 5200 only might be the best way to go here sad to say, Nothing is sold for RetroArch and there is 3rd party options that seem to run EVERYTHING I have dumped at them.
Sigh…the quest is on…
I will look at to improve this.
Also for a5200, a quick search lead me to jum52, Not sure if good or bad emulator but after looking at code i think it will take very very short time to port to libretro. Can you look at to see if standalone works fine and then see if there is an interest to port it to libretro.
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Thank you. If you don’t want to do this, I completely would understand.
I downloaded it, opened it, looked over some settings, looks like it supports a controller but, noting it has not been updated from 2010. IS it possible when it’s a core for RetroArch that it would handle all the game controls or is this up to the core itself ? Just worried about the lack of support for modern controllers like the Xbox one or 360 controllers.
Didn’t see your message till this morning and I am at work doing a quick test on it, so I have no controller access right now.
As for running games, I tried 3, the one that came in the box(there was a free PONG type game it came with) and QIX with one more random one (Kangaroo). I did the command “Jum52_Win32.exe qix.a52” and the rom loaded accordingly with no problems OR asking me for a bios (internal to the program ?). This should work fine for RetroArch and Emulation Station.
The app it self under my minor testing (As for mess_libretro.dll, would NOT play QIX but, would play Kangaroo), it seems like it would do the job.
I can do more testing over the weekend and try a true controller but, if it will pull the controller settings from RetroArch, I would say this a nice option to try and to go for it. I did a little reading about it, and it’s talked about pretty highly as one of the more dependable 5200 emulators that play about 80% of the games
If there was a better one… it seems like KAT5200 is the NEWEST one and seems to play everything (and even supports Xbox controllers out of the box on the newest version)
compiled atari800 directly from r-type’s repo, seems better. can navigate folders now,start has been mapped to R4. hope this will be fully intergrated into libretro/retroarch(meaning autodetect rom type, run from load content, playlist and others.)
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did you update the info core , for supported content ?
no look at kat5200 code for now , but size is hudge so not aim to be a quick one hour libretro port.
jum52 seem to bee updated 2 mounths ago. https://github.com/james7780/jum52 due to the Copyright owner. I retain all since I have no info /feedback from the author to allow such libretro port.
“This source code may not be distributed except by the explicit permission of the Author.”
Oh, my only worries about jum52 is the controller support, otherwise go for it. Do need someone here (like myseif) to try to contact the dev to see if he/she would allow the source to be used for this project ?
I work in IT but, not a programmer, I wish I knew how to compile these, I would try it for “PERSONAL USE” till we could get permissions…
Sigh…
ok my mistake. ive been only testing a5200 specifically qix.bin. my verified qix rom is 16KB, not sure why this has to be loaded into the emulator as two 16kb chip, hench the error. other zipped a5200 and atari-8 loads fine while others has to be extracted and loaded manually.
some atari have different extension too: |atx|bas|rom|xex|
My roms for the 5200 are bin or a52 it seems to be the common thing for 5200 roms that I have seen…
Trust me, when trying to play QIX, I downloaded 5 rom sets (yes, I DO OWN THE GAME, just still at my mothers house, I need to grab then one day) and have seen a lot of them…this of course is not including the 7z or zip or rar ones…
What i did to automaticaly load QIX i choose QIX (1982) (Atari).a52 (16k) for A5200 QIX rom i start atari800 and choose 2 chip 16kb 5200 cartridge the game load and play fine (yes it strange 16Kb but load fine with 2 chip).
in fact a52 are just bin renamed , the mean rom without header (to say which mapped format to use to load cartridge )
Now for automatic load , as i know the good format to choose,
- start again atari800 with this cart .
- when ask for format just hit esc to exit this menu and hit F1 to enter main menu
- go to cartridge management
- create cartridge from rom image
- choose your rom
- select the correct format ( in this casz 2 chip 15200 for QIX )
- save to same name.
- esc then exit emulator .
then you can reload the rom , it have the correct header and load automatically .
yes it’s a boring boring way to do this
if you hex the rom file , you notice that now it have a header like 43 42 52 54 00 00 00 06 00 … the 06 is for 2 chip 16Kb and 32k=4 16k 2 chip=6 and 16k 1 chip=16 seem the header is 16B long , before rom was 16386 now 16400.
Do you think jum52 is going to be possibility for libretto ? I know that worked all the roms I tried, just the controller thing is in question.
If you need a BETA tester, you could always reach me at (my user name) @ Hotmail .com
If your waiting for approval to use it, I hope you hear from him soon !
Thanks again !
did you read post above? anyways, atari800 3.1.0 does seem to work. if you want this to be able to auto-load the 5200 roms do what is stated above, meaning you have to manually load the games, choose two or one chip 5200 cartridge and then save the new cartridge. this will write headers to the rom so the emulator can detect it if its a two or one chip cart.
controller will works if retroarch support it. But I had no feedback from the author , so i keep the core for my own use until he accept the libretro port. i cant share it. at most i can share the libretro part and explain the 2 line hack it need in the upstream code ( only needed to escape endless loop and bypass libco usage). but that mean you have to build the core yourself.
For atari800 , i hack it to use crc detection on a52 rom, so now you should not have to add header or choose correct cart type, as long your rom match the crc .
If I was using this on a dedicated PC with a keyboard connected, that would be fine. The system I am using the emulators on is a dedicated HTPC, where 99% of it is controlled by a remote control (based on Windows Media Center). There is no keyboard for 99% of things used here.
It’s setup so I can use a remote control, Select ES, and I use my Xbox 360 controller, when I exit ES, it goes back to the HTPC (with a remote). So using a keyboard to play one of the 8 systems that are setup, kind of defeats the point here.
OK, I tried 
I hope he gets back to you soon ! Like I said, if you NEED a beta tester to make sure it WORKS, let me know !
So, with your update, should it run 5200 games with out going into changing it ? I’ll try it tonight…Crossing fingers here !
EDIT: I looked over your code… I see these…
74 + { a5200,“qbert.bin”,8192,0x3fe4a401},
************** 75 + { a5200_ee_16,“qix.bin”,16384,0xaea6d2c2},
76 + { a5200,“questroo.bin”,16384,0xb5f3402b},
77 + { a5200,“rsbsebll.bin”,32768,0x44166592},
78 + { a5200,“rsbktbll.bin”,32768,0xdd217276},
79 + { a5200,“rsbktbll1.bin”,32768,0xc90196fa},
80 + { a5200_ee_16,“rsbktbll2.bin”,16384,0x0f996184},
81 + { a5200_ee_16,“rsftball.bin”,16384,0x4336c2cc},
82 + { a5200_ee_16,“rssoccer.bin”,16384,0xecbd1853},
… My QIX game is named…“QIX (1982) (Atari).a52” does this mean it will need to be named or it wont work ?
Of course I cant say it enough, thanks for your help here ! The 5200 needs more love than people give it !
@r-type I tried your updated file. No love here at all in my trials sad to say…
I started by trying my “QIX (1982) (Atari).a52” file. I got the error “You need an official Atari OS for this” (or something of the sort). So I did the F1 thing on the next try, selected the 5200.rom (the bios for the 5200).
At this point for the QIX game, I have 3 copies, One the original (QIX (1982) (Atari).a52) that has meta data, etc, the copy (QIN.BIN) and the bad rip (QIX (b2).bin)
I tried it again, blank screen, renamed the file as you listed above, (qix.bin) and tried again, BLACK screen again. Hit F1 again, selected 2 chip 5200 game and it played. It went into the menu, so I grabbed my controller that is setup in RetroArch (all my other systems work fine with it), hit START, nothing, hit every button on the controller…Nothing. Again, I could see the game available but, I could not play it because my controller didn’t work with it.
Pretty much the same results as above. Sorry to say. No other game would play right off the bat, I tried about 6 games, and all of them had a black screen till I changed some settings using the F1 key.
Thanks for trying…
your almost there. with regards to Black screen, i just had to press button-1(whichever it is in your gamepad for this core) and it should play. it will also help to go into quick menu > controller and choose Atari Joystick(not the default Retropad).
Since you are already seeing the game loaded, press F4 to start game.
Seeing the “You need an official Atari OS for this” (or something of the sort)" means you have not set your bios path yet. scroll a few posts above since i already posted how to set this up.
Is it possible that you could share this with me? I can try and build the core from source and test it while the author replies
Btw, I don’t seem to have any problem with your a800 core, I build it directly from source, but the auto-detect cart thing is an awesome idea! now I just need to get a compatible romset 
This system is giving me too much trouble on RetroArch. MAME and MESS cores in the updater don’t work (they all crash), the only thing that makes it work is a modified (i think) MESS core i found somewhere else a year ago. And that only works through RocketLauncher and only when using an older RetroArch module.
It’s so specific that i don’t even know how i managed to make it work. Also, “work” is a strong word, MESS is very bad at emulating the 5200, more than half of the games don’t even boot with it.
The atari800 core didn’t work for me either but even if it did, i don’t know if it’s possible for it to launch games without having to fiddle with extra menus and the keyboard.
Basically, there is nothing in RetroArch that is good for the 5200, especially if you want a couch living room setup with no keyboards around to fiddle with. So the only thing that left for my setup is KAT5200, it works with all games perfectly but it’s not RetroArch (i can’t use shaders for instance). I wish there was a KAT5200 core somewhere, i have no idea if the emulator is open source or not.