I ran some searches, tried some things… but for the life of me I can’t get the Atari 800 core to play 5200 roms.
I’ve got both the 5200.rom and 5200a.rom in the \system folder. I’ve gone into the core’s own menu and setup the path to the bios.
No matter what I try though I get “Sorry this program needs a real Atari/0S”
What am I missing?
(Please don’t recommend the MESS core, I hate MAME with the burning fire of 1,000 suns lol)
Currently, you need to go into the Atari800 menu (either by pressing F1, or by selecting the ATARI Joystick in the Controls quick menu, and then pressing R), go into Emulator Setup, and tell the emulator to look for roms in your system directory.
There was a patch for this, but it looks like we need to go further with it (and do a rom scan upon initial run).
Once this is done, you should probably go through each of your 5200 games, run each one, and set the appropriate cartridge type, and then press F1, go into the cartridge menu, and save the cartridge. This saves a header on the cartridge so you don’t have to re-set this.
(so many 5200 cartridges, and atari 800 cartridges are raw dumps, without any mapper information. To solve this without forcing ROM librarians to start carrying cartridge images with a header will require an internal hash database with the appropriate mapper parameters, I’m considering this…)
-Thom
Before the last change and your news options every things was working fine (auto detection of 5200 games based on mame crc ) Anyone get Atari 5200 working under RetroArch? if you can build ,you can always try this one https://github.com/r-type/jum52
I think that you need to open core options and set “Atari System” on “5200”. Then you can load 5200 roms normally. It worked for me.
Core Options: atari800_system = “5200” atari800_keyboard = “poll”
The Poll setting fixes the * key for this core
Thanks for the responses everyone.
So, in core options I had set the auto-detect function already, as well as the system type. (I always hit up the options first lol)
But today, I booted up RetroArch alongside this thread so I could try some of the other stuff here… and MUCH to my surprise it just booted up! I hadn’t yet changed anything from the settings I had attempted several times before posting so I don’t know what happened lol.
My next question then becomes… how do the controls work? Nothing is identified in the input descriptors for controller settings. I didn’t have one of these as a kid, but the controller looks insane in pictures. I expected something like the joystick for 2600, or the 7800 pad.
What is Poll and, the “*” key? I’m kind of lost.
What control do you plan to use? Your computer keyboard? XBOX controller? Let me know and ill get you squared away
That’s a way harder question to answer for me than you’d think lol.
I always map controller 1 and 2 to the keyboard, and then use xpadder to make my controllers match that template.
I know that sounds like I’m doing everything the hard-way, but this let’s me hot-swap literally any kind of controller at any moment and it just goes on every program I have setup lol
The Xbox 360/One layout is what my templates are built off of though, so that would be the easiest I think.
Perfect. I use XPADDER as well. You’ll need it, in this situation. I’ll have answers for you, shortly
So my mapping for P1 looks like this:
input_player1_a = “a” input_player1_x = “b” input_player1_up = “up” input_player1_down = “down” input_player1_left = “left” input_player1_right = “right”
Duplicate for P2 using same Retro inputs
Then beyond that, you’ll need to map a few more keys to your XPADDER layout that don’t currently work via RetroPad. Or you’ll need to use a physical keyboard:
NumPad* = * asterisk key which is used for changing game options via in game menus =/+ Key (next to backspace) = # key which is used for changing game options via in game menus F4 = Start which you’ll need to start some games
So for XPADDER… map Start-> F4. The rest, map however you like, but you’re going to need some numbers and the * and # keys to change game options.
Test “Moon Patrol” for * and # Test Pitfall for Start button
Let me know if you have other questions
the * key won’t work, until you enable that Poll option via Core Options
Dude holy crap, thank you! I never would have figured out the controls for this thing lol.
I did notice though that my normal “RetroPad” start input ( C on my keybaord ) seems to work as Start. I tried it on pitfall and a number of others.
But I never would have thought the 2 main buttons were mapped to B and Y lol I’m guessing there’s a backend reason for that on this core lol
I’ll probably just map = and * to the LB/RB buttons, and then put 1 through 0 on the analogue sticks and their clicks in case I ever do find myself in need of them. That’s actually what I did for the DosBox core so I could still choose weapons in DOOM since the concept of “next weapon” and “previous weapon” hadn’t been conceived yet haha.
Anyway, you my friend just closed the chapter on this headache of a system for me. Outside of Jaguar CD, I’ve finally got all the Atari stuff I could want up and running! Whooohoooo!!!
So thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you THANK YOU!!! haha.