Atari VCS Controller Support Added To SDL2

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Atari VCS Controller Support Added To SDL2

Ahead of the long-awaited Atari VCS game console launching this month, the SDL2 library has added the mapping for the Linux game console's controllers...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Atari-VCS-Controller-SDL2

[skeevy420]

Not a bad retro gaming setup for the price. Not a fan of that controller. The D-Pad. Never been a fan of the Sega Genesis style of D Pads. The rest of it, however, I could work with. That joystick is very clean.


This is my current favorite controller: My 8bitdo Pro 2 modded with SFC replacement buttons.


I hope that it isn't using a single stick of 8GB ram. While Atari games don't need it, PC Mode and all their streaming features would benefit from dual channel memory. APUs like that shit.

[M@GOid]

Not a bad retro gaming setup for the price. Not a fan of that controller. The D-Pad. Never been a fan of the Sega Genesis style of D Pads. The rest of it, however, I could work with. That joystick is very clean.


This is my current favorite controller: My 8bitdo Pro 2 modded with SFC replacement buttons.


I hope that it isn't using a single stick of 8GB ram. While Atari games don't need it, PC Mode and all their streaming features would benefit from dual channel memory. APUs like that shit.

So you got one of those. How is the compatibility? Any game you had that didn't recognized it?

[coder]

Not a bad retro gaming setup for the price. Not a fan of that controller. The D-Pad. Never been a fan of the Sega Genesis style of D Pads.

I still remember getting blisters from my Nintendo controller's d-pad, as a kid.

I hope that it isn't using a single stick of 8GB ram. While Atari games don't need it, PC Mode and all their streaming features would benefit from dual channel memory. APUs like that shit.

True, but it's a very low-spec APU:

AMD Ryzen™ Embedded R1606G with Radeon™ Vega 3 Graphics

# of CPU Cores: 2
# of Threads: 4
CPU Max Freq: Up to 3.5GHz
CPU Base Freq: 2.6GHz
GPU Shaders: 192
GPU Max Freq: 1200 MHz
TDP: 12-25W

Source: https://www.amd.com/en/products/spec...ed/21261+11411

I'd say a single channel of DDR4-2400 (the max speed supported) could deliver > 90% of the gaming performance of dual-channel, but I'd bet they went with lower-speed RAM.

Edit: According to this, the 8 GB model comes with dual-channel RAM, though they don't say what speed. I'd guess the 4 GB model just comes with one DIMM. Also, they mention it has two SO-DIMM slots and is upgradable to 32 GB (at DDR4-2400, no less)!

https://support.atari.com/index.php?...-upgrading-ram

[skeevy420]

So you got one of those. How is the compatibility? Any game you had that didn't recognized it?

So far every game tried has just worked. In X-Input mode it's treated like an Xbox One/360 Controller and in S it's recognized as a Switch (and I use DS4 Windows to configure it in S Mode). About the only annoyance with modern games is the ABXY buttons being SFC style, backwards from Xbox, but if you're used to Xbox prompts you won't even notice. If you're buying it for retro gaming then the buttons being labeled like that is awesome. Battery lasts a while too. 20hrs per charge isn't bullshit in my experiences so far.

Oh yeah, I have a tendency to trigger rapid fire by accident. It's set by holding the star button and the button you want to rapid fire. When I go left in twitchy games I tent to accidentally press the star button when doing things like boost turns and side jumps to the left.

I still remember getting blisters from my Nintendo controller's d-pad, as a kid.

That's how you could tell casuals from hardcore gamers when I was a kid.

True, but it's a very low-spec APU:

I'd say a single channel of DDR4-2400 (the max speed supported) could deliver > 90% of the gaming performance of dual-channel, but I'd bet they went with lower-speed RAM.

Funnily enough, it isn't the gaming performance I'd worry about. It's PC Mode and all the extra fluffy features like game recording and streaming that'll like the extra speed.

[coder]

BTW, at 460.8 GFLOPS, the Vega 3 GPU has twice the raw compute power of the GPU in the XBox 360 (240 GFLOPS). AFAICT, the PS3's GPU didn't do much in floating point, since it's rated at just 13.2 GFLOPS. And the Nintendo Switch is rated at up to 393 GFLOPS (docked). So, I guess even Vega 3 is respectable for lower-end games.

Here's a memory-bandwidth comparison:

Product	GB/s
PS3's RSX (read)	20.8
XBox 360's Xenon	32.0
Nintendo Switch	34.1
DDR4-2400 (single-channel)	19.2
DDR4-1866 (dual-channel)	29.9

[coder]

Funnily enough, it isn't the gaming performance I'd worry about. It's PC Mode and all the extra fluffy features like game recording and streaming that'll like the extra speed.

Well, the good news is that the 8 GB model not only ships in a dual-channel config, but it's even upgradable! See my edit, for details.

[Snaipersky]

If you got in early and remved the password on the BIOS, you could even overclock it.
But that was loved by everyone, so they changed the password and won't hand it out. So I guess my VCS is never going back to AtariOS.

[coder]

If you got in early and remved the password on the BIOS, you could even overclock it.
But that was loved by everyone, so they changed the password and won't hand it out. So I guess my VCS is never going back to AtariOS.

Did you get the 4 or 8 GB model? What speed memory did it come with? You should be able to find out just by running dmidecode and searching for the string "DDR4".

Also, what overclock are you using?

[sarmad]

Nice that it's finally shipping. I think this thing has some potential. They are marketing it correctly with focus on user experience, they are making it very simple for developers to target, and they are also giving devs good profit margin compared to competitors. The hardware specs are two generations behind, but I guess many people don't really care about spec sheets and only care that this thing can do few things regular consoles can't (ex: real Chrome browser).