Stella v2.1 Released

[olaf]

Emu#dreams reports that Stella, the multi-platform Atari 2600 emulator, has been updated to version 2.1. Below are the changes in this version.

 

- Added phosphor effect, similar to z26. Useful on ROMs which alternate sprites from one frame to another, resulting in an annoying flicker. When using phosphor mode, a pixels colour is mixed with its previous value, resulting in a blended image that doesn't flicker, emulating the phosphoresence effect on a real television.

- Added 'pp' developer commandline argument to set the "Display.Phosphor" property, and 'ppblend' to set the amount to blend pixels in phosphor mode. Also added 'Alt p' key to enable/disable phosphor effect while ROM is emulated. By default, phosphor mode is only used when necessary, as specified in the stella.pro file.

- Renamed 'cheetah' commandline argument to 'cheat'.

- Added per-frame cheatcodes (4 characters long), which are evaluated each frame.

- Added cheatcode GUI, where cheats can be named, edited, saved, etc.

- Cheat codes are now saved to stella.cht file and are automatically reloaded when Stella starts.

- Improved 'joymouse' functionality. While in GUI mode, any axis will simulate mouse movement, and any button will simulate a mouse click. So the GUI can be completely navigated without a mouse.

- Improved CommandDialog and LauncherDialog wrt joymouse functionality. These dialogs are used more than any other on devices without a mouse, so joystick axis movement switches between GUI objects, rather than simulating the mouse. This leads to much faster selection of objects.

- Added mapping of multiple SDL joystick axis to Event Mapping.

- Added joystick hat support, and mapping of multiple hats to Event Mapping.

- Added remapping of paddle emulation to the keyboard or joystick axis (the mouse is still used by default for paddles).

- Related to this, use more precise analog values when analog axis are mapped to analog-type events (such as paddles). Treat joystick events as other types of controllers based on the virtual port entry in stella.pro. This means that mappings for a joystick will emulate other devices when necessary.

- Added 'sp' developer commandline argument, which sets the "Console.SwapPorts" property and swaps the arrangement of the virtual ports. Useful for games like "Raiders of the Lost Ark", where the joysticks are normally swapped.

- Added ability to set which Stelladaptor device emulates which virtual joystick port ('sa1' and 'sa2' commandline arguments, which accept 'left' or 'right').

- Fixed issues with jittering joysticks/mice causing weird events when starting Stella.

- Added 'freq', 'tiafreq' and 'clipvol' commandline arguments, which affect the sound subsystem (see manual for further info).

- Made state files completely cross-platform, both in terms of endianness as well as CPU size (32 vs. 64 bit).

- Fixed crash with using 'cheat' and 'break' from the commandline.

- Implemented dynamic loading of OpenGL library.

You can visit the official homepage here, or simply download it here.