Stella 2.5 released

[Robert]

Atari 2600 emulator

 

March 28, 2008

Stella release 2.5 for Linux, Mac OSX and Windows is now available. Ports to other operating systems will be released as they become available.

 

- Added RomInfo widget to the ROM launcher, which shows properties information and a snapshot of the currently selected ROM. Updated the UI and added '-romviewer' commandline argument to activate this setting. Note that the ROM launcher will have to be sized at least 640x480 for this to be used. Also note that the snapshots must be in 1x mode with a maximum size of 320x260. This will be expanded on in a future release.

- Added ROM audit functionality, whereby ROMs can be physically renamed according to their properties' name.

- Added bankswitching support for 0840, SB, X07 and 4A50. A special thanks to Eckhard Stolberg for much help in this area.

- Removed "non-browse" functionality from the ROM launcher; it now always uses browse/filesystem mode. The previous 'pretty' names can now be seen by renaming all your ROMs with the new ROM audit feature.

- Huge overhaul of controller handling and Stelladaptor support, making it much easier to add new controller types in a future release.

- Fixed paddle issues in Night Driver; paddle emulation speed should be much better.

- Fixed several 6507 emulation bugs related to BCD handling.

- Updated ROM properties based on info from RomHunter.

- ROM properties can now be edited from the ROM launcher; you no longer have to start a ROM to do so.

- Added support for configurable font to ROM launcher (currently only 'small' and 'large'). Updated the UI and added -launcherfont' commandline argument to change this setting.

- Added SECAM, NTSC50, PAL60 and SECAM60 to the list of formats that can be used. Also, switching between these modes with 'Ctrl-f' now switches the palette only; the number of scanlines won't change.

- Fixed crash when switching between software and OpenGL mode with a Stelladaptor plugged in.

- Added '-tiafloat' commandline argument, which determines whether or not the TIA pins are in a 'floating' state. This is useful for testing on certain CMOS EPROM chips where the unused TIA pins on a read are not floating but pulled high.

- Fixed issue in debugger where once a .sym file was loaded, it was used in all ROMs loaded after that.

- Fixed issue in debugger where equate names weren't showing up in the RAM and CPU widgets. Note that this still isn't perfect, and needs support from DASM for proper functionality.

- Updated state file format, creating smaller files (and in preparation for state rewinding in a future release). Old state saves will no longer work.

- Added '-bs' commandline argument, which is an alias for '-type' (which is still present).

- Removed -pXspeed' commandline arguments, and replaced them with a single '-pspeed'.

- Removed '-paddle' commandline argument. The paddle currently emulated by the mouse can still be changed with Ctrl-0..3 or within the UI, but the setting is no longer saved.

- Reworked UI for specifying that the console ports have been swapped, hopefully making it easier to understand.

- Added 'Ctrl-c' & 'Ctrl-v' to EditTextWidgets, allowing to copy and paste the text widget contents. More work in this area is coming in a future release.

- Added 'Ctrl-leftarrow' and 'Ctrl-rightarrow' to EditTextWidgets, to move to the first character of previous and next words (respectively).

- For the Win32 port: fixed OpenGL crashes in Vista. Graphical updates are still slower in Vista compared to XP, though.

- For the Win32 port: default folder for Stella config files is now 'My Documents\Stella'; this can be disabled if necessary. This should fix issues with losing settings when launching Stella from an IDE, and the creation of stella.ini and 'state' directories in many different places.

- For the Win32 port: several fixes to the Visual Studio project files, allowing building in debug or release mode, for both i386 and x86_64. The project files have been upgraded to Visual Studio 2008, and Stella can now be built and distributed without the VS runtime libraries.

- Updated configure script for cross-compiling Win32 version in Linux.

 

Have Fun!

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