Stella 2.7 released

[Robert]

Atari 2600 emulator

 

January 19, 2009

 

Stella release 2.7 for Linux, Mac OSX and Windows is now available. Ports to other operating systems will be released as they become available.

 

- Totally reworked the built-in UI to be font-sensitive and use higher-resolution fonts. Stella now requires a minimum screen size of 640x480. If used in a resolution smaller than that, the fonts will be reduced accordingly. Related to this, switching between software and OpenGL rendering now requires an application restart.

 

- Added three different sized fonts (small, medium, large) which can be used in the ROM launcher.

 

- Added ability to temporarily override ROM properties from the UI. This is tied to a right mouse button context menu in the ROM launcher, and is very useful when you want to use a set of properties for all subsequent ROMs without having to manually change each one.

 

- Added ability to filter the files shown in the ROM launcher. Currently, the choices are 'all files', 'all roms', or 'roms ending with a certain extension'. This functionality is tied to a right mouse button context menu in the ROM launcher. Extensions can also be set with the '-launcherexts' commandline argument.

 

- Added ability to reload the listing in the ROM launcher, either from a right mouse button context menu or pressing the Control/Cmd-R key.

 

- Made the ROM info viewer in the ROM launcher configurable to show snapshots in 1x or 2x mode.

 

- Made the delay between consecutive keys being recognized as one word configurable in the ROM launcher. This is useful if you find that you have to press keys too quickly to jump to a specific ROM. This can be set in the UI or using the '-listdelay' commandline argument.

 

- Updated internal ROM properties database to ROM-Hunter version 4 (thanks go to RomHunter for his tireless research in this area).

 

- Expanded the statistics overlay for the TIA image to also show Display Format and Bankswitch type information.

 

- Added '-ss1x' commandline argument and associated UI item, used to generate snapshots in 1x mode, independent of the filtering/scaling currently in use.

 

- Various path textboxes in the UI now recognize './' (or '.\') to mean the current directory and '~/' (or '~\') to mean your home directory (for Windows, home directory will be your 'My Documents' folder).

 

- Large speedup in loading directories with many files in the ROM launcher.

 

- Fixed reset issue in 3E, 4A50, AR, CV, E7, F4SC, F6SC, F8SC, FASC and MC ROMs; the internal RAM wasn't being randomized after the initial reset.

 

- M6532/RIOT RAM is now randomized at every reset, not just when the emulation starts.

 

- Fixed bug in _diff pseudo-registers in the debugger; they were actually defined backwards.

 

- Added fix for 'Challenge/Surfers Delight' ROM; the startup bank was incorrect. Combined with the new 'Override Properties' functionality, you can now play both games directly from the UI (no need to use the commandline).

 

- Fixed paddle issue with Activision Casino ROM; the last card in game 4 can now be reached.

 

- Added new pseudo-registers to the debugger, useful for conditional breakpoints (_fcount, _cclocks, _vsync, _vblank).

 

- Added 'timing' commandline argument functionality to the UI, so you no longer need to use the commandline to set it.

 

- Size restrictions on the TIA image are now strictly enforced. The maximum height of a 1x TIA image is now 256 lines.

 

- Added a new setting to the 'fullres' option named 'auto'. Using 'auto' will let Stella decide the best videomode to use in fullscreen.

 

- Changed 'gl_fsmax' option to mean 'scale TIA image in fullscreen'. It will have no effect on UI modes.

 

- Changed 'gl_aspect' option to range 80-100 (previously, it was 50-100).

 

- Removed 'ui_zoom' and 'tia_zoom' options, replacing them with 'tia_filter' (which can be zoom1x, zoom2x, etc). There is no equivalent for ui_zoom, since the UI can no longer be scaled.

 

- Added experimental 64-bit version for Vista64 (may also work on WinXP64). This hasn't been extensively tested, and is probably quite a bit slower than the 32-bit version.

 

- OSX port now requires at least 10.3 and XCode 3.0 to compile. Sorry, but I no longer have access to older systems to compile for 10.2.

 

- Huge updates to the documentation, particularly concerning the debugger. Many features that have been in Stella for a while are now documented for the first time.

>> Get it HERE.