All things Atari VCS Thread

[RIP-Felix]

In all seriousness, it "sounds" like they are trying to get it out before Christmas. I do hope that you backers are satisfied with the product. I'm sure it will be crap, but the community will figure out how to make it cool.

Still, I'd check the easter egg in the bundled Adventure. I wouldn't put it past ATARI to have removed Warren Robinett's name!

[hansolo77]

23 hours ago, RIP-Felix said:

Still, I'd check the easter egg in the bundled Adventure. I wouldn't put it past ATARI to have removed Warren Robinett's name!

You know.. I still haven't managed to trigger that myself, even though I've seen some videos.  I should try to manage that some time on my day off.

[RIP-Felix]

Me neither, I'll confess I didn't even know about it until I read ready player one.

[Draco1962]

IT'S SHIPPED! 

A month later than the last announcement and, with the delays & promises, why send via slow-ass ground? I am hoping it is at least decent and that there will be some decent fixes. Reviews are mixed so far with some pretty damning.

There are a couple of faux reviews - one that tells how sucky without any hands on, another a review of a review - really folks???

[hansolo77]

I too got the shipping confirmation.  Hasn't arrived yet.  Original it was slated for Monday the 21st but has since been updated to Tuesday the 22nd.  Still, before Christmas is cool.  Can't wait to have it!

[Draco1962]

Hoping to see more legitimate videos. Not much out yet.

[tthurman]

Looks like they've changed their marketing approach, or at the very least are angling it more toward a family entertainment center piece.

 

[tthurman]

One thing is for sure, it plays PONG................

[Draco1962]

They are going to have to do better with general sales than they have with the backers. Nintendo(n't) has deeper pockets and can get away with problems in keeping up with demand for Switch and retro console faux pas. Being the "new kid on the block" again,

Atari will be an also-ran  once again unless it can bring the costs down and deliver a quality product consistently.  They apparently are compatible with 3rd part Bluetooth and USB controllers. This will keep costs down for the consumer.

[RIP-Felix]

Looks like a paper weight ATM.

They mentioned something about a "different experience" when using the blutooth controller vs USB. I hope that isn't double speak for significant variable lag. If it's bad enough for developers to mention it, then you know it's bad.

The other thing is the state of the ATARI store. I would consider that a wishing fountain at this point. You can throw your money in hoping, but don't expect to it to come true.

Here's to hoping they can actually overcome greed and put in the work it takes to make a good product that earns customers. We want to return to the old ATARI mother we remember, but all the evidence so far say's she's been replaced by this:

[hansolo77]

"Unboxed" it (from the shipping box) yesterday.  Haven't hooked it up yet, have a lot of things to do before Christmas.  But... take that you nay-sayers! 

 

[tthurman]

I bet you've been wait a long time to say that

I'm just glad you guys didn't get stiffed, and don't tell me it didn't cross your mind a time or two!

[Draco1962]

"But it plays PONG!" Mine is still enroute. I won't be able to do anything with it until later in the weekend. 

 

[hansolo77]

It'll probably be Christmas Day or middle of next week before I see it running on my tv.  Still, nice to have it before Christmas.  I already plan on putting in some more ram and m.2 drive, just broke at the moment.  Of course we're all getting that HUGE $600 stimulus (that's a joke btw, bazinga!).  I'm thinking about putting Windows 10 and GameEx on it, but might just go "RetroPie" on it since there's setup already working.  GameEx would require going back to my old setup and re-building everything again.  Would love to though, I still need to check out Evolution.  I mean, I did buy it after all and I'm kinda posting this on THIS forum lol.  Windows has Steam going for it, and there's already people talking about how it's better than SteamBox (SteamOS).  Of course the base AtariOS has lots going for it too.  Various prebuilt-in streaming video apps, the entire Atari Vault, and online stream gaming through services (that I've not heard of) like Antstream.  Lots of stuff to play around with.

I will say though that I did "unwrap" the console and controllers.  I was concerned about the new gamepad's D-Pad, it looks terrible.  But it feels ok.  The grips on the controller are lacking any kind of texture or rubber, just flat plastic.  But meh..  The joystick feels good in the hand, but the "ribs" on the base feel like they'll be instant ridges on your hand after playing.  A small nuisance but they could have gotten away with just bands of gloss and matte finishes instead.   The stick actually feels kinda weak.  I remember the Atari 2600 sticks had a nice rubber resistance to them.  These guys feel very flimsy and feel like they could snap off.  There is a feeling of tactile switches inside the stick, so it's definitely a digital stick rather than self-centering analog (like current-gen thumb sticks).  The "paddle" feature that I pride myself in suggesting to Atari and then see become fully official feels "ok".  I mean, it's a first gen idea and could be improved, but it just feels weird.  It's got a "clicky" mount and sensor, like a brand new mouse's wheel.  Definitely digital and not analog like the old paddles used to be.  But it's better than nothing I guess.  I'll have to play a few games like Breakout and Ka-Boom to see if it holds up ok.  What'll be really interesting is if I use an emulator and it detects it as a paddle like it should, without having to go find a mouse alternative.  As for the console itself, it's definitely got some heft to it, which is a good thing.  It's probably 2 encyclopedias heavy, if that helps picture it.  Definitely not some cheap materials to cut costs like a version 3 PSONE or PS2-Slim or whatever.  It's just looks awesome too.  I'm surprised though that the Fuji logo is actually cut out of the wood grain front rather than it illuminating from behind it like they said it would, maybe I just remember wrong.  Looks like it's got USB3 ports front and back, which I didn't think they were going to do since pre-production photos showed only ports in the back.  That's cool.  Of course the controllers are all bluetooth so you'll never actually see wires except out the back for power/network/video.  I think it's got wifi too so might not even need the ethernet.  The ports are mostly for expansion like hard drives, or 3rd party controllers.

That's it for my "unboxing" review.  I'll post more when I hook it up.  I'm excited though.  I've actually seen people in the official Discord and Facebook groups saying that it runs Cyberpunk 2077 fluid and flawlessly, which is awesome considering they didn't build it to compete with 9th generation consoles,, but apparently it does. 

[RIP-Felix]

Tell me though, can it do this? Mine can!

Na Nana BooBoo, stick your head in doo doo

[Draco1962]

21 minutes ago, RIP-Felix said:

Tell me though, can it do this? Mine can!

Na Nana BooBoo, stick your head in doo doo

And when it doesn't work, blow on it!

[Draco1962]

Might be here a day sooner  but still won't be able to do much until the weekend...

 

[tthurman]

That'd be nice!

[Draco1962]

It is akin to the self-inflicted Christmas torture of sneaking a peak into the closet and seeing a bike, knowing it's yours, but with the knowledge that play is yet days away!

 

[RIP-Felix]

I'm curious what level of emulation are we talking about with this thing?

• Your standard retropie:  N64 is buggy and Dreamcast is too much.
• MicroPC territory: Dolphin, CEMU and PS2 are about the limit.
• Or Full on Laptop/moderate Desktop PC territory: Pretty much any emulator besides the ones that are notoriously difficult (PS3, XBOX, etc).

If we're talking the MicroPC territory, with built-in wireless controllers, streaming services and etc, it could be pretty cool once users are able to adapt Retroarch, GameEX and ect. Didn't Han say it was going to be compatible with linux? If that's the case, then I imagine it should be pretty strait forward to figure out. I hope there aren't any problems with the Controller drivers. That's always been a problem with new platforms. It certainly looks cool. I just hope it's not too niche to get development support. I mean, retropi moved so quickly because of its popularity, whereas the more powerful and niche ODrioids took longer.

So I guess we'll see.

 

 

[hansolo77]

I have an Odroid N2.  It's my new "RetroPie".  It can play N64 perfectly, at 1080p rendering resolutions.  I also have full fps support on DreamCast, Sega Saturn, NDS and PSP.  It is capable of newer stuff via Dolphin and Ps2.  The only problem is the cpu architecture on the N2 is ARM, and nothing has been developed yet that is ARM based for Dolphin or PSCX2 etc.  The Atari VCS, however, is an X86 architecture CPU.  And I've seen videos of people playing full speed Gamecube, PS2, Wii, etc on it.  With it being capable of running Windows 10, you get stream access to the entire (well mostly) Xbox library.  You can also play most anything in Steam.  In-house and 3rd party devs building games to run directly in the Atari OS are using Unity (not sure what version), which is current gen tech.

After typing up my mini hardware review last night, I did go ahead and hook it up to see what's what.  ATTENTION DRACO...  DON'T REBOOT IT DURING THE INITIAL UPDATE!!!  I started it, and it looked like it got stuck at 83% for like 20 minutes.  I switched it off and back on and the thing got stuck in an infinite boot loop.  There is a way to fix it, but it's better to just let it do it's thing.  I joined the dedicated first-users Discord and asked what to do.  They all said it's expected behavior, and might take 45-60 minutes to complete.  I didn't know that and was afraid I jacked it up.  Fixed it though.

The Atari OS is "meh".  They have very little working and running on it right now.  The PC mode is getting all the love from the community at this moment.  The Atari offerings are weak at the moment.  You have an Atari VCS Vault, which includes all (best I could tell) Atari 2600 games included, as well as a hand-picked assortment of early 80's Atari arcade games (Centipede, Tempest era stuff).  That is it.  They have a store, where you can buy Volume 2 for $4.99 but I don't know what it includes.  They also have about 4 other games that were 3rd party developed for the console but are behind a paywall so I'm not inclined to look at them right now.  They do offer a free game of their remade Missile Command (supposed to be a our special thank-you perk, although I'd be happier with a hat or t-shirt).  They also have a "Prologue" game, which is very well polished and is probably just the first level for demo'ing, but it's free and I got it and like it.  It looks like they don't have much else right now.  They have an Antstream app you can get, which is advertised to bring a streaming option for retro gaming.  From what it looks like, it would present games for you to play, and it downloads the rom to your system until you're done, then it erases it.  Antstream is a subscription service (of which backers are supposed to get 1st month free) but I've got no need to do that right now.  Besides which, chat in the Discord is that it doesn't work...logins not being accepted/working, and it requires a keyboard to login with no onscreen keyboard which was a deal breaker for a lot of people.  Granted, we're still technically in a beta stage and the whole idea for us to get them before the rest of the world was to test these things out, and it looks like Antstream's partnership is broken at the moment.  Still, all told, I'm excited to see what I can get running on this.  I don't have any money but plan on getting some expansion on it soon.  I'm going to wait though and watch some videos on what other people are doing.  The way things look right now, the only way to run the PC mode is by launching an app on the home screen that triggers a reboot INTO the other OS (Which has to be on an external USB drive, not the expanded m.2).  My guess is that it will then reboot back into the Atari OS every time, and only go into PC mode when you launch the dedicated app.  Also, it looks like it has a remote wake via controllers, like current gen consoles which will be cool, but I didn't test it.  I was shutting it down (off) and it gave the option to just "sleep" and allow remote wake up.

Oh, I also installed the PLEX app.  Don't like it on the VCS.  Might just need updating.  But a movie I tried to watch wanted to play the 2nd audio (director's commentary) only, even after switching it.  Probably a codec problem.  With the VCS still new, the PLEX dev's probably have gotten any reports on it's capabilities yet to know how to handle streaming to it.

[Draco1962]

No go for receipt yesterday. Our city is a hub and sometimes packages bounce around until they get to the right distribution node for delivery.

[Draco1962]

[Draco1962]

I bought the Onyx Edition - gloss black facade with matt orange back. Updating now... 

[Draco1962]

I managed to find a lull in all of the Christmas prep activities and had a chance to unbox, power up, update, and get connected. 

Some first impressions:

- OS and BIOS updates took a while. Roughly 1 hour including pairing the "modern" controller and setting up the WiFi connection.  Nothing to report here. All modern consoles do this to receive updates since their initial packaging.

- Internet connection via WiFi seemed to be a bit dodgy, or should I say it us likely the Atari OS. I set the VCS on my desk 2 feet from the WiFi.. signal strength excellent. But when attempting to shop and purchase Atari VCS Vault Vol. 2, I would get "Please connect to the internet" type messages. These did not go away with an Ethernet connection.

- I ordered 2 controllers - 1 Classic and 1 Modern. Both come charged and with a USB charging cable. The modern is very mych an Xbox 369/One controller in design, heft, and layout.  Debating whether or not to order another to have two solid controllers or see how things work pairing one of my spare One controllers. The Classic controller, well, school is out on that. Functionality was not very good for navigation and I had limited time to test it in-game.

-As for the Dashboard, etc., OK but Atari is not going to sell many of these to the general public without LOTS of negative criticism. Compared to consoles on the market, it feels beta. 32gb of onboard storage is going to disappear quickly and I am hesitant to layout much coin on an external drive to test loading a Windows 10. I attached my MS gaming keyboard to it but could only get the Enter key to register. Likely a drivers thing, so will try with a more basic keyboard later.

That's about it for now. I am cautiously optimistic and see a lot of potential. I am hopeful that they will up their game a bit or it will not succeed in this "gotta have it all and now working out of the box leveraging minimal grey matter" world in which we live.