The team behind the Linux-powered games console, the Atari VCS, recently had a three-day session together to go over the progress and it seems quite interesting. It's not exactly going to into a huge amount of depth, really most of it sounds like the obvious things they would be working on but it's still good to see it progress forward after their successful IndieGoGo campaign.
For the actual console itself, they shared pictures of the oversized "custom" AMD development board, with the Bristol Ridge processor and 8GB of RAM:
Obviously the final version is going to be a lot smaller. They say they're using this to allow them to have extra sensors and things like that, which are required for calculating thermal load under various power draw scenarios and so on. They're trying to get the AMD APU to run as fast as possible, without melting away.
Currently, the Atari Classic Joystick and Atari Modern Controller designs are being finalised with their hardware partner Power A. Their modern gamepad is actually based on Power A’s Xbox One/PC controllers with added bluetooth to work directly with the Atari VCS. They're also still going over things like battery options, to give the best cost vs power and things like that.
When it comes to games, they've obviously tested the Atari Vault as well as Rocket League, Terraria, Basketball Classics, Borderlands 2, Broforce, Smugglecraft, Dropsy, Banner Saga, Shadow Warrior, and several others so it's looking like they might have a pretty decent list of games tested working with it.
Some of the team together.
To be taken with a pinch of salt, they also said about talking to various "large and small studios, publishers and content providers" in regards to getting their content on the console.
In addition to games, they said that standalone applications for Twitch, Netflix, Amazon Video and Amazon Music, YouTube, Spotify and others are also being work on. This is something that was really missing for Steam Machines with SteamOS, so I am glad that's also a focus of it.
I'm still not entirely sold on it, because so many things can still go wrong at this point while it's all under heavy development. However, I'm optimistic about the idea of it, because to get games onto the Atari VCS they first need to support Linux. I doubt many developers will want to remain exclusive to the VCS, when they could also put the Linux version on Steam, GOG and others too. On top of that, having a small gaming unit that runs Linux, sat under my TV sounds pretty ideal to me.
Looking even further on it, since they're using AMD this might even help their drivers. A lot of things to think about, will keep an eye on it. As I said before, if it does fully come to market we will probably pick one up to test-drive and review it. After all, it is a proper Linux gaming device.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Sputnik_tr_02 Aug 29, 2018
Seems opinions range from anticipation to skepticism and disbelief.
Will wait and see this thing in action once released.
Mohandevir Aug 29, 2018
Last edited by Mohandevir on 29 August 2018 at 5:19 pm UTC
GustyGhost Aug 29, 2018
Quoting: hummer010I still don't get the Bristol Ridge decision. Raven Ridge seems like a much better choice. I might be willing to actually buy it if it was Raven Ridge...
I had to jump through flaming hoops and drag my rear through a thousand miles of glass shards to get my hands on a Raven Ridge (35W). To the latest of my knowledge, OEMs aren't able to get 35W RR in volume still which is why there haven't been (m)any prebuilts with it yet. I suppose Atari could raise the thermal envelope for the VCS to get current batches of Raven Ridge but they probably want it to be as silent as possible.
Oh and I almost forgot!: Raven Ridge (any TDP) is still unstable on Linux with AMDGPU. It is prone to hard lockups which require force reset and, to add insult to injury, Raven Ridge Linux systems often need to be booted several times before successfully bringing up a graphical session. It doesn't matter if you have kernel 4.15, 4.16, 4.17, AMDGPU is simply incomplete for Raven Ridge as of right now.
So I can understand their decision to go with Bristol Ridge. It is still a fast chip.
Quoting: GustyGhostQuoting: hummer010I still don't get the Bristol Ridge decision. Raven Ridge seems like a much better choice. I might be willing to actually buy it if it was Raven Ridge...
I had to jump through flaming hoops and drag my rear through a thousand miles of glass shards to get my hands on a Raven Ridge (35W). To the latest of my knowledge, OEMs aren't able to get 35W RR in volume still which is why there haven't been (m)any prebuilts with it yet. I suppose Atari could raise the thermal envelope for the VCS to get current batches of Raven Ridge but they probably want it to be as silent as possible.
Oh and I almost forgot!: Raven Ridge (any TDP) is still unstable on Linux with AMDGPU. It is prone to hard lockups which require force reset and, to add insult to injury, Raven Ridge Linux systems often need to be booted several times before successfully bringing up a graphical session. It doesn't matter if you have kernel 4.15, 4.16, 4.17, AMDGPU is simply incomplete for Raven Ridge as of right now.
So I can understand their decision to go with Bristol Ridge. It is still a fast chip.
That hasn't been my recent experience with Raven Ridge (I've got an HP Envy x360 with a 2500u). I don't think I've had a lockup since I started using 4.18. I'm rolling my own kernel to get the touchscreen working, but I haven't made any changes specific to Ryzen or Vega. I never had to boot multiple times to get a graphical session, ever.
I'll admit, the early days with this laptop were rather frustrating. Especially since my primary reason for buying this laptop was all the talk about how great the AMDGPU driver was.
QuoteRocket League
They tested it and it performed good?
Yes they can test it but i bet that ran like crap on that hardware.
Quoting: LeopardShould run just fine with reasonably low graphical settings. It's pretty much playable at 720p even on an Intel iGPU (I've tried it), so the A10/R7 should do just fine. Won't be beautiful on a big TV screen but it'll run.QuoteRocket League
They tested it and it performed good?
Yes they can test it but i bet that ran like crap on that hardware.
Quoting: hummer010I still don't get the Bristol Ridge decision. Raven Ridge seems like a much better choice. I might be willing to actually buy it if it was Raven Ridge...
See: https://medium.com/@atarivcs/atari-vcs-product-q-a-1-b2017894c15d
Personally, I don't know much about hardware. Maybe Rob Wyatt knows what he's doing. Basically I can understand the reasoning. If an architecture has no advantage because of its waste heat, then it makes little sense to use it.
Last edited by 1xok on 29 August 2018 at 11:44 pm UTC
Starting a campaign without prototype is allowed on indiegogo, but one has to select the right product stage:
https://support.indiegogo.com/hc/en-us/articles/221613968
Quoting: hummer010I still don't get the Bristol Ridge decision. Raven Ridge seems like a much better choice. I might be willing to actually buy it if it was Raven Ridge...
Most likely, the decision was purely financial, possibly getting a very nice deal on chips few other companies would want.
Last edited by emphy on 30 August 2018 at 5:07 am UTC
https://www.wired.com/2013/11/valve-steam-controller/
Quoting: PhlebiacTo be fair, there can be numerous iterations of prototypes before the final product; for example, the Steam Controller:
https://www.wired.com/2013/11/valve-steam-controller/
None of those are such a technical downgrade as shown by this atari team; they went down from a claimed functioning prototype to an amd provided dev board, which is not a prototype at all.
This would not have been a problem, except that they should have selected the concept stage and that they know fully well that they'll not be able to get the thing into production in the first quarter of 2019.
Last edited by emphy on 30 August 2018 at 6:26 am UTC
Jewgeni Filippowitsch Iwanowski Aug 30, 2018
Quoting: GustyGhostI had to jump through flaming hoops and drag my rear through a thousand miles of glass shards to get my hands on a Raven Ridge (35W).Made me laugh heartily.
Quoting: hummer010That hasn't been my recent experience with Raven Ridge (I've got an HP Envy x360 with a 2500u). I don't think I've had a lockup since I started using 4.18. I'm rolling my own kernel to get the touchscreen working, but I haven't made any changes specific to Ryzen or Vega.How did you configure your kernel or what patches did you apply to make it work? I fancy buying a HP Envy x360, too but haven't been aware of touchscreen problems.
Quoting: emphy.
Could you please stop being so negative on EVERY VCS article ?
We understand your point of view, but all this negativity and this sarcasm are a bit boring...
Quoting: Jewgeni Filippowitsch IwanowskiQuoting: hummer010That hasn't been my recent experience with Raven Ridge (I've got an HP Envy x360 with a 2500u). I don't think I've had a lockup since I started using 4.18. I'm rolling my own kernel to get the touchscreen working, but I haven't made any changes specific to Ryzen or Vega.How did you configure your kernel or what patches did you apply to make it work? I fancy buying a HP Envy x360, too but haven't been aware of touchscreen problems.
This is the only patch I've applied. The author of the patch admits freely that it's entirely a hack until AMD fixes the ACPI table. At least it makes the touchscreen work though.
Otherwise, I just use the stock Arch config.
Edit: Typo's, typo's everywhere!
Last edited by hummer010 on 30 August 2018 at 8:11 pm UTC
Jewgeni Filippowitsch Iwanowski Aug 30, 2018
Quoting: Jewgeni Filippowitsch IwanowskiAnd everything else works as intended? What about screen rotation (I know Gnome can do this out of the box)? If all works then this will be my next notebook. ^_^
As far as I know, rotation sensors don't work, although, to be hones, I've not checked or tried.
Otherwise, with the patch to the kernel to enable the touchscreen, everything works well. You need to have minimum 4.18 kernel version for any sense of stability. As of last night I'm on 4.19-RC1. So far so good. The Rumour mill says that 4.19 will have a bunch of Raven Ridge updates. I never tried without the patch to see if the touchscreen worked.
My previous laptop was 13.3" i7 + GTX765M based laptop. It was loud, and had horrible battery life. So far, compared to that, the HP Envy x360 has been fantastic! Sometimes, perspective is everything!
Quoting: NarvarthQuoting: emphy.
Could you please stop being so negative on EVERY VCS article ?
We understand your point of view, but all this negativity and this sarcasm are a bit boring...
I'll stop when atari's own updates stop being bollocks...
Just kidding ^_^, it's just that I see a train wreck coming and I'm annoyed that it's going to damage the credibility of linux gaming with yet another failed linux console project. I'll tone down.
Edit: typos
Last edited by emphy on 31 August 2018 at 12:42 am UTC
medicalcannabis Aug 31, 2018
Quoting: GustyGhostOh and I almost forgot!: Raven Ridge (any TDP) is still unstable on Linux with AMDGPU. It is prone to hard lockups which require force reset and, to add insult to injury, Raven Ridge Linux systems often need to be booted several times before successfully bringing up a graphical session. It doesn't matter if you have kernel 4.15, 4.16, 4.17, AMDGPU is simply incomplete for Raven Ridge as of right now.
You're wrong, of course. I'm Running Mesa 18.2-rc3, git libdrm, and git xf86-drivers-radeon in Gentoo. Things have been rock stable for about two months now for non-git drivers. Make sure you have the latest firmware for Raven Ridge, and a 4.17 kernel or higher.
This should be another reminder that if you're going to use bleeding-edge hardware, you're gonna need to avoid Debian/Fedora for about 6-8 months. Gentoo is really your only shot in these instances. Expect this pattern to continue going forward with AMD hardware releases.
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