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Trying ChimeraOS in PC-MODE

Sabertooth

By Sabertooth
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Sabertooth Pear Member

Sabertooth

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I was disappointed that we didn't get Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story on the VCS, but I had to have it. I had a spare Team Group SSD lying around, so I installed it on my stock Onyx 8GB VCS and changed the boot order in the BIOS. Viola, a Steam machine that feels like Steam Deck or Big Picture Mode. The game ran beautifully.

Then I tried titles that crashed on a stock system from a Windows bootable USB.  These include Minter's Moose Life, Balls of Steel, the Lunar Lander demo, etc. They all ran fine.

ChimeraOS also has RetroArch baked in, and support for Epic and GOG. In addition to Steam.

Anyway, this may be a window into second life for VCS owners once Atari pulls the plug.

Have you tried ChimeraOS on the VCS?

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MaximumRD Apple Member

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5 hours ago, Sabertooth said:

Have you tried ChimeraOS on the VCS?

I've no stake in this since I do not have VCS however, of course, I follow everything Atari and have followed the entire history of the Atari VCS release including all of the plus and minuses of the platform. I always thought I wanted to be prepared just in case I ever end up with one. Windows on an external drive or perhaps some other OS is a nice option many seem to have tried, of course, Chimera Linux is an excellent choice with it being a great alternative with Valve dragging its feet on releasing an official PC version of Steam OS. An excellent idea and as you have already confirmed seems to work well. Thanks for sharing. 

I am Rob aka MaximumRD aka OldSchoolRetroGamer and THIS is my world http://about.me/maximumrd

"For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday."

 - M. Bison

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Justin Gold Key Member

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6 hours ago, Sabertooth said:

Anyway, this may be a window into second life for VCS owners once Atari pulls the plug.

You touched on something very important here. If and when that day comes and Atari offers zero support, we need to find new and innovative ways of keeping the VCS humming along for decades into the future. That can and will be done, and Club VCS will be at the epicenter of the innovation I’m sure.

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RickR Gold Key Member

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I'm sorry to hijack this thread for a non-VCS reason, but I have a quick update on my old laptop.  It does NOT meet the minimum requirements for graphics adapter for ChimeraOS.  I think this speaks pretty well for the VCS hardware though.

I've moved on to trying "Batocera", another linux based gaming OS, instead.  It installed just fine and works pretty well so far.  I need to add more ROMS and that looks pretty easy to do.  It will be interesting to see which console this old laptop maxes out at.  I actually think a Raspberry Pi is more powerful than this computer.  However, this has a nice screen, keyboard, and touchpad built in, so it may be a perfect retro gaming station for really old games.

What is really cool is that everything just worked upon initial install.  Wifi, video, etc.  No fiddling necessary other than putting in a wifi password. 

 

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RickR Gold Key Member

RickR

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An update on my old laptop...I found the perfect OS for it... ChromeOS.  Installing this turned it into a Chromebook, and you know what?  It works great!  I've donated it to a disabled gentleman who broke his old Chromebook. 

Anyway, if anyone else has a really old laptop, you might want to try the ChromeOS install to give it new life. 

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MaximumRD Apple Member

MaximumRD

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18 minutes ago, RickR said:

An update on my old laptop...I found the perfect OS for it... ChromeOS.  Installing this turned it into a Chromebook, and you know what?  It works great!  I've donated it to a disabled gentleman who broke his old Chromebook. 

Anyway, if anyone else has a really old laptop, you might want to try the ChromeOS install to give it new life. 

Good on you, Rick! An excellent use for an old laptop indeed! I've fiddled with it myself, specifically the ChromeOS Flex option, I was really hoping it would install on my old 2011 MacBook Pro, but it wasn't having it, I ended up re-installing the ZorinOS Pro but in the end it's literally only used as a secondary machine for basic web browsing, so I thought it would have been a novelty turning an older MacBook Pro into a Chromebook just for kicks. Anyway, it's an excellent choice for older hardware, for sure! 

Edited by MaximumRD

I am Rob aka MaximumRD aka OldSchoolRetroGamer and THIS is my world http://about.me/maximumrd

"For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday."

 - M. Bison

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Atari 5200 Guy Banana Member

Atari 5200 Guy

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I'm trying to figure out how to get Debian on my Atari VCS. I have tons of old laptop hard drives lying around and an external hard drive case I can use for them. My PS5 is using it at the moment. I don't have a thumb drive that's more than 16 GB. The biggest one is currently attached to my VCS for all the games I purchased. I want to be able to access Steam without Windows because I have well over 300 games there. I'd like to see how it can handle my trucking simulators.

I don't really want to use the PC Mode on my VCS because it just doesn't feel right but, let's face it, Atari branded or not it's still a computer.

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Sabertooth Pear Member

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3 hours ago, Atari 5200 Guy said:

I'm trying to figure out how to get Debian on my Atari VCS. I have tons of old laptop hard drives lying around and an external hard drive case I can use for them. My PS5 is using it at the moment. I don't have a thumb drive that's more than 16 GB. The biggest one is currently attached to my VCS for all the games I purchased. I want to be able to access Steam without Windows because I have well over 300 games there. I'd like to see how it can handle my trucking simulators.

I don't really want to use the PC Mode on my VCS because it just doesn't feel right but, let's face it, Atari branded or not it's still a computer.

Debian should be pretty straightforward. Just use one of those drives and fast USB enclosure, goto PC mode and plug it in. As long as it's a fast enough drive/enclosure, you will be good to go.

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Atari 5200 Guy Banana Member

Atari 5200 Guy

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I was very hesitant about doing the PC Mode because I take original integrity seriously. Probably more than I should honestly. Im doing this for a few reasons.

Reason 1: The VCS has more modern PC chipsets in it than my gaming PC has ATM. It also has a much smaller footprint.

Reason 2: I want to join in on this month’s VCS challenge. While I could use my gaming PC I thought using the VCS would simply be cool.

Reason 3: We all need to face facts…all gaming consoles will reach the end of production and support. The Atari VCS will not be immune to this. If I can extend its ability to keep gaming then I’m all for it.

Reason 4: I would like to see if it can handle my large Steam library.

Those are my reasons. I’d rather play my VCS than XBOX to be honest. Long live Atari!

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Sabertooth Pear Member

Sabertooth

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@Atari 5200 Guy glad you've been able to get Debian up and running. The cool thing about PC-Mode is that it doesn't require any modification to the original system specs.  So the integrity of the VCS doesn't need to be compromised.

I've been having a lot of fun playing Steam via ChimeraOS on my VCS. I have three VCSs (because there are three colorways of course), but I'm intentionally using my stock 8GB VCS for testing & talking about it, because I think it's cool to test the unmodified base spec. Increasing the RAM to 16GB or 32GB really improves performance and is easily done, so I may compare performance side-by-side eventually.

 

 

 

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Atari 5200 Guy Banana Member

Atari 5200 Guy

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It played my ATS flawlessly. Whoever said the VCS couldn’t handle graphic intensive games was wrong. ATS has some impressive graphics. Not on the scale of CoD but can still be demanding. 
 

On my gaming PC ATS started crashing a lot. It never crashed or bogged down on the VCS. I’ll try it out with Borderlands 2 & 3, ETS 2, Sniper Elite, Saint’s Row, and Pac-Man CE DX. I’m curious at what the VCS is really capable of doing.

Keep in mind mine has been upgraded to 16 GB of RAM. However the AMD chipsets Atari used are nothing to sneeze at. Those processors are gaming processors pure and simple. 

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Atari 5200 Guy Banana Member

Atari 5200 Guy

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On 4/3/2024 at 3:24 PM, MistaMaddog said:

Seriously, you should make a YT video about using ChimeraOS to run Steam on the VCS.  (And I do enjoy your gameplay videos.)

I keep seeing these comments that are like, "Why doesn't Atari put all  their games on the VCS!?"

And I'm like, "Dude, just use PC Mode..."

 

I just did a livestream last night showcasing the VCS playing ATS using Debian and Steam.

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Atari 5200 Guy Banana Member

Atari 5200 Guy

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On 4/3/2024 at 3:24 PM, MistaMaddog said:

And I'm like, "Dude, just use PC Mode..."

While it is a cool mini computer, I feel it would be nice if it did receive more VCS exclusive content. I think it would benefit and be better remembered for games that were made just for it and not on every other platform in the galaxy. Just like XBOX has Halo, Nintendo has Mario, Sony has Gran Turismo, it needs its own games.

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