D.K. VCS

[Andromeda Stardust]

The VCS works on my 2006 Sanyo HDTV using RF, although newer homebrew games that employ playfield sprite flicker look like ass on it. The pink playfield in Ladybug occasionally shows up grayish as well.

 

The issue is not that the Atari VCS is RF only or that some games don't use the correct amount of scanlines. In fact, most LCD TVs are basically roll-proof, although NTSC TV models will usually chop the bottoms off NTSC50 signals. Something with the NTSC signal that the Atari VCS puts out is somehow out-of-spec. I think it may be an improperly formatted sync signal, hence the Hauppauge and some HDTVs not working or outputting a grayscale image. A composite video mod may help provide a cleaner picture, but it won't correct the formatting. Neither will using a VCR as a demodulator. Although I don't own a 5200 or 7800, I heard they have similar display issues. NES, SNES, Genesis, and AV Famicom all record/display flawlessly, although 30Hz sprite flicker (often employed to add a transparency effect, for instance when Mario takes damage) can and will result in a venetian blind effect on progressive displays. But the picture itself is sharp and looks very nice. As for Atari, well you'd better just hold onto those old CRTs...

Edited August 18, 2013 by stardust4ever

[BrianC]

Genesis has a blurry image with input lag in compsoite on some HDTVs. Same deal with Wii using composite cables, though 480i displays somewhat better (it has the ventian blinds effect, but lacks the blurriness and has better color) and lacks lag with component cables. However, 240p either gets upscaled in a bad way or displays a distorted screen. I know TVs are different, but even with systems like PS2 and Wii, the display was not flawless for 240p games.

Edited August 19, 2013 by BrianC

[Andromeda Stardust]

My old Wii always displayed gorgeous square pixels on VC games through my Sanyo HDTV using component. Of course now that everything is transferred over to my Wii-U, the HDMI connection is king. My only gripe is that the upscaler for Wii-U NES VC games displays "fuzzy" pixels instead of square, whereas the SNES Wii-U VC games displays square pixels. I would have preferred square pixels on Wii-U NES games like Wii-VC, but oh well...

[BrianC]

I had no problem with VC games when the Wii is set to 480p, but 240p (which is what VC games use when the Wii is set to 480i) displays a black screen or distorted image in component, or a blurry image in composite due to a upscaling. In the case of Mega Man Anniversary collection GCN, the game still displays an upscaled blurry image in composite, but only uses the in-game upscaling (which is bad, but lacks the extra lag) at 480i in component. It also has that venetian blinds effect during flicker, which I think is due to upscaling a 240p game to 480i.

 

Actually, for MMAC, "lacks the blurriness" wasn't the best choice of words, though it's more blurry in composite.

Edited August 19, 2013 by BrianC

[Tickled_Pink]

I used to believe that. I'll believe it again when I start seeing HDMI-modded Atari 2600s.

 

Till then, it's as much a part of my "home entertainment center" as Dragon's Lair or the ZX Spectrum... to be experienced largely through emulation.

 

(And the irony of that statement having appeared in an ad promoting the 2600 version of Pac-Man is delicious.)

Hmmm ... I've got a spare RF input on our 37" TV, Unfortunately one of the SCART sockets has never worked properly or there'd be room for an XL or ST as well.

 

Don't think the wife would be too impressed with more cables.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Don't think the wife would be too impressed with more cables.

But what true retro gamer doesn't have a clusterf*** of RF and/or A/V cables connected to their bulky CRT TV? Switch boxes and input selectors (either A/V or RF) work wonders to tidy up some of the mess however. It's better than daisy-chaining a dozen RF dongles.

 

I had no problem with VC games when the Wii is set to 480p...

Exactly why I ditched the red/yellow/white Wii cable for a component set as soon as we bought our first HDTV. No more venetian blinds!

[kennybrooks]

Shame this thread go hijacked. Can it get back on topic of this great game?

[raindog]

That's okay, there's a Supercharger thread that's been hijacked to talk about how awesome Joe's game is, along with some rather misguided wishes that it were a Supercharger game.

 

HOW HIGH

CAN YOU GET?

 

PRESS PLAY

ON TAPE

Edited August 20, 2013 by raindog

[BrianC]

Anyway, the point is that HDTVs usually aren't 240p friendly, though how they handle it depends on the TV. I also still get venetian blinds in 480i games (even some native ones like Mega Man 9), which is due to the interlacing.

 

Back on topic, any chance of Stanley Kirk Burrell appearing in DK VCS any time soon? I hope it stays at 32k so I can try it on Harmony.

Edited August 20, 2013 by BrianC

[+nanochess]

I wouldn't bother if DK VCS gets into 64k to get more features , we are in 2013

 

Anyway if this gets into a cartridge, I'm first in row , get your number!

[Joe Musashi]

Shame this thread go hijacked. Can it get back on topic of this great game?

 

Well, as long as it keeps people from bugging me for updates I guess it's OK

In any case, this is probably a better thread for discussing up-scalers.

[Joe Musashi]

I wouldn't bother if DK VCS gets into 64k to get more features , we are in 2013

 

Yep, but it should feel like we were in 1983

[+Random Terrain]

Yep, but it should feel like we were in 1983

 

If it was 1983, you'd either have a strict deadline or the video game company that you work for would be a victim of the North American video game crash.

[BrianC]

I rather have the hammer on harmony cart, if it gets put in.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I rather have the hammer on harmony cart...

Blasphemy!!!

[Keatah]

I say we push the limits of the hardware. I mean eventually, if the market didn't crash, we'd be having 32k and 64k carts standard on the VCS. If I want to feel like I'm in the 80's I'll fire up mame and play DK that way, or play the Coleco version. Maybe even some Missile Command and Slot Racers.

 

There's nothing saying we can't have two versions, a 1981 restricted version, using the techniques and memory capacities of the day, and a modern-day version.

 

Let us see just how far we can push this 35 year old platform!

[raindog]

Let us see just how far we can push this 35 year old platform!

 

I agree in general, but who's "we"?

[Keatah]

Any developer working on any VCS game. Could be me, you, anybody..

[Andromeda Stardust]

There's nothing saying we can't have two versions, a 1981 restricted version, using the techniques and memory capacities of the day, and a modern-day version.

Considering the fact that 32k is the de-facto standard for modern homebrew, they work on Harmony, and the standard AA PCBs support 32k by default and don't cost a penny more to produce than a 4k game, why gimp yourself to 1981 standards and a 2k or 4k ROM? The whole point of modern homebrew is to make or remake games that are actually impressive. Yes, I know certain titles like Halo 2600 and Pacman 4k are fairly impressive on their own right without resorting to bankswitching, but if you can make a better game with a 32k of ROM, I say go for it!

 

Sprybug even upgraded his Zippy project to 64k because he decided he could make a better game than with 32k. Albert has a special PCB board for that too. Stella's Stocking was the first game to use it.

Edited September 24, 2013 by stardust4ever

[Thomas Jentzsch]

...why gimp yourself to 1981 standards and a 2k or 4k ROM?

Because you can!

 

People code for the 2600 because of the challenge. And what are the challenges? The very limited resources! And who do we challenge? Us! And we compete with the coding heroes of our youth. If David Crane could cram great games into 2, 4 or 8K, can we do that too? Can we even become better now? Without "cheating"?

 

I bet 90% of the games are done that way. I suppose this is not easy to understand for people who are not coding.

 

If I wanted to use the advanced hardware of today, why should I even chose the 2600, where instead I could code for the XBOX, PlayStation etc.?

[Albert]

Even with bankswitched games above 4K, programming the 2600 is still damned challenging. And bankswitching adds its own unique challenges as well, since you don't have a nice, flat address space. And, hey, Atari used bankswitching and even extra RAM in many of their games, so it's not like these techniques were invented by homebrewers.

 

Having said that, I certainly do appreciate fitting a compelling game into just 4K of space.

 

..Al

[Joe Musashi]

As already mentioned before, choosing the limits within which to do vintage console programming is purely subjective and varies from person to person. What's fun for one programmer may be uninteresting for another.

 

For non-programmers it may help to understand this by thinking of demo competition categories. If you want to compete in the 4K category you cannot say that you need 8K to make your demo better.

 

I plan to release the source at some point, then anybody who wants can make a 64K version.

 

[Godzilla]

and they all said I was crazy... :-)

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/51052-seen-my-ol-donkey-kong-major-havoc-2600-mockups/?hl=%2Bmy+%2Bdonkey+%2Bkong+%2Bmock&do=findComment&comment=623502

 

"A reminder, folks. The reason Godzilla's mockups look so k-rad aws0me d00d is because he basically ignored the technical limitations of the 2600's display hardware. Such displays would be impossible to recreate in any sort of playable form on a real 2600."

[+SpiceWare]

You are crazy, your mockups have a lot of problems - the sloping multi-colored girders to name one, the fancy colored barrels by DK for another. You don't see either of those in Joe's version.

[raindog]

For non-programmers it may help to understand this by thinking of demo competition categories. If you want to compete in the 4K category you cannot say that you need 8K to make your demo better.

 

 

This is how I've always seen 2600 homebrew, like a demo scene unto itself. It's just a standardized virtual machine with a mature set of tools available for it, ton of interesting quirks to exploit and a widely available hardware implementation. And the results are usually a lot cooler than, say, Wolfenstein in 5K of Javascript.

 

I look forward to getting my hands on the source, but what you've done to date stands on its own.