best 2600 emulator to emulate screen colours

[Adam Huemer]

I wonder which emulator emulates the 2600's screen colours best, which one would you suggest to use?

 

Currently I'm using Cyberstella/StellaX.

 

thanks in advance

[Robert M]

Unfortunately, there is no precise color set for the Atari 2600 because it doesn't use a precise coloring scheme. So anything in the ballpark is good enough. The real problem is NTSC. Just go to a TV store and look at the different models showing the same picture. You'll notice the color is slightly different between them showing the same picture. So then the question becomes what is the correct color?

 

Cheers!

[Adam Huemer]

thanks for answer.

 

do you know which emulator/color settings were used for screenshots here on AtariAge?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

do you know which emulator/color settings were used for screenshots here on AtariAge?

AFAIK mainly z26 and maybe some Stella.

[Adam Huemer]

as far as I remember the Z26 colours look way paler than the Stella ones. Which one does the 2600 fanatic (you!) prefer?

[Sharky]

A pity we can edit the color palette yet on any emulators as far as I know because I wouldnt mind the saturation slightly turned down at bit as thats how I use to play Atari 2600 Games.

[atwwong]

Now that there are at least 4 fairly good emulators for the ATARI 2600, if you look at the average NTSC TV screen, which one do you think emulates the TV colour the most accurately? MESS, StellaX, z26, or PCAtari? Have I missed any? To me it seems that MESS is the darkest, StellaX midrange, and z26 the brightest. I haven't used PCAtari for a while.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Now that there are at least 4 fairly good emulators for the ATARI 2600, if you look at the average NTSC TV screen, which one do you think emulates the TV colour the most accurately? MESS, StellaX, z26, or PCAtari? Have I missed any? To me it seems that MESS is the darkest, StellaX midrange, and z26 the brightest. I haven't used PCAtari for a while.

Hard to answer that question. You can adjust colors and brightness on your TV and each TV displays them slightly differently. And you can adjust the colors inside your 2600. The connection between 2600 and TV changes colors and brightness too.

 

So there are plenty of non-fixed parameters. How do you want to compare then?

[atwwong]

Hard to answer that question. You can adjust colors and brightness on your TV and each TV displays them slightly differently. And you can adjust the colors inside your 2600. The connection between 2600 and TV changes colors and brightness too.

 

So there are plenty of non-fixed parameters. How do you want to compare then?

That's a good question. My guess is to use a constant, i.e., one TV, and not change the settings. Then connect the computer to the TV and compare the emulators to the 2600 connection, without changing the 2600's settings (default factory). I don't have time to do this scientifically, but I'm sure the results would be enlightening. Another less accurate way would be just to visually compare the 2600 TV screens to the computer screens, but this method would be very subjective and does not use the same screen for comparison.

[+stephena]

A pity we can edit the color palette yet on any emulators as far as I know because I wouldnt mind the saturation slightly turned down at bit as thats how I use to play Atari 2600 Games.

 

I'm working on adding such a feature to Stella. Believe it or not, the hardest part is in designing the GUI elements (slider, etc) to show it onscreen. Tweaking the colours themselves is trivial.

 

Also, with the latest version of Stella (>= 1.4.0), you can actually toggle either the original Stella palette, current Stella palette, or z26 palette. So you can see (in real-time) which one you prefer Use 'Control P' while playing a game to see what I mean.

 

Steve

[atwwong]

Also, with the latest version of Stella (>= 1.4.0), you can actually toggle either the original Stella palette, current Stella palette, or z26 palette.  So you can see (in real-time) which one you prefer  Use 'Control P' while playing a game to see what I mean.

 

Steve

Thanks! This helps. I guess it's useful to read the documentation first.

 

Also thanks for working on developing the emulators. I'm hoping emulator authors will be able to mimic all the oddities of the 2600 (like colours and exact timing cycles; this really helps homebrew authors and hackers) , but I guess this is very difficult to do because you're working with code that needs to work on a totally different system(s).

[Albert]

do you know which emulator/color settings were used for screenshots here on AtariAge?

AFAIK mainly z26 and maybe some Stella.

 

Actually, all the initial screenshots from when we launched AtariAge were taken with the old version of Stella for Windows (StellaX). And for a while after that I continued to use Stella. At some point I switched over to z26, especially when I had to take screenshots of new homebrew games and prototypes, many of which would not run properly in the old version of Stella.

 

Now that I am using OS X full-time, I have started to use Stella OSX to take screenshots, although I still take many in z26.

 

..Al