PAL Games displaying with wrong colours

[Cripper2]

I have tried a few PAL carts and the colours are not what I remember.  For Battlezone I have NTSC and PAL carts.  Colours are all wrong on the PAL version 

 

PAL

NTSC

 

 

[Albert]

Do you have more examples you can show?

 

 ..Al

[+mksmith]

Eventually maybe we need an option to set the console as Pal or NTSC if the mapper can't currently determine the difference when loading the cart 👌

[MittyOz]

I'm in Australia and all my real games are PAL.  I pick mine up today so curious to see if they display correctly.  If not, surely there will be a software solution.  Perhaps remapping the BW/Color switch to PAL/NTSC would make sense.  

[Cripper2]

I think the road should by grey in Pole Position

 

 

[Beatley82]

Same with Enduro PAL

[Lumstorm]

15 hours ago, MittyOz said:

I'm in Australia and all my real games are PAL.  I pick mine up today so curious to see if they display correctly.  If not, surely there will be a software solution.  Perhaps remapping the BW/Color switch to PAL/NTSC would make sense.  

I think then the 4:3/16:9 switch should maybe have been a PAL/NTSC switch. I don't know about others but like my films I prefer my games in OAR.

[Absalon]

Both pictures look like a matter of brightness and contrast settings to me. I remember using my modded pal jr on an lcd screen with similar colors. Will verify this on my system..

[Beatley82]

2 hours ago, Absalon said:

Both pictures look like a matter of brightness and contrast settings to me. I remember using my modded pal jr on an lcd screen with similar colors. Will verify this on my system..

Unfortunately not the case. Same TV, same picture settings, NTSC and then PAL game versions. You can see there's a fundamental difference in graphical detail/colour:

 

 

Edited November 17, 2023 by Beatley82

[+-^CrossBow^-]

On 11/16/2023 at 3:35 PM, MittyOz said:

I'm in Australia and all my real games are PAL.  I pick mine up today so curious to see if they display correctly.  If not, surely there will be a software solution.  Perhaps remapping the BW/Color switch to PAL/NTSC would make sense.  

Some games use the BW/Color switch as an additional function for the game. Star Master... Space Shuttle. Although in both games there are alternate ways but still...

 

 

[Albert]

Yeah, you can't really redefine the B&W/Color switch. 
 

  ..Al

[fluxit]

What about holding the reset or select switch for 5 seconds with no cart inserted to switch between PAL and NTSC?

Edited November 17, 2023 by fluxit

[SparkleFork]

Yeah, I was hoping for something like "hold joystick up and hold fire button" when booting to access Stella menu when turning machine on, and say fire button and down for switching to PAL mode. I'm sure there's some easy/non confusing ways to switch over.

[Electric-Dreams]

Wow. This is bad news.

I have mostly PAL games (approximately 130 cartridges); only a handful are NTSC. I hope there is a way to achieve acceptable color rendering for PAL games because this is a dealbreaker for any serious european buyer

[Electric-Dreams]

Stella color rendering of PAL Battlezone :

 

 

PAL Battlezone on my light6er PAL composite modded 2600 :

 

 

The rendering from @Cripper2 Atari 2600+  :




Well it's difficult to tell, even two original Atari 2600 consoles can produce different colors depending on their TIA, but ... look at the mountains, they should be more greyish than indigo.

[Albert]

Differences in colors between emulators, consoles and displays is not unusual at all. I do want to say that it looks pretty terrible compared to the NTSC version, though!  How common is this with PAL versions of NTSC games?

 

 ..Al

[Electric-Dreams]

16 minutes ago, Albert said:

Differences in colors between emulators, consoles and displays is not unusual at all. I do want to say that it looks pretty terrible compared to the NTSC version, though!  How common is this with PAL versions of NTSC games?

 

 ..Al

I never play the NTSC versions of Atari 2600 games; BITD I played on a horrible SECAM Atari 2600 😭.

A few years ago, I bought PAL Atari 2600s from Germany to play, and I was happy with PAL!

And now, I come across this. It's killing me, lol. I just tried the NTSC version of Battlezone on Stella, and this version is much more detailed!

I knew that the colors of PAL games were a bit "off," and the game screen a little smaller, but in fact, the NTSC version is also much more detailed; there are many more clearly distinguishable colors.

Edited November 18, 2023 by Electric-Dreams

[+Defender_2600]

13 minutes ago, Electric-Dreams said:

I never play the NTSC versions of Atari 2600 games; BITD I played on a horrible SECAM Atari 2600 😭.

A few years ago, I bought PAL Atari 2600s from Germany to play, and I was happy with PAL!

And now, I come across this. It's killing me, lol. I just tried the NTSC version of Battlezone on Stella, and this version is much more detailed!

I knew that the colors of PAL games were a bit "off," and the game screen a little smaller, but in fact, the NTSC version is also much more detailed; there are many more clearly distinguishable colors.

 

Don't despair, you have found one of the worst PAL conversions. In most cases there is not this big difference.

 

[Electric-Dreams]

Just now, Defender_2600 said:

 

Don't despair, you have found one of the worst PAL conversions. In most cases there is not this big difference.

 

I agree.

I understand that, the visual quality of a PAL game will depend directly on the graphical complexity of the game and the efforts invested in converting it from NTSC to PAL.

 

But still, the PAL rendering on Atari 2600+ is disapointing

[+Defender_2600]

On 11/18/2023 at 2:35 AM, Electric-Dreams said:

 

The rendering from @Cripper2 Atari 2600+  :




Well it's difficult to tell, even two original Atari 2600 consoles can produce different colors depending on their TIA, but ... look at the mountains, they should be more greyish than indigo.

 

On 11/18/2023 at 3:10 AM, Electric-Dreams said:

I agree.

I understand that, the visual quality of a PAL game will depend directly on the graphical complexity of the game and the efforts invested in converting it from NTSC to PAL.

 

But still, the PAL rendering on Atari 2600+ is disapointing

 

It doesn't seem like a problem related only to PAL colors,  @Cripper2 TV is also displaying NTSC colors poorly:

 

NTSC

 

VS  NTSC

 

http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari_search_66.97.116.116.108.101.122.111.110.101._2_G.html

 

-------------------------------------------------------

 

Edit: the 2600+ colors are correct in these captures, the differences between the colors depend on the PAL conversion, the 2600+ is working correctly.

 

In any case if a palette update is needed, I think it can be done easily as we have a palette wizard at AA.

 

NTSC

PAL

 

 

[Absalon]

5 hours ago, Defender_2600 said:

 

Don't despair, you have found one of the worst PAL conversions. In most cases there is not this big difference.

I second that! Most games are ok, some are bad conversions and even ugly (I look at you "raft rider"!). Luckily there are some games that play better in PAL (my opinion), like "sky jinks". but that's a matter of speed, not colors.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

6 hours ago, Albert said:

Differences in colors between emulators, consoles and displays is not unusual at all. I do want to say that it looks pretty terrible compared to the NTSC version, though!  How common is this with PAL versions of NTSC games?

Very uncommon, Battlezone is the only prominent game I can think of. IIRC I once even created a PAL hack to fix that.

 

The darkness of the PAL colors is the result of Stella's standard palette. Since I got no useful feedback when I asked for setting up a PAL palette, I used my own Sony Trinitron as base for Stella's standard PAL palette. 

 

There are two alternatives (Z26 and user defined palettes) in Stella, but access to the UI (or any other option), you cannot change these.

 

Different colors should not happen. I really wonder what is causing these.

[marauder666]

Just run both the NTSC and PAL Battlezone on my RGB light sixer from Harmony cart.

NTSC is fine, PAL doesnt have the colour graduations.

 

[THX-1138]

I was just about to post about this, but others have already done it.  These are some of my favorite games and I don't recall them looking this dull.  Although other examples have been shared I'll add these video grabs.

 

Edited November 18, 2023 by THX-1138

[Thomas Jentzsch]

7 minutes ago, THX-1138 said:

I was just about to post about this, but others have already done it.  These are some of my favorite games and I don't recall them looking this dull.  Although other examples have been shared I'll add these video grabs.

 

They look fine, except for being too dark. Can you increase the brightness of your TV?

Edited November 18, 2023 by Thomas Jentzsch