PAL Games displaying with wrong colours

[THX-1138]

1 hour ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Can you increase the brightness of your TV?

Yeah, but for a few games, everything else is then too bright.  Pole Position is so dark, turning the brightness up doesn't help much, it just makes other elements on the screen, like the score, the edges of the track, the titlescreen too bright.

Edited November 18, 2023 by THX-1138

[Beatley82]

55 minutes ago, THX-1138 said:

Yeah, but for a few games, everything else is then too bright.  Pole Position is so dark, turning the brightness up doesn't help much, it just makes other elements on the screen, like the score, the edges of the track, the titlescreen too bright.

Yes, this needs to be understood that it's not a case of turning the brightness up. The colour of the road itself in Pole Position is wrong. The textures/colour gradients/whatever the proper name for it is, is just different.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

19 minutes ago, Beatley82 said:

Yes, this needs to be understood that it's not a case of turning the brightness up. The colour of the road itself in Pole Position is wrong. The textures/colour gradients/whatever the proper name for it is, is just different.

What is wrong with the road besides being too dark?

 

Unless Atari/Plaion has doctored it (very unlikely) this is the standard Stella PAL palette. Which has been used for many years now (and I cannot remember  any negative feedback). So Stella generates the same RGB value for your PC and for the 2600+ output. The only chance that the colors really differ would be some kind of unwanted color changes when creating the output signal. Or your TV is mangling the signal.

 

Edit: I just compared some color values with Stella's output. The bright colors in the screenshot are too bright and the dark colors are too dark. This is usually the result of a too high contrast setting (default of many TVs). If you reduce the contrast and increase the brightness, the picture should become better. Unless your camera is responsible.

Edited November 18, 2023 by Thomas Jentzsch

[Blinky]

I have the same problems with space invaders and Pole position. I burned Pal palette demo on one of my flash carts to see how the complete color palette looks. Basically the darkest 3 colors are too dark and the brighter colors are too bright (on my TV standard settings)

 

To get the colors better I increased brightness to about 75% and lowered contrast to 45% this way the games look good.
 

Standard TV setting:

75% brightness, 45% Contrast (brighter colors look not as bright in reality)

Edited November 18, 2023 by Blinky
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[Thomas Jentzsch]

21 minutes ago, Blinky said:

To get the colors better I increased brightness to about 75% and lowered contrast to 45% this way the games look good.

Thanks for testing my suggestion. Do you remember the original values?

[AtariYMás009]

I think this issue can be easily fixed by changing the emulated color pallete from ''standard'' to ''z26'' in a next firmware updates. Is true that so many pal games don't look fine, but with the z26 pallete this would be so much improved.

this is z26

 

and this one standard

Edited November 18, 2023 by AtariYMás009

[THX-1138]

3 hours ago, Beatley82 said:

Yes, this needs to be understood that it's not a case of turning the brightness up. The colour of the road itself in Pole Position is wrong. The textures/colour gradients/whatever the proper name for it is, is just different.

Yeah, I'm also using monitors, not a TV - and I've tried it on 3. I'm not gonna start messing with brightness/contrast for a few games - which will make other colours too bright and mess up settings for my PCs and other devices.  For the most part the 2600+ display is great on the UK sourced carts I have, but on a few, especially Pole Position it's just too dark.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

6 minutes ago, AtariYMás009 said:

I think this issue can be easily fixed by changing the emulated color pallete from ''standard'' to ''z26'' in a next firmware updates. Is true that so many pal games don't look fine, but with the z26 pallete this would be so much improved.

If the problem is the TV's contrast setting, a brighter palette would have the same problem. 

 

The default setting of TV is set to extreme contrast (and colors), which looks good in showrooms. Unfortunately many people never change this default. And, until proven wrong, I think this is also the case here.

 

If you are affected, there are test images in the web. These you can use to setup your TV correctly.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Just now, THX-1138 said:

I'm not gonna start messing with brightness/contrast for a few games - which will make other colours too bright and mess up settings for my PCs and other devices. 

Have you tried? Or how do you know this will happen?

[THX-1138]

1 minute ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Have you tried? Or how do you know this will happen?

Yes I did, but it's also impractical changing settings constantly.

[AtariYMás009]

Leaving aside the issue of colors (which also affects here), in some pal games color palette and image centering errors occur, the most notable example I have of this is UFO (32in1 space jockey) where they are shown the NTSC colors and the image is moved down, preventing you from seeing the lives you have.

 

Edited November 18, 2023 by AtariYMás009

[Thomas Jentzsch]

6 minutes ago, AtariYMás009 said:

Leaving aside the issue of colors (which also affects here), in some pal games color palette and image centering errors occur, the most notable example I have of this is UFO (32in1 space jockey) where they are shown the NTSC colors and the image is moved down, preventing you from seeing the lives you have.

The colors are wrong in UFO, it is a hack from an NTSC cart without adjusted color values. When I get my 2600+, I will test its centering. It is fine when using my PC.

[THX-1138]

I've just found a PAL Pole Position ROM and on Stella it looks like the output of the 2600+ to be fair.  Maybe Stella's palette is just slightly too dark for PAL, maybe it's because of technical differences between PAL TVs back then and modern screens - but I don't recall it looking that dark back then, otherwise we'd have all been complaining you couldn't make out the tyres from the track etc.  I think the z26 palette makes a substantial improvement.

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

19 minutes ago, THX-1138 said:

I've just found a PAL Pole Position ROM and on Stella it looks like the output of the 2600+ to be fair.  Maybe Stella's palette is just slightly too dark for PAL, maybe it's because of technical differences between PAL TVs back then and modern screens - but I don't recall it looking that dark back then, otherwise we'd have all been complaining you couldn't make out the tyres from the track etc. 

It looks on my PAL CRT (Sony Trinitron) like it looks in Stella.

19 minutes ago, THX-1138 said:

I think the z26 palette makes a substantial improvement.

Pole Position may look better then, but most other games will suffer and become too bright. The problem is, that Pole Position uses a very dark grey for PAL here. And if you  look at other colors and e.g. at the screen centering, you will notice that the PAL conversion is quite lousy. I don't think we should change the palette because some games are badly done. Stella has always tried to reproduce an authentic look and not faking it into something more convenient.

 

I know the the 2600+ target audience is more casual (some even use the 16:9 aspect ratio ), so Atari might decide for a different setting. And then other people will complain.

Edited November 18, 2023 by Thomas Jentzsch

[THX-1138]

Fair enough, I don't expect you personally to do anything about it. It's down to Atari/Plaion who are selling a product in the UK (maybe other places) where some game carts don't look all that great.

[Blinky]

4 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Do you remember the original values?

85% contrast 50% brightness.

When I haver my PC connected to the TV with these settings the colors are dark too in Stella but not as dark as with the 2600+

[Thomas Jentzsch]

7 hours ago, Blinky said:

85% contrast 50% brightness.

When I haver my PC connected to the TV with these settings the colors are dark too in Stella but not as dark as with the 2600+

Thanks. So the output of the 2600+ seems to be a little bit darker. How large is the difference?

[Pac-Man Senior]

There's something I don't understand. If these color issues exist due to stella why are there no issues on my european flashback x or 50? I never had a ROM on them that made me change my tv settings. Pole Position (PAL) looks great. And Battlezone (PAL) looks great. I thought there was a Stella in the flashbacks too.

[Blinky]

6 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

So the output of the 2600+ seems to be a little bit darker. How large is the difference?

also too much contrast. It's hard to tell how much exactly. Tried to record a video of the difference but ofcourse the camare adjusts brightness/contrast.

the darker colors are too dark while the bright ones are burning my eyes.

6 hours ago, Pac-Man Senior said:

If these color issues exist due to stella

Stella colors are probably the same (can't tell for sure since they've made the source not available) It could be due to different settings of the SOCs graphic adapter that causes the color differences.

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

3 hours ago, Blinky said:

It could be due to different settings of the SOCs graphic adapter that causes the color differences.

Are these adjustable via an update?

[Blinky]

1 minute ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Are these adjustable via an update?

I would expect so but only the Plaion developers  can tell for sure.

[Microjak]

I sincerely hope they can sort these colour/brightness issues out as space invaders,pole position and battlezone are some of my favourite games on the 2600.They never looked like this on my original pal console.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Microjak

[Beatley82]

1 minute ago, Microjak said:

I sincerely hope they can sort these colour issues out as space invaders,pole position and battlezone are some of my favourite games on the 2600.

Battlezone in particular just looks so dreadful.

[bmx]

I experience wrong colors with nearly all of my PAL 50 and 60 Hz Homebrews (even around 20 year old ones) if the Emulator does not auto-detect them right.

My PAL Versions of games like Princess-Rescue, Halo, Pac-Man 4K and many more are off color. One of my favorite games, Medieval Mayhem PAL does not work at all ...

 

Hope the firmware gets an update for that soon. 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

9 minutes ago, bmx said:

I experience wrong colors with nearly all of my PAL 50 and 60 Hz Homebrews (even around 20 year old ones) if the Emulator does not auto-detect them right.

My PAL Versions of games like Princess-Rescue, Halo, Pac-Man 4K and many more are off color. One of my favorite games, Medieval Mayhem PAL does not work at all ...

 

Hope the firmware gets an update for that soon. 

PAL-50 games should have the right colors. PAL-60 games not.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Thomas Jentzsch