Experimental 2600+ Firmware and Dumper

[JetmanUK]

2 minutes ago, DEANJIMMY said:

As they even fix now the colors of more and more PAL60 games, which is great, I want to move forward and not backwards.

 

But if I get an x5 with standard PAL and NTSC palette, I could do a quick test with Pole Position, HERO and Battlezone PAL on 3 TVs and compare Pitfall NTSC 😊

 

On the other hand, I was happy with z26 and don't want to test the other 200 games again😉

 

Therefore, I do not realy want to go backwards, and repeat all the tests...

The chickenman had a great idea that may make us both happy. 😊👍🏻

 

But I think a test it worth doing first. A lot has changed. 

[DEANJIMMY]

1 minute ago, JetmanUK said:

I feel we should test to see if we can get one combined version to run in the standard palette for both first. 

 

If that didn't work out then yeah a version with standard (call it NTSC) and a version with z26 (call it PAL if you must).

 

I'd try the NTSC out then for sure and see if the standard palette worked fine for PAL. 👍🏻

 

You are right that we are used to different region versions. Good point! 🤟🏻

There should be only one version but maybe with different/best palettes for PAL and NTSC.

 

People use PAL and NTSC games on the 2600+ that is its big benefit. So different loads do not make sense and are not necessary as PAL and NTSC palette can be set independant in one load.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Looks like I have to repeat myself:

 

Stella has different palettes for NTSC and PAL (or course), but no option to change them individually. So, if you switch from Standard to z26 (or vice versa), you always switch both palettes. That is why I suggested to brighten the Standard palette for PAL (instead of switching to z26).

Edited Tuesday at 07:55 PM by Thomas Jentzsch

[JetmanUK]

5 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Looks like I have to repeat myself:

 

Stella has different palettes for NTSC and PAL (or course), but no option to change them individually. So, if you switch from Standard to z26 (or vice versa), you always switch both palettes. That is why I suggested to brighten the Standard palette for PAL (instead of switching to z26).

Thank you Thomas. 

Sounds great. - Standard palette for PAL & NTSC, slight tweak to PAL if necessary, testing required as a lot has changed. 

[MrChickenz]

20 minutes ago, DEANJIMMY said:

On the other hand, I was happy with z26 and don't want to test the other 200 games again😉

 

Therefore, I do not realy want to go backwards, and repeat all the tests...

Exactly this is how I feel about it now! I feel like I’ve gone backwards and the Atari 2600+ is broken now.

NTSC was fine. Like I said though all kidding aside I can stick to 1.1x-r2. Mostly all games are running on this version with exception of a few.

Edited Tuesday at 08:12 PM by MrChickenz

[raz0red]

5 minutes ago, MrChickenz said:

Exactly this is how I feel about it now! I feel like I’ve gone backwards and the Atari 2600+ is broken now.

Thus, the experimental nature of this thread. 🙂

 

The only change that was introduced recently palette-wise was an updated NTSC palette for 2600 in r3. We can easily revert that if that is what people are looking for. Hopefully @Trebor can chime in as he is the expert in that area.

 

Thanks,

Chris.

[JetmanUK]

10 minutes ago, raz0red said:

Thus, the experimental nature of this thread. 🙂

 

The only change that was introduced recently palette-wise was an updated NTSC palette for 2600 in r3. We can easily revert that if that is what people are looking for. Hopefully @Trebor can chime in as he is the expert in that area.

 

Thanks,

Chris.

Thanks for responding. My thoughts exactly, we are experimenting here, no shame in looking at the PAL standard palette again and tweaking it if necessary.

 

If it doesn't work then z26 would be a compromise. I don't feel it's the go to and first solution, just what we are currently trying. 

Edited Tuesday at 08:23 PM by JetmanUK

[DEANJIMMY]

26 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Looks like I have to repeat myself:

 

Stella has different palettes for NTSC and PAL (or course), but no option to change them individually. So, if you switch from Standard to z26 (or vice versa), you always switch both palettes. That is why I suggested to brighten the Standard palette for PAL (instead of switching to z26).

Right, so in x3 they changed z26 NTSC only.

 

On x2 it was standard z26 PAL and standard z26 NTSC but not the standard palettes from 1.0.

 

Now I got it👍

[Thomas Jentzsch]

12 minutes ago, raz0red said:

The only change that was introduced recently palette-wise was an updated NTSC palette for 2600 in r3.

This would (most likely) have required a change of Stella's source code. Without violating the GPL, this would have required releasing the source code. Since this has not happened and I don't expect Atari to violate licenses, the change must have happened within the limitations of the existing, public Stella code. And then you cannot change only the NTSC palette.

 

@RevEng Can you please bring some light into the discussion?

[RevEng]

52 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

This would (most likely) have required a change of Stella's source code. Without violating the GPL, this would have required releasing the source code. Since this has not happened and I don't expect Atari to violate licenses, the change must have happened within the limitations of the existing, public Stella code. And then you cannot change only the NTSC palette.

 

@RevEng Can you please bring some light into the discussion?

Some preamble on the GPL obligations, to keep the discussion factual. I'm not speaking for Plaion, Atari, Chris, or anybody other than me...

 

Plaion needs to distribute source code for any GPL licensed software they're distributing on the 2600+ (AFAIK, that's Stella, Prosystem, and RetroArch) to anybody that has received the software if they request the source code. All of that should happen, whether or not the software was modified or not. What I don't know, is if anybody has in-fact made this request, or if people have just been observing the source hasn't been shared with the public at large. (which is an easy way to satisfy your GPL obligations, but isn't a GPL obligation itself)

 

Chris and I were asked to help out, and we've contributed code to the pre-existing Plaion source tree, which has a bunch of commissioned work added prior to us ever being involved. If you look at the various projects Chris and I have created and worked on prior, you'll understand that we both support the GPL. But we can't just take Plaion's source tree and distribute it to the public. They need to do that.

[AtariYMás009]

I've been skimming the discussion about the color palette a bit and, as a fully PAL user, I ask that the palette of the PAL games not be changed to the standard one, since before that, many of the games were practically unplayable.
And no, the color palettes are not linked. Before revision 3, the PAL palette was z26 (which was introduced in beta 1.1) and NTSC was the standard, so you can preserve the PAL palette and revert to the previous NTSC one.

 

EDIT: And I'm not going to delve into the question of whether that is the most realistic way to emulate the PAL color palette, since of the four pieces of real hardware that I have, in none of them do the colors in the least resemble the Stella's standard palette.

Edited Tuesday at 09:08 PM by AtariYMás009

[AtariYMás009]

I attach some photos to shed light on my argument.

Snapshot from direct stella (standard palette)

 

 

Atari Jr real hardware (Factory tunned)

 

 

[MrChickenz]

13 minutes ago, AtariYMás009 said:

I attach some photos to shed light on my argument.

Snapshot from direct stella (standard palette)

 

 

Atari Jr real hardware (Factory tunned)

 

 

I agree, but now it’s reversed for NTSC. Games appear very dark. Yes I can revert back to Rev 2 no problem but I can’t play Pitfall II and the other few games that were added to the fix. All I’m saying is NTSC was fine the way it was.

[JetmanUK]

28 minutes ago, AtariYMás009 said:

I attach some photos to shed light on my argument.

Snapshot from direct stella (standard palette)

 

 

Atari Jr real hardware (Factory tunned)

 

 

And what does PAL Pole Position look like on that JR?

 

Also, this is what a Stella screen grab looks like on my laptop, standard colour palette.

 

 

And a pic from my light sixer

 

Definitely quite different! 

 

But Pole Position was much more like Stella's standard Palette than z26 on my OG console. 

 

Standard palette plus a tweak perhaps for the Plus?

Edited Tuesday at 09:44 PM by JetmanUK

[MrChickenz]

10 minutes ago, JetmanUK said:

And what does PAL Pole Position look like on that JR?

 

Also, this is what a Stella screen grab looks like on my laptop, standard colour palette.

 

 

And a pic from my light sixer

 

Definitely quite different! 

 

But Pole Position was much more like Stella's standard Palette than z26 on my OG console. 

 

Standard palette plus a tweak perhaps for the Plus?

Wow big difference!

[Thomas Jentzsch]

51 minutes ago, RevEng said:

Plaion needs to distribute source code for any GPL licensed software they're distributing on the 2600+ (AFAIK, that's Stella, Prosystem, and RetroArch) to anybody that has received the software if they request the source code.

@Ben from Plaion Hereby requested  

51 minutes ago, RevEng said:

All of that should happen, whether or not the software was modified or not. What I don't know, is if anybody has in-fact made this request, or if people have just been observing the source hasn't been shared with the public at large. (which is an easy way to satisfy your GPL obligations, but isn't a GPL obligation itself)

See above. Before I had no reason to ask for it.

51 minutes ago, RevEng said:

Chris and I were asked to help out, and we've contributed code to the pre-existing Plaion source tree, which has a bunch of commissioned work added prior to us ever being involved. If you look at the various projects Chris and I have created and worked on prior, you'll understand that we both support the GPL. But we can't just take Plaion's source tree and distribute it to the public. They need to do that.

Thanks a lot for the information and clarification.

[JetmanUK]

11 minutes ago, MrChickenz said:

Wow big difference!

Yeah, there is a lot going on here. Haha

Some games may look right, some may not!

 

On a personal level my light sixer looks very similar, albeit more vibrant (LG OLED, nice TV! 😋) to the factory calibrated JR, if that actually means anything with all this variation anyway! 🤷🏻🤣

 

My OG Pole Position photo must be very accurate then, and very different to the z26 PAL Pole Position we currently have on the 2600 Plus. Hmmmm

Edited Tuesday at 09:58 PM by JetmanUK

[Prince Manic]

on my 1.1 r4 testing (non debug) - there's a slight delay of cart detection here's what I found

 

if no cart is in it has a delay of about 7-8 seconds before it detects a cart in

 

if there's a cart no game detected will be to loading at 1 second

 

if swapping on the other hand it takes about - 5-6 seconds for hot swapping

 

I've tried my reissued fatal run for 7800 without a cart in and that took about 10 seconds to get detected and hot swapping to 2600 games took about 5-6 seconds.

 

this may be an issue to some when hot swapping or forgot to add in a cart on the console. this should be within' 1 second when a cart is detected and not a huge delay to realize you have one in

Edited Tuesday at 10:14 PM by Prince Manic

[tradyblix]

If the delay is to avoid misreading carts and giving bad reads then I'd rather have the delay than getting a bad read.

[tradyblix]

2 hours ago, MrChickenz said:

Exactly this is how I feel about it now! I feel like I’ve gone backwards and the Atari 2600+ is broken now.

NTSC was fine. Like I said though all kidding aside I can stick to 1.1x-r2. Mostly all games are running on this version with exception of a few.

Fuck that. I'm sticking on r3.  Then I can actually play Pitfall 2 And all the other games seem fine to me.

 

Of course I don't think I have a hell of a lot of pal Games. But I really don't see any problems with the colors.

Edited Tuesday at 10:27 PM by tradyblix

[MrChickenz]

1 hour ago, tradyblix said:

Fuck that. I'm sticking on r3.  Then I can actually play Pitfall 2 And all the other games seem fine to me.

 

Of course I don't think I have a hell of a lot of pal Games. But I really don't see any problems with the colors.

Take it easy tardy! Just calm down! No need for that kind of language. Nobody said nothing about you not sticking with r3.

I Prefer the standard NTSC colors. 
 

SO I’M STICKING ON R2!

 

AH BA DEE! AH BA DEE! AH BA DEE! THAT’S ALL FOLKS!

 

Just so you know there is R4 and Dumper 02 also!

 

Edited Wednesday at 12:03 AM by MrChickenz

[Trebor]

The current 2600 NTSC palette is taking directly from Stella with a proper standard luminance (brightness) ramp set at the controls. 

 

The referred to "Standard" palette from Stella is a very light, high brightness palette.   For example, the tree trunks in Pitfall utilize the palette value of $10.  That is the darkest luminance possible within the gold $1x range. 

 

Modern TVs with processing features turned on may demonstrate that too dark and appear black.  That same processing feature will impact an entire palette and cause multiple items to appear incorrect, as recently seen with a gray road appearing black.

 

Regardless, $10 should not provide a light brown/tan.  It is not just the $1x range though, all of the $x0 range hues are very bright despite being on the darkest end of the luminance scale.   

Further, it throws off the entire luminance scale when starting with such a bright start point.

 

Below is a sample of original console NTSC hardware under a variety of displays, which any one capture can be debated as a "correct" palette.

 

Some may want colors "this way", some "the other way", and then others, "that way".

 

As mentioned, none of this is set in stone and will continue to be revisited - certainly a different balance can be achieved.

 

 

 

[MrChickenz]

1 hour ago, Trebor said:

Some may want colors "this way", some "the other way", and then others, "that way".

I like it the way it was meant to be, the way the creators, designers wanted it to be. There is no denying the picture on the back of the box is the color and brightness it should closely resemble. Not the darker one.

If it’s set too dark it has an effect on gameplay with certain games.
 

My tv / monitor has multiple consoles hooked to it, all displaying correct colors and brightness. I shouldn’t have to adjust settings on my monitor for one console especially since it was displaying the correct colors and brightness previously.

 

I know I don’t have a final say with this. I’m just saying the Colors were fine the way they were.

 

 

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 02:39 AM by MrChickenz

[Trebor]

I understand your perspective, but again a lot of real world variety on NTSC displays with original console hardware:

 

[MrChickenz]

16 minutes ago, Trebor said:

I understand your perspective, but again a lot of real world variety on NTSC displays with original console hardware:

 

Stop! That hurts my eyes! Those old TVs with messed up color tubes! That’s not real world that’s old world technology that couldn’t display the picture the way it was supposed to be displayed. That’s why everyone was modding their consoles to get a display that closely resembles the back of the box.