Experimental 2600+ Firmware and Dumper

[DhaemonX]

You were right. I'm such a Buffon. Never thought of hitting the drop aka discard button on the item I wanted to purchase. Thank you!

[Striker667xbl]

8 hours ago, tradyblix said:

No, the vast majority of games I play are NTSC. Since when were the colors inaccurate in r3 ? we got the colors fixed when they were inaccurate from earlier builds... Right ? Oh I can't keep up with it anymore. it looks fine to me lol 

Playing Pitfall was the best example. The tree trunks were almost completely black on r3. I saw the patch notes for r5 changed the NTSC palette so decided to take the plunge. When moving to r5 the trees are now a nice brown. 

[tradyblix]

11 hours ago, JetmanUK said:

Well, if all the people who are trying out the experimental builds keep up with the latest version then there is a larger pool of feedback of relevant info for the devs. Also it must be easier if all feedback is pertinent to the latest version only too.

 

All this would surely mean that issues are found quicker and with a higher chance of actually finding any issues that are present, especially so in less popular games, different versions and/or regions of carts.

 

Obviously anyone is entitled to use a version that they are happy with and remain on that, fine. But feedback from them is not as helpful and they are basically 'tapping out’ of the helping process at that point, again which is fine.

That's understandable, but there have been a lot of versions and as I understand it, it's a desire to continue this way without releasing an actual official release anytime soon....Or at the very least. It is up to people that have not made a decision yet. 

 

Since every flash is a small amount of risk, I would rather just minimize my risk when pretty much every game I play, plays well at the moment. 

 

I keep an eye on the release notes. But most of the changes in the last couple releases are for games that I don't play. 

Edited July 7 by tradyblix

[AtariYMás009]

@raz0red Here is the debug information for games that have the wrong region

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 7 by AtariYMás009

[tradyblix]

Can someone provide some, ahem, more color on why the palette swap shenanigans are going on in the experimental builds ? It seems like we switch palettes in r3 and then went back, but it seems like it was originally intended to be an improvement. I'm personally not hating on the palette in r3, but I do see the so called "black" trees in pitfall, which does raise into question if it was wrong. Why was it changed, and why was it changed back ? 

[Brad_from_the_80s]

50 minutes ago, tradyblix said:

Can someone provide some, ahem, more color on why the palette swap shenanigans are going on in the experimental builds ? It seems like we switch palettes in r3 and then went back, but it seems like it was originally intended to be an improvement. I'm personally not hating on the palette in r3, but I do see the so called "black" trees in pitfall, which does raise into question if it was wrong. Why was it changed, and why was it changed back ? 

I think basically most people were happy with NTSC color as it was.  The r3 change negatively impacted object visibility in some games or caused some other issues, so it was reverted back.  It could still change in the future, when there is maybe more consensus on what would be "better" than what we already had.

 

I noticed the change, but didn't have any issues with it, but I also didn't really mind the original colors either.

[+Nathan Strum]

A couple of questions from someone only tangentially following this. I keep seeing questions regarding uncertainty over color palettes.

 

Is the 2600+ palette being checked:

• On a properly calibrated, HD monitor
• Against a properly adjusted original Atari 2600, running on a properly calibrated reference CRT?

The 2600 service manual tells how to calibrate a 2600 using Atari's diagnostic cart.

 

A CRT adjusted properly using color bars should be the reference for what the colors look like on an original console. There will always be some variance, but this needs to be the starting point. I have to wonder how many users are just accepting whatever their TV settings are as "correct", when in fact they could be way off.

 

There are binaries that show the entire 2600 (and 7800) color palette on one screen. A side-by-side between calibrated systems should give a pretty clear indication of what's correct and what isn't.

[tradyblix]

On 7/7/2024 at 7:37 AM, Striker667xbl said:

Playing Pitfall was the best example. The tree trunks were almost completely black on r3. I saw the patch notes for r5 changed the NTSC palette so decided to take the plunge. When moving to r5 the trees are now a nice brown. 

Alright I finally bit the bullet and updated to r5. You're right, the Pitfall trees look more sensible, totally, and not only that but it seems like the "game over" text in 7800 pac man jr is correctly readable now. Nice. 

 

Everything went smooth as per usual, phew. Maybe I can actually play Astroblast now too lol 

Edited July 8 by tradyblix

[AtariYMás009]

2 hours ago, Nathan Strum said:

A couple of questions from someone only tangentially following this. I keep seeing questions regarding uncertainty over color palettes.

 

Is the 2600+ palette being checked:

• On a properly calibrated, HD monitor
• Against a properly adjusted original Atari 2600, running on a properly calibrated reference CRT?

The 2600 service manual tells how to calibrate a 2600 using Atari's diagnostic cart.

 

A CRT adjusted properly using color bars should be the reference for what the colors look like on an original console. There will always be some variance, but this needs to be the starting point. I have to wonder how many users are just accepting whatever their TV settings are as "correct", when in fact they could be way off.

 

There are binaries that show the entire 2600 (and 7800) color palette on one screen. A side-by-side between calibrated systems should give a pretty clear indication of what's correct and what isn't.

I totally agree with you, and I think it should above all be done with the PAL palette, since the one currently set as "standard" is nothing like the image given by the various pieces of PAL Hardware that I have seen.
someone here previously said that he preferred the games as the developers had planned them (as shown on the box), which reminds me of the specific case of Pac-man PAL, where both the cover of the game and the actual hardware , the maze is ORANGE, instead of that lemon yellow that the current standard palette shows.

 

here's a real hardware screenshot of Pac-man PAL that backs up what I said. And bellow it, the standard palette.

 

 

Edited July 8 by AtariYMás009

[Thomas Jentzsch]

14 minutes ago, AtariYMás009 said:

here's a real hardware screenshot of Pac-man PAL that backs up what I said. And bellow it, the standard palette.

On my PAL CRT (Sony Trinitron), Pac-Man looks exactly like the bottom screenshot. 

 

At minimum, either your console or TV, or my console or TV is calibrated wrong. Or a combination of all of these. We need a base line.

Edited July 8 by Thomas Jentzsch

[DEANJIMMY]

13 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

On my PAL CRT (Sony Trinitron), Pac-Man looks exactly like the bottom screenshot. 

 

At minimum, either your console or TV, or my console or TV is calibrated wrong. Or a combination of all of these. We need a base line.

Same here, bottom one looks correct.

I am happy with the current palettes. 

I had maybe 10 2600 over the years and a few needed color adjustment by the potentiometer inside. Never trust a picture on a box, they are sometimes from the NTSC version or just wrong.

[tradyblix]

28 minutes ago, DEANJIMMY said:

Never trust a picture on a box, they are sometimes from the NTSC version or just wrong.

Makes sense. The printing process itself (CMYK) isn't perfect with regard to color reproduction either, especially compared to what you see on screen. 

[Uncle Flip]

Hi there. I recently got 2 "Off The Wall" PAL carts. I get the message "game not detected" on both of them. I've done up to the most recent experimental firmware updates on my 2600+. 1.1x r3

Perhaps I'd need to try an alternate update? 

Does anyone know anything about this?

[JetmanUK]

3 hours ago, AtariYMás009 said:

I totally agree with you, and I think it should above all be done with the PAL palette, since the one currently set as "standard" is nothing like the image given by the various pieces of PAL Hardware that I have seen.
someone here previously said that he preferred the games as the developers had planned them (as shown on the box), which reminds me of the specific case of Pac-man PAL, where both the cover of the game and the actual hardware , the maze is ORANGE, instead of that lemon yellow that the current standard palette shows.

 

here's a real hardware screenshot of Pac-man PAL that backs up what I said. And bellow it, the standard palette.

 

 

I have never seen PAL PacMan look orange like that. Pacman was always more like the bottom pic for me. 

Edited July 8 by JetmanUK

[Trebor]

3 hours ago, AtariYMás009 said:

I totally agree with you, and I think it should above all be done with the PAL palette, since the one currently set as "standard" is nothing like the image given by the various pieces of PAL Hardware that I have seen.
someone here previously said that he preferred the games as the developers had planned them (as shown on the box), which reminds me of the specific case of Pac-man PAL, where both the cover of the game and the actual hardware , the maze is ORANGE, instead of that lemon yellow that the current standard palette shows.

 

here's a real hardware screenshot of Pac-man PAL that backs up what I said. And bellow it, the standard palette.

 

 

3 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

On my PAL CRT (Sony Trinitron), Pac-Man looks exactly like the bottom screenshot. 

 

At minimum, either your console or TV, or my console or TV is calibrated wrong. Or a combination of all of these. We need a base line.

 

Here is a quick modification of Stella's Standard PAL palette via available Video controls.

Brightness lowered, Saturation increased, Contrast Increased, Composite Video simulation on:

 

Some additional color bleed and easily Pac-Man can be more orange, or just slight difference in color display circuitry and/or it's respective factory settings for a particular display.

 

There's going to be a lot of variety even for PAL users. 

 

When the interpretation of NTSC $10 (Pitfall's tree trunks) is a medium brown to tan (for at least some users), and $04 (Keystone Kapers' building landscape) is set as a light gray, that is a vast difference than what a calibrated console and display should technically produce. 

 

I guess that's what a lot of this is about though, tweaking the display to taste and preference, even if not technically sound.  There is also a huge nostalgia and user preference that goes into something like palettes and what a person experiences.

 

[JetmanUK]

17 minutes ago, Trebor said:

 

Here is a quick modification of Stella's Standard PAL palette via available Video controls.

Brightness lowered, Saturation increased, Contrast Increased, Composite Video simulation on:

 

Some additional color bleed and easily Pac-Man can be more orange, or just slight difference in color display circuitry and/or it's respective factory settings for a particular display.

 

There's going to be a lot of variety even for PAL users. 

 

When the interpretation of NTSC $10 (Pitfall's tree trunks) is a medium brown to tan (for at least some users), and $04 (Keystone Kapers' building landscape) is set as a light gray, that is a vast difference than what a calibrated console and display should technically produce. 

 

I guess that's what a lot of this is about though, tweaking the display to taste and preference, even if not technically sound.  There is also a huge nostalgia and user preference that goes into something like palettes and what a person experiences.

 

I honestly do not remember seeing PAL Pac-Man with an orange maze, across three consoles in my childhood. I have two OG consoles now, it's late here, I will take a look in the morning to see what the game looks like on both of them. Also, the pink colour of the ghosts was never that dark. it was always very pale, again if my memory serves me correctly... I am recently home from a comedy show and the pub with a mate so I will confirm when I am more sober, but I am pretty sure! Ha!

 

EDIT:

Look at this! Yellow maze and pale pink ghosts, from the horses mouth!

 

 

Edited July 9 by JetmanUK

[raz0red]

1 hour ago, Uncle Flip said:

Hi there. I recently got 2 "Off The Wall" PAL carts. I get the message "game not detected" on both of them. I've done up to the most recent experimental firmware updates on my 2600+. 1.1x r3

Perhaps I'd need to try an alternate update? 

Does anyone know anything about this?

Did you update the dumper as well?

 

Chris.

[MrChickenz]

1 hour ago, Trebor said:

When the interpretation of NTSC $10 (Pitfall's tree trunks) is a medium brown to tan (for at least some users), and $04 (Keystone Kapers' building landscape) is set as a light gray, that is a vast difference than what a calibrated console and display should technically produce

All I know is the Atari 2600+ out of the box, up until r3 and r4 the colors on all my NTSC games were perfectly fine. It didn’t make a difference if I connected to other TVs in my house I move it around quite a bit. Never had an issue with colors and I went through all my games several times when updating the firmware. It wasn’t until r3 and r4 I started noticing issues with NTSC colors. All my other consoles are the same I have multiple original consoles, Retron 77, multiple Flashbacks and they all look the same. I believe it’s standard pallet that’s set in Stella NTSC. How is it that the color palettes on all my consoles are exactly the same. As far as my original consoles looking the same, yes I set the pots on those to get the colors right, but the original hardware does not run off of Stella or HDMI.

Rev.5 looks normal to me, it looks like all my other HDMI 2600 systems. Even Stella on my PC has the Same colors.

 

I don’t think colors should be set too dark so you can’t see the game your playing. Pitfall trees shouldn’t be black and Keystone Kapers shouldn’t look like it’s night time when the sun is setting. Or is it rising?

I’m only referring to NTSC. I only own one PAL game. So as far as PAL goes I have no say.

I know everyone is putting in a lot of time on this to get it right. I’m amazed with everything that’s been improved! It’s gone well past what I expected. I know everyone working on this will eventually release the best update for the 2600+.

 

 

 

[Trebor]

3 hours ago, Uncle Flip said:

Hi there. I recently got 2 "Off The Wall" PAL carts. I get the message "game not detected" on both of them. I've done up to the most recent experimental firmware updates on my 2600+. 1.1x r3

Perhaps I'd need to try an alternate update? 

Does anyone know anything about this?

See this post:

As @raz0red inquired... be sure the Dumper update is performed, along with the Firmware update.

[Uncle Flip]

3 hours ago, raz0red said:

Did you update the dumper as well?

 

Chris.

I believe I did. I suppose I can try it again to make sure?

[Striker667xbl]

11 hours ago, tradyblix said:

Alright I finally bit the bullet and updated to r5. You're right, the Pitfall trees look more sensible, totally, and not only that but it seems like the "game over" text in 7800 pac man jr is correctly readable now. Nice. 

 

Everything went smooth as per usual, phew. Maybe I can actually play Astroblast now too lol 

Yeah, haha.. Astroblast was the next game I had to play after checking out the pitfall colors! 😁

[MrChickenz]

11 hours ago, Trebor said:

When the interpretation of NTSC $10 (Pitfall's tree trunks) is a medium brown to tan (for at least some users), and $04 (Keystone Kapers' building landscape) is set as a light gray, that is a vast difference than what a calibrated console and display should technically produce.

I don’t understand this when you say (for at least some users). I did a search on YouTube. I just type in (Keystone Kapers 2600).

And all the results for 2600 version have the light gray building landscape. I did the same for Pitfall and all trees are brown or tan with the exception of one or two.

These still shots of the videos span many years. And to me they look like they did when I played years ago until present day. I’ve always had a 2600 setup. 

The last picture which I only found 1 out of all of these has the dark landscape buildings, and if you look at the elevators, I’ve never saw them that color blue.

Maybe it’s me IDK, but everyone else’s TV is showing the same light gray landscape buildings.

 

 

Edited July 9 by MrChickenz

[Trebor]

@MrChickenz I understand your perspective.   Your emphasis towards the Keystone Kapers skylines and Pitfall tree trunks is well noted.

 

The previously darker palette was overly dark due to, unknown at the time, Stella automatically darkens the gamma palette values it is provided significantly.  That has since been taken into consideration.

 

As was already posted previously, several captures from different user with original hardware demonstrating a variety of luminance for the buildings appeareance:  https://forums.atariage.com/topic/361600-experimental-2600-firmware-and-dumper/?do=findComment&comment=5491905

 

Similar was done for Pitfall regarding its tree trunks:  https://forums.atariage.com/topic/361600-experimental-2600-firmware-and-dumper/?do=findComment&comment=5491885

 

Regardless, rest assured, we're not looking to make Pitfall tree trunks black or the building skyline of Keystone Kapers overly dark. 

 

Additionally, posting box pictures and stating it is supposed to match is a moot point when indeed the building gray luminance is a close match between the two, but the luminance of the sky and the cops uniform is darker under the same palette than the picture.  The floor appears more gold and less yellow-green, especially the second layer, referencing the same picture when compared to the palette.  The inside of the elevator, notice the box pic has it as a true green, while the palette has it more of a green-blue.  And yes, the last pic you recently posted has it as a truer blue, which is again, another variety.

 

There are a lot of factors involved when original system colors are not hardcoded RGB values and then trying to make them into such.  There will be a happy medium and a collaborative solution, regardless.

 

P. S.  A lot of YouTube videos are emulators running the same color palette.  As you have already discovered, if multiple different devices are referencing the same color palette, than their results/videos will of course match as well.

 

[RevEng]

My treatise on the pitfalls of tree trunks...

 

When drawing the Pitfall tree trunks, TIA is literally being instructed to create the brown color at the darkest luminance level. If the colors are tweaked so that trees show up with tan brown, it equally means black will be displayed as grey. It also means that color vibrancy (saturation) in the lower end must be sacrificed, with colors appearing more washed out. These are the trade-offs we're working within. We can't just fix a single displayed color in a particular game, without trading off the display of other games.

 

Were many consumer CRT TVs factory calibrated to have a terrible black levels? Probably, as the TV wall at the department store was running regular TV soap operas, news, etc., because the consumers didn't care about black levels back then. Are photos of glass CRT screens washed out a bit? Also probably, as glass is notoriously difficult to photograph - is that Pac Man 266 commercial earlier in the thread (filmed with the best camera equipment Atari had access to) as vibrant (saturated) as anyone remembers it?

 

Another observation is that composite video devices smear color to the right a bit, due to the nature of the color signal encoding. So to the right of the trees is a light brown patch of pixels, where the luminance of the green backdrop is painted with the brown chroma. This gives the dark tree trunks get a fringe of light brown, which no doubt adds to those unshakeable memories of the trees being medium brown.

 

 

 

The 2600+ lacks this smearing, of course, because it uses a pixel perfect hdmi display.

 

 

Photos from game boxes and the like aren't representative of the trade-offs the console+display is actually working with. The monitors the games were photographed on would have been juiced to make the game display it's most vibrant, and then they would be tweaked differently to do the same for the next game. It's also likely the hue, saturation, and luminance, were also  juiced in the later stages, from the developing room to the printing press.

 

[Trebor]

Taking a cue from the above, here is more of how Pitfall "should" look - not near black - but indeed, dark brown tree trunks:

The same palette would also provision color to Keystone Kapers this way: