Colecovision Pal/NTSC discussion

[ColecoGamerRunty]

Hello All,

 

I know there has been some previous threads on this but they don’t seem to give a definitive answer as such I will list the questions. I currently have obtained a Pal colecovision and love the console.

 

1. I understand Pal runs at 50hz so games will be slower, is there a list of pal releases which were optimised for 50hz? This could be music, gameplay etc.

 

2. Apparently the ntsc and pal versions of games are the same which brings me to question 2.  Will ntsc games play at the same speed as the pal equivalent or in fact be even slower? As I know pal is around 17% slower. So really is there a difference between playing a pal game to playing an ntsc game on a pal console.

 

3. I understand that the Pal colecovision was superior to the ntsc console in the sense you could do more with your game in the 50hz interrupt compared to 60hz. Which games if any took advantage of this on the pal colecovision? So which games to avoid which are ntsc versions.

 

4. Do the homebrew games run slower on pal consoles as well or are they optimised to run on both machines?

 

5. Is there a 60hz mod for the colecovision or would it be a simple solder chip swap?

If anyone can shed any more light or anything I may have missed to ask please comment that.

Thank you everyone it’s really appreciated.

[Tony Cruise]

The Z80 runs at the same speed regardless of the region version but has no clock/timer so everything is based on the NMI timing of the TMS chip that is installed and a handy single byte in the Coleco BIOS that indicates the machine region.

 

The BIOS also includes nice timing routines that consider the region byte and basing games on these converted timings ensures that music and game timings remain the same regardless of region.

 

Due to the speed of the Z80 and the speed with which bytes can be sent to the TMS chip during the vertical blank, a game really needs to be pushing things to exceed the time, and if they do will probably cause a frame skip and/or graphics corruption (depending on techniques used).  The majority of the legacy games target NTSC 60Hz and thus run on PAL 50Hz systems with no issues.

 

Now some of the homebrew titles of recent times do push things right to the limit and there have been several titles that don't work properly on Pal systems (probably due to too much work in the non-vblank period needed - where there is less time on Pal systems).

[NIAD]

On 8/25/2024 at 5:00 PM, ColecoGamerRunty said:

1. I understand Pal runs at 50hz so games will be slower, is there a list of pal releases which were optimised for 50hz? This could be music, gameplay etc.

There is no list which covers these details and actually there is nothing to list as far as Legacy titles, games released from 1982 thru the unique releases by Telegames in 1986/87, as they were programmed Region Free and the only thing that takes into account the 60 / 50hz question is a small bit of code in the Coleco BIOS that checks what region system is being used. I have heard that on 50hz systems, there is a slight time difference is music/sound effects but someone in the know like Youki would have to explain.

 

Ikrnanka's CV Rom Update Project and ColecoVision Collectors Database pinned threads would be a good place to verify things as he took a deep dive into everything years ago  especially his rom dump project of Legacy titles. Check them out as they are required reading for CV enthusiasts.

 

As far as Homebrew titles made from 1996 on to the present, there have been a small number programmed to take into account 50hz systems and Youki would know better as he programmed some.

On 8/25/2024 at 5:00 PM, ColecoGamerRunty said:

2. Apparently the ntsc and pal versions of games are the same which brings me to question 2.  Will ntsc games play at the same speed as the pal equivalent or in fact be even slower? As I know pal is around 17% slower. So really is there a difference between playing a pal game to playing an ntsc game on a pal console.

Again, Youki has discussed this in the past and would be the best person to supply an answer especially concerning music and sound.

On 8/25/2024 at 5:00 PM, ColecoGamerRunty said:

3. I understand that the Pal colecovision was superior to the ntsc console in the sense you could do more with your game in the 50hz interrupt compared to 60hz. Which games if any took advantage of this on the pal colecovision? So which games to avoid which are ntsc versions.

A small number of Homebrew games.

On 8/25/2024 at 5:00 PM, ColecoGamerRunty said:

4. Do the homebrew games run slower on pal consoles as well or are they optimised to run on both machines?

The games will run at the speed of the system and only a small number were programmed to check for the system speed... 60 or 50hz.

On 8/25/2024 at 5:00 PM, ColecoGamerRunty said:

5. Is there a 60hz mod for the colecovision or would it be a simple solder chip swap?

None that I have ever heard of and some mods over the years were offered specifically for NTSC or PAL systems or versions for both were made like Lundy Electronics DRAM to SRAM Converter.

 

Coleco ADAM ColecoVision Lundy Electronics Retro Computing

 

[marauder666]

On 8/25/2024 at 11:00 PM, ColecoGamerRunty said:

 

5. Is there a 60hz mod for the colecovision or would it be a simple solder chip swap?

I’ve done this, it does work but not as simple as swapping the video chip.

The flip flop circuit which changes the colour signal phase every line on pal, needs bypassing.

Some games dont work.  Defender didnt, but i modded the code to make it think it was running on ntsc machine.

I ended up changing the bios for a ntsc one, and everything worked after that.

 

Its been a while since i did, and cant remember if i needed to change anything else, i wouldnt recommen doing it. Easier to get a ntsc console