My C64 YouTube links for demos etc. are rejected with the words: no :: 60hz crap
category: general [glöplog]
I asked Gunstick to show me The Cuddly Demos at Revision 2025, and I can confirm that they are way cool, but they unfortunately didn't load the textures correctly :( and I think it crashed a few times.
Anyway, slightly more related to this topic, doesn't Xtal by Complex switch between 50 fps and 60 fps frying cheap monitors, how would capturing that work? And also, how come the DOS demos I watch say 60 fps when they were made by Europeans in Europe with I'm assuming PAL machines, and how is that different to the C64 if it is different?
Anyway, slightly more related to this topic, doesn't Xtal by Complex switch between 50 fps and 60 fps frying cheap monitors, how would capturing that work? And also, how come the DOS demos I watch say 60 fps when they were made by Europeans in Europe with I'm assuming PAL machines, and how is that different to the C64 if it is different?
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VGA is its own standard, there's no PAL/NTSC split because it doesn't have to care about TV compatibility.the DOS demos I watch say 60 fps when they were made by Europeans in Europe with I'm assuming PAL machines
Would this even matter for DOS? I don’t know much about old DOS demos, but I remember games, and it seems to me that tear and stutter were perfectly normal. While on C64, Amiga and from a point in time Atari ST, anything less than steady buttery smooth 50 Hz was considered lame.
VBL interrupts did exist on PC/VGA/DOS, too.
Pretty superfluous feature for a word processor / spreadsheet machine. ;)
VGA is typically 70 Hz AFAIK, which causes issues for capturing.
Mode switches is tricky to deal with in most capture cards (you get a couple of frames before the sync stabilizes), but there's nothing inherently hard about encoding them, as again, the frame timestamps can be whatever (as long as they don't go back in time—ignore B-frames for the sake of this discussion :-) ).
At Solskogen, we had a mixed 50/59.97 stream (in e.g. intro compos with both oldschool and newschool entries, we'd switch the signal going to the projector between the entries, with the stream clock locked to that) and it just worked(TM) in all players that I know of.
Mode switches is tricky to deal with in most capture cards (you get a couple of frames before the sync stabilizes), but there's nothing inherently hard about encoding them, as again, the frame timestamps can be whatever (as long as they don't go back in time—ignore B-frames for the sake of this discussion :-) ).
At Solskogen, we had a mixed 50/59.97 stream (in e.g. intro compos with both oldschool and newschool entries, we'd switch the signal going to the projector between the entries, with the stream clock locked to that) and it just worked(TM) in all players that I know of.
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PCs became more than that somewhere between 1981 (CGA) and 1984 (PCPaint).Pretty superfluous feature for a word processor / spreadsheet machine. ;)
Sure, Krill. Between 1981 and 1984 DOS magically turned into arcade action powerhouse. It wasn’t all Zork, Rogue and King’s Quest. Yeah right. Besserwisser fur immer. ;) …I gotta stop tho, otherwise you’ll make me go make a demo about it you scoundrel. ;)
Again? :)
Why do I feel played? ;)
What gets me is the few Amiga demos that switched from PAL to NTSC and back again during their running time, a prime example being "Love" by Fairlight & Virtual Dreams.
It was PAL at first, but during an AGA effect with a rotozoom and "magnifying bubbles", the framerate switched to 60Hz, and I didn't notice it much on my CRT TV, but when I tried to record the demo onto VHS tape, the machine didn't like it one bit! And I heard that the MindCandy people had to use emulation for part of their recording of those same NTSC parts of the demo, too! I believe there were two segues into NTSC in the demo, and I still see the same thing on my WinUAE emulation, where the monitor goes black during frame rate changes!
Why did Fairlight/Virtual Dreams change the frame rate like this? To squeeze a few more FPS out of the routines? It turned out they wouldn't have to in the end, the sheer number of high FPS high CPU Amiga demos I've seen since!
It was PAL at first, but during an AGA effect with a rotozoom and "magnifying bubbles", the framerate switched to 60Hz, and I didn't notice it much on my CRT TV, but when I tried to record the demo onto VHS tape, the machine didn't like it one bit! And I heard that the MindCandy people had to use emulation for part of their recording of those same NTSC parts of the demo, too! I believe there were two segues into NTSC in the demo, and I still see the same thing on my WinUAE emulation, where the monitor goes black during frame rate changes!
Why did Fairlight/Virtual Dreams change the frame rate like this? To squeeze a few more FPS out of the routines? It turned out they wouldn't have to in the end, the sheer number of high FPS high CPU Amiga demos I've seen since!
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Remains the question if there’s any equipment that is able to capture with the original signal timing (51.12Hz 288p with 312 actual lines per frame).
It was certainly doable with the equipment we had at the compo team (and i will probably never forget the heureka moment when i found that magic field->frame setting :))
It's hilarious how some professional equipment deals with some legacy stuff.
You know how for example AVID makes 50i from 50p? At least it was doing this last time I checked, but perhaps not anymore. Anyway. First it throws away every second frame as an intermediary step. Making the footage 25p. Then it makes 50p from that 25p by showing the same 25p frame for two 50p consecutive frames. Then it throws away half the vertical resolution, odd lines in odd frames, even lines in even frames. Then it calls it a day. So when it's done with your footage, the smoothness is gone no matter what you output it to.
You know how for example AVID makes 50i from 50p? At least it was doing this last time I checked, but perhaps not anymore. Anyway. First it throws away every second frame as an intermediary step. Making the footage 25p. Then it makes 50p from that 25p by showing the same 25p frame for two 50p consecutive frames. Then it throws away half the vertical resolution, odd lines in odd frames, even lines in even frames. Then it calls it a day. So when it's done with your footage, the smoothness is gone no matter what you output it to.
Wait, does it throw away every second frame or every second field? Because that description sounds like it would basically second-order sample the fields (for every four, take 0 and 1 but drop 2 and 3).
I can totally understand something taking the C64 signal and just taking every other field, given how broken it is.
I can totally understand something taking the C64 signal and just taking every other field, given how broken it is.
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Is it more broken than other progressive PAL/NTSC signals?I can totally understand something taking the C64 signal and just taking every other field, given how broken it is.
It's fake-progressive, it's got nonstandard voltages, and it's not the right frequency (since it's tied to the CPU frequency, and the math doesn't work out to exactly 50 Hz). 1 is completely out of spec but common for the era, 2 is typically compensated for with a resistor, 3 is unusually broken.
My biggest beef with the C64 is how broken it is with regards to PAL.
The C64 was designed with NTSC in mind, and the NTSC C64 palette looks perfect, but when it came to be exported to Europe, that same circuitry for the colours, mandated by Jack Tramiel to cut down costs of "conversion to other standards", was the same, but those same vibrant NTSC colours never worked well for PAL countries. In fact, they looked AWFUL. This is my main problem with the C64 - the palette sucks in PAL countries, which unfortunately is the home of the C64 Demoscene!
I also heard that the designers hand-picked the 16 colours they wanted "just because they liked them". It's a shame they didn't do it again in Europe as they did it in America!
Lastly, is it true that a dedicated set of 16 resistors on the motherboard is responsible for colours in the C64 palette? If so, can they be changed?
The C64 was designed with NTSC in mind, and the NTSC C64 palette looks perfect, but when it came to be exported to Europe, that same circuitry for the colours, mandated by Jack Tramiel to cut down costs of "conversion to other standards", was the same, but those same vibrant NTSC colours never worked well for PAL countries. In fact, they looked AWFUL. This is my main problem with the C64 - the palette sucks in PAL countries, which unfortunately is the home of the C64 Demoscene!
I also heard that the designers hand-picked the 16 colours they wanted "just because they liked them". It's a shame they didn't do it again in Europe as they did it in America!
Lastly, is it true that a dedicated set of 16 resistors on the motherboard is responsible for colours in the C64 palette? If so, can they be changed?
They picked them based on the values of resistors available.
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This is my main problem with the C64 - the palette sucks in PAL countries, which unfortunately is the home of the C64 Demoscene!
This is up for debate. Yes, compared to the Spectum, the colors look like mud. And they were arrived at by cost efficiency / luck. However, (A) I'll find you a dozen established C64 artists that will say the colors are good, and (B) good luck making something subtle with the garish neon ZX palette (which many would portray as "beautiful" until they try and create something with it).
And we used the machine with B/W TVs anyway. ;)
https://demozoo.org/graphics/371075/
https://demozoo.org/graphics/371075/
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I meant compared to other home computers'/consoles' of the era. So far, i was under the impression that the C-64's signal isn't more broken than those. If it is... which of the 3? :)1 is completely out of spec but common for the era, 2 is typically compensated for with a resistor, 3 is unusually broken.
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That... is a rare opinion. =)those same vibrant NTSC colours never worked well for PAL countries
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Those resistors are inside the VIC-II chip, it outputs a pretty final Y/C signal.Lastly, is it true that a dedicated set of 16 resistors on the motherboard is responsible for colours in the C64 palette? If so, can they be changed?
Here are some details about the design, and at the bottom even by one of the designers.
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If it is... which of the 3? :)
I'm not aware of any other systems, even of the same era, that have the 50.12 Hz problem (or anything similar).
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This mentions at least non-spec thingy 3, non-standard frame rate, for a couple of other systems.I'm not aware of any other systems, even of the same era, that have the 50.12 Hz problem (or anything similar).
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I'm not aware of any other systems, even of the same era, that have the 50.12 Hz problem (or anything similar).
Have you tried eg a VIC20? Their video output is even more horrible :) Colecovision was quite terrible as well iirc. Atari 8bit also sucks a lot here. Don't think i have seen (tried to capture) a machine from that time that doesn't have such problems in one way or another :)
Interesting, I don't think I've ever heard of people having problems capturing e.g. NES from an OSSC. But I've never tried either. What Gameboy and such does… I don't really care, you can't capture from an unmodified one anyway :-)