ZylonBane Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 I also had no idea that what Tep392 was describing would be the cause of the jerky scrolling as I am not that technical... Oh god, the catch-all "I'm not a geek" excuse to not even try to understand things. Look: This effectively pauses the game for 1/60 of a second after every 5 frames... It's right there, plain as day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+therealbountybob Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 If you want a laugh go to Mr.Bane's profile and read all of his posts... you'll get the idea (trbb braces for oncoming assault) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 Dang I played the crap out of this game I thought the speed was the way the game was meant to be played... Never thought it was an oversight on the timing since I purchased the game. Now electraglide is one that needs a little timer adjustment..... Yes, ElectraGlide! I remember playing the hell out of that game just to get absolutely perfect and barely make it to the first tunnel and second stage. Then I tried it a few years ago for the first time with a PAL ANTIC installed in my XL and I'm suddenly really good and have plenty of time to spare becuase the PAL Antic slows the NTSC Atari screen refresh rate down to 50Hz and the time in the game is based on 50Hz, not 60Hz as it plays on a straight NTSC machine. I think this is also true of The Last V-8. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sargie Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 Yes, playing already tricky PAL games on NTSC can be a recipe for disaster - which is why this version of DropZone is so cool! Having grown up in the UK we had the other problem (especially with Japanese consoles) that the PAL version would run slower or displayed with big borders. When I came over here (to California) and picked up some old consoles it was quite a revelation playing some games I thought were easy when they were sped up by 17% or whatever it is... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 (edited) The problem was when these games were released my Mastertronic in the U.S., I (and probably others) had no idea they weren't "fixed" for 60Hz NTSC! I know I often wondered why they would make such cool games like Electraglide and Last V-8 and then make them nearly impossible to play with the time limit! Learning (with the PAL Antic) that is not what was originally intended was a revelation to me and I now have a bunch of new favorite games instead of games I want to like but can't becuase they are too difficult. This is not always the case of course, there are also some PAL games that are rather slow, and if they work on NTSC without too many glitches, it speeds them up and makes them better. There aren't many like that though. But knowing what happens with the graphic garbage and glitches most of the time when trying to run PAL software on an NTSC leads me to believe, they had to do something to the Mastertronic games to make them run correctly on NTSC machines. But then too totally blow off rectifying the timing of the games is totally...unforgivable Edited January 29, 2012 by Gunstar 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sargie Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 Yeah, fixing the art but not fixing the gameplay timing was uncool. Something like Dropzone deserved a proper NTSC conversion back in the day. Criminal really. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrathchild Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 I've had the opportunity to review the great work Tep392 did here and discovered a number of other locations where colour values hadn't yet been updated and so those are included in this build. Dropzone_ntsc_v3.xex 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwilove Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 When will the ???? version be ready? I'll guess there's no serious problems to overcome in doing so? Or maybe I shouldn't be hinting about this at all... Harvey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrathchild Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 I want to get Archer's blessing first Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted September 1, 2015 Share Posted September 1, 2015 rather than dropping every 6th frame completely how about a 1 delay in each odd frame and a 2 delay in each even frame? just a silly thought Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted September 1, 2015 Share Posted September 1, 2015 rather than dropping every 6th frame completely how about a 1 delay in each odd frame and a 2 delay in each even frame? just a silly thought I'm not sure what you mean. Basically, the game does its update of the movement each frame. This means that NTSC gets 6 updates in the time PAL gets 5. This makes NTSC run faster. At the moment, the only metric of speed we have is updates per second. If someone could re-write portions of the game they could possibly come up with a movement scheme that looks better than freezing the action for 1 out of 6 frames, but right now we're just talking about the simpler method of padding with non-update frames so we get 50 updates in 60 frames. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted September 1, 2015 Share Posted September 1, 2015 (edited) The simple hack kills the fluidity of the game a bit, already under stood the 50 updates in sixty frames.. dropping every 6th frame... was hoping to spread the code out and waste some time so the jerkiness did not happen. The math(calculations) needs adjusting for the movement instead how about drop every 7th frame so the game pace is slightly faster than PAL sort of a compromise position helping things out a little bit... we tend to pick up on patterns.. maybe odd frame will make it less noticeable...it's kind of the same quick hack why not try it? mind you it is easier to play now that it effectively sits a jiffy out ... but NTSC is 59.94 hz so a perfect 10 is not exactly what we need you know a little fudge factor! Love the efforts and it all does help.... one of my favorite games! Nice to see the clean up on the colors Edited September 1, 2015 by _The Doctor__ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
advfan Posted September 1, 2015 Share Posted September 1, 2015 Is there any difference between the original U.S. Gold European release and the one by Microdaft for the USA market? Did they change anything or just repackaged the game? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted July 13, 2019 Share Posted July 13, 2019 (edited) On 10/9/2011 at 5:36 PM, tep392 said: I was getting frustrated with how fast Dropzone ran on my NTSC machine so I did this little hack to slow the frame rate to PAL's 50hz. Plays much better now. Dropzone_ntsc.xex 34.73 kB · 204 downloads tepe392 I know I didn't explain what I was hoping to have done years ago with this, but I was actually hoping maybe this could be revisted. 5 frames dropped for every 60, so every 12th frame dropped, I believe it will give a decently smooth game with enough slowdown to keep all everyone happy. The original idea I had was to drop a half frame during interlace at one odd frame and one even frame at lets say the 6th and 12th, too complicated even though the screen is drawn twice (as it is interlaced), so you might notice a flicker or not at those times. Other though was to take the 6 frame and draw it using the method of colorization used in flicker term or Space Harrier. effectively drawing the 6 or 12 the frame twice. in any event it would be interesting to see each idea and how it looks as well as plays. A nice experiment. Edited July 13, 2019 by _The Doctor__ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted July 13, 2019 Share Posted July 13, 2019 1 hour ago, _The Doctor__ said: tepe392 I know I didn't explain what I was hoping to have done years ago with this, but I was actually hoping maybe this could be revisted. 5 frames dropped for every 60, so every 12th frame dropped, I believe it will give a decently smooth game with enough slowdown to keep all everyone happy. The original idea I had was to drop a half frame during interlace at one odd frame and one even frame at lets say the 6th and 12th, too complicated even though the screen is drawn twice (as it is interlaced), so you might notice a flicker or not at those times. Other though was to take the 6 frame and draw it using the method of colorization used in flicker term or Space Harrier. effectively drawing the 6 or 12 the frame twice. in any event it would be interesting to see each idea and how it looks as well as plays. A nice experiment. yeah to slow the 60 hz machine down, you would add frames... you know what I meant...doing the frame twice at half the movement to slow it down etc... read earlier mistakes and added to them... laughing at myself... so sad and funny at the same time Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leech Posted April 21, 2021 Share Posted April 21, 2021 I may have to go back and play this on one of my PAL machines, now that I know it was supposed to be a PAL release! Though I only have either one monitor that I can change between PAL / NTSC, or I have a switch box that'll convert PAL <-> NTSC signals. Ha, how much money I've spent just so I can play European games properly... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theenemy Posted June 9, 2023 Share Posted June 9, 2023 Great work tep392 .. I am working on a release of dropzone for the atari which includes bug fixes (I see you have fixed some) my fixes include overscan issues on the left (these are fixed) ntsc issues of dropzone logo not dropping and a colour line running underneath etc. Garbage here and there was also shown after game over which I also have fixes. I have also added 5 trainers and a highscore table saver so we don't need a pen a paper anymore I have converted ste's c64 title page over and re dithered it like I would do on the c64 on my own art .. sort of enemyised stes title page. My question is ... would you be interested in allowing your ntsc patches to be added as an option on the trainer menu when ntsc is detected to slow the game down to pal look forward to hearing from you TheEnemy/Alex of TREX 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted June 10, 2023 Author Share Posted June 10, 2023 8 hours ago, Theenemy said: Great work tep392 .. I am working on a release of dropzone for the atari which includes bug fixes (I see you have fixed some) my fixes include overscan issues on the left (these are fixed) ntsc issues of dropzone logo not dropping and a colour line running underneath etc. Garbage here and there was also shown after game over which I also have fixes. I have also added 5 trainers and a highscore table saver so we don't need a pen a paper anymore I have converted ste's c64 title page over and re dithered it like I would do on the c64 on my own art .. sort of enemyised stes title page. My question is ... would you be interested in allowing your ntsc patches to be added as an option on the trainer menu when ntsc is detected to slow the game down to pal look forward to hearing from you TheEnemy/Alex of TREX Sure, you can use my patch. I'll need to find the files though. I'll look for them in a couple days and PM you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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