DEBRO Posted July 4, 2017 Share Posted July 4, 2017 Hi there, I've been reverse engineering Atari ROMs for years now. Looking at the Activision ROMs I've reverse engineered, I wondered how they did their PAL versions. Most (if not all) the Activision PAL conversions I've reverse engineered have modified the colors and screen scanline count but have neglected to adjust the object movement so their games tend to run ~17% slower than their NTSC versions. Looking at video posted of the Activision lab, you can see them using a TV connected to their VCS but I'm sure those had to be NTSC. I wonder did they do these conversions on a separate TV in the lab or if they contracted work out. While at SFGE2017 I had an opportunity to ask David Crane about this and blew it. I mean, I knew exactly what I wanted to ask and had it all set in my mind to ask but when the time came for me to ask...I froze. I couldn't believe it! I actually got star struck. What I "wanted" to say came out as a jumble of words that he couldn't actually make sense (and neither could I) of what I was asking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted July 4, 2017 Share Posted July 4, 2017 I am pretty sure, PAL conversion were quite secondary for Activision. Or they believed that the speed differences would not be relevant (or even noticeable) for their customers. IIRC there was no public discussion about this back then. Therefore, as far as I can tell, they deliberately ignored the Stella Programmer's Guide from 1979 which they must have known. Instead of 16 bit fractional math, all their games I have seen so far use frame based speeds.This saves ROM and RAM at the cost of flexibility. Still speed corrected PAL versions would have been possible (I yet have to see an original game using this simple trick) with very little costs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AW127 Posted July 5, 2017 Share Posted July 5, 2017 Yes, PAL users was really pranked from the gaming-industry with all that speed-loss thing. But at that time , 95% of the PAL-users had no direct comparison, to see the same game running in NTSC. If that would have been the case, i am sure all european-players would have complaint and then maybe the industrie would have reacted. But it wasn`t and so we european-players thought, that the games played like they should on our PAL-consoles. And in come cases this even was true, because some gaming-factorys took care and adjusted the speed in their PAL-versions (for example some of Atari`s own games was adjusted), but Activision seems to be none of these. They don`t care much about PAL-versions of their games. At least all Activision games which i own as PAL-modules, runs slower (the mentioned 17%) and had the black borders on top and bottom of the screen. But there was also some good PAL-versions on the market, which i really like. For example "Phoenix" which was adjusted in a interesting way (faster shot, slower enemys than in NTSC-original). And there are also some PAL-versions which have nicer colors than their NTSC-counterparts (mostly it`s vice-versa). One for example, where i like the PAL-colors more, is "Realsports Tennis". The green-color of the playfield in the NTSC-version is so garish that he burns in my eyes, while the darker blue-green color in the PAL-version looks nice. But okay, mostly it`s vice-versa and the NTSC-versions look better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davyK Posted July 5, 2017 Share Posted July 5, 2017 (edited) Pranked is right. PAL Kaboom simply isn't the same game - the extra speed from 60fps really makes a difference. Given that this game is all about speed it is pretty inexcusable it wasn't speed adjusted. With many games the slower speed quite often just means the player developing a different sense of timing when playing - but with Kaboom the game's difficulty is all about the speed. Some of Atari's games got some speed adjustment - Berzerk, Phoenix and Yars' revenge for example. Circus Atari and Super Breakout feel like they got some attention too - but from what I see no Activision titles got any effort expended on them at all re PAL. It was knowing this that got me into creating PAL60 versions of my favourite games. Edited July 5, 2017 by davyK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AW127 Posted July 9, 2017 Share Posted July 9, 2017 It was knowing this that got me into creating PAL60 versions of my favourite games. Yeah and it`s great that you and some other people did so many nice PAL60 versions in the "PAL60" thread. Thanks for that, i play often PAL60 versions now on my PAL-console. Maybe some of the great "Space Invaders" hacks which are only available in NTSC could be adjusted too from anybody? It´s only 4 colors. Would be great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AW127 Posted July 11, 2017 Share Posted July 11, 2017 (edited) Pranked is right.Also interesting is the point, that when it comes to the most retro-computers, then it was vice-versa and here the NTSC-users were the unlucky. Especially on the C64. Lots of software (games/demos/tools) have problems on NTSC-C64-machines. Same problem like on PAL-consoles *lol*. With today-software, it`s a little bit better on the C64, because some people in the CSDB have specialized on NTSC-fixing games. This whole thing with the different standards (PAL/NTSC) brings only trouble from back in the days until now. Edited July 11, 2017 by AW127 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davyK Posted July 12, 2017 Share Posted July 12, 2017 Didn't know that. Interesting. Thank goodness we have left all that behind with modern consoles at least. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davyK Posted July 12, 2017 Share Posted July 12, 2017 Yeah and it`s great that you and some other people did so many nice PAL60 versions in the "PAL60" thread. Thanks for that, i play often PAL60 versions now on my PAL-console. Maybe some of the great "Space Invaders" hacks which are only available in NTSC could be adjusted too from anybody? It´s only 4 colors. Would be great. Will have a look at those. If they are based on the original Space Invaders ROM then it shouldn't be difficult. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
high voltage Posted July 12, 2017 Share Posted July 12, 2017 Wonder why we didn't get Crackpots, Cosmic Commuter, Checkers, Dolphin in PAL. Is it true because of Atari Video Checkers we didn't get Checkers PAL version? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister-VCS Posted July 12, 2017 Share Posted July 12, 2017 Wonder why we didn't get Crackpots, Cosmic Commuter, Checkers, Dolphin in PAL. Is it true because of Atari Video Checkers we didn't get Checkers PAL version? The "Video Game Crash" maybe? We only became "Frostbite" after a positive review in "TeleMatch" 2/1984 (Hartmut Huff "Das Grosse Handbuch der Videospiele Ausgabe 1984/85") Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AW127 Posted July 12, 2017 Share Posted July 12, 2017 Will have a look at those. If they are based on the original Space Invaders ROM then it shouldn't be difficult. This would be great! I decribed the three great "Space Invaders" hacks (with links) in post #307 in the PAL60 thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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