Tempest Posted October 8, 2003 Share Posted October 8, 2003 Does anyone know what the proper colors are for Lode Runner? From what I remember on my Apple IIe it was blue blocks and a black background. However I've noticed that the colors change on different Atari systems (due to the Artifacting I believe). On my 1200XL with an OS mod the colors were blue blocks and a bright purple background. On my 800XL I'm getting green blocks a purple background. On the back of the box it shows blue blocks and a not so bright purple background (I assume they used a 65 or 130 XE). What should the colors really be? Do any other games have such trouble with colors? Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZylonBane Posted October 8, 2003 Share Posted October 8, 2003 Any Atari game that uses artifacting is going to have this exact same problem, in exactly the same way, obviously. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted October 8, 2003 Share Posted October 8, 2003 I seem to recall getting purple and green on my 1200XL, but I can't be sure now. I get Blue/Red on my XL. There really is no way for the programmer to control these colors. More on artifacting: http://www.atariage.com/forums/viewtopic.p...ghlight=#401554 -Bry edit: Okay, Lode Runner changes the background color, so the artifact colors will be different. I'm getting a purple background with reddish-orange bricks. The other artifact color (used on the little men) is blue. I'm using a Super-Video modded 800XL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ApolloBoy Posted October 8, 2003 Share Posted October 8, 2003 That's weird. On my 800XL, almost everything is in a shade of red. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted October 8, 2003 Share Posted October 8, 2003 That's wierd. What kind of video connection are you using? -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ApolloBoy Posted October 8, 2003 Share Posted October 8, 2003 That's wierd. What kind of video connection are you using? -Bry RF through an RCA-to-coax adapter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted October 8, 2003 Author Share Posted October 8, 2003 Found this in the FAQ: CTIA 400/800s artifact in blue/green GTIA 400/800s artifact in green/blue all XL/XEs artifact in red/blue. Which doesn't explain how I'm getting green/red (purple) on my 800XL. Shouldn't it be red/blue? I'm using a composite connection, I wonder if that is the reason? Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted October 8, 2003 Share Posted October 8, 2003 Found this in the FAQ: CTIA 400/800s artifact in blue/green GTIA 400/800s artifact in green/blue all XL/XEs artifact in red/blue. Which doesn't explain how I'm getting green/red (purple) on my 800XL. Shouldn't it be red/blue? I'm using a composite connection, I wonder if that is the reason? Tempest The FAQ assumes a black background (No Chroma signal). Lode Runner uses a purple background, so the artifact colors will be a mixture of the purple chroma signal, and the alternating playfield pixels (as if 2 chroma signals were added). I think the FAQ is wrong regarding the 1200XL. The video circuit is different from any other machine, and I remember getting different colors (purple/green against black). You should get the same colors using composite or RF, since the RF signal is simply a modulated composite signal. -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+davidcalgary29 Posted October 8, 2003 Share Posted October 8, 2003 Does anyone know what the proper colors are for Lode Runner? From what I remember on my Apple IIe it was blue blocks and a black background. However I've noticed that the colors change on different Atari systems (due to the Artifacting I believe). On my 1200XL with an OS mod the colors were blue blocks and a bright purple background. On my 800XL I'm getting green blocks a purple background. On the back of the box it shows blue blocks and a not so bright purple background (I assume they used a 65 or 130 XE). What should the colors really be? Do any other games have such trouble with colors? Tempest I'd say that the "problems" of artifacting are best illustrated in Tower Toppler. Playability is much more adversely effected in that game than it is in LR, because TT has a much more complicated and sophisticated visual structure. The game's unplayable on an emulator, and really only looks acceptable on the 800XL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emuxer0 Posted October 16, 2003 Share Posted October 16, 2003 I'd say that the "problems" of artifacting are best illustrated in Tower Toppler. Playability is much more adversely effected in that game than it is in LR, because TT has a much more complicated and sophisticated visual structure. The game's unplayable on an emulator, and really only looks acceptable on the 800XL. The "problem" with Tower Toppler is that it was programmed using the maximum resolution available. To achieve this, they had to reduce the color palette and on-screen colors to 2. Also, this game was made for the XEVGS, some of the new games for this machine won't work propperly in older machines due to memory mapping, OS incompatibility, RAM requirements, Video chipset, etc. Another game that has the same artifacting problem is the original 1982 Choplifter, also from Broderbund. Is there a master list of "artifacting" games? By the way, I have played Tower Toppler on the Atari800DC emulator for Dreamcast and it plays quite well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindfield Posted October 16, 2003 Share Posted October 16, 2003 Dunno about any master list, but offhand I can recall: - D.R.O.L. - Starquake - the Ultima games - Amaurote - Chimera - Minute Man Quite a few more whose names I can't recall, too. :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZylonBane Posted October 16, 2003 Share Posted October 16, 2003 The "problem" with Tower Toppler is that it was programmed using the maximum resolution available. To achieve this, they had to reduce the color palette and on-screen colors to 2. I don't know if I'd call this an achievement. It's just selecting graphics mode 8. You can do it from BASIC. Also, this game was made for the XEVGS, some of the new games for this machine won't work propperly in older machines due to memory mapping, OS incompatibility, RAM requirements, Video chipset, etc. The XEGS is for all practical purposes a 65XE. I'm not aware of any incompatibilities between XEGS carts and XL/XE line. Some carts do require 64K of RAM though. Is there a master list of "artifacting" games? Ummm... that would be weird. Artifacting is a side-effect, not a design feature. Any game that runs in Graphics 8 exhibits artifacts. Just some games ignore it and some games take advantage of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randy California Posted October 16, 2003 Share Posted October 16, 2003 Dunno about any master list, but offhand I can recall:- D.R.O.L. - Starquake - the Ultima games - Amaurote - Chimera - Minute Man Chimera doesn't use artifacting. Minute Man (do you mean Minit Man?) was never released for the A8. ++ RC ++ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted October 16, 2003 Share Posted October 16, 2003 i would not count starquake nor amaroute and every other "gr.8" game to artifact games... as they were designed for using gr.8. ultima imho as well... as you don't have these kind of "01" "10" "11" bitpares like loading a 4 color picture into gr.8... maybe artifacting was a side effect in ultima? hard hat mack, loderunner and others you see the mentioned bitpares... but i don't see any advantage compared to if using artifacting or gr.15. ah... i can remember ultima 4 intro with the waggon (character generation). there i was disappointed to have this in monochrome... did someone tried to overwrite the displaylist just from "f"s into "e"? drol i have as a nice 4 color version... hve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted October 16, 2003 Share Posted October 16, 2003 ah... i can remember ultima 4 intro with the waggon (character generation). there i was disappointed to have this in monochrome... did someone tried to overwrite the displaylist just from "f"s into "e"? I'm afraid that won't work, since many of the game "tiles" are designed to be viewed in mode f (i.e. the bitpattern 0110 would still produce white and not red+green). That means that you would also lost that much more detail in those tiles. (the top and bottom lines are text mode, which is why they are still green) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted October 16, 2003 Share Posted October 16, 2003 BTW, Conan also used artifacting Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted October 16, 2003 Share Posted October 16, 2003 as i said... ultima is imho not designed for artifacting (that's why the conversion does not work as you cant read the text)... but check out loderunner, drol, hard hat mack, these flippers from EA (the one with the world war 2 theme...)... marauder... A.E. these should work? hve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+davidcalgary29 Posted October 16, 2003 Share Posted October 16, 2003 The "problem" with Tower Toppler is that it was programmed using the maximum resolution available. To achieve this, they had to reduce the color palette and on-screen colors to 2. I don't know if I'd call this an achievement. It's just selecting graphics mode 8. You can do it from BASIC. Also, this game was made for the XEVGS, some of the new games for this machine won't work propperly in older machines due to memory mapping, OS incompatibility, RAM requirements, Video chipset, etc. The XEGS is for all practical purposes a 65XE. I'm not aware of any incompatibilities between XEGS carts and XL/XE line. Some carts do require 64K of RAM though. Is there a master list of "artifacting" games? Ummm... that would be weird. Artifacting is a side-effect, not a design feature. Any game that runs in Graphics 8 exhibits artifacts. Just some games ignore it and some games take advantage of it. While it's not a compatibility issue per se, I note that some carts, like Rampage, will only work with the keyboard attachment plugged in on the XEGS, even though that game does not use the keyboard at all. I believe that Nir Dary stated that the keyboard accesses different memory addresses than it does in the 65/130XE units, but perhaps you could clarify. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZylonBane Posted October 17, 2003 Share Posted October 17, 2003 BTW, Conan also used artifacting Not the version I played. There was an official cart release of Rampage for the XEs? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+davidcalgary29 Posted October 17, 2003 Share Posted October 17, 2003 BTW, Conan also used artifacting Not the version I played. There was an official cart release of Rampage for the XEs? That's the Sunmark NTSC hack. I don't know if this is the same version of the game that Atari had planned to use for its XEGS cart release. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted October 17, 2003 Share Posted October 17, 2003 i have conan on 5,25 discs somehwere it is 4 colours gfx like goonies... i have the datasoft version... and in europe you don't have artifacting... hve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZylonBane Posted October 17, 2003 Share Posted October 17, 2003 i have conan on 5,25 discs somehwerehve "5,25"? So which is it... 5, or 25? Oh wait, this is that "our decimal point is a comma" prank you Europeans like to play on us silly Yanks. Ha, won't catch me out on that one again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted October 17, 2003 Share Posted October 17, 2003 zyklon btw. where do you have your nick from? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted October 17, 2003 Share Posted October 17, 2003 zyklon btw. where do you have your nick from? Well ... I know only one Bane that thought he was the Human Leader of the Cylon(Zylon) empire (machines). When it came to the question, he loosed his head (Battlestar Galactica) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted October 17, 2003 Share Posted October 17, 2003 he loosed his head Zylonbane, Does your head really come loose? -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.