Atari 2600 definitive resolution?

[Atari 2600 definitive resolution?]

***Sorry if this is in the wrong section, but I thought that this question could best be answered by the people who visit this section of the forums.***

 

Yo, I'm a big fan of Atari 2600 games, I'm working on creating a game that graphically gives the impression of an old Atari game, but I can't seem to get a definitive answer on the resolution of the system.

I mean, if ya google "Atari 2600 Resolution," everyone says the resolution is 160x192,

but when playing Combat in the Stella emulator, the game is displayed with a resolution of 320x210 (Took a screenshot, put it in Paint and counted the pixels with the pencil tool)

2 pixels at the top of the window are a black bar.

Is the black bar just caused by hardware limitations at the time?

It seems that every game has a black bar of unused space and varying heights. I'd prefer to know what the maximum theoretical resolution is if the space where the black bar is COULD be used.

 

Is 160x192 supposed to be the resolution of the playfield?

If I subtract the height of the HUD and Black Bar from the total height I get 191, giving me a resolution of 320x191 for the playfield and 320x17 for the HUD (320x19 with the black bar.)

BUT, I noticed that the sprites seem to exceed the width limit of 8px, as they are 16px wide in the attached image, so that means that the image was stretched to be twice its regular width.

So if I divide the width in half, I get a playfield resolution of 160x191, which is pretty damn close to the 160x192 resolution that everyone claims.

But then why don't people include the extra 17-19 pixels above the playfield where the HUD is displayed?

 

I've included an image with my notes in the attachments

or you can see it here

http://imgur.com/mDR78Y0

 

[VisualBB Configuration Wizard issues]

Try exporting the relevant bit of the registry tree using regedit on a working system, as a .reg file. Then move the reg file over to the problem Windows 8 system and double-click it.

 

If it doesn't work-around the problem, you may get an error message that gives some insight as to why it's failing.

 

Got a solution for windows 7?

Is there an older version of Visualbb I can use that doesnt have a configuration wizard and isn't too buggy?

[VisualBB Configuration Wizard issues]

Moving it off your desktop probably wouldn't change anything because something is blocking it from writing to the registry like local machine policy or antivirus. Try right clicking Run As administrator to see if that changes anything.

 

-Jeff

 

Dang, still no luck. Guess I'll just have to deal with it.

[VisualBB Configuration Wizard issues]

Sometime in your environment is preventing it from writing the configuration to registry.

 

-Jeff

 

So, should I move the folders off of the desktop?

[VisualBB Configuration Wizard issues]

Every time I open up VisualBB, it opens up the configuration wizard as though it was my first time running the program. It seems to remember my recent projects, but it is getting annoying having to reset the path to 2600.exe and Stella.exe every time I open the compiler.

 

How do I get VisualBB to remember to stop activating the configuration wizard on startup?

[VisualBB won't save configurations?]

Yo, I'm a newbie trying to get into the world of 2600 homebrew, but I'm having alot of problems setting up VisualBB.

I've download Batari Basic and Stella, whenever I open up VisualBB it says that it is my first time running it and opens up the configuration wizard. It never remembers the paths to 2600.exe and Stella.exe.

 

I check the settings and the paths are correct (but the ALT Batch path is empty)

But after closing visualbb, the settings are erased and I have to set it up again. What am I doin wrong?