Images generated by RastaConverter

[ivop]

Started looking at the source again. Here's where we have to be to fix or at least mitigate this:

 

https://github.com/ilmenit/RastaConverter/blob/master/src/Evaluator.cpp

 

There's distance_accum_t Evaluator::ExecuteRasterProgram() which returns a total_error.

 

But there's also result_state.line_error = total_line_error; [...] results_array[y] = &result_state; for every line (y value). If you can run an evaluator similar to how all the instructions are executed starting at &rastinsns[ip++]; and evaluate if it's a problematic line, you can then possibly increase the total_line_error with a large amount.

 

Edited May 23, 2021 by ivop

[drpeter]

3 hours ago, ivop said:

If you can run an evaluator similar to how all the instructions are executed starting at &rastinsns[ip++]; and evaluate if it's a problematic line

What you would need to do is to walk through the entire screen kernel keeping a record of the values in A, X & Y registers so that it becomes apparent when a write of value v to HPOSPx is completing at horizontal screen position h colour clocks when  0 < (h-x) <7 and HPOSPx ~=v.  These are the circumstances that can lead to line artefacts. This is what RastaSlide does to flag up potential issues- except that at present it flags 0 < (h-x) < 6 since when written it wasn't appreciated that on some real hardware the 'critical write window' could extend to 6 colour clocks, especially when warmed up. RastaSlide also currently flags writes when HPOSPx == v , which obviously won't lead to a problem.  In addition, writes within the window at certain values of h at the extreme left and right of the scanline might suppress player display, but it's outside the visible screen area so can't lead to a visual problem. They would simply move the player off-screen even if successful, so the player is 'invisible' either way.

Edited May 23, 2021 by drpeter

[Sheddy]

RastaSlide - RastaConverter Slide Show Maker - version 2.3

Changes in version 2.3
- Remove intermediate "#disassemble optimized" files which otherwise get used to build
- Added detection for newly discovered 6 colour clock HPOS thermal delay artefacts
- Reduced false positives of possible artefacts (thanks to Drpeter)

 

Very interesting this odd problem hasn't been noticed before. Could it be related to age of boards/chips too - Would a brand new Atari in 1979 have had the same issue?

RastaSlide 2.3.zip

[drpeter]

45 minutes ago, Sheddy said:

Would a brand new Atari in 1979 have had the same issue

I guess we'll never know!  It's noticeable in reports so far that 800s seem to develop the effect more rapidly after start-up than 800XLs, some of which actually appear impervious to it. Still awaiting a report from a 400 or XE/XEGS.

 

As suggested by @ijor, could be created/exacerbated not only by different batches/ageing of VLSI chips but degradation in power rail voltage level/stability from either different or degraded on-board or external power circuit components or in the thermal stability of components on the board near to GTIA or clock signal accuracy/stability... That said, even the '5-clock window' issue was not well-known enough to make it into early versions of Altirra and its associated manual- hence the bug in RastaConverter, which was correctly programmed according to the Altirra Hardware Reference Manual as it was at the time. I'm certain the 5-clock window must have been a feature built-in to the design of all GTIAs from the start.

 

Given that even Atari publications such as De Re Atari in 1981 were still getting even more basic facts wrong- such as the incorrect assertion that players could not be redisplayed within a scanline- we've come a long way!

Edited May 24, 2021 by drpeter

[drpeter]

Another version of my article explaining the RastaConverter 'line artefact' problem, updated to:

• take account of the recently-discovered thermal effect seen in some real hardware
• describe using RastaSlide ver 2.3 to identify and eliminate both '5 and 6 colour clock window' artefacts
• include numerous minor clarifications and corrections.

Tutorial Walkthrough_Ver3.docx

[Rybags]

Could this be related to chip age, or maybe the amount of time the chip has been in use?

 

My Atari 400 here - it's barely been powered on probably since the early 1990s, so might serve as a good test case for a low use GTIA - though in the period 1981-85 it would have had a lot of use.

[drpeter]

31 minutes ago, Rybags said:

Could this be related to chip age, or maybe the amount of time the chip has been in use?

 

My Atari 400 here - it's barely been powered on probably since the early 1990s, so might serve as a good test case for a low use GTIA - though in the period 1981-85 it would have had a lot of use.

 

Try running drpeter_Artefact_3.1 on it- assuming it has 48K expansion. We have no reports from 400s as yet...

[Rybags]

It's packed away but I'll try and see about getting it out in the coming days... and it's got a Supermon OS board which has stability issues also.

[+CharlieChaplin]

21 hours ago, drpeter said:

Video would be great, if at all possible.?

 

You can't always get what you want...  (The Rolling Stones)

 

a) good video without flicker => impossible, my old digital camera shooting/filming an even older crt tv, there is always flicker (e.g. PAL flicker)

b) good video without shaking hands => my old Kodak camera does not have any kind of stabilizer and I also do not have a stand/tripod, so I had to use my old + shaking hands (not comfortable, when holding the camera for 23 minutes)

c) good video, high resolution => uploads are restricted to approx. 50MB here, but a video with 23 minutes and e.g. 320x240 pixels low resolution already requires more than 100MB, so I had to downsize to approx. 160x120

 

I already can hear you say "I can get no satisfaction", but that awful and flickery video was the best I could do for drpeter_3_1 artefacting test. Note: This is an AVI video using XVID compression (original format was Apple .MOV, but I converted it into AVI). Beware, the video is boring as hell and does NOT include any pron.

 

[drpeter]

1 hour ago, CharlieChaplin said:

the video is boring as hell

Well it's certainly a slow burn!

 

But interestingly a different pattern again, with players in order 3->1->0->2 rather than 3->1->2->0, columns 1->2 & 4->3 and no evident top->bottom progression. First changes (player 3 column 1) @~2mins and not complete (player 2 column 3) until 23 mins!

[drpeter]

Given this sequence, it's odd that 35 degrees showed before 25 degrees in drpeter_GTIA_temp_monitor...  Column 1 (which corresponds to 25 degrees) was very clearly affected first in drpeter_Artefact_3.1...

[drpeter]

Sergio Agüero

 

Manchester City legend Sergio Agüero bows out in style holding the Premier League trophy- having just extended his all-time club scoring record and setting the mark for most Premier League goals netted for one team.

 

57 colours.

 

drpeter_Aguero.xex

Edited May 24, 2021 by drpeter

[Gunstar]

Girl in a Top-hat. 35 colors. Steampunk sexy, this is a horizontally oriented .xex image (look again, I said xex, not sex), tilt your head, your screen or your Altirra window. I have some vertically oriented, cropped versions of this image on the way for those who are horizontally challenged. And for everyone to get more detailed images of this Hotty. Of course I'm referring to the girl! You greasy minded robo-sexuals!

GirlInTophatA.xex

Edited May 24, 2021 by Gunstar

[Mathy]

Hello Andreas

 

7 hours ago, CharlieChaplin said:

b) good video without shaking hands => my old Kodak camera does not have any kind of stabilizer and I also do not have a stand/tripod, so I had to use my old + shaking hands (not comfortable, when holding the camera for 23 minutes)

 

Temporary stands can be made out of just about anything that's firm enough not to bend over time.  Tables, chairs, books, monitors, cardboard boxes (if they don't bend under the weight) to name but a few.  Rubber bands can help hold cameras in place.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

[Beeblebrox]

3 hours ago, Gunstar said:

Girl in a Top-hat. 35 colors. Steampunk sexy, this is a horizontally oriented .xex image (look again, I said xex, not sex), tilt your head, your screen or your Altirra window. I have some vertically oriented, cropped versions of this image on the way for those who are horizontally challenged. And for everyone to get more detailed images of this Hotty. Of course I'm referring to the girl! You greasy minded robo-sexuals!

GirlInTophatA.xex 22.11 kB · 10 downloads

Stunning image. ?

[+Philsan]

14 hours ago, Gunstar said:

Girl in a Top-hat. 35 colors. Steampunk sexy, this is a horizontally oriented .xex image (look again, I said xex, not sex), tilt your head, your screen or your Altirra window. I have some vertically oriented, cropped versions of this image on the way for those who are horizontally challenged. And for everyone to get more detailed images of this Hotty. Of course I'm referring to the girl! You greasy minded robo-sexuals!

GirlInTophatA.xex 22.11 kB · 13 downloads

Never thought about it, some images could be converted with this technique.

[drpeter]

Uncle Sam

 

31 colours

 

 

drpeter_UncleSam.xex

[+Philsan]

Very nice, but from you I don't expect those defects.

Obviously I am joking ah ah.

 

[drpeter]

1 hour ago, Philsan said:

Very nice, but from you I don't expect those defects.

Self-flagellating... ?

[drpeter]

Just for @Philsan...

drpeter_UncleSam_2.xex

Edited May 25, 2021 by drpeter

[+Philsan]

1 hour ago, drpeter said:

Just for @Philsan...

drpeter_UncleSam_2.xex 22.03 kB · 5 downloads

Another image of yours that enters my best of the best collection (I have two collections, the best and the best of the best).

Shades of grey and colors on the same image.

[Gunstar]

12 hours ago, Philsan said:

Never thought about it, some images could be converted with this technique.

If this image orientation is a first for you with Rasta, then you've missed about half a dozen "horizontally oriented" images I've already done, or you forgot about them. But I always mention that they are "horizontally oriented" or have a "horizontal orientation" maybe, so a quick search of this thread using those words should find them for you.

[Beeblebrox]

Ok a few more images cooked up after quite a bit of obesssive pixel twitching over the last fortnight. They are posted below.

 

I planned to upload them some at the weekend gone but was rather distracted on account I managed to liberate my A8's from the attic they were languishing in... after 20+ years!

 

It was a bit of an eye opener to be honest - I have so much Atari 8 bit stuff! (Hardware, software, classic Atari mags).

 

So far I've extracted from the hellish landscape that is the attic:  1 x stock 65XE; 1 x 130XE with Ultramon and RS232 mods, and an upgraded 65XE (320K, Stereo modded). 

Amazingly they all boot up and haven't suffered such a long period of neglect.

 

Along with these there was loads other stuff including an Atari 400 with touch keyboard in need of love - which prompted flashbacks of me playing Bopotron and Boing! on it when I was 6. Also a couple of 130XE's in bits, one clearly the result of some very poor pokeychip soldering I've clearly blotted out as have no recollection doing it. Also a 1010 and XC12 tape decks. Gotta go back to find my 2 x 1050 drives and most importantly my beloved 800XL at some stage. I even found my Atari Jaguar console!

 

So over the last few days I've been using my newly aquired SDrive Max to load up various games and demos and generally reaquainting myself with my ol friends in a rather hermit/teenage like manner. I played the demo of Prince of Persia - (you should have seen my face when I booted that up on actual A8 hardware first time! Still can't get over the animation! ;))

 

I've been hooking the A8's up to one of two monitors. One a 15+ yr old square LCD with D-sub connector - the other a modern widescreen LED with an HDMI. I have a DIN to RCA cable going into a newly purchased RCA to HDMI upscaler for the modern monitor, and for the older monitor a VGA to HDMI adapter in addtion to said upscaler.

 

Reason I am telling ya'll this is that of course one of the first things I eagerly did was populate the SDrive Max with some of my Rastaconverted images to boot em up on real hardware. 

Honestly - major disappointment - image quality was hideous! It's far worse on the older monitor but not great at all on the modern LED, (with the additional that it stretches the image to 16:9 ratio on the latter). Very chunky, washed out artifact riddled and horribly bland colours (yellow and brown seem to dominate a lot of the time - vibrant colours don't get a look in).

 

I tried it with all 3 x XEs to be sure it wasn't one A8 at fault and unfortunately no improvements in image quality. (All of the are PAL btw.)

 

Firstly I tried just plugging the DIN to RCA cable directly into my 42" plasma TV and setting the ratio to 4:3. Colours were still awful and the artifacting was so bad. Of course even running at 4:3 on such a large screen the low res images aren't going to look great and be more on the "chunky" side. (After all I'm not viewing these on a 15" CRT). But I wasn't prepared for the poor colour quality and the awful artifacting. 

 

It's very disconcerting to have seen all the amazing RC images created over the years by ya'll, and to have some of your own - only to see they look awful on real hardware. I was starting to wonder if the Atirra's settings I have were making things look more rosy than is possible. 

 

I then tried introducing the upscaler into the mix via the plasma TV's HDMI. Slight improvement in colour and a little less artifacting. Still pretty appauling.

 

I did a lot of reading online on the subject of upscalers and on AtariAge and came to a few conclusions.

 

Firstly it sounded like I needed to get a DIN to S-video cable to give myself the best initial image signal output. (I should have done this from the outset).

Secondly I read that despite some upscalers claiming to output to Pal 50hz, most don't do 50hz and output 60hz - which I read introduces a bias towards bland yellowing of images.

Thirdly, I would ideally need to find an upscaler that can allow the aspect ratio adjustment so I can force a 4:3 ratio on my widescreen LED monitor and Plasma TV

 

So currently I have the Svideo cable ordered and enroute from Germany and an upscaler with S-video to HDMI winging it's way to me. (Alas I couldn't source one that has aspect ration control gadammit!). 

 

So fingers crossed that once all set up with this new kit the image quality will improve somewhat. I know it won't look as good as in Altirra, but anything is better than the current output.

Right, here are some of my recent conversions - a lot of which I've been running for a very long number of evaluations (which actually did improve them a majority of the time) - Again I'd love to see what they look like on your respective CRT hardware:

Unique colours: 51 - Filename:  BeebleBrox_FantasyForestFairy15 - Love the wings - some annoying line errors and banding

 

Unique colours: 60- Filename:  BeebleBrox_MajorGhostshell20 - Love the purples and pinks in this one - some annoying line errors and banding

 

Unique colours: 61 - Filename:  BeebleBrox_Archerelf10 - some annoying line errors and banding

 

Unique colours: 56 - Filename:  BeebleBrox_HellboyandAbe14 - This one is a personal favourite - Big fan of Ron Perlman Hellboy

 

Unique colours: 32 - Filename:  BeebleBrox_Hellboyststatue5 - Another Hellboy take

 

Unique colours: 61 - Filename:  BeebleBrox_Bladerunnerfinalcut6 - Classic film which legendarily features Atari (which self respecting Atarian doesn't know this lil gem).

 

Unique colours: 59 - Filename:  BeebleBrox_Darkelf15  - love the green  - some annoying line errors and banding

 

Unique colours: 94 - Filename:  BeebleBrox_CarolDanversmarvel12 - some annoying banding in hair and line errors but nice load of colours

 

Unique colours: - Unknown - Filename:  BeebleBrox_Lemmingsbeach1   -(One can dream of a colour version of Tommingi (with all it's faithful Lemmings character animation) ) Image not screen centered - soz!

 

Unique colours: 58- Filename:  BeebleBrox_Battlesquadrontitle16 - (not 100% or complete but I got fed up with looking at it as not perfect - Just begging for LZSS Battle Squadron soundtrack to be merged with it ; )

 

Unique colours: Unknown - Filename:  BeebleBrox_Flandersevildead - (just a bit of fun - Simpson's Ned Flanders reimagined as Ash from Evil Dead - what's not to love!) The source image was printed paper with creases btw (honestly!  )

Unique colours: 42 - Filename:  BeebleBrox_Wizardrywoman6 - came out fairly well - some annoying banding in hair

Unique colours: 56 - Filename:  BeebleBrox_Tyntesfield - bit of an experiment

Unique colours: 30 - Filename:  BeebleBrox_Fireplace2  - Was pleased with the stonework - It's been said before but A8 struggle with reds

Unique colours: 45 - Filename:  BeebleBrox_Sunbather2 - Dreaming of a holiday - (Soz not screen centred)

Unique colours: 82 - Filename:  BeebleBrox_SoulfireGrace5 - Annoying line errors and banding around face but thought worth posting as colours and definition ok - torso is looking good. (Errhum! )

Unique colours: Unknown - Filename:  BeebleBrox_Ghostshellmajor1_3 - an earlier conversion I forgot about - love a bit of Anime artwork

Unique colours: Unknown - Filename:  BeebleBrox_Bagenddoorview1_2   - a door side view of Hobbiton

 

Unique colours: 43 - Filename:  BeebleBrox_BarkeepRPG3 - Rough lil test for a point and click mock up RPG game for Atari (I can but dream! Imagine this in a game  )

 

Unique colours: Unknown - Filename:  BeebleBrox_Geraltstatuecrop1_4 - a early test to see how this Witcher image would turn out with the greys and skin tones - fairly happy how it turned out - few line errors

 

Unique colours: 45 - Filename:  BeebleBrox_Farnsworth - Well, why not?! 

 

Unique colours: unknown - Filename:  BeebleBrox_Hobbitdoor3rdrun_3 - Big fan of Tolkein - few line errors 

 

Unique colours: 54 - Filename:  BeebleBrox_devushkaartfentezielf9 - annoying error lower torso and elsewhere - but still liked it enough to include

BeebleBrox_Archerelf10.xex BeebleBrox_Bagenddoorview1_2.xex BeebleBrox_BarkeepRPG3.xex BeebleBrox_Battlesquadrontitle16.xex BeebleBrox_Bladerunnerfinalcut6.xex BeebleBrox_CarolDanversmarvel12.xex BeebleBrox_Darkelf15.xex BeebleBrox_devushkaartfentezielf9.xex BeebleBrox_FantasyForestFairy15.xex BeebleBrox_Farnsworth.xex BeebleBrox_Fireplace2.xex BeebleBrox_Flandersevildead.xex BeebleBrox_Geraltstatuecrop1_4.xex BeebleBrox_Ghostshellmajor1_3.xex BeebleBrox_HellboyandAbe14.xex BeebleBrox_Hellboyststatue5.xex BeebleBrox_Hobbitdoor3rdrun_3.xex BeebleBrox_Lemmingsbeach1.xex BeebleBrox_MajorGhostshell20.xex BeebleBrox_SoulfireGrace5.xex BeebleBrox_Sunbather2.xex BeebleBrox_Tyntesfield.xex BeebleBrox_Wizardrywoman6.xex

[Gunstar]

Very nice collection there over-all @Beeblebrox. I don't suppose you could find it in your heart to put them all in a .zip file to download if you have this many to post in the Future? I think I've posted a half-dozen separately at a time before, but this is almost two dozen!?

[drpeter]

26 minutes ago, Beeblebrox said:

Ok a few more images

Tyntesfield v. nice ?