New pacman for atari 2600

[Thomas Jentzsch]

At least for Europe I can assure you that, besides France, Belarus and Russia, all other countries are using PAL. So Wikipedia is 100% correct here.

[+SpiceWare]

dont forget the wiki is user based so mistakes are common and you need to take it with a pinch of salt

 

 

While that's true, I'll accept the word of people like Thomas.

 

I also go by my homebrewing experience. While lots of people from across Europe have asked for a PAL port, I've never received a request for a SECAM one. The fact that Atari created a custom version of TIA for PAL use, while they only did a hardware hack to generate a limited 8 color palette for SECAM, is also rather telling.

[AW127]

Silverfox, when people who live in european countries write here, that nearly all countries in Europe has PAL, than you can believe, that it`s true. Only France makes an exception here with their Secam and Russia is not european, because 90% of their territory is asian. So Europe is PAL dominated.

 

Sorry for all NTSC countries that PAL is technically better, but it`s a fact. What i also like on PAL machines, for example PAL-TV`s is the fact that they can nearly all run PAL, PAL60, NTSC and NTSC50 without any problem. American NTSC-TV`s sometimes have problems running PAL-Mode and the picture rolls.

Edited June 6, 2016 by AW127

[Andromeda Stardust]

Silverfox, when people who live in european countries write here, that nearly all countries in Europe has PAL, than you can believe, that it`s true. Only France makes an exception here with their Secam and Russia is not european, because 90% of their territory is asian. So Europe is PAL dominated.

 

Sorry for all NTSC countries that PAL is technically better, but it`s a fact. What i also like on PAL machines, for example PAL-TV`s is the fact that they can nearly all run PAL, PAL60, NTSC and NTSC50 without any problem. American NTSC-TV`s sometimes have problems running PAL-Mode and the picture rolls.

Dude, PAL is NOT superior. Most post crash games were developed by Japanese developers for systems developed in Japan. As a result, the vast majority of PAL games and systems suffered in some way with inferior ports that played too slowly and in some cases did not come at all. North America often had to wait at least a year after Japan to get games, and Europe and other PAL territories had to wait longer for inferior ports and sometimes did not get games at all.

 

So clearly, with regards to retro gaming,

Japan >>> North America and other NTSC territories >>> PAL territories...

 

Japan is best; North America is good; PAL is okay.

 

Regarding Atari systems, 2600 and 7800 in NTSC format got better color pallet dispersion. As for retro computng platforms, I have no say on those, as it may have been better supported in Europe / Australia.

 

Movies: Most movies are recorded in 24fps. NTSC DVDs got native progressive content dispalyed with 3:2 telecine and plays at 100% speed. PAL DVDs got 25Hz progressive content, sped up by 4% from native. People who have perfect pitch can also sometimes detect the very slight audio speed up.

 

Also 50Hz interlaced CRT displays cause more eye fatigue compared to 60Hz interlaced CRT displays.

 

Half a dozen of one and six of the other, but the only thing NTSC video did not have going for it was slightly reduced vertical resolution and reliance on tightly locked colorburst frequency. The development of highly accurate timing crystals made the NTSC (Never The Same Color) color drift a not issue on all but the earliest color TV sets.

 

It' is telling that many European retro gamers prefer to import NTSC equipment from either North America or Japan rather than play their own inferior slowed down PAL ports.

 

not trying to hate on PAL gamers but NTSC is clearly superior from a gaming perspective, even if a higher percentage of the world population lives in PAL territories. It isn't so much an issue now with global game releases and HD video gaming systems being capable of both 50 and 60 hertz display formats.

 

But back in the 80s and 90s pre-internet, most PAL gamers did not realize what they were missing. So I don't blame anyone in PAL land who chooses to import rather than stick with what they had growing up. I'm still jealous of Japan for getting so many goodies we missed out on in North America.

[+FujiSkunk]

Dude, PAL is NOT superior.

Tell that to a Commodore 64 fan.

[BuyAllTheCarts]

Tell that to a Commodore 64 fan.

Touché.

[AW127]

Dude, PAL is NOT superior.

When it comes to higher picture quality, PAL is indeed technical better. Thomas explained it before and the side which i linked before, also explains it. Maybe these higher picture quality is not needed for older retro-consoles, but when you watch DVD`s on big modern TV`s and so on, it is.

 

Most post crash games were developed by Japanese developers for systems developed in Japan. As a result, the vast majority of PAL games and systems suffered in some way with inferior ports that played too slowly and in some cases did not come at all. North America often had to wait at least a year after Japan to get games, and Europe and other PAL territories had to wait longer for inferior ports and sometimes did not get games at all.

 

So clearly, with regards to retro gaming,

Japan >>> North America and other NTSC territories >>> PAL territories...

That is only the half of the truth, because the fact is, what i wrote before. When it comes to retro-consoles like Mega-Drive, Super-NES or maybe the Atari-2600 then this might be true what you wrote. But in the retro-computer-scene, which is also very big, NTSC-gamers have big problems because the normal software don`t run on their systems like it should. Look at the Commodore-Scene-Database for C64, how often cracker-groups must release NTSC-fixes for certain demos or games, because otherwise these software would not run on NTSC-systems. And the C64 is more alive than any other retro-console or computer, because every day something new comes out and the best C64-demos at all, was programed in the last five years.

 

It' is telling that many European retro gamers prefer to import NTSC equipment from either North America or Japan rather than play their own inferior slowed down PAL ports.

And the complete opposite happens when it comes to retro-computers. I know alot of C64-users from the USA, which later bought a PAL-C64, because they want to have fun with newest games and demos and not problems because they dont work on their systems. Exactly the same problems you have with NTSC-Amigas. Look at the AMiga-games and tell me, how many of them run with 60FPS, maybe 5% not more. And PAL-Amigas can even play these titles without that the screen rolls. Vice versa not possible in this way.

 

Also an advantage is, that PAL-TV`s nearly all easily can display NTSC, but many NTSC-TV`s have problems with PAL. European PAL-consoles can be modded to work in NTSC without big effort and PAL-Atari2600 have the advantage in the meanwhile, that the users now can either use the normal PAL-versions (and not all run slower, many was speed-adjusted back in the time) or they can use over 200 PAL60 versions, that exist in the meantime. Good for games like "Phoenix", when the player has an alternative version, which even plays little different. I heard from people here in the forum that most american NTSC-TV`s rolls the picture when they should run a PAL game in NTSC50 mode. Seems like this is a problem of the horizontal lines or i dont know. Thomas will know better these technical things for sure.

 

not trying to hate on PAL gamers but NTSC is clearly superior from a gaming perspective, even if a higher percentage of the world population lives in PAL territories. It isn't so much an issue now with global game releases and HD video gaming systems being capable of both 50 and 60 hertz display formats.

I also not trying to hate on NTSC gamers, but when somebody here in the thread simply wrote: "NTSC is superior", but PAL is technically better and produce a better picture quality (which you can read everywhere in the internet) then i can not say: "yes this is true". It`s correct, that PAL-users often was fooled by the gaming-industry because their game-versions was not adjusted. But this is not the problem of PAL, its the problem of the lazy game-companys which wanted to save money by not adjusting the games correctly.

 

I tell you an example, what could have easily been done if a gaming-company want be good to PAL-players. "Speedball 2" is a very popular and good game from the "Bitmap Brothers", which exists on Amiga, Atari-ST, MS-DOS and also on the Mega-Drive. The NTSC-version on the Mega-Drive is from company "Arena" and the PAL-Version from "Virgin" and they both have exactly the same screen-size and plays with exact same speed. Only some colors in the game are little bit different and the music also a little bit. But from playing-side they play equal. So when it`s possible here in this game, it`s hard to understand for me, why Sega not adjusted the PAL-games of their so important mascot "Sonic". Technically for PAL-systems it would have been no problem, to show the game like it runs in NTSC, but the companies simply wanted to save that money and fooled the PAL-users. But is this a problem of PAL or is this a problem of the game-companies? It`s clearly a problem of the game-companies. And the same vice-versa by the way - it`s also not a problem of NTSC, when C64 or Amiga games don`t work correctly on NTSC-Amigas or NTSC-C64. Also here, the versions could have been fixed. Many C64-crackers in the C64-Scene-Database do it now by releasing NTSC-fixes for old games and also for new released games.

 

So i think, when we want to ask "which format is superior, PAL or NTSC" and when this is a technical question, leaving out all these game-incompatibilities and looking just at things like picture-quality (which is the most important thing in my opinion on big modern TV`s), then PAL has an advantage. I don`t tell this, because i live in a PAL-country, i tell this because you can read this in lots of articles on the internet.

 

But back in the 80s and 90s pre-internet, most PAL gamers did not realize what they were missing. So I don't blame anyone in PAL land who chooses to import rather than stick with what they had growing up. I'm still jealous of Japan for getting so many goodies we missed out on in North America.

It`s true, that PAL-people misses something in some of the console-games which was not adjusted and runs slower and with a smaller screen, back in 90`s. But like i wrote before, this is not a problem of PAL, its only a problem of the lazy gaming-industry, which dont wanted to give out money for adjusting-games. It would have been possible to adjust every game, but they simply haven`t done it. So when an american C64-user wants to look the newest and best C64-demos and import an european PAL-C64 to do this, i also dont blame. Why should i? Everybody can do what he wants.

 

And Japan is the county, where everybody loves gaming. I was there in 2010 for one month. I saw Tokyo, Yokohama, Kyoto, Hakone and Hiroshima. And in Tokyo is was also in arcade-halls with some friends. When the rest of the world and also we here in Germany, get arcade-machines like "Streetfighter 4", they already played "Streetfighter 5" in japanese arcade-halls. Biggest gaming-companies are based in japanese, this is one of the reason why i like this country alot. And people of nearly every age likes gaming there. I saw 80 year old japanese grandma`s playing Pachinko in the arcade-halls. Funny to see and i liked it.

Edited June 7, 2016 by AW127

[Andromeda Stardust]

@AW127: I think we can both agree that the gaming scene is very different in NTSC and PAL lands, and of course, Japan.

 

I have no nostalgia for any of the retro computing platforms, where at least in the United States, Nintendo dominated from the mid 80s through the mid 90s. Atari games and other pre-crash systems were often developed in the United States, NTSC territory, and likewise, Nintendo and Sega games were developed in Japan, also an NTSC territory. I guess I see your point if the computer games were all developed by European devs working on PAL hardware. Due to the extra processing time between frames on PAL systems, as well as the larger screen size, it is easier to convert native NTSC games to PAL (often with black bars and slowdown if the devs are lazy), compared to conversion of PAL games to NTSC, which often require shrinking the usable playfield area as well as decreasing the number of cycles available to the CPU during the blank period.

[BuyAllTheCarts]

@AW127: I think we can both agree that the gaming scene is very different in NTSC and PAL lands, and of course, Japan.

 

I have no nostalgia for any of the retro computing platforms, where at least in the United States, Nintendo dominated from the mid 80s through the mid 90s. Atari games and other pre-crash systems were often developed in the United States, NTSC territory, and likewise, Nintendo and Sega games were developed in Japan, also an NTSC territory. I guess I see your point if the computer games were all developed by European devs working on PAL hardware. Due to the extra processing time between frames on PAL systems, as well as the larger screen size, it is easier to convert native NTSC games to PAL (often with black bars and slowdown if the devs are lazy), compared to conversion of PAL games to NTSC, which often require shrinking the usable playfield area as well as decreasing the number of cycles available to the CPU during the blank period.

I'm agreeing with you. I never grew up with the commodore 64, (and ironically the Atari) yet never really cared. I enjoyed the DOS games and the NES, while soon having the joys of Atari.

[+FujiSkunk]

I will agree that while PAL has a better picture quality, I would rather watch movies on an NTSC screen. I don't claim to be an audiophile, but my ears are sensitive enough that the audio speed-up that comes with turning 24fps video into 25fps is distracting.

 

Having said that, the best video signal is whichever one plays your favorite games the way they were meant to be played. For most game consoles, that's NTSC. For Apple and Atari 8-bits, that's also NTSC. But for most other 8-bit computers, particularly the Commodore, it's PAL. This was apparent even to NTSC Commodore owners back in the day, myself included. Thanks to its massive and lingering success in Europe through the late '80s and even into the early '90s, most game development for the Commodore took place in Europe, even for titles that were sold in the States. Often these titles had little or no optimization for the shift from PAL to NTSC. Most of the time that wasn't necessarily a problem, or at least it wasn't a big problem, beyond little graphical hiccups here and a timer maybe running faster than it should there. Where it was particularly noticeable was in the audio, just like when movie frame rates are changed. PAL listeners got to hear all those glorious SID songs perfectly tuned and at the optimum tempo, while NTSC listeners heard something a little faster and a little off-key. For the most part things still sounded pretty good, but especially now that I know what to listen for, I can tell PAL has it better.

[AW127]

@AW127: I think we can both agree that the gaming scene is very different in NTSC and PAL lands, and of course, Japan.

Yes, i can also agree to the point, that it was very different gaming-scene in Europa/North America/Japan. Here in Germany, nearly everybody of my whole school-class in the 80`s, had either a C64 or a Atari-800XL. Some also had a console like NES or Master-System too, but more had computers. And by far the most had a C64 at home. One of the reasons also was, that the games can be copied, which dont worked with console-games back then. So retro-computers, especially C64, here was very big. Also the Atari-2600 was big here, but this was in the early 80`s, before the computer-scene came. But also Mega-Drive and Super-NES was sold alot here in the 90`s.

 

Now, when you look at the retro-scene, the most alive one is the C64, which brought out some really fantastic games in the last years like for example "Bomberland". But also the Atari-2600 lives and some really good games come out too. And the good thing now is, that on the C64, new games often get a NTSC-fix now and on the Atari-2600 new games often get a PAL60-version now. So this screen-format problem PAL/NTSC now is much smaller now than it was in earlier years.

 

Maybe we should end that PAL-NTSC discussion, because it will bring no result at all and go back to the talking-point of this thread, which is really the best Atari-2600 Pac-Man version ever come out so far.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Maybe we should end that PAL-NTSC discussion, because it will bring no result at all and go back to the talking-point of this thread, which is really the best Atari-2600 Pac-Man version ever come out so far.

Agreed.

[78001987]

When it comes to higher picture quality, PAL is indeed technical better. Thomas explained it before and the side which i linked before, also explains it. Maybe these higher picture quality is not needed for older retro-consoles, but when you watch DVD`s on big modern TV`s and so on, it is.

No, it's not "better" Anything shown at the wrong aspect ratio, with the sound offspeed by 1/25th is not "better".

 

The vast majority of film content is filmed at 720x480 (16x9), and then needs to have it's aspect ratio altered (stretched) or the frame is chopped to fit the default PAL DVD standard of 720x576. What you get is an inferior, altered version. You don't benefit from the additional vertical lines because the aspect or frame is altered from it's original. Altered sources are not "better".

 

as or the sound - pal defaults to 25fps, but the fast majority of film content is show at 24pfs, so when show in PAL territories, the speed is incorrect because it is sped up to conform to the PAL standard. Voices are higher pitched. Music tempos are faster. Incorrect sound is not better.

Edited June 7, 2016 by 78001987

[+FujiSkunk]

No, it's not "better" Anything shown at the wrong aspect ratio, with the sound offspeed by 1/25th is not "better".

 

"Films" as in movies were almost never filmed in 720x480, and of the extreme few that were, the overwhelming majority were intended for a 4x3 presentation. Most movies were recorded on film with cameras. Film cameras do not have a resolution the same way digital cameras or even tape recorders do, but if they did, it would be much higher than NTSC or PAL, especially when talking about the 35mm or 70mm film used in most big-budget Hollywood moves of the day. This is why there is a healthy market for Blu-ray and similar high-definition formats even for older movies. The newer formats preserve more of the original image quality even for movies made before the digital era.

 

So, when a film has to be converted to NTSC or PAL, the exact same compromises have to be made, at least as far as image goes. Both NTSC and PAL were originally intended for 4x3 screens and then received 16x9 retrofits during the DVD era. Letterboxing, anamorphic stretching or pan and scan has to be employed for NTSC the same way it has to be with PAL. The difference is, once you have finished converting, PAL image quality will be a smidgen better than NTSC, thanks to its higher vertical resolution: 576 lines, something between NTSC's 480 and the lowest HD resolution of 720.

 

Whether anyone notices that difference is debatable, and I prefer NTSC anyway because of the sound issue you mentioned, but claiming one standard is better than the other because of "aspect ratio" is a bit silly.

[Mr SQL]

 

Regarding Atari systems, 2600 and 7800 in NTSC format got better color pallet dispersion. As for retro computng platforms, I have no say on those, as it may have been better supported in Europe / Australia.

 

Also 50Hz interlaced CRT displays cause more eye fatigue compared to 60Hz interlaced CRT displays.

 

 

Excellent points Stardust

 

PAL has more vibrant greens but like SECAM the PAL TIA does not have all of the silicon for a full palette implementation - the NTSC TIA definitely comes out ahead with two C64's worth of extra colors

 

Artifact colors and effects are also missing from PAL so Dintar's Pac strawberries you posted a picture of earlier could not be made as colorful. Ironically the reason is the PAL color signal is designed better leaving programmers with no exploit from which to multiply the bit-plane for free - in the 80's this caused many PAL gamers to wonder where all the color had vanished compared to NTSC versions of the same games on systems that heavily leveraged artifacting.

 

PAL does render better still picture and slow move scenes, and NTSC does better animation - a fast action move like the Matrix is not even close, though you will really notice PAL's better resolution because the movie manages to use even less than half the vertical resolution; for movies that use traditional panning to fill the 4:3 display, the lesser vertical resolution is not as noticeable.

[BuyAllTheCarts]

How long will this drag on for? I simply said NTSC was superior in jest. (Even though it's true. )

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

Excellent points Stardust

 

Artifact colors and effects are also missing from PAL so Dintar's Pac strawberries you posted a picture of earlier could not be made as colorful. I

Not to derail the thread any further on the NTSC versus PAL arguments, but I rechecked the strawberries on my Best AV 7800 as well as the VCS. My mom's bedroom 27" RCA CRT displays the white dots just the same on both systems, but my bedroom Symphonic 19" CRT displays black dots instead of white, same as the HDTV. My mom's CRT is nice and big but the picture is not as sharp, and the sharpness filter doesn't seem to do anything. Good thing it keeps separate picture presets for the composite and RF. My maximum contrast preset for arcade like bright brights and black blacks setting I use for video games strains my mother's eyes if she watches normal cable with it. So I use the soft lighting preset for the cable box RF (I use my 7800 for playing Atari in her room when I do, and all my other systems output composite natively). Overall my CRT shows scanlines much better than my mom's (notice their absence in the Straberry screenshot I posted eons ago).

 

= = = = = = = = = =

 

EDIT: In case anybody came to the thread and missed the v6 update two pages ago:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/229152-new-pacman-for-atari-2600/?p=3525518

 

I am on my PC right now, finally got a chance to save this awesome update to my Harmony's SD card. I'll play it later this week...

[AW127]

How long will this drag on for? I simply said NTSC was superior in jest. (Even though it's true. )

No, it`s not. Oouuh i forgot, that i wanted to go back to the talking point of the thread.

 

And i want to repeat my question to DINTAR816 - how is the better way for a programer to build a PAL60 version of a game, when this programer also release a normal PAL and a NTSC version of a game?

 

In this case of the PAC-MAN game here, first was the NTSC version. Which is the "normal" way in a case like that for programers?

 

(1) change the colors of the NTSC version to the PAL palette, so we have a PAL60 version. And then take this PAL60 version, where the colors are already adjusted and change the line-mode and frames-per-second to build a normal PAL version. In this case, first the PAL60 version was made and then the normal PAL version.

 

or

 

(2) take the NTSC version, change the line-mode, frames-per-second with speed-adjusting, and adjust the colors to build the normal PAL version first. And then take this PAL version where the colors are already adjusted and make the PAL60 version out of it. In this case first the PAL version is built and then the PAL60.

 

I suppose, way (1) is the faster way to go, right? And it`s really good, that you also speed-adjusted the normal PAL-version here. Great work!

Edited June 8, 2016 by AW127

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Usually people develop for NTSC, because PAL TVs can handle 60 Hz frame rate much better than NTSC TVs can handle 50 Hz.

 

Way (1) is more logical, since you don't have to undo changes in the process.

 

Back to the original question: If a game is developed for NTSC, then the PAL60 conversion is automatically very faithful to the original. For the PAL50 version, the game speed has to be adjusted. Usually the speed is depending in the frame rate and very often the frame rate is directly used for e.g. determining movement (1 pixel/frame). For a faithful speed adjustment, the object would have to move 1.2 pixel/frame. Which requires sub pixel calculations, more RAM and ROM and more CPU time. This is no rocket science, but has to be planned ahead, when coding the NTSC version.

 

And even after a complete speed adjustment, the PAL50 version will look vertically squashed. E.g. all sprites are 25% vertically smaller. And without corrections 25% of the screen become unused. A PAL60 version doesn't have this problem. And if you want to utilize the additional space, then you have to increase the vertical speed by another 25%, redesign all sprites etc. Alternatively you would have to redesign the whole level layout.

 

Why should anyone do this, if a PAL60 version works perfectly on today's TVs?

[AW127]

Okay. Thanks for the explanation, i thought that way (1) is the better one to go. In this context - would be nice for NTSC-users, when sometime, a "PHOENIX" NTSC-50 version could be built out of the PAL-50 version. Because then also NTSC users could play both versions of this great game, as long as their NTSC-TV´s could handle the picture without rolling through. The PAL version of this game was already speed-adjusted back in the time, but a little bit different (little bit faster shots, little bit slower enemies). But this game is so interesting in both versions, because of the little differences which have a big influence of the gameplay (other ways the enemys fly ...)

Edited June 8, 2016 by AW127

[Andromeda Stardust]

Okay. Thanks for the explanation, i thought that way (1) is the better one to go. In this context - would be nice for NTSC-users, when sometime, a "PHOENIX" NTSC-50 version could be built out of the PAL-50 version. Because then also NTSC users could play both versions of this great game, as long as their NTSC-TV´s could handle the picture without rolling through. The PAL version of this game was already speed-adjusted back in the time, but a little bit different (little bit faster shots, little bit slower enemies). But this game is so interesting in both versions, because of the little differences which have a big influence of the gameplay (other ways the enemys fly ...)

Out of three CRT TVs in my house, only one can handle NTSC-50 refresh rates without rolling. In fact one of them even rolls when playing Air Raid! The one set that can handle 50Hz refresh, scales the scanlines at exactly the same height and spacing of standard NTSC frames. This means A LOT of data gets cropped off at the bottom. If I load the ROM for PAL50 Donkey Kong through Harmony for instance, I can only barely see the tip of my players hat on the bottom of the stage, and since I cannot see the barrels on the floor (because they are cropped off) I have no way to dodge them. Not only that, but the 50Hz refresh rate is below my threshold for detecting flicker, and as a result, causes eye strain and a headache if I attempt to view NTSC50 material for too long. I suppose PAL CRTs have slightly longer phosphor decay to minimize it, or Europeans are otherwise so used to the slow refresh rates that it doesn't bother them. Our 2006 Sanyo 768p HDTV in the living room performs similarly when scaling NTSC50 content, cropping much content off the bottom of the screen. I guess we are lucky it can sync to 50Hz at all...

[AW127]

Out of three CRT TVs in my house, only one can handle NTSC-50 refresh rates without rolling.

Yes i know this, it`s a little bit sad. I am not a programer so i dont know, but maybe something on the line-mode in PAL roms could be changed, that the picture dont roll through anymore?

 

Not only that, but the 50Hz refresh rate is below my threshold for detecting flicker ...

Ha, funny. Similar problem i also had here, when i tried to find a new flatscreen-monitor for my Minimig (Amiga on a FPGA). I bought a new monitor some years ago and when i come home and tried my Minimig on it, then i get only a black picture, because this monitor could not go under 56Hz and could not reach the 50Hz. The Minimig could also run in NTSC-mode, but like i explained before, then many Amiga-games dont work correct, so i wanted it to run in PAL 50Hz like my real Amigas. So i brought the monitor back in the shop and took my Minimig with me to try the monitors there. Most of them dont work on the Minimig, then i found a Samsung Syncmaster which worked without a problem in 50Hz mode and bought it. This is often a problem, especially on modern flatscreen-monitors. European Flatscreen-TV`s mostly don`t have such a problem and show 50Hz mode and older CRT-Monitors or Tube-TV`s anyway.

 

Also, when you run PAL-games on the PC via Emulators, then this also work best with older CRT-monitors, because with this machines you can give any screen-resolution an own Hz-Value. This can be done best with a little PC-program called "Hz-Tool". Emulated games only show perfect scrolling, when the adjusted Hz-value of the monitor is the same or can be divided through the Frames-per-second-value of the running game. Only then, horizontal or vertikal scrolling is absolutly smooth with emulators. Therefore, i solved it on my CRT-monitor in the way, that i run NTSC-games with 640x460 resolution and 120Hz (could also use 60Hz, but 120Hz is better for the eyes) and PAL-games with 800x600 and 100Hz (so i dont need to use 50Hz, because 100Hz works also perfect). Between the screen-resolutions can be switched in nearly all emulators. This works perfect with older CRT-monitors, but on new flatscreen-monitors, this dont work in that way, because they nearly run all the time in 60Hz mode, which is okay for NTSC-games but not good for PAL-games. That is the bad thing for emulated PAL-games on newer monitors. Adapter like "Framemeister" and some others can help here sometimes (but also not all the time, depends on the monitor), but they are very expensive.

 

Okay, enough off-topic from me, don`t wanna flood the Pac-Man thread anymore with this. I will only write about the game here from now on.

Edited June 9, 2016 by AW127

[Andromeda Stardust]

Egads! To change the subject, AGAIN, I loaded v6 on my Harmony cart through my 7800 tonight and played a bit of Pacman. Quite impressed I am with this latest update. It feels so arcadey already. I started with Cherry stage and after a few misguided attempts, beat the first Apple stage and saw the second cutscene. Music all around is nearly perfect, one literally could not ask for more with TIA sound. And the pause feature is very nice to have for a home console, as people are often interrupted during gameplay. I do not believe this aspect detracts from the arcade nature, and in fact makes it feel more like a proper home port. Everything is intact except the "Insert Coin."

 

If it isn't blasphemy to say this, I almost prefer it over PMP's excellent 7800 Pacman Collection, at least if I'm in the mood to play straight up Pacman without all the bonus modes. Keep it up, and hopefully I'll be buying your cart soon in the AA store!

[hizzy]

Cannot wait for Pac Man 8k on cart!

[hizzy]

I think the start button in stella has changed. Before, you hit F2, and the game would start. Now it's the fire button.