Adjusting colours in Altirra

[Yautja]

Hi,

 

Running The Eidolon (Lucasfilms, 1985) with Altirra 2.70, default graphic options. The title screen looks like this:

 

 

 

But, as I remember, that screen looked like this (using Atari800WinPLus):

 

 

Maybe one can give me a hand to adjust my Altirra configuration.

 

Regards,

 

- Y -

[José Pereira]

I usually have Altirra in PAL and palette as Default PAL. On Video set to PAL and also here same window colours/palette to Default PAL that is near the bottom of it.

 

It may be also good that you in window View then Screen/Overscan, I think because I'm not in computer now, set to Normal that is the [336x240] pixels screen that is the display like you see on an old crt tv.

Edited October 12, 2016 by José Pereira

[StefanD]

The Atari800Win screen looks like PAL - you should switch Altirra also to PAL (System - Video - PAL).

[Yautja]

The Atari800Win screen looks like PAL - you should switch Altirra also to PAL (System - Video - PAL).

 

 

I usually have Altirra in PAL and palette as Default PAL. On Video set to PAL and also here same window colours/palette to Default PAL that is near the bottom of it.

 

It may be also good that you in window View then Screen/Overscan, I think because I'm not in computer now, set to Normal that is the [336x240] pixels screen that is the display like you see on an old crt tv.

 

Many thanks, fellow atarians. It was just the video mode (NTSC on Altirra). Just switched to PAL and now everything looks fine.

 

Best regards.

 

- Y -

[+Eyvind Bernhardsen]

Wait, so the Lucasfilm logo is yellow on NTSC?

 

Now it feels like my entire childhood was just one big lie.

[Ely]

Wait, so the Lucasfilm logo is yellow on NTSC?

 

Now it feels like my entire childhood was just one big lie.

Yup, my feelings exactly. It makes me wonder what other stuff looks vastly different between NTSC and PAL!

[firestorm]

It doesn't look so different, please check it out.

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/230225-colors-ntsc-vs-pal/page-1?hl=+pal%20+vs%20+ntsc

[Yautja]

It doesn't look so different, please check it out.

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/230225-colors-ntsc-vs-pal/page-1?hl=+pal%20+vs%20+ntsc

 

Forgiving my ignorance, but... what causes the colour differences? Some not so-technical explanation is most welcome.

 

- Y -

[firestorm]

NTSC TV's and monitors have phase/tint setting regulation knob/button so if you want you can get colors similar to PAL.

It seems that old, 1980's NTSC TV's and monitors displayed different colors then now. If you look at color tables from Atari Basic manuals and compare it to default settings from emulators you will notice a big difference. This is a subject I'm still investigating. I'v just found old, 1989 model of Sony Multi System TV which I will soon test with NTSC and PAL Atari 800.

Edited October 14, 2016 by firestorm

[Mclaneinc]

Simply different TV systems and their idea of what the signal represents...

 

What is programmed as a colour in PAL or NTSC will vary on the other system, blame the TV companies for not making a standardised system. Stuff programmed for either region and displayed on that region is fine but when its transferred to another TV system changes. Its only when it gets to the stage of specialised output ie RGB, HDMI, Component and possibly S-Video that the genuine colours etc come through.

 

On the Atari most initial stuff came from the US to Europe and being that it was NTSC in the US and PAL here colours seemed odd to people viewing the alternative system, it became even more awkward when they used Gr.8 artifacting mode in the US, things like AE, DROL, Hard Hat Mack etc looked colourless in the UK but in the US because of the different system (let alone the hertz rating) acted differently on a US system which looked full of colour which lead to hackers like me etc changing the display list to change the graphic mode on US version in the UK to a different mode making it look colourful but not actually the correct colour but it was better than black and white...

 

Again, its purely back to the fact we have different systems in different countries...Thankfully these days the input / output is now in true colour mode which allows us ALL to see it as the same because of the different processing modes....No longer are we stuck NTSC or PAL, the only difference as of late was if the TV supported 60Hz mode for the 17.5% increase in speed on a US game, 99.9999% of TV's now allow via HDMI to support the sync rate...

 

Sorry, a little bit tech at the end but close enough

[phaeron]

NTSC systems do not produce the same colors as a PAL system. The NTSC and PAL GTIA chips have different strategies for producing color and the color adjustment pot also works significantly differently. An NTSC system can be adjusted to be closer to a PAL system than the other way around, and you cannot get the two to match. Also, Atari's own literature doesn't agree on how to adjust the color for an NTSC system and it's common to find NTSC systems that aren't adjusted to those specs. The farthest color, color 15, is the one that has the highest variance on NTSC systems and you'll find it tuned anywhere from red to gold.

 

Further compounding the problem is that you'll find versions of games in the wild that have been modified to produce colors in PAL which are closer to the NTSC originals. These versions then produce the wrong colors when run on NTSC.

 

Earlier emulators did not distinguish between NTSC and PAL other than by frame rate (50/60 fps) and tended to PAL, which made NTSC use the wrong colors and aspect ratio. Current emulators respect the narrower 5:6 aspect ratio and have different color settings for NTSC, but the default color settings always have to be an unhappy medium because every setting is always wrong for someone.

[Yautja]

Thank you very much for your detailed explanations, fellow atarians.