flashjazzcat Posted December 5, 2019 Share Posted December 5, 2019 3 minutes ago, gpounce said: beg pardon for a possibly stupid question, but is there an atr or similar containing vbxe control/config programs suitable for stock machines? i've found the vbxe games but not utility programs... if the vbxe can be configured via an autorun.sys that would be fine for me... thx! Click the 'files' tab (which annoyingly can't be directly linked) on this page: https://lotharek.pl/productdetail.php?id=54 'RELEASE CORES' has core flashing and configuration tools. You may find the SDX 'S_VBXE.SYS' driver on the SpartaDOS X toolkit ATR on the SpartaDOS X Upgrade site. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wildstar87 Posted December 6, 2019 Share Posted December 6, 2019 20 hours ago, Rybags said: Additional - AFAIK the core is at capacity as I requested bug fixes & extra features... but can't be done. Based on the above responses, it seems to me that it is possible, and NTSC palette I wouldn't necessarily call that an extra feature. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted December 6, 2019 Share Posted December 6, 2019 I will try to work on something tomorrow. SDX driver lets a user very easily swap a palette. 768 bytes of palette data and a single XIO call, and voila. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wildstar87 Posted December 6, 2019 Share Posted December 6, 2019 Is there a way to make that a permanent change? I'm thinking more of cartridge games, which you aren't loading DOS first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted December 6, 2019 Share Posted December 6, 2019 4 minutes ago, wildstar87 said: Is there a way to make that a permanent change? I'm thinking more of cartridge games, which you aren't loading DOS first. Short of creating a new NTSC default core, no. That may be an option though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted December 6, 2019 Share Posted December 6, 2019 NTSC palette I agree is entirely possible, what I meant was a dual palette probably isn't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted December 7, 2019 Share Posted December 7, 2019 So - what is the general consensus (is that even possible these days) on the preferred NTSC palette? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wildstar87 Posted December 10, 2019 Share Posted December 10, 2019 (edited) Does Altirra have an NTSC specific one? Seems like maybe that would be an option, or maybe what was done here: Edited December 10, 2019 by wildstar87 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfollowell Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 Did this topic just quietly die again? It seems like it was going hot and heavy for a bit there about two months ago, then just quietly died again when Stephen asked about consensus. I think I'm going to put a VBXE in my 1088XEL build, but I'd really prefer a set it and leave it NTSC palette. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 The NTSC palette is actually better, AFAIK doesn't have the PAL problem of colours 1 & 15 being clones and has a better representation of the prominently red colours. But whatever way you go there's problems. Colour 4 is nothing near red on PAL and colour 10 is nothing near blue on PAL. And when the source is from a PAL developer it'll often not look right in NTSC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wildstar87 Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 I would love to see an NTSC palette for VBXE, unfortunately I have no idea how to do it, kind of why I was asking the questions in the first place. I'm certainly willing to experiment, if someone can come up with the changes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sikor Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 http://mono.i-demo.pl/ For sparta DOS x - VBXE palette manipulator. VBXE use standard .act palette, using by many emylators, so - you can use act palettes. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfollowell Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 (edited) Yes, but I don't think most people want to have to change it every time using SpartaDOSX. We want to change it and leave it. Changing with SpartDOSX is only an option after the machine has booted, correct? This wouldn't help fix the palette if you were booting from a cartridge. Or does this make permanent changes, i.e. flashing the core? There's no documentation or anything included with the file, so I really don't know what it does, how it works, or how to use it. Am I missing something? Edited February 18, 2020 by bfollowell 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drac030 Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 The change is permanent until you power down the machine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mono Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 (edited) 48 minutes ago, bfollowell said: There's no documentation or anything included with the file, so I really don't know what it does, how it works, or how to use it. Short description is in *.MAN file - you can show it quickly by TYPE or LESS (or by MAN once you install this file on MANPATH). Description is tiny because there is no specific jobs to describe - this program just takes palette file in .ACT or .PAL format and setups basic (first one for FX core and the only one for GTIA core) VBXE palette with it's content. To use this tool you need install any VBXE driver - VBXE.SYS (it's distributed with SDX toolkit disk) or S_VBXE.SYS or RC_VBXE.SYS. Edit: I forgot - LAOO.PAL is a PAL palette but LARRY.PAL is NTSC. Edited February 18, 2020 by mono Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfollowell Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 1 hour ago, drac030 said: The change is permanent until you power down the machine. OK, then, yeah, that would be what is described by most as, NOT permanent, and it wouldn't help at all for booting from cartridges, self-boot disks, etc. I think most of us are looking for more of a permanent change, like a core flash or something. Thanks anyway. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfollowell Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 35 minutes ago, mono said: Short description is in *.MAN file - you can show it quickly by TYPE or LESS (or by MAN once you install this file on MANPATH). Description is tiny because there is no specific jobs to describe - this program just takes palette file in .ACT or .PAL format and setups basic (first one for FX core and the only one for GTIA core) VBXE palette with it's content. To use this tool you need install any VBXE driver - VBXE.SYS (it's distributed with SDX toolkit disk) or S_VBXE.SYS or RC_VBXE.SYS. Edit: I forgot - LAOO.PAL is a PAL palette but LARRY.PAL is NTSC. I've never seen a *.man file before. I was looking for a *.txt file or a readme.1st file or something along those line. Thanks. I appreciate it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 4 hours ago, bfollowell said: Yes, but I don't think most people want to have to change it every time using SpartaDOSX. We want to change it and leave it. Changing with SpartDOSX is only an option after the machine has booted, correct? This wouldn't help fix the palette if you were booting from a cartridge. Or does this make permanent changes, i.e. flashing the core? There's no documentation or anything included with the file, so I really don't know what it does, how it works, or how to use it. Am I missing something? I haven't looked at the latest 1.26 core with a HEX editor yet. If the palette is simply stored as 768 bytes as they are when uploading via code, I don't see why those bytes can't just be changed and a new core flashed. Is the palette procedurally generated? Compressed? Obfuscated? I can't imagine why this is such a hard issue to get past. It's 768 bytes. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 I recall looking for it some years back. It doesn't seem to be there as raw data, I would guess most likely compressed. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfollowell Posted February 19, 2020 Share Posted February 19, 2020 3 hours ago, Stephen said: I haven't looked at the latest 1.26 core with a HEX editor yet. If the palette is simply stored as 768 bytes as they are when uploading via code, I don't see why those bytes can't just be changed and a new core flashed. Is the palette procedurally generated? Compressed? Obfuscated? I can't imagine why this is such a hard issue to get past. It's 768 bytes. I can't tell you anything about it, but it sounds candle does a lot of the development for it now. His post on the previous page he offered to work on it once we had a consensus on which palette to use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wildstar87 Posted February 19, 2020 Share Posted February 19, 2020 It would be great if Candle or Lotharek could help with this, as this has been an ongoing issue, for literally years. I'll admit that I was disappointed after spending the money, where none of this was really mentioned in the "marketing" of the VBXE. I know that many are just "meh it's not a big deal" with this, but when I can see the clear difference between the color scheme in UAV, and the VBXE output, especially in games, this is really an unsatisfactory solution for people who grew up and are used to NTSC on the Atari. Since I have no idea how to change it, there is little I can do (I can't even return it now), but voice my opinion, but it seems that since the palette can be programmatically swapped out, that creating a new NTSC core would be relatively simple. As stated before, it is basically useless to have a program to swap out the palette, when it gets cleared when the power is cycled, which is essentially required for most games, especially when running from a cartridge. I kind of put my Atari stuff on the backburner for now, as I had other stuff to work on, and this whole thing just put a bad taste in my mouth about getting a modern video output, after also having issues with Sophia, which in the end I should have just bought a DVI monitor that worked with it, but VBXE seemed to be the solution for everything, only finding out after the fact about the palette issue when the output colors did not match my previous experience. The fact that this gets brought up again and again, with no resolution from the creators/sellers, is disappointing to say the least. I spent many hours chasing this down as an RGB to VGA converter issue, when it was the palette all along. That no one seems to care, except those of us with the issue, is extremely frustrating. As for consensus on the palette, again I have no specific knowledge, but it would seem that there are NTSC palettes for other systems that worked, or that are used in Altirra. Having done a little bit of research, I was unable to find definitive information on the NTSC palette, so I must have a lack of knowledge on the subject that I can only suggest what I have. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 19, 2020 Share Posted February 19, 2020 (edited) I'd support the idea of a flashable custom palette in the VBXE Core firmware by utility. Assuming the default one isn't procedurally generated and is by compression then it shouldn't be too hard. Though in theory you might feed it something that'd not compress down to be able to fit. An alternate method could be custom OS that uploads a different palette each coldstart but that'd limit it to people with that capability, plus would probably cost near 1K of the ROM - I guess the 2nd character set could be sacrificed towards it. Edited February 19, 2020 by Rybags 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfollowell Posted February 19, 2020 Share Posted February 19, 2020 (edited) I have no idea how the palette is generated, but about 10 posts back in this thread, Sikor posted a link to a VBXE palette manipulator tookl that runs in SpartaDOSX. I downloaded the zip and can't make heads or tails out of it, but it has a bunch of 768b .ACT files (Adobe Color Table). They each contain 256-color palette definition. Supposedly this tool will change the palette as long as the machine is running. Any changes are lost when it is rebooted. Still if someone knows anything about the makeup of these color table files, and how this tool temporarily modifies the VBXE palette, I would think that should give someone knowledgeable the information they need as far as how the default palette is generated and stored. Unfortunately, I am not that knowledgeable person. https://atariage.com/forums/topic/266456-ntsc-core-for-vbxe/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-4461197 Edited February 19, 2020 by bfollowell Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted February 19, 2020 Share Posted February 19, 2020 1 hour ago, bfollowell said: I have no idea how the palette is generated, but about 10 posts back in this thread, Sikor posted a link to a VBXE palette manipulator tookl that runs in SpartaDOSX. I downloaded the zip and can't make heads or tails out of it, but it has a bunch of 768b .ACT files (Adobe Color Table). They each contain 256-color palette definition. Supposedly this tool will change the palette as long as the machine is running. Any changes are lost when it is rebooted. Still if someone knows anything about the makeup of these color table files, and how this tool temporarily modifies the VBXE palette, I would think that should give someone knowledgeable the information they need as far as how the default palette is generated and stored. Unfortunately, I am not that knowledgeable person. https://atariage.com/forums/topic/266456-ntsc-core-for-vbxe/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-4461197 I can provide some code in Turbo BASIC XL for loading palettes if that would help. Basically, the steps are: Load SDX Load the S_VBXE.SYS driver Load the palette file into memory (in this case BMPPLT=$B400) Issue an XIO command to set the palette (XIO 101,#6,12,(BMPPLT/$100),"S2:") Documentation for this I believe is in either the man file for S_VBXE.SYS, or a help file I have called XIO.txt. XIO.txtS_VBXE.txt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mono Posted February 19, 2020 Share Posted February 19, 2020 (edited) 2 hours ago, bfollowell said: I downloaded the zip and can't make heads or tails out of it This archive contains: *.ACT - "Adobe Color Table" palette files contain triplets of bytes R,G,B,R,G,B,... in binary form for all 256 colors - this file can be created by e.g. Adobe Photoshop, *.PAL - "JASC Palette" files with textual representation of all colors in palette - this file can be created by old Paint Shop Pro, VBPAL.COM - palette manipulator tool for Sparta DOS X, VBPAL_EN.MAN - short description of tool usage in English, VBPAL_PL.MAN - the same in Polish. All palettes are taken from AGS and G2F made by MAD Team: http://g2f.atari8.info/ 2 hours ago, bfollowell said: Still if someone knows anything about the makeup of these color table files, and how this tool temporarily modifies the VBXE palette, I would think that should give someone knowledgeable the information they need as far as how the default palette is generated and stored. VBPAL requires any VBXE driver (like VBXE.SYS, S_VBXE.SYS or RC_VBXE.SYS - all of them are available on SDX toolkit disk) detecting VBXE card and providing VBXEBASE symbol contains VBXE I/O registers base address. So after installing one of them try PEEK VBXEBASE to reach this address. Tool usage: VBPAL LAOO.ACT or VBPAL LARRY.PAL It takes specified file, parses its content and updates all colors at first (in case of FX core) or the only one (in case of GTIA core) palette by direct addressing of VBXE I/O registers: ldx #0 stx VBXEBASE+PSEL stx VBXEBASE+CSEL ?loop jsr get_red_component sta VBXEBASE+CR jsr get_green_component sta VBXEBASE+CG jsr get_blue_component sta VBXEBASE+CB inx bne ?loop First palette is a default VBXE palette so all changes modify colors for screen in normal Atari modes. 56 minutes ago, Stephen said: I can provide some code in Turbo BASIC XL for loading palettes if that would help. Basically, the steps are: Load SDX Load the S_VBXE.SYS driver Load the palette file into memory (in this case BMPPLT=$B400) Issue an XIO command to set the palette (XIO 101,#6,12,(BMPPLT/$100),"S2:") Using S2: XIO to change palette is a very good idea but keep in mind that it works only for S_VBXE.SYS driver which provides S2: CIO device. VBXE.SYS provides only VBXEBASE symbol and RC_VBXE.SYS provides _RAWCON driver ready to use only by SDX tools - XIO doesn't work with them. Edited February 19, 2020 by mono Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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