Atari 2600 games don’t fill my whole screen on my crt tv?

[JBJ1973]

I have a s video modded Atari 2600 and A late 90s 27 inch Sony Trinitron CRT TV .The games look very clear through s video but it doesnt fill the whole tv screen and the Borders of the game are not straight. Is this normal?

[+-^CrossBow^-]

Take a pic to show what you are seeing please.

[Hannacek]

You should play the same game using rf to compare with that same game on s-video.

A lot of (or maybe all non-black border?) 2600 games have different borders, don't fill the whole screen, and have uneven edges. It has to do with how some games were programmed, because they can use areas where nothing is drawn on the screen to run game code.

[JBJ1973]

Ok thanks for the help Im new at collecting for the console.

[JBJ1973]

The picture is not centered on the tv screen either.I guess thats normal as well?

[+Karl G]

As suggested, a picture of your screen might help us tell you if what you are seeing is normal.

[JBJ1973]

Pitfall the screen is off centered to the right and doesnt fill the screen.I got defender today and its mostly centered but doesnt fill the screen.It dose cover more than pitfall

[Thomas Jentzsch]

That is perfectly normal.

[+SpiceWare]

Everything you're seeing is normal. TIA, the 2600's video chip is unusual in that it's scanline based and it's up to the CPU to control the drawing of the screen. Any time not spent drawing screen is when the CPU can run the gameplay logic, so it's rare for the image to go to the upper/lower edges of your TV.

 

The left/right are controlled by TIA and likewise don't span the entire width. Due to how TIA was designed, player(sprite in modern terms) reuse to show more than 2 objects onscreen results in black bars showing up over the first 8 pixels on the left side of the screen, as seen in this screenshot of Ms. Pac Man.

 

Activision didn't like how that looked, so they used various techniques to always hide the first 8 pixels, which causes most of their games to look off-centered. You can see that in this screenshot of Barnstorming.

[JBJ1973]

Ok cool thanks

[JBJ1973]

What bothers me more than the game not filling the screen is the uneven boarders of the games on the tv.Why cant it be straight?

[Flojomojo]

I can't remember it well, but didn't our cheesy old Zenith televisions overscan everything up to the edges? I don't remember the lines on the sides from my kidhood, though perhaps they were there all along.

[+SpiceWare]

What bothers me more than the game not filling the screen is the uneven boarders of the games on the tv.Why cant it be straight?

 

That's a limitation of the technology. https://www.pctechguide.com/crt-monitors

 

 

 

their surface is often either spherical or cylindrical, with the result that straight lines do not appear straight at the edges.

[Mockduck]

Everything you're seeing is normal. TIA, the 2600's video chip is unusual in that it's scanline based and it's up to the CPU to control the drawing of the screen. Any time not spent drawing screen is when the CPU can run the gameplay logic, so it's rare for the image to go to the upper/lower edges of your TV.

 

The left/right are controlled by TIA and likewise don't span the entire width. Due to how TIA was designed, player(sprite in modern terms) reuse to show more than 2 objects onscreen results in black bars showing up over the first 8 pixels on the left side of the screen, as seen in this screenshot of Ms. Pac Man.

Ms. Pac-Man (1983) (Atari).png

 

Activision didn't like how that looked, so they used various techniques to always hide the first 8 pixels, which causes most of their games to look off-centered. You can see that in this screenshot of Barnstorming.

Barnstorming (1982) (Activision).png

 

Thanks for writing this up.

[Hannacek]

With most old TVs (and all computer monitors) of the time, you could adjust the picture to center it and fill the whole screen. This is helpful for something like a Commodore 64, but doesn't really help for Atari 2600, because it doesn't make sense to readjust the picture for every game, and then adjust it when you go back to watching broadcast TV.

[JBerel]

I always thought the Activision games looked better quality and more professional. Those sloppy video glitches on the edges of most Atari 2600 games made you think the whole thing would fritz on you at any minute.

[Swami]

Some (all?) composite mods on 2600s have output that has this issue with some crts. I see it on my Panasonic 27 inch. It did not show a picture at all on my RCA 25 inch, but works more or less perfectly on my Sharp 27 inch.

[Keatah]

So. If you use a 21:9 monitor, does the VCS get more blanking time for uber-processing capability?

[mr_me]

Televisions from the 1970s have much more overscan than 1990s TVs. If you take a 1990s console and plug it in to a 1970s television, parts of the game will be cut off. The atari 2600 was designed with 1970s televisions. That sony trinitron has a service menu where you can increase the horisontal and vertical overscan, cutoff part of the picture and reduce the size of the border with old consoles.

 

And the trinitrons are known for nice colour but poor geometry compared to standard crts.

Edited April 10, 2019 by mr_me