Atari ST Graphics

[PixelCrunch]

This may seem like a stupid question. But is the Atari ST or ST-E capable of displaying more than 16 colors in 320x200? Are there any tricks that can be done to increase the amount of colors on-screen? Is there anything that can be done similarly to the Amiga series?

 

Thanks

 

Pixel

 

 

P.S, Yes i’ve heard of Spectrum512 Mode over and over again. Please mention everything else BUT Spectrum512 mode, please.

[Zafinn Books]

Hi PixelCrunch,

 

Do you mean simply drawing (ala Spectrum512... there I said it!) or do you mean by programming?

 

Drawing: Apart from the obvious, there is also Quantum Paint or GFA Artist.  There might be others?

 

Programming: Yes.  It's a long time since I did any 68000, but if I recall you could manipulate the Blitter to add more colours.  I'm sure there are some clever people on here who know much much more!

 

Have a look at this demo on the ST-E:

 

[marakatti]

Hundreds of games and demos uses horizontal palette splitting which allows for example to have one 16 colours palette for things like score panel and another 16 colours palette for other screen area.

 

Huge amount of games and demos also uses rasters to create colour gradients which in many cases break the 16 colour barrier by itself. Gods game engine for example can display over 50 colours on screen on standard STe.

[ataricrypt]

Check out Photochrome or even dabble with Quantum Paint! And, like Marko says, most games break the 16 colour limit by default - even if to only have a separate palette for (say) their status panel and then another for the game window. But many games go beyond 16 colours anyways.

 

The ST is such a capable machine in the hands of a talented programmer and then there's Hewson, Thalion or the Bitmaps who could blow you away! Go to AtariMania or Atari Legend and take a walk through their archives...

 

Oh, the demoscene takes things to the extreme with the enormous talents we seen over the years. Check this out: 

 

[tjlazer]

No the ST was limited to 16 colors and that’s one reason why the Amiga was better as it could do 32 from a palette of 4,096.

[griz]

On 9/27/2019 at 2:30 PM, tjlazer said:

No the ST was limited to 16 colors and that’s one reason why the Amiga was better as it could do 32 from a palette of 4,096.

The Amiga's EHB mode could do 64 colors.

[Cyprian]

On 9/29/2019 at 1:32 AM, griz said:

The Amiga's EHB mode could do 64 colors. 

1) " Some early versions of the first Amiga, the Amiga 1000, sold in the United States lack the EHB video mode, which is present in all later Amiga models"

2) amiga has 32 color registers

3) EHB means independent 32 colors plus their darker copies

 

and finally, both machines ST and amiga, can show more colors than they have hardware color registers

 

[griz]

On 9/30/2019 at 5:51 AM, Cyprian_K said:

1) " Some early versions of the first Amiga, the Amiga 1000, sold in the United States lack the EHB video mode, which is present in all later Amiga models"

2) amiga has 32 color registers

3) EHB means independent 32 colors plus their darker copies

 

and finally, both machines ST and amiga, can show more colors than they have hardware color registers

 

Yep, all true. And EHB could do 64 colors.

[Cyprian]

if we follow that way of thinking, then Amiga could do more than 64 colors.

ST could do 512 colors (4096 with interlace) and STE even more

 

[marakatti]

Photochrome version 6 says it can handle up to 226,981 colors on STE