Sega Master Choplifter

[Colecovision]

Anyone have a blue vertical bar in Choplifter on the left of the screen? See this picture below, this is exactly how it looks on my television. In fact probably all my games are doing this including Fantasy Zone and Lord of the Sword. Always on the left, the right side is fine. I tried two different consoles but no luck. What's up with this?

 

http://www.smstributes.co.uk/images/db/scr...plifter_002.png

[JB]

Looks to me like they assumed the left edge was going to hit the overscan area.

...

Of course, then they go and run the status bar right up to the edge, which tends to imply a lack of overscan consideration.

Edited June 23, 2006 by JB

[Colecovision]

All my games are like that. Do I need a different television? Some other examples from this site:

 

Fantasy Zone:

 

http://www.smstributes.co.uk/images/db/screenshot_fz_002.png

 

Hang-on:

 

http://www.smstributes.co.uk/images/db/scr...ot_hang_002.png

Edited June 23, 2006 by Colecovision

[+Psionic]

I haven't played my Master System in quite a while, but I don't recall anything like that.

[+FujiSkunk]

Just about every computer and video game console in the 8-bit generation had a border, beyond which you could not program any graphics. Some left the border black, others allowed the border to be different colors, and some even allowed (intentionally or otherwise) the border to be multiple colors (but usually never more than one color per scanline, or horizontal row of pixels). How much of a border there is depends on the console (the C-64's is perhaps the thickest), and how much of the border is visible depends on your television.

 

And yes, it's not unusual for the border to be "off center" like that.

 

In short, there is nothing wrong with your games, your console, or your television. That's just a fact of life when playing old video games.

 

Edited for grammar.

Edited June 24, 2006 by skunkworx

[Crazy Climber]

Its funny but just looking at those screen shots brought me right back to the 80's and playing my friends Sega Master System. I collected these as well at one time but sold them long ago......I want them back. Man this video game collecting is addictive.

[SteveW]

Just about every computer and video game console in the 8-bit generation had a border, beyond which you could not program any graphics.

 

The Intellivision's border is pretty noticeable on a lot of games. Especially when there's scrolling onscreen. Like AD&D Cloudy Mountain or Hover Force. Their programmers were pretty good, though, and managed to distract you from noticing it with a lot of titles.

[JB]

All my games are like that. Do I need a different television?

A new TV MIGHT hide it.

Every TV's overscan area is diffrent, so what one shows, another won't.

Keep in mind that it's actually by design, as are the obnoxious flickering rows of tiles on the top and bottom of several NES games. Programmers and sometimes even hardware designers just ASSUME that certain parts of the image will wind up off-screen due to TV variance/mal-adjustment, so they don't take care to ensure that the entire image area is game image or a solid "frame"(which is far less offensive than the split mess on Choplifter, IMO).

 

 

The best option would be to find a composite monitor with horizontal and vertical size and position controls. You could tweak it for a perfect viewable area for whatever games you wanted.

 

It's far easier to just ignore it, though.

[LocalH]

(which is far less offensive than the split mess on Choplifter, IMO).

Technically, it's not a split mess. Other than a mid-frame backdrop change, there's no difference between that and any other game that exhibits this.

[JB]

(which is far less offensive than the split mess on Choplifter, IMO).

Technically, it's not a split mess. Other than a mid-frame backdrop change, there's no difference between that and any other game that exhibits this.

That color change was what I meant by split mess.

I find a consistent color less offensive.

[guitarmas]

Could it be that you have the European versions or something? I have Sonic for Master system from Europe and mine does the exact same thing, except it puts a blue border on the bottom as well.

[ApolloBoy]

Could it be that you have the European versions or something? I have Sonic for Master system from Europe and mine does the exact same thing, except it puts a blue border on the bottom as well.

 

I don't think so, my SMS does the same thing, and all my games are NTSC copies.

[guitarmas]

Could it be that you have the European versions or something? I have Sonic for Master system from Europe and mine does the exact same thing, except it puts a blue border on the bottom as well.

 

I don't think so, my SMS does the same thing, and all my games are NTSC copies.

 

I'm not sure why it does it. I was a little concerned about it but it doesn't seem to be a big problem or anything.

[+FujiSkunk]

Could it be that you have the European versions or something? I have Sonic for Master system from Europe and mine does the exact same thing, except it puts a blue border on the bottom as well.

 

PAL televisions have a higher resolution than NTSC televisions, so if it really were a game designed for a PAL system, you would see even less of a border on an NTSC system (assuming it worked at all).

 

Actually, very few SMS games were designed specifically for PAL systems. Most of the games released in Europe and Australia were the same as their NTSC counterparts. This explains why many games look squashed and play slower on PAL Master Systems.

[MegaManFan]

That looks normal to me.