NTCS: Artifacts on the far right hand side of the screen and a white line on the far left side.

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Don't Panic. Please wash hands.
  • I'm getting a vertical white line on the far left side of the screen and vertical screen artifacts

    on the far right (it looks like the samples have been taken from inside the left border).


    When I first got the MK2 I vaguely recall not having it. But now after I've gone in

    through the terminal and 1)Loaded defaults 2) Write configuration.. It seems to

    be consistently doing this.


    It's NTSC. I tried two different VICII chips. Same exact results. I'm using an svideo cable

    to HDMI direct to an HDMI monitor.


    Any advice or help is appreciated.



    Best Regards,

    John

  • This is perfectly normal, the VIC produces about two pixels white when it switches from horizontal blanking to active picture. You normally never see this, because it is outside the normally visible area. see eg here: https://codebase64.org/doku.php?id=base:visible_area (this is for PAL, but NTSC works the same, with different numbers).


    The problem here is that your svideo->hdmi adapter captures the full overscan area, so the resulting image shows a lot more than an analog TV/Monitor would.

  • Okay thank you Tobias. I also notice that scrolling lighter objects via sprites makes them fuzzy. Less so with text.

    More fuzzier than a real c64. I notice this in particular with Ghostbusters and driving/moving the hearse around.

    Once it stops, it's very clear again.

  • John, I run the MKII in NTSC mode and both of my LCD screens did this. However, one of my monitors had an overscan option and that hid the line in my case. Check your display options to see if you have anything like that available. Good luck.

  • Thank you Martyk! I will check it. I am also thinking the fuzziness it the speed at which the

    screen update.HDMI is supposedly a compress-free protocol.


    The C64 Reloaded is so fucking awesome! I'm having a ball with it. A few years ago

    my last c64 died and my setup collected dust. It's nice to be back in the Commodore World

    again.


    Thank you Jens for a great product!

  • Oh by the way , the artifacts on the right hand side were mostly erased by switching

    from 1080 to 720 via the switch on the HDMI convertor.


    The white to the left still remain. But it's much nicer because the right had updated bits

    from within the border area. So it was like looking at extra sprites. Bothersome to say

    the least.

  • HDMI is supposedly a compress-free protocol.

    It is, but you should also check your monitor's or TV's settings - if the unit is expecting to get a movie, there's all kinds of processing applied to the picture that usually doesn't do any good for a computer output. Just switch all these options off.


    Thank you Jens for a great product!

    The C64RMK2 is team effort - Peter and Tobias had tons of work with this, which may not be as obvious as the person that routed the board.

  • Thank you also Peter and Tobias. Wonderful work!


    By the way. In demos, exactly about every 7 seconds some somewhat perceivable

    pauses happen in some scroll routines. It's been so long since I used a real c64 I'm not sure

    if it this happens on serial based c64s. I personally don't think that this issue is monitor based.

  • I personally don't think that this issue is monitor based.

    Not sure where that personal feeling comes from, but it's wrong. The C64 will output perfectly smooth animations, but "modern" displays and scan rate converters mostly work with their own frame rate. This will result in the picture stuttering every now and then, unless you have a complete chain from computer to monitor that allows fully sync frame updates.


    The Chameleon will allow this if your monitor supports it. And it's awesome - it really takes you back to the days when your C64 had a CRT and no such picture processing was in the way.


    We added the fully-sync output feature to the Chameleon about the time when Mr. Sid released his Canabalt port to the C64. It's a day and night difference to ordinary TV converters.

  • It's not a feeling, merely an observation. As far as the cache hiccup. All the other

    candidates on the screen do not momentarily lock, only some demo scrollers in general.

    And it always occurs precisely every 7 seconds. I'd be curious what needs to be

    checked every 7 seconds.


    If this were a monitor or cable convertor issue it would be consistent in doing it to the entire

    screen for every moving object whereas in this case it's only one or two specific scrolls depending on

    the NTSC demo your running. Wouldn't you agree? :)



    Yeah I saw the Chameleon, interesting looking project.


    Best Regards,

    John

  • Quote

    It's not a feeling, merely an observation. As far as the cache hiccup. All the other candidates on the screen do not momentarily lock, only some demo scrollers in general. And it always occurs precisely every 7 seconds. I'd be curious what needs to be checked every 7 seconds.

    It's certainly a missed frame, either that HDMI converter or the monitor is skipping it. The problem here is that the C64 does not output the exact expected framerate, the errors add up, and every couple seconds you see a "jump" because a frame is skipped. You'll get the exact same thing with an emulator that isnt framesynced, for example.

    Quote

    If this were a monitor or cable convertor issue it would be consistent in doing it to the entire

    screen for every moving object whereas in this case it's only one or two specific scrolls depending on

    the NTSC demo your running. Wouldn't you agree?

    As said, its certainly related to the NTSC to HDMI conversion - you just dont see the problem in all cases, as it also depends on how fast things are moving, and what other stuff is displayed at the same time. Try something that shows different portions of the screen scrolling at different speeds, you'll see it clearly then (my testcases for this are the "giana sisters" or "starpaws" wait screens)

  • If this were a monitor or cable convertor issue it would be consistent in doing it to the entire

    screen for every moving object whereas in this case it's only one or two specific scrolls depending on

    the NTSC demo your running. Wouldn't you agree? :)

    Seven seconds is long - very long for a computer. However, you may know that the C64 does not output a perfect NTSC signal, but only a single half-frame. This will result in a slightly lower refresh rate of 59.826Hz versus 59.94 Hz that NTSC should be. I would not exclude that after those seven seconds, some buffer cleanup or other sync event happens, which is visible in a short hickup.


    Also, I mentioned those "movie" optimizations that many HDMI TVs have these days. Look for these settings and switch them all off. This might be buried deep in the menu of the device.

  • It's certainly a missed frame, either that HDMI converter or the monitor is skipping it. The problem here is that the C64 does not output the exact expected framerate, the errors add up, and every couple seconds you see a "jump" because a frame is skipped. You'll get the exact same thing with an emulator that isnt framesynced, for example.

    As said, its certainly related to the NTSC to HDMI conversion - you just dont see the problem in all cases, as it also depends on how fast things are moving, and what other stuff is displayed at the same time. Try something that shows different portions of the screen scrolling at different speeds, you'll see it clearly then (my testcases for this are the "giana sisters" or "starpaws" wait screens)

    Searching back I first noticed the blurriness of scrolling originally on modern LCD/LED monitors using

    emulators on the PC.


    I'd pay for a product to get around this limit on my retro machines. Quality is worth the whole experience.

    I'm going to try using a direct RF video in on the LCD monitor upstairs. I'm curious to see what the result is.

    (I've been using svideo out of the C64RMK2 to an hdmi cable convertor). I have an old 8 pin din that carries

    the audio channel but not chroma. It's b0k3d. lol It does get slightly better performance scrolling but it is

    still, I say, half the blurriness of the svideo. We'll see.


    It would be nice if it was the convertor cable because that'll open the doors to a potentially replacable parts

    either manifest or commercial.


    The replacement part could be called 'Nausea Buster'. XD

  • Seven seconds is long - very long for a computer. However, you may know that the C64 does not output a perfect NTSC signal, but only a single half-frame. This will result in a slightly lower refresh rate of 59.826Hz versus 59.94 Hz that NTSC should be. I would not exclude that after those seven seconds, some buffer cleanup or other sync event happens, which is visible in a short hickup.


    Also, I mentioned those "movie" optimizations that many HDMI TVs have these days. Look for these settings and switch them all off. This might be buried deep in the menu of the device.

    Yeah I was thinking that too. 7 is forever in chip time. I did turn them all off. Same result.

    I did notice 1/2 improvement using RF instead of Svideo out. It's still a little nauseating but

    the scrolling text for instance is more bearable and more reminiscent of when I had a CRT.

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