Posts by turrican9

The game Skidz has the same problem as Disposable Hero. Flashing bars on left and right sides. Again, when using Amigas RGB output. I'm gonna see if I can try some older firmwares or something

Tried all firmwares from 1.7 and onwards. The first 1 or 2 firmwares have an even bigger border (missing overscan on the right side. Then from there on all of them have a small missing right overscan area. They all have blinking/flashing borders in games like disposable hero and skidz. There could be more games with this issue.

And this is tested using RGB. The software will do nothing when in RGB mode. But the same issues are there when using VGA. We need a new firmware and fixes for these issues.

Have you stopped supporting this product?

So I built myself an Amiga 500 Plus. I bought a 500 plus motherboard with no chips and also bought an Agnus 8375 NTSC from icomp. Then took the rest of the chips from a Rev.6A motherboard I have minus the kickstart. Using it together with my ACA 500 + ACA 1221. Also forcing PAL with my ACA 500.

So at first I installed the regular denise from the 6A board. Then I was thinking I should install my Indivision ECS V2 for full Super Denise support on the A500 Plus board. To my surprise the issues with Arkanoid and disposable hero was also present when using the RGB output instead of the VGA output! So what I discovered when I swapped the real Denise for the ECS V2 was this and that my previously centered image had a small black bar on the right side of the screen even though the picture was still centered. Noticed this in workbench. So this small black bar is probably the missing pixels in Arkanoid. It seems the ECS V2 is missing part of the overscan area on the right side. Keep in mind, still using the RGB output.

I was under the impression the ECS V2 could be a direct replacement for the real Denise and that it should work like the real Denise. Especially when using the RGB output?

Here is a picture of the missing pixels on the right side in Arkanoid, taken when using the RGB output. Same thing happens with VGA output aswell, no matter what adjustments or profile I use (externally-hosted picture removed - please upload pictures here)

I would need to film the flashing vertical bars on left and right side of picture in Disposable hero. And as I said, this is even when using the RGB output. I haven't even installed the ECS V2 software on this A500 Plus yet. This is clearly beyond a software problem. We need a new firmware

So have this been looked into yet?

So when using profiles that shows full or partly overscan area I get issues in Disposable Hero and Arkanoid. I have the latest firmware and tool for the ECS2. I have tried the two overscan profiles that comes with it. Like 736x548 50Hz and 720x548. Including profiles I have made myself for full overscan.

In Disposable hero I get a blinking border on the right side when playing the game. Adjusting the picture right with the ECS2 tool will eventually cause a blinking border to be on both left and right side of the picture.

For Arkanoid a small part of the right side of the picture still does not show fully. overscan became a bit better after the last few firmwares but still not fully showing as it's supposed to. I know how it's supposed to look because the Indivision ECS V1 shows the full overscan correctly and I have connected my screens directly to the RGB aswell.

I want you devs to try these games using overscan profiles. I hope this will get fixed eventually. Thanks

Edit: Turns out I had already mentioned these issues in september last year and they never got resolved Indivision ECS V2 720x576@50Hz

Quote from Tobias

As for the "memory clearing".... usually there is no need to clear the memory, so most of the time just dont bother. there are basically two situations where it matters:

a) an original (not cracked) game, which tries to check if the memory contains hacking tools/cartridges/whatever. those checks require a "powerup" RAM pattern. to get this, just powercycle the c64+chameleon, it will init the RAM with such a pattern at poweron. fortunately these cases are rare.

b) buggy programs that somehow rely on the ram content prior running. with these its trickier, sometimes a powerup pattern will do the trick, sometimes you need to fill the memory with some other value. hard to find out, impossible to give a general rule. fortunately also rare a few known such programs are listed at the bottom of our Core Bugs Page.

Welcome back and happy new year. Thanks for the answer. So basically I start games, press the left button (black one) on TC64 V2 to get back to the menu, load up other games and so on and should for the most part be fine then

So a few questions.

So I use BenQ BL 702A and BL 912 LED screens for my TC64 V2 setups. I use them in cartridge mode. I have resolution set to 800x600, 50Hz and synced to VIC II. They work fine with smooth scrolling. So question about the scanline settings. There are 4 options. No scanlines, 25%, 50% or 75% scanlines. So what does the percentage numbers mean? I find 75% tend to give more washed out colours. 50% gives okay colours and 25% gives the most vibrant colours. However, 25% seems to give the most intense scanline effect then 50% and then 75% seems to give less intense scanlines. Why does 75% give washed out colours but going more intense scanlines intensity gives more vibrant colours?

Also I read somewhere that using LCD screens on the TC64/TC64 V2 gives some ghosting which will not happen if a CRT is used on the VGA output. I have quite a bit of ghosting on the above mentioned screens. And yes, I have tried out various high quality VGA cables. Same results no matter what VGA cable I use. So is there any explanation for this ghosting and can anything be done in a future firmware?

Quote from el_pasi

Hi, I have no problems with L'abbaye Des Morts D64-version with TC64V1. At least it works if I mount D64-image and choose from menu "reset to basic". Then load"*",8,1 and it loads fine. Turrican9, try if it works this way with TC64V2 too?

I actually meant to try this shortly after I made my posts but forgot all about it. Mounting the D64 image then reset to basic and load"*",8,1 worked for both L'abbaye Des Morts and Rescuing Orc. Thanks

So Rescuing Orc gave me the same type of Syntax error while trying to load the D64 as L'abbaye Des Morts did. Rescuing Orc is another one of the games made in recent times. Here is a link to the official free download of Rescuing Orc https://www.usebox.net/jjm/rescuing-orc/

Edit: Again, as with L'abbaye Des Morts I disabled drive 8 on the TC64 V2 itself and loaded the D64 for Rescuing Orc from my SD2IEC which worked fine. So clearly there is some kind of compatability issue with the TC64 with this game aswell. Had the same problem on my second TC64 V2 aswell which is plugged into another one of my C64s.

Happy new year

Quote from Jens

TObias will be back from holidays on january 6th; he can then take a look at L'abbaye Des Morts.

Thanks. Another question. when you load up games then press the left (black button) to go back to the menu. Is it smart to clear the memory or reset the TC64 V2 before loading up another game? Will the game I loaded up first stay in memory? What's the best thing to do between loading up each game?

Quote from Jens

THe current emulation only takes care of the ROM part, which is very similar to Ocean cartridges. However, the saving part would mean to emulate the EEPROM that is mounted on the GMod2 cartridge. That is currently not emulated.

Please make sure to disable "most" options on the TC64 before trying new software. Especially the turbo and/or a second drive will mess up compatibility, as 99% of the software is written for a plain C64 with a single floppy drive. Some fast loaders even fail if a printer is connected and switched on, so enabling turbo or a second drive will most certainly cause the setup to be incompatible with many programs.

Thanks for the answer.

I am running the very basic setup with only drive 8 enabled and no turbo is enabled. No fast loader cartridges or anything is mounted.

As far as I understand Sam's Jounrney's cartridge is a so called Gmod2 cartridge and has 3 save states so you can save the game progress on the cartridge itself. When I tried the Cartridge image in my TC64 V2 it did not save the game progress. I had to use the D64 version if I wanted my game progress saved. Is saving to Gmod2 cartridges not supported by TC64?

Also, I bought the digital version of L'abbaye Des Morts. It comes with a cartridge image, one regular D64 and one D64 for SD2IEC. None of the D64 images seemed to work on my TC64V2. Started loading the game and just gave me an error. Cartridge image worked fine though. I connected an SD2IEC to my C64 and the D64 for SD2IEC worked just fine. So is this a know issue with the TC64/TC64V2? All other D64s I've tried so far works fine.

Quote from Jens

That's not possible, unfortunately, because we need to know the state of the six processor port bits in order to tell if an access to the $dxxx area is really going to the IO chips or not. It may become an option in the future after we have fixed the remaining CPU bug, but that will result in other drawbacks, such as a limited or maybe even non-working menu system after you have chosen to activate the tape port. Again, I'd like to emphasize that this is not possible yet, as we can't completely replicate the original behaviour of the CPU.

I wouldn't mind if it had other drawbacks as long as VGA output was working at the same time and everything went back to normal after a powercycle. So maybe it would be easier and more realistic to add TAP support as a feature? So we could load TAP files from the TC64 the same way Tapuino works. I would be totally fine with having the tape port disabled as long as I could load TAP files from the TC64 itself, the same way we emulate the 1541 disk drive.

Quote from Jens

I have to guess here, because I don't maintain the menu software and SID player of the Chameleon. However, I do know that every SID file also contains meta information about the author, year, copyright and the SID type that it plays best with. So what you observe may not be "defaulting" to a 6581 SID, but merely a choice of the SID file author that the files you're choosing are all composed for a 6581 SID.

Tobias can answer this when he returns from his holidays on january 6th.

Thanks for the answer. I will try to investigate this further.

Another question which is not directly related to SID. How much of the real VIC II is actually used when using the TC64s VGA output? Is it only syncing with the VIC II to get smooth scrolling? Would different types of VIC IIs in any way affect the picture quality you get from TC64s VGA output?

Also, would it be impossible to let's say have an option in the TC64s menu to use the real C64 CPU instead of the emulated one so one could enable the casette port, but at the same time keep the VGA output enabled? Sometimes I would like to load real tape games (nostalgia reasons) and at the same time have the VGA output working

Quote from Jens

Write accesses go to both, the real SID and the emulated SID. If a real SID is present, then read accesses will come from that. So yes, there may be an audible difference, even if the audio amplifier is connected to the TC64, where only the emulated SID can be heard. The reason may be that the player routine is doing reads from the SID in order to set other registers to a certain value, depending on what it has read. The differences should be minimal, though.

Thanks for the answer. To me it sounds like the emulated SID reads from the real SID like you say and makes it sound identical to the real SID. Because if I remove the real sid and connect the speakers to the TC64 then certain things sounds very different, even if I have it set to emulate the same type of SID. Good example is the music in the game Alien.

However, I still don't understand why when playing SID files the player seems to default to an emulated 6581 SID even though I have my emulated SIDs set to 8580s in the settings. While in games I can clearly hear it's using the emulated 8580 (which sounds identical to the real SID as long as the real SID is present).

Quote from Jens

This output will only give you the emulated SID's audio. For the real SID, you need to use the audio output on the AV connector of the C64.

I was under the impression that even when using the audio output on the TC64 V2 it would still use the original SID (at least part of it). Because I can hear a difference in games with SID installed VS no SID in the C64. Or do you mean that only the SID player will use the emulated SID when audio is connected to TC64's audio port, while games will still take advantage of the real SID, even when audio is connected to the TC64?

Also, as I said, when playing SIDs it's using an emulated 6581 while playing the same games (same music) it's using the 8580 which also sounds like it's getting the sound from the real SID, when audio is connected to the TC64

According to Tobias reads from the SID will come from the real SID in cartridge mode. Just recieved Turbo Chamelon 64 V2 and two buttons stuck

So when I play games it is using my real 8580 SID but when I listen to SID files it's using an emulated 6581 SID instead of using the real one. I have selected the 8580 under emulation settings for both SID's and CIA. Only using mono anyway. How can I change it so it's using my real SID when I listen to SID files? It's using the real 8580 when playing games. My speakers are connected to TC64 V2s audio output.

Merry xmas!

Quote from Jens

We did work on the overscan area - first thing you should do is to install the latest core that comes with the latest flash tool.

The Indivision ECS V1 settings are not that easy to replicate, as they were hardcoded in the core, and they were floating with the input from the Amiga. This is a horrible thing to have if you use a flat screen - it's good for a CRT, but I doubt that anyone is still using CRTs. So you better play with the config tool until you get the right picture - once that's saved, it won't "float away" with varying screen modes of the Amiga.

Timm might want to take a look at your mentioned test cases Arkanoid and Disposable Hero.

thanks for the answer. I am using the latest firmware/software. Still the issues mentioned with Arkanoid and Disposable Hero are there. And I am only using flatscreens. BenQ BL702A/BL 912.

Also, in the game disposable Hero there are blinking vertical bars on both left and right side of the screen with the 800x600@72Hz. This does not happen on the ECS V1. ECS V2 needs some profiles with fully working overscan

Edit: I managed to almost replicate ECS V1 62Hz mode by using the 800x600@72Hz and doubling the output resolution to 1600 instead of 800 then finetune the clocks according to how they look in ECS V1 tool user mode. This forces my BenQ BL 702A to switch to 1024x600 (same happens with ECS V1) and look almost identical to how the same monitor looks on the ECS V1 (pattern and everything). What becomes clear from this is that the ECS V2 is indeed missing a few pixels on the right side which can only be fixed by a new firmware. This is why we see in games like Arkanoid it's missing a few pixels on the right side and probably also causes the blinking on left and right side when playing Disposable Hero.

Also, the ECS V1 seems to have a tad sharper picture. But this could be due to that V1 being installed in an A500 and the V2 in one of my A600s. I also have another A600 with an ECS V1 so need to test more. Could also be due to my two BL 702A's being slightly different with regards to picture quality. So more testing needs to be done.

Also, what's the settings/real resolution for the 62Hz profile on the ECS V1? Would also like to replicate that one because it shows the full overscan area and fill more of the screen than the standard 800x600@72Hz profile on the ECS V2. the 800x600 profile on the V2 has very nice picture quality and shows the full overscan but the picture is a bit small

Edit: the 800x600 profile on the ECS V2 does not show the whole overscan area. Arkanoid is a good test. And there is a small bit missing on the right side of the screen.

So to sum up the ECS V1 and ECS V2:

ECS V1: Has two profiles. One for 50Hz and one for 62Hz. Both of them shows the whole overscan area correctly. However, the ECS V1 has issues with the 50Hz settings not sticking on cold boot. Today I even had it boot to the 50Hz profile when it was saved at 62Hz profile. LOL. never seen that happen before. Usually it's the 50Hz profile that has issues at coldboot

ECS V2: Non of the profiles seems to show the whole of the Amiga overscan area correctly. Seems like V2 is more focused on trying to fill the screen instead of showing the overscan area correctly. Making many games not show up correctly. However, the V2 does not seem to have any problems remembering the settings.

To sum it up: If V2 had the two profiles the V1 has and showing up the same way the V2 would be perfect.

Quote from Jens

I'd increase the output resolution, so the scaler does not introduce patterns. Try to double the output resolution.

Hello. I have already tried that (1440, above and below on the output resolution. Cannot seem to replicate the nice 720x576 result I get with the ECS V1. Screens used are BenQ BL702A and BL 912. Maybe a future firmware/software will have a nice profile like this?

Hi,

Is it possible to get a perfect 720x576@50Hz resolution on this device? I've tinkered alot and cannot seem to replicate the same results I get with the ECS V1 in 50Hz mode. 720x576@50Hz is the best way to show the full overscan area correctly. I have the latest firmware and software. All the 50Hz modes that comes with it does not show the whole overscan area and some of them have issues with patterns which makes the scanlines look wrong.