More colours II (Was: Most popular new features?)

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  • edited November 2009
    The scrplus conversion utility is now up to version 0.8.
    This version fixes several rendering bugs, such as the 'black dots on bright areas' (which was caused by an overflow in the F-S dither code).
    It also includes support for the Timex Hi-colour mode (8x1 attribute cells).

    For Linux: http://sites.google.com/site/ulaplus/scrplus0_8.tar.gz

    For Windows: Pester Guesser until he does the port.
  • edited November 2009
    AY Chip wrote: »
    The scrplus conversion utility is now up to version 0.8.
    This version fixes several rendering bugs, such as the 'black dots on bright areas' (which was caused by an overflow in the F-S dither code).
    It also includes support for the Timex Hi-colour mode (8x1 attribute cells).

    For Linux: http://sites.google.com/site/ulaplus/scrplus0_8.tar.gz

    For Windows: Pester Guesser until he does the port.

    at least let me wake up and get a cup of tea first :-P
  • edited November 2009
    guesser wrote: »

    Now also hosted on the ULAplus site

    And the combination of Timex hi-color/ULAplus looks really good:

    clive0_8t.png
  • edited November 2009
    Any ideas when the OSX version of Fuse will be able to do this? Or, could I compile the latest Fuse to run on OSX somehow? I'm not really all that knowledgeable about that kind of thing though, so I'll need clear instrustions.
  • edited November 2009
    mulder wrote: »
    Any ideas when the OSX version of Fuse will be able to do this? Or, could I compile the latest Fuse to run on OSX somehow? I'm not really all that knowledgeable about that kind of thing though, so I'll need clear instrustions.

    Right now ULAplus is not supported in the head revision of Fuse. It's only available as a patch, it only works with the Spectrum SE mode, and it only works with SDL. With those caveats it ought to be possible to patch the Mac OS X version and build it with Xcode. This is something I need to do anyway as the last released version of Mac Fuse is behaving strangely on Snow Leopard.

    Another option is to use SpecEmu Beta 3 under Wine:

    http://davidbaumgold.com/tutorials/wine-mac/

    Fuse patch source and SpecEmu Beta 3 can both be downloaded from the ULAplus site.
  • edited November 2009
    aowen wrote: »
    With those caveats it ought to be possible to patch the Mac OS X version and build it with Xcode.

    Mac OS X fuse doesn't use SDL so this would be a non-trivial undertaking.
    This is something I need to do anyway as the last released version of Mac Fuse is behaving strangely on Snow Leopard.

    First I've heard of it, what's the issue and which version? It's not likely to get fixed without feedback.
  • edited November 2009
    Fred wrote: »
    Mac OS X fuse doesn't use SDL so this would be a non-trivial undertaking.

    My mistake. It's core video isn't it? It was SDL at one point though, wasn't it?

    [Snow Leopard issues]
    First I've heard of it, what's the issue and which version? It's not likely to get fixed without feedback.

    I was actually assuming you were rather busy with other things and I wasn't going to bother you with it until I'd tried building a version under Snow Leopard to see if that fixed it. Also I haven't been able to generate any useful steps to reproduce. It just hangs randomly, although launching it by opening tapes seems to be particularly prone to problems.
  • edited November 2009
    I've had problems with Mac Fuse on OSX 10.5 (hangs the entire machine's user interface, and also graphics problems - garbage in the Fuse window, flickering Fuse window etc). but I put it down to buggy ATi drivers since it could hang the entire GUI.
  • edited November 2009
    aowen wrote: »
    My mistake. It's core video isn't it? It was SDL at one point though, wasn't it?

    Yes it used to be SDL for graphics and sound but has been OpenGL/CoreAudio for some time now.
    I was actually assuming you were rather busy with other things and I wasn't going to bother you with it until I'd tried building a version under Snow Leopard to see if that fixed it.

    Which version are you using and what Mac hardware? I've been using Snow Leopard to build since the release but haven't released any of the binaries yet, so FWIW the next beta will be built that way.
    Also I haven't been able to generate any useful steps to reproduce. It just hangs randomly, although launching it by opening tapes seems to be particularly prone to problems.

    I just tried starting from tape 7 times in a row without incident and this is my normal way of checking out new software from WoS and I don't see this. Maybe worth moving to the Fuse Betas thread to avoid hijacking this thread any more?
  • edited November 2009
    Winston wrote: »
    I've had problems with Mac Fuse on OSX 10.5 (hangs the entire machine's user interface, and also graphics problems - garbage in the Fuse window, flickering Fuse window etc). but I put it down to buggy ATi drivers since it could hang the entire GUI.

    Based on your mention of ATI and 10.5 and previous bug reports I think this may be the same issue as described in the thread at http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=568012 which suggests to me that the graphics drivers were changed at 10.5.5 and there are various graphics corruption issues arising on ATI 2600 hardware since then.

    I suspect you would be fine on 10.5.4 or maybe some newer version.

    Further links at http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8424918 and http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8700383.
  • edited November 2009
    Fred wrote: »
    Maybe worth moving to the Fuse Betas thread to avoid hijacking this thread any more?

    Agreed. Here's a link to something ULAplus related to get things back on track:

    http://tarjan.uw.hu/zx_gfx_modes_en.htm

    Scroll right down to the bottom for:

    porsche_924s_64_colours.png

    Mind you, that was done with an early version of the conversion tool. It's looking even better now, and the 8x1 version is really good.
  • edited November 2009
    AY Chip wrote: »
    The scrplus conversion utility is now up to version 0.8.
    This version fixes several rendering bugs, such as the 'black dots on bright areas' (which was caused by an overflow in the F-S dither code).
    It also includes support for the Timex Hi-colour mode (8x1 attribute cells).

    For Linux: http://sites.google.com/site/ulaplus/scrplus0_8.tar.gz

    For Windows: Pester Guesser until he does the port.

    and this is my sucky .net port, added some colour adjustments too.
    it's based on Guesser's windows port. (except no timex support, only outputs to SCR)

    http://www.veanewmedia.com/ardae/fish/culaplus.rar (24kb)

    cula64_shot.png
  • edited November 2009
    Two mentions in RetroMart now. Thanks Shaun. However, I missed last week's issue. :(
  • edited November 2009
    IMHO is that this video mode is not managed effectively. Much more efficient to load data into this palette through the port #xxFE, using high byte addresses as data.
  • edited November 2009
    And now every program you run randomly recolours the palette. Bad idea.
  • edited November 2009
    Yup. As Philip said.
    The ports used for the colour mode were carefully chosen after a great deal of meticulous research...
  • edited November 2009
    And now every program you run randomly recolours the palette. Bad idea.
    Write mode is available only when the high color mode.
  • edited November 2009
    Black_Cat wrote: »
    Write mode is available only when the high color mode.

    when the high colour mode what?

    you'll switch to 64 colour mode and software will trample over your carefully selected colours...
  • edited November 2009
    csmith wrote: »
    Yup. As Philip said.
    The ports used for the colour mode were carefully chosen after a great deal of meticulous research...
    Address port is irrelevant. What matters is the number of calls to the ports that need to perform to load a new palette.
  • edited November 2009
    Black_Cat wrote: »
    Address port is irrelevant.

    No, it really isn't. It's about the most relevant thing when designing a new bit of hardware for the Speccy. Yes, using the high byte as colour select is more efficient. No, it isn't an option on the Speccy.
  • edited November 2009
    aowen wrote: »
    No, it isn't an option on the Speccy.
    Under the current system of port management is not possible to quickly change the palette.
  • edited November 2009
    Black_Cat wrote: »
    Under the current system of port management is not possible to quickly change the palette.

    yes it is.

    how quick do you need? Dunny and Woody have both done multicolour palette cycling already...
  • edited November 2009
    We interrupt this thread for a special message from our sponsor (in Timex 8x1/64 colour mode):

    WoS14.png
  • edited November 2009
    guesser wrote: »
    how quick do you need?
    I would like to be able to load each line of a new palette.
  • edited November 2009
    Black_Cat wrote: »
    I would like to be able to load each line of a new palette.

    When? that's an amount not a rate.
  • edited November 2009
    aowen wrote: »
    We interrupt this thread for a special message from our sponsor (in Timex 8x1/64 colour mode):

    WoS14.png

    Excellent work! I expect a port of firefox for the spectranet and ULAplus on my desk by Friday
  • edited November 2009
    guesser wrote: »
    Excellent work! I expect a port of firefox for the spectranet and ULAplus on my desk by Friday
    Do you have a desk?
    I wanna tell you a story 'bout a woman I know...
  • edited November 2009
    karingal wrote: »
    Do you have a desk?

    Yes, two in fact
  • edited November 2009
    Black_Cat wrote: »
    I would like to be able to load each line of a new palette.
    So, you want to be able to reload 64 colours onto the ULA palette for every screen line? What are you going to use that for, when you can only have 32 different attributes on any one line? And how do you expect the Speccy to be able to operate that fast when even using the fastest multicolour routine around, it can only manage to reload 16 bytes of attribute data per line?
    Joefish
    - IONIAN-GAMES.com -
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