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Author Topic: Flickering lines on A1200 on certain games?  (Read 564 times)

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Offline BGoins12Topic starter

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Flickering lines on A1200 on certain games?
« on: February 05, 2015, 04:32:28 AM »
Hopefully someone will be able to help me on this. On some of the games I run, I tend to get flickering lines on the games which are annoying. Giana Sisters (OCS) does it, but Worms (AGA) doesn't and Scrabble (OCS) doesn't. I also notice the lines sometimes when moving a window in Workbench rapidly.

At first I thought it was the TV, so I tried a different TV with the same results. Is this because I am connected via composite video and not RGB? Or is this a case of the system needing recapped? I've looked over the board before and the caps aren't leaking at all. No wetness and no corrosion whatsoever.

I was told that it was because it's a composite connection, but I just want to be sure.

System is PAL hooked to a TV that supports PAL, via composite video.

Here is a video of what it's doing -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_K8cbz4N0U

Any help would be great!
-William
A1200 - 2GB Transcend IDE SSD - WB 3.1
A500 - All original
 

Offline gertsy

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Re: Flickering lines on A1200 on certain games?
« Reply #1 on: February 05, 2015, 07:43:37 AM »
Saw the Vid. Could it be your composite cable picking up interference from the 1200?. Unsure of this as you would expect the issue to be consistent.
Also is the interference in time with the sound?  Hard to tell from the Vid. It didn't look to be the case.

2 things to discount anyway.
 

Offline Oldsmobile_Mike

Re: Flickering lines on A1200 on certain games?
« Reply #2 on: February 05, 2015, 07:51:10 AM »
Your signature lists two Amiga's.  Try it with the other one.  Does the problem still exist with the other system?  This is a fast way to immediately rule out 50% of the problems.

Is the flickering at all related to heat?  Is the audio clear?  No crackling?  If it were me, I'd do the caps.  Just to rule them out as a possible source of issues.

Also, how much is your time worth?  Look up the price of an Indivision  AGA (AmigaKit was out last I checked, but amigastore.eu listed some).   If you can fit that in your budget, it will allow you to never again  have to use a crappy composite signal.  ;)
Amiga 500: 2MB Chip|16MB Fast|30MHz 68030+68882|3.9|Indivision ECS|GVP A500HD+|Mechware card reader + 8GB CF|Cocolino|SCSI DVD-RAM
Amiga 2000: 2MB Chip|136MB Fast|50MHz 68060|3.9|Indivision ECS + GVP Spectrum|Mechware card reader + 8GB CF|AD516|X-Surf 100|RapidRoad|Cocolino|SCSI CD-RW
 Amiga videos and other misc. stuff at https://www.youtube.com/CompTechMike/videos
 

Offline BGoins12Topic starter

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Re: Flickering lines on A1200 on certain games?
« Reply #3 on: February 05, 2015, 12:15:28 PM »
No glitching or crackling in the sound at all and I don't think it's sound related. Tapping on the machine itself doesn't replicate the lines, either.

And after looking again, it appears that it does in fact do it whenever something is moved on the screen. If it sits still in Workbench or on a game menu screen with no movement, it doesn't flicker. If I remember correctly, the problem doesn't exist on the A500 when using its' composite port with the same TV and cable (the A500 is an NTSC model)

At the moment, I am going to assume that it's composite related until I get a Kipper2k RGB to S-Video adapter.

Addition - I just noticed that once Worms gets into the main menu, the power light is noticeably dimmer. I am not sure if that is normal or not. I'll have a video in a bit to show it.
-William
A1200 - 2GB Transcend IDE SSD - WB 3.1
A500 - All original
 

Offline BGoins12Topic starter

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Re: Flickering lines on A1200 on certain games?
« Reply #4 on: February 05, 2015, 12:31:53 PM »
http://youtu.be/PxuRe_oz8po

You'll see at the 52 second mark, the light dims as soon as it gets to the main menu. The light dimming isn't sound related, either.... it's still dim when the sound stops.

And as before, you can see the lines flickering on the screen due to the rotating grenade.
-William
A1200 - 2GB Transcend IDE SSD - WB 3.1
A500 - All original
 

Offline Djole

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Re: Flickering lines on A1200 on certain games?
« Reply #5 on: February 05, 2015, 12:49:25 PM »
Dimmed LED means the audio filter is disabled, it can be controlled from SW so some games disable it as it can give better sound....
A1200 030
A1200 stock
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VOLIM TE REPUBLIKO SRPSKA!
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Offline BGoins12Topic starter

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Re: Flickering lines on A1200 on certain games?
« Reply #6 on: February 05, 2015, 01:08:08 PM »
Ah! Thanks for that tidbit of info, Djole. I'm very new at Amigas in general so all this info helps greatly.
-William
A1200 - 2GB Transcend IDE SSD - WB 3.1
A500 - All original
 

Offline slimf

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Re: Flickering lines on A1200 on certain games?
« Reply #7 on: February 05, 2015, 08:54:16 PM »
Regarding your caps... I'm in the middle of recapping a few Amiga's.. When you inspect the board its unfortunately not always possible to tell if they have leaked.

My board looked perfect, until I took the caps off. Underneath the caps the board was wet.
 

Offline BGoins12Topic starter

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Re: Flickering lines on A1200 on certain games?
« Reply #8 on: February 05, 2015, 11:32:14 PM »
Just made a VERY interesting discovery. The flickering lines do NOT happen when hooked to a CRT TV... in PAL or NTSC mode. I have no clue how I managed to get this TV to view PAL, but it is. Of course, it's stretched past the screen due to PAL being a bigger resolution, but it's working. It's a JCPenney branded NEC from 1984... a nicely optioned model, too.

So if the flickering lines only happen on the LCD TVs, that just means that both of the LCD TVs can't natively support the 15khz video from the Amiga?

If I am not mistaken, what makes it even more odd is that my NTSC A500 doesn't get the lines on the same TV playing the same game.

Both LCDs support PAL and NTSC.
« Last Edit: February 05, 2015, 11:48:36 PM by BGoins12 »
-William
A1200 - 2GB Transcend IDE SSD - WB 3.1
A500 - All original
 

Offline Oldsmobile_Mike

Re: Flickering lines on A1200 on certain games?
« Reply #9 on: February 06, 2015, 12:03:56 AM »
Quote from: BGoins12;783129
Just made a VERY interesting discovery. The flickering lines do NOT happen when hooked to a CRT TV... in PAL or NTSC mode. I have no clue how I managed to get this TV to view PAL, but it is. Of course, it's stretched past the screen due to PAL being a bigger resolution, but it's working. It's a JCPenney branded NEC from 1984... a nicely optioned model, too.

So if the flickering lines only happen on the LCD TVs, that just means that both of the LCD TVs can't natively support the 15khz video from the Amiga?

If I am not mistaken, what makes it even more odd is that my NTSC A500 doesn't get the lines on the same TV playing the same game.

Both LCDs support PAL and NTSC.

If it's stretched past the bottom of the screen, it's not really viewing it in PAL.  It's just that the TV is able to sync to 50Hz screenmodes.  You don't think actual European PAL TV's from that era had 25% of the image displayed off the bottom of the screen, right?  ;)

I implore you, get your system recapped and plug in an Indivision, especially since you're using LCD TV's.  Yes, there are probably other ways of solving your problem (that are guaranteed to involve time, head-scratching, and many forum questions), but if doing these two things doesn't solve your problem 100% I'll eat my hat.  ;)
Amiga 500: 2MB Chip|16MB Fast|30MHz 68030+68882|3.9|Indivision ECS|GVP A500HD+|Mechware card reader + 8GB CF|Cocolino|SCSI DVD-RAM
Amiga 2000: 2MB Chip|136MB Fast|50MHz 68060|3.9|Indivision ECS + GVP Spectrum|Mechware card reader + 8GB CF|AD516|X-Surf 100|RapidRoad|Cocolino|SCSI CD-RW
 Amiga videos and other misc. stuff at https://www.youtube.com/CompTechMike/videos
 

Offline BGoins12Topic starter

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Re: Flickering lines on A1200 on certain games?
« Reply #10 on: February 06, 2015, 12:19:51 AM »
Yeah, I'll have to get it recapped either way.. can't trust 23 year old capacitors. Plus I know a guy (maccaps.com) that does excellent work recapping machines.

As for the Indivision AGA, I was hoping I didn't have to go that route (price mainly). But since it's an actual fix, I'll most likely buy one later on. For now, I can live with the lines.
-William
A1200 - 2GB Transcend IDE SSD - WB 3.1
A500 - All original