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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: notsonic on December 11, 2007, 06:13:47 AM

Title: game screen cutting off issues
Post by: notsonic on December 11, 2007, 06:13:47 AM
hi all

so i've been using the ol 500 (ks 3.1) a bit lately. Games like king's quest, shadow of the beast 2, pirates!, secret of monkey island all play fine.

but agony and now cannon fodder are cut off at the bottom a bit. if i try to adjust my monitor it doesnt help, its just not being rendered i guess.

its an ntsc amiga 500, with ks3.1 roms and some ram upgrade connected to a 1084s via RGB.

is this some kinda NTSC/PAL issue? are there NTSC releases of these games? is there any way to get my 500/1084 to do pal?

thanks in advance

also agony gives me some really flickery graphics that kinda spaz back and forth in the background, any ideas?

and the intro song for cannon fodder doesnt play right which is disappointing. its too fast, and skips over itself.
Title: Re: game screen cutting off issues
Post by: adolescent on December 11, 2007, 06:36:42 AM
Yes. Sounds like PAL on NTSC issues.  You can switch to PAL from the early startup menu.  Hold both mouse buttons when starting the machine, then press space when the menu shows up.
Title: Re: game screen cutting off issues
Post by: notsonic on December 11, 2007, 08:31:05 AM
hey thanks.

that worked good for agony. though the screens pretty tiny now, and the full screen loading images flicker pretty bad, the game is much more playable.

though it doesnt do a thing for cannon fodder. if anything i think its cutting off more.

im assuming a pal display would remove this added flickering im seeing?
Title: Re: game screen cutting off issues
Post by: Matt_H on December 11, 2007, 05:13:57 PM
Nothing you can do about the flickering - that's the nature of 50Hz PAL vs. 60Hz NTSC.

Pressing the space bar in the early startup menu isn't enough. Press the Display button and change the radio button to PAL.
Title: Re: game screen cutting off issues
Post by: leirbag28 on December 11, 2007, 05:54:59 PM
@notsonic

Yes! there are NTSC Versions of SHadow Of th Beast I, II, and III, as well as Leander..and Agony I believe.  However, not Canon Fodder as far as I know. You have to boot that in PAL.

What kind of Monitor are you using?  the Agony screen should not look smaller...........it should look bigger when in PAL mode................unless you have a Philips/Magnavox monitor....which automatically shrinks PAL screens to fir into NTSC ones.....this is actually a cool feature because you wont get the screen cut off..............because even if you ran a Game in PAL mode.........you will still be missing lines........and thats why Philips/Magnavox made their screens shrink PAL into the NTSC area...................although personally I believe they overdid it a bit..........it shrinks it slightly too small.

If you tried a diffeent RGB monitor or even an NTSC TV (Non Philips/Magnavox) that supported PAL, then the image would remain the same size but just shifted slightly up so that you can see the important playing areas.

However its handy to have a Philips/Magnavox TV.

Title: Re: game screen cutting off issues
Post by: notsonic on December 17, 2007, 04:16:05 PM
yeah i was changing the radio button, not just hittin space or whatever.

i dunno.

im using a commodore 1084s monitor.
Title: Re: game screen cutting off issues
Post by: motrucker on December 17, 2007, 05:23:34 PM
My versions of Canon Fodder (and Canon Fodder 2) came with a PAL boot disk, that worked MUCH better than accessing the pal mode in the early startup routine.
I bought these games from Software Hit, way back when - and they added the boot disk. Nice touch.
Title: Re: game screen cutting off issues
Post by: weirdami on December 17, 2007, 06:19:07 PM
@notsonic

Do you get back any of the missing lines by fiddling with the 1084s's knobs? I'm sure that's the first thing you tried, but I'm asking anyway. :-P The PAL thing is what I thought of first, but since you said you were still losing lines in one game, I thought of the knobs thing.

Maybe your monitor is inside out.  :crazy: