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Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: sim085 on April 17, 2009, 08:49:14 AM
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Hi,
Yesterday I managed to install magic workbench on WinUAE. It looked good, however I remembered my brother had installed it once but did not use it because of the flickering.
Back then we had an old Amstrad Monitor for the A500+ and lately I bought the original 1084S D1 monitor. I therefore tried to use Magic Workbench again on the original hardware and found out that changing the monitor did not solve the problem!
Is there a way how to solve flickering problem on an A500+? Also would the Classic Workbench 64K version also result in flickering?
Thanks and Regards,
Sim085
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The flicker you see is normal: its a TV resolution interlaced screen. You can't fix it with the monitor you have. You can choose a non-interlace screenmode, but everything willlook bigger and out of proportion.
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I found this (http://www.cs.tut.fi/~albert/Dev/A2320/) but that is too overly complicated for my liking and experience :(
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This is a flicker fixer, didn't know they made them for the A500, but it would do the trick
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You could run the MagicTV (http://aminet.net/util/wb/magictv2.lha) patch.
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stefcep2 wrote:
This is a flicker fixer, didn't know they made them for the A500, but it would do the trick
They certainly did: I used to have a Multivision 500 back in the days, which fit snugly into the 'Denise'-socket. Worked great.
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anakirob wrote:
You could run the MagicTV (http://aminet.net/util/wb/magictv2.lha) patch.
Does this only apply for the AGA chipset?
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@sim085
Not sure why its flickering on WinUAE...that should not be happening.
But anyway...on a Real Amiga you can lessen it quite alot.
The key is to get these things:
Magic Menu
Tools Daemon
Visual Prefs
I know some are wondering how the heck these apps reduce Flickering when they never claim to?
Here is how:
Flickering is partially caused because of 2 contrasting lines that are like 1 pixel wide and one is black the other white.
Visual Prefs helps in this because you can make those lines instead of 1 pixel thick.... 2 pixels and perhaps more thicker. Also you can make those lines Dark Grey instead of black and Light grey instead of White.......... the result is less contrast between the two lines and slightly blending in more.
It works! trust me. and use magic Menu to make ToolsDaemon look Pretty (Make it Dark Gray with Darker Grey Borders for the Shadow and Lighter grey borders for the Shine (Visual Prefs)
ToolsDaemon is Amiga's REAL Start Menu.... you will never have to open a Drawer again. Execute all things right from ToolsDaemon if you add them all that is.
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See if your TV suports NTSC as well. That runs at 60fps rather than PAL 50, would reduce flicker a little bit.
Also, wasn't there a hacked euro36 screen mode that worked on a normal TV and reduced flicker? might have just been on WB 3.0 though...
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Khephren wrote:
See if your TV suports NTSC as well. That runs at 60fps rather than PAL 50, would reduce flicker a little bit.
Also, wasn't there a hacked euro36 screen mode that worked on a normal TV and reduced flicker? might have just been on WB 3.0 though...
I am building my new setup based on WB 3.1. However I do not wish to connect my A500+ to a TV set but rather to my 1084S monitor!
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Ah, ok. 1084S is a TV style monitor though, not proper a amiga style multisync (I'm stretching the old memory back to the 90's, so bear with me!)
It should do 60hz, and so reduce your flicker, at the expense of resolution.
As somebody mentioned, there are tools to change the look of workbench. You should use them to eliminated single width vertical lines(by doubling up), and tone down harsh boundary contrast wherever you can.
That's the closest you'll get to flicker free in interlace on a TV style monitor.
Also I used to use the hacked euro36 driver (which should be somewhere on aminet), it worked on my old PAL 50hz portable telly, and reduced flicker to below that of even NTSC. Combined with tools mentioned above, you can almost (but never quite) eliminate flicker.
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I think it was on English Amiga Board; I read that there was a version of MagicWB that could run in a lower resolution so to avoid flickering! Unfortunately the guy did not remember the link from where to download this. Does this really exist. Tried searching on Aminet but could not find anything like it.
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I think I remember what you are talking about. He just rescaled the icons so they looked good on a non interlaced hires screen. I don't know where they are now.
Might be worth asking on /eab.abime.net
I'll have a look on my old cover CD's see if I can find it.
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I FOUND IT :)
I did another search on the English Amiga Board and found the post I had previously found;
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=42149&highlight=Magic+Workbench
Here, someone named Bloodwych said that the small icons set is named SmallBench and it can be downloaded from here:
http://aminet.net/search?query=small+bench
I will give it a go when at home :)
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Nice one. Post a screen shot!
Small bench, now I remember....but too late!
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How do I install these icons, because the package does not seem to have an installer. I read the read me and it says to use some InstallIcon program. However should I put these icons in some location on Workbench (example C:). I never installed icons before and do not know how best to do this.
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There's also the simple-yet-expensive route: the upcoming Indivision ECS plus a VGA monitor.
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sim085 wrote:
How do I install these icons, because the package does not seem to have an installer. I read the read me and it says to use some InstallIcon program. However should I put these icons in some location on Workbench (example C:). I never installed icons before and do not know how best to do this.
IIRC, that package is not large enough for WB 3.1, i.e. it doesn't provide all icons for your OS, perhaps only for WB 2.x level, not all additional which are present with WB 3.1. Moreover, as you already had discovered, replacing icons can take a while (up to few hours, depending how much stress you can handle by stupid repetitive action) since simple overwriting will also reset tooltypes and other icon attributes.
I went that same road before only to conclude it would still be short of full effect, so your best bet would be the one Matt_H proposed - save for Indivision ECS and then enjoy full PAL HiRes Laced (640x512), without hassle of that limited tweaks.
Anyway, that's the way I'm trying to solve same or similar problem(s).
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sim085 wrote:
How do I install these icons, because the package does not seem to have an installer. I read the read me and it says to use some InstallIcon program. However should I put these icons in some location on Workbench (example C:). I never installed icons before and do not know how best to do this.
The author of these went on to do ClassicWB http://classicwb.abime.net/classicweb/lite.htm, which looks as if its all installed for you.
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Does ClassWB also require Hi-RES?
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Matt_H wrote:
There's also the simple-yet-expensive route: the upcoming Indivision ECS plus a VGA monitor.
Where can I find information on this?
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Where can I find information on this?
http://www.vesalia.de/e_indivisionecs.htm
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Thomas wrote:
Where can I find information on this?
http://www.vesalia.de/e_indivisionecs.htm
Will this require a hardware hack like this one;
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~albert/Dev/A2320/
?
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Of course not.
Indivision ECS, when finished and available, will install inside A500 case, directly into one IC socket (Denise), so no soldering or fiddling with adapters at all.
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Lockon_15 wrote:
Of course not.
Indivision ECS, when finished and available, will install inside A500 case, directly into one IC socket (Denise), so no soldering or fiddling with adapters at all.
interesting .. are there any ideas when it will be ready?
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I think you have to pop Denise chip out of it's socket, put it into Indivision and press Indivision board into Denise socket and take the output lead from the board to the outside of the machine. Or perhaps without Denise? Or onto Denise? After all, not too complicated.
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sim085 wrote:
Lockon_15 wrote:
Of course not.
Indivision ECS, when finished and available, will install inside A500 case, directly into one IC socket (Denise), so no soldering or fiddling with adapters at all.
interesting .. are there any ideas when it will be ready?
Some weeks ago, Jens said development would take some 3 months; add some month for 1st production run and that makes September as a fair bet.
A lot of SOME used here, but surely it WILL be available, no need to worry about it.
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Sorry to bring this up again. Posted on another thread where I was told the flicker fixer by Jens would still not solve my problems on a CRT monitor. Also someone mentioned something about a scan doubler?
Therefore I am coming to the opinion that if I want to keep my A500+ connected to my 1084S D1 monitor then I can say good bye to any Magic Workbench installation (because of Hi-Res flickering). Is this so? or ...
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Flicker-fixer made by Jens is a scandoubler device at same time, you should know that by now. Never mind, what matters is it won't solve your problem on your 1084S, it's intended to provide fine image quality on SVGA+ class of CRTs and almost every LCD built up to date.
If you stick with 1084S, forget about interlaced modes or you'll get your savings spent on eye strain treatments and perhaps a light migrene. 1084S hooked on A500 is good performer for games only.
Seriously, IMHO you should start switching strategy to Indivision ECS. Then use interlace even in overscan mode, install Magic Workbench or even MUI; image quality in Workbench should be uncompareable to one you saw at 1084S.
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Lockon_15 wrote:
Never mind, what matters is it won't solve your problem on your 1084S
Well my intention was never to use my A500+ with any monitor. For this reason I purchased the 1084S :)
For me using another monitor (which I already have) in order to use magic workbench would be nice and bad at the same time. What I want is the feeling of using my Amiga on the hardware of back then!
However so far I nearly have enough parts to build a second A500+ ;) maybe I maybe inclined to buy this scan doubler and flicker fixer for that :)
At this point I'll have to give up on anything 'magic' I guess! and stick to my workbench ... ...