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Offline Zac67

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Re: Super High Res
« on: June 01, 2011, 10:38:03 AM »
Quote from: thedocbwarren;641653
Question about this mode (that is 1280x200.)  I've wondered if this mode is for real.

Yes, it is. Your monitor requires sufficient resolution to use it though.

SuperHires works by doubling the Hires pixel clock to 35 ns. In addition to the normal NTSC and PAL modes it's also used for Productivity, DblPAL, DblNTSC and possibly some other modes with higher horizontal scan rate (and thus lower horizontal and higher vertical resolution).
 

Offline Zac67

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Re: Super High Res
« Reply #1 on: June 02, 2011, 10:16:32 AM »
Sounds like you're using a digital monitor - since it's digital it samples the analogue signal and outputs what's been sampled. If the sampling rate is too low (only half of pixel frequency) every other pixel gets lost. As it seems, your monitor has no idea that the Amiga is outputting such a high pixel rate.

Look at the way a video output or (analogue) monitor works: the video hardware just outputs a stream of pixels; for Lores they're 140 ns apart (long), for Hires 70 ns and for SuperHires just 35 ns. In the monitor these pixels modulate an electron beam that scans the screen, moving from left to right. After some time - when the desired line length is reached - a horizontal sync pulse tells the monitor to quit scanning horizontally but move to the next line directly underneath and rewind to the left edge. When the desired frame height is reached a vertical sync pulse tells the monitor to rewind the scanning beam to the top left corner to start the next frame.

A fixed frequency monitor has a constant scan rate to make the beam cover the whole screen during a horizontal or a full vertical sweep. A multisync monitor has to track the vertical and horizontal sync rates and adjusts the sweep rates accordingly.

A digital (flat) monitor is more complex. It samples (A/D converts) the analogue signal into a buffer. To make sure none of the pixels gets lost it's required to pretty exactly match the sampling rate to the pixel rate by using an edge detection algorithm. Note that this exactly the way a flickerfixer works - in theory all flat screen integrate one, but in real life they're usually limited by the extent they can adapt to the signal.

The buffered image (hopefully resembling the original signal) is then output to the display matrix. On LCD screens there's no sweeping beam but rather a continuous memory matrix that you look at, thus the susceptibility to jitter and jerking.
 

Offline Zac67

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Re: Super High Res
« Reply #2 on: June 03, 2011, 09:56:30 AM »
Quote from: thedocbwarren;642016
So the pixels are crammed in there of which the signal picks up as much as it can for a scan.  This, I assume, is the chroma resolution?
It's chroma as well as luma resolution, RGB doesn't make a difference.
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So it seams then the Amiga is packing the signal vs doubling it to get a higher resolution.  I can see how most monitors are unlikely to support this.
All analogue monitors do support this mode - they simply don't have a choice. If you're not able to see every single pixel it's because the monitor's resolution/dot pitch 'swallows' part of the signal or by signal degradation (double pixel clock requires double bandwidth). Most digital monitors probably sample only every other pixel, assuming a 640 resolution, so each sampled pixel blots out its successor.