Improving WB3.1 look & feel

[sim085]

Hello,

I spent most of the weekend thinking on this. Realisticly  speaking it is impossible to improve WB3.1 (or later) look and feel on an A500+ (regardless of how much fast RAM it has or Processor type) ... unless one is ready to be happy with a little flickering, or having icons using more then 32 colours max right?

I am not saying this in anger or anything like that. I am just seeing what is available or not. If there is nothing I can improve then I am happy to stay with the standard look and feel on my A500+ with WB3.1

Regards,
Sim085

[Khephren]

I think you can have HAM6 icons, to make it a bit prettier, but not backdrops unfortunately.
I wish someone would patch WBPattern to display HAM.

[stefcep2]

try ClassicWB: even in 8 colors it looks better than stock, and is more functional

[sim085]

stefcep2 wrote:
try ClassicWB: even in 8 colors it looks better than stock, and is more functional

But wouldn't classic amiga also flicker on the real hardware? or?

[Thomas]

Interlace flickers, non-interlace does not flicker. It's a matter of screenmode, has nothing to do with software collection.

Connect your Amiga to a 100Hz TV with deinterlacer, then it does not flicker any more.

Bye,
Thomas

[Khephren]

Not always true. When doing Hires interlace UI graphics for PS1 if you doubled up 1 pixel vertical lines, and avoided harsh contrasts, flicker can be massively reduced.

Of course later consoles filter the screen and don't need messing about with so much , but they still run in interlace, but are almost flicker free when compared to an amiga.

So altering your graphics can massively reduce flicker, and has a lot to do with graphics displayed, and software used.

also...When I can afford a 100Hz tv. i'll let you know!  

[McVenco]

sim085 wrote:

I spent most of the weekend thinking on this. Realisticly  speaking it is impossible to improve WB3.1 (or later) look and feel on an A500+ (regardless of how much fast RAM it has or Processor type) ... unless one is ready to be happy with a little flickering, or having icons using more then 32 colours max right?

I am not saying this in anger or anything like that. I am just seeing what is available or not. If there is nothing I can improve then I am happy to stay with the standard look and feel on my A500+ with WB3.1

You can use Overscan to stretch the screen a bit, and above 8 colors you can try to tweak the palette and give WB a look to your own taste. Take a look in the photo section of this site and search for screenshots from "mr_a500", it's a pretty impressive showcase of what you can do with the "standard" screenmodes of an A500.

And though they are expensive: a flickerfixer will help you enormously. You can display twice the amount of icons (so to speak) and with a modern screen (be it a TFT or a decent CRT) things look a lot crispier than with an aging 1084 monitor.

[sim085]

McVenco wrote:
And though they are expensive: a flickerfixer will help you enormously. You can display twice the amount of icons (so to speak) and with a modern screen (be it a TFT or a decent CRT) things look a lot crispier than with an aging 1084 monitor.

The only flicker fixer I found (not for sale) required a lot of wiring and soldering which is something I would like to avoid because of my no-skill in such an area. However I may put a thought in buying something like that if (1) it is available and (2) its price is reasonable.

[Khephren]

Does anyone remember a really old package...it had copper fades overlayed with magicWB palleted pictures, very nice it was too. I wonder if they would work on an A500?

[stefcep2]

Khephren wrote:
Does anyone remember a really old package...it had copper fades overlayed with magicWB palleted pictures, very nice it was too. I wonder if they would work on an A500?

Yes ClassicWB comes with it pre-installed.  Its called MagicCopper.

IMHO, if you are setting up a new OS 3 install, get ClassicWB.  Saves a lot of hassles and time.