New Picasso96Mode Tutorial (AmigaKit Tech Docs)

[amigakit]

In response to a customer support question, we created a tutorial on setting up screenmodes with Picasso96Mode.

I hope some others in the Community find it useful.

The tutorial can be found here:

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/technicaldocuments.php

[Karlos]

Great

Coincidentally I was just talking to a friend earlier this evening about P96Mode, we both agreed it was one of the least intuitive pieces of software we'd ever had to use

[wawrzon]

yeah. i cant agree more.

[save2600]

I felt really smart after I got P96Mode to work all by myself. In America, we're kind of
used to great software with little to no documentation. And what we do have is usually
poorly written or translated with important tidbits accidentally left out. lol

So... next time anyone raises Kane to someone for not reading the docs, I'm tellin'
'ya, we've been groomed NOT to read 'em! It's a cultural thing  :-)

[zipper]

You forget to stress the importance to use return key when making changes - I still forget sometimes to do it and have to fix erroneous input again ( and again and...)

[motrucker]

@ amigakit,
    My hat's off to you! It's rare to see this level of help for Amiga users today. I am sure the entire community thanks you.

[patrik]

As the predefined modes in Picasso96Mode are extremely crappy, especially when used with the much more sensitive TFT monitors, I made a little awk script a few years ago which translates X.org/XFree86 modelines to values you enter in P96Mode.

Such modelines can be found for example here.

With this you can quickly setup say a 1280x1024@60Hz(insert: whatever the native res/refresh rate of your monitor is) screenmode with nice standard VESA timings. This is good, as these VESA timings are what all monitors are made to work after and will thus behave at its best when fed with such.

Example usage:

Code: [Select]

patrik@megaburken:~$ echo "ModeLine "1280x1024" 108.00 1280 1328 1440 1688 1024
1025 1028 1066 +HSync +VSync" | ./modeline2P96.awk
Name:                1280x1024
Clock:              108.00 MHz
Interlace:           Unchecked
DoubleScan:          Unchecked

Timings:           Horizontal:        Vertical:
FrameSize                 1688             1066
BorderSize                   0                0
Position                    48                1
SyncSize                   112                3
SyncPolarity         Unchecked        Unchecked
Frequency               64 KHz            60 Hz
(edit:) Apparently I had the wrong polarity of the syncs - seems the logic is the unchecked box equals negative sync...

[Trev]

As the predefined modes in Picasso96Mode are extremely crappy, especially when used with the much more sensitive TFT monitors

Most LCD/OLED panels use standard timings, so I'm not sure why no one's created a standard set of predefined modes, e.g. VGA, SVGA, XGA, WXGA, et al, and distributed that. It would make a nice little attachment for the tutorial. At the very least, a small table could be included that lists the correct timings. If the timings are entered correctly, a decent analog LCD display at its native resolution should produce a crisp, digital-like picture with no adjustments required.

[zipper]

Had to edit my CRT modes to work with  my LCD as I changed my default monitor- little jobby and some modes don't fill my screen totally. And 1680x1050 is a little problematic on my Voodoo.

[Trev]

Modelines are good food. Other tidbits:

VESA https://fs16.formsite.com/VESA/form714826558/secure_index.html
SPWG http://www.spwg.org

[wawrzon]

yeah. 1680x1050 requires lot of tweaking. i havnt got an acceptable display in 8bit on my lcd, which is a shame but not much pain as long other modes work.

[patrik]

@wawrzon:
Try the following:

Code: [Select]

Name:                1680x1050
Clock:              147.14 MHz
Interlace:           Unchecked
DoubleScan:          Unchecked

Timings:           Horizontal:        Vertical:
FrameSize                 2256             1087
BorderSize                   0                0
Position                   104                1
SyncSize                   184                3
SyncPolarity         Unchecked        Unchecked
Frequency               65 KHz            60 Hz

[wawrzon]

@patrick: it has to  have something to do with my lcd-tv with 8 bit 1680x1050 it is always showing very dark picture as if it has been dimmed. it stays this way whatever i do. other 1680x1050 modes show with no problem. well as i said: i dont care too much.

[patrik]

Ok, strange though, as the TV/Monitor has no idea wether the mode is 8-bit, 16-bit or 24-bit, all it cares about colour wise is the amplitude on the R, G and B lines, and these doesn't work in another way because of bit depth.

Sounds more like the timings defined for your 8-bit mode differs from the others, or some general issue with 8-bit modes on the Amiga side.

[zipper]

Must be a timing issue. I tried those up there and got barely a picture, dark and distorted. I think my working settings were with interlace and about half of that pixel clock. But my bitmap fonts are very distorted.