NTSC - what a bunch of junk

[ChaosLord]

h
@Chaoslord

"Are you drunk? or on some kind of medication?" bit much don't you think?

No.
It was a serious question.
I was hoping he would say yes, as the alternatives that I am thinking of are horrifically scary. That his motherboard has braindamage, or he suffering a stroke at this very moment or having some kind of seizure like that newslady had.

Nothing about his post makes any sense at all.

1. Switching from PAL to NTSC is an effortless thing done with software not hardware.

One switches to NTSC mode by one of the following methods:
A: Run a little proggy, such as PALboot, NTSCboot, Degrader, etc.
B: Hold down both mouse buttons at powerup and use the early startup-menu to switch between PAL and NTSC by pressing the space bar.
C: From workbench, you can select an NTSC screenmode at any time.

All 3 of those options are easier than opening the case, and pulling all kinds of hardware out of the computer so that one can see the motherboard and then moving a jumper and putting it all back together again.

Any A4000 can switch in and out of PAL mode instantly, at the user's command.  If one has a strange monitor that freaks out with NTSC signals then one can instantly change back.

2. NTSC is less flickery than PAL.

[tone007]

Anyway, I've always found switching the motherboard to PAL mode to be the way to go, since it makes it a lot easier to run the foreign games which are so readily available and won't run in NTSC mode.  On the off-chance I need NTSC, there's always the early startup menu. With an LCD I don't have to worry about PAL flicker.

[TheBilgeRat]

No.
It was a serious question.
I was hoping he would say yes, as the alternatives that I am thinking of are horrifically scary. That his motherboard has braindamage, or he suffering a stroke at this very moment or having some kind of seizure like that newslady had.

Nothing about his post makes any sense at all.

1. Switching from PAL to NTSC is an effortless thing done with software not hardware.

One switches to NTSC mode by one of the following methods:
A: Run a little proggy, such as PALboot, NTSCboot, Degrader, etc.
B: Hold down both mouse buttons at powerup and use the early startup-menu to switch between PAL and NTSC by pressing the space bar.
C: From workbench, you can select an NTSC screenmode at any time.




All 3 of those options are easier than opening the case, and pulling all kinds of hardware out of the computer so that one can see the motherboard and then moving a jumper and putting it all back together again.

All true, except I was in there already replacing my 3.0 roms with 3.1 roms and I have no zorro cards to move out of the way.

Any A4000 can switch in and out of PAL mode instantly, at the user's command.  If one has a strange monitor that freaks out with NTSC signals then one can instantly change back.

2. NTSC is less flickery than PAL.

Seems logically argued.  My bad.

[TheBilgeRat]

Anyway, I've always found switching the motherboard to PAL mode to be the way to go, since it makes it a lot easier to run the foreign games which are so readily available and won't run in NTSC mode.  On the off-chance I need NTSC, there's always the early startup menu. With an LCD I don't have to worry about PAL flicker.

This was basically it.  I was spending more time holding down the mouse buttons to switch into PAL for some games, as most of my productivity software is NTSC/PAL agnostic.

[ChaosLord]

I know you are not using interlace.  But do you have any kind of hardware flickerfixer installed?

[TheBilgeRat]

I know you are not using interlace.  But do you have any kind of hardware flickerfixer installed?

No.

[ChaosLord]

If it is a monitor problem then try this:
Use workbench in NTSC HIRES mode (640x200).  See how it looks.

Then switch to PAL HIRES (640x256).  You should then see how much better NTSC looked.

[TheBilgeRat]

If it is a monitor problem then try this:
Use workbench in NTSC HIRES mode (640x200).  See how it looks.

Then switch to PAL HIRES (640x256).  You should then see how much better NTSC looked.

tried that - the opposite is true.

[Khephren]

Looks like your monitor has given up on those frequencies
I'd test it on a telly to make sure it isn't the Amiga, following what CL said above (most modern TV's in the UK should hold an NTSC signal).

[salax54]

I don't know about the 1084, but the 1080 i have (NTSC) could not display PAL screens complete, be it a game or app, unless i trimmed the vertical size a bit. Although more games were issued as PAL, i remember the FA-18 Interceptor running full-screen on my A1000, whereas it left a blank stripe on PAL miggies... :-)
It all comes down to what each individual wants; if you happen to do video stuff and use cameras and vcr's and genlocks that are NTSC, you simply have to stick with that..

[Colani1200]

http://amiga.resource.cx/photos/photo2.pl?id=a4000&pg=1&res=hi&lang=en

Damn, now I want one of those.

[Zac67]

PAL uses 50 Hz, NTSC 60 Hz vertical refresh - so NTSC means less flicker. If flicker increases instead it's due to your monitor not being able to handle it (or some weird hardware defect).

[desiv]

A: Run a little proggy, such as PALboot, NTSCboot, Degrader, etc.

Hmm..
I didn't know about PALboot..  Will have to look into it..
(don't see it in aminet on first glance...)

Of course, I'm already booting, using ACATUNE to remap to KS 3.1, and rebooting.  I assume that palboot will then AGAIN reboot my Amiga.
And then, if it's something I put into my startup sequence, will it detect that it's already in PAL or just reboot again and again..  I'll have to fin dit and check...  
Even if palboot will work from startup sequence (and not loop), every time I power up my A1200, it's 3 boots?
I asked on EAB if they might add an option to ACATUNE for that (so I'd just have the one reboot), but they didn't respond, so I'm assuming it's not being considered..

If I'm going to be running PAL all the time, I wouldn't want to have to hold the mouse buttons down to choose it?

What I'm doing now is having to add "PAL" to every whdload icon, so the games run properly.  To bad there's not (that I found) a global whdload setup.  But even then, I have some non-whdload games that really want the A1200 in PAL.

I know there's a hardware hack to default my A1200 to PAL (Pin 31 or 32 of Alice or something..), but I haven't decided to go there yet...  
It's too bad that PAL/NTSC couldn't be a "sticky" setting in the boot menu.
Or maybe make a custom kickstart ROM that defaults one way or the other?

It's not too difficult to toggle in software, I'd just like to minimize the toggling.. ;-)

desiv

[Zac67]

All my miggies are hardware switchable PAL/NTSC - actually it's the only way to make an A2024 run PALish (1024x1024) or NTSCish (1024x800) modes.

[edit]
On the A1200 you can remove R203 and replace it with a switch - open: PAL, closed: NTSC

[brenry]

50hz pal mode looks horrible on my industry grade Wells Gardner D9800 arcade monitor with the strobe flickering.  I don't understand why anyone would prefer PAL over NTSC, considering the extra 100 blank lines at the bottom.  On Youtube people have these large letterboxes with squished video on a 4:3 screen and think it's the norm.  NTSC mode, the games fill the screen.  

I'm not sure what you mean by the majority of games are x over x.. many of the games I've went through in the WHD and Gamebase collection holds true to this, i.e. I often see Lemmings and Gods with wierd proportions, when in NTSC the game video fills border to border.

Gameplay is also noticably choppier on pal's 50 fps.  That goes with any system.. like Sega Genesis is smoother than the Mega Drive.

[TheMud]

Anyway... When you put the 2 technologies against each other PAL is the best...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL

NTSC has a lot of isues... Cant handle colours that well and so on...