R: [stella] PCMSG 2.4 (ok, I've had enough...)

Subject: R: [stella] PCMSG 2.4 (ok, I've had enough...)
From: "Piero Cavina" <p.cavina@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 19:10:12 +0200
> Da: Chris Pepin <cpepin1@xxxxxxxx>
> A: Piero Cavina <p.cavina@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Oggetto: Re: [stella] PCMSG 2.4 (ok, I've had enough...)

> 	I've been playing the game on my NTSC 7800, and I notice that when
> the Meteors get to about a third of the way from the left side of the
> screen, the top line of the meteor disappears.  I held down the pause
> button and switched between NTSC and PAL and it did it for both.

That's not a bug, it is a "feature" :)
It doesn't happen with meteors only, but also with any other enemy that has
a non-blank first line.
The reason is that I'm "coloring" the sprite too late on the scanline; this
is the result of a compromise, where the other options where definitely
worse (problems with the player's sprite, copies of the enemies appearing
and disappearing...)

I've been trying to avoid it, but I couldn't really find a way. It's going
to stay - after all I think it's not too annoying ;) and if you look
carefully there have been other Atari 2600 games with such flaws.

A very "2600-style" solution would be to have sprites one line shorter...
but I prefer the actual look, flaws included.
 
> I noticed that when I
> would play in the default mode (whatever that is) the playfield
> takes up more of the screen and the meteors, ships, etc. are larger. 
When
> I hold down the pause button to switch modes the playfield shrinks in
size
> and the bottom part (where the score and stuff is displayed) gets a bunch
> of lines added to the bottom of it.

That happens also on my tv and should be the proof that the TV standard
conversion is working correctly.
When in NTSC mode the program is doing 192 scanlines that fill the whole
NTSC screen; when you switch to PAL, 228-192 lines are added to the bottom
to fill the PAL screen, but the NTSC TV wants to display them all so the
picture gets shrunk...

> So far the game is quite fun.  I really enjoy it

Thanks!

Ciao,
 P.


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