The gigascreen thread!
- 5MinuteRetro
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The gigascreen thread!
So, until the Super Mario Brothers thread, I'd not before heard of gigascreen. Or if I had, I'd forgotten about it. I'm gobsmacked by how good it looks on my ZXDS.
What other gigascreen games/demos do I need to download TODAY?!
What other gigascreen games/demos do I need to download TODAY?!
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Re: The gigascreen thread!
First on the list, courtesy of Ast A. Moore is Nether Earth, which has a subtle gigascreen effect applied to the radar, at the bottom, to create a kind of (to my eyes) light green/olive shade...
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Re: The gigascreen thread!
Gyron (1985) is the earliest game I know of to utilise gigascreen, for the map in the corner and the rotating polyhedron. Vradark's Sphere used a similar effect for its map.
As for demos, there are many that use gigascreen; Mescaline Synesthesia is one notable example.
As for demos, there are many that use gigascreen; Mescaline Synesthesia is one notable example.
Re: The gigascreen thread!
Having read about 'Gigascreen' for the first time on the Super Marion thread, could somebody please explain what it is? Is is for smoother scrolling or something to do with colour?
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Re: The gigascreen thread!
Another game that uses gigascreen effects is Soldier of Fortune. (There’s also a link to my bug fix for the game a couple of posts later in that thread.) The effect is more apparent. It’s used for some in-game text that appears on the screen during gameplay and for quite a few objects you interact with.
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Re: The gigascreen thread!
On every frame you basically alternate between two screens. The colours will "blend" creating faux colours. Like if you have red on one screen, blue on the other, then you will perceive something purple.Though the further the two colours' brightness are from each other the more it'll appear to flicker. A higher refresh rate will reduce the flicker, but the PAL Spectrum is of course stuck at 50hz.
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Re: The gigascreen thread!
Just checked Gyron. The effect is evident on the map, but truly awful -- very, very flickery (on my DS, anyway). Don't see it applied to the polyhedron, but perhaps I'm looking at the wrong thing.djnzx48 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 04, 2019 1:05 pm Gyron (1985) is the earliest game I know of to utilise gigascreen, for the map in the corner and the rotating polyhedron. Vradark's Sphere used a similar effect for its map.
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Re: The gigascreen thread!
So it does! Yeah, the effect is obvious. Also quite flickery, though -- at least on my DS. The gigascreen effects in Super Mario Brothers are way more convincing, for whatever reason.Ast A. Moore wrote: ↑Mon Nov 04, 2019 1:48 pm Another game that uses gigascreen effects is Soldier of Fortune. (There’s also a link to my bug fix for the game a couple of posts later in that thread.) The effect is more apparent. It’s used for some in-game text that appears on the screen during gameplay and for quite a few objects you interact with.
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Re: The gigascreen thread!
So when I run the TAP of Super Mario on my original +2 plugged into a new flatscreen TV will I not get the desired gigascreen effect? Reason I ask is that all i see are reds, greens and cyans and nothing I wouldn't expect from a normal speccy game.Ersh wrote: ↑Mon Nov 04, 2019 2:13 pmOn every frame you basically alternate between two screens. The colours will "blend" creating faux colours. Like if you have red on one screen, blue on the other, then you will perceive something purple.Though the further the two colours' brightness are from each other the more it'll appear to flicker. A higher refresh rate will reduce the flicker, but the PAL Spectrum is of course stuck at 50hz.
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Re: The gigascreen thread!
I can't answer that, per se, because I don't know the technical ins and outs. But what I can say is focus on Mario -- particularly large Mario -- when he's standing still. His arms and body (and hat and feet) are stippled, which I think is a simple case of two versions of Mario being rapidly refreshed. But the effect of those offset pixels being on then off is that these areas appear as a (near-)solid grey that the Spectrum cannot normally produce. I think that effect is also dependent on persistence of vision so much as anything else, so I'm guessing people will sometimes see it differently, even on the same display.
Btw, I just grabbed this shot from my DS running SMB on ZXDS. You can clearly see the stippling, but to the naked eye (or my naked eye), and on the DS screen, this is a virtually-solid grey. See also the red platform at the bottom. Here it's clearly stippled, but on the DS screen it looks like a more subdued (or at least different) solid red than the Spectrum's only real solid red (be that BRIGHT 1 or BRIGHT 0 red).
(Click the image to see the full-size version)
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Re: The gigascreen thread!
Yeah i don't get any of that. Even in that image I can see the flooring is more of a brown than the Speccy Red that I get on my +2.
Re: The gigascreen thread!
You'll get the effect if you run it on real hardware, like 5min said it's a persistence of vision thing. I've read that there is a hardware mod for Pentagon machines that will blend the frames and output them as one, this would remove all perceived flicker.
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Re: The gigascreen thread!
But I think because my +2 is plugged into a modern TV and not a CRT then the effect isn't working.
Re: The gigascreen thread!
It should work regardless, it's still refreshing the screen at 50hz.
The ground in SMB is mixing red with black and should produce a darker red, not brown. I think that photo may contain some artifacts.
When you look at Mario clothes, aren't they grey-ish? Or do you simply see the checkerboard pattern?
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Re: The gigascreen thread!
Mario's clothes are checkerboard and the colours are just normal speccy colours.
Re: The gigascreen thread!
All colour blending in the game seems to be with black as one colour so don't focus on seeing 'new' colours here. They'll all just be a darker version of their original colour. You should be able to see Mario in 3 colours though, black,white and a grey. If you're just seeing the checkerboard pattern, I've got no idea mate.
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Re: The gigascreen thread!
And it was all my fault...5MinuteRetro wrote: ↑Mon Nov 04, 2019 12:02 pm So, until the Super Mario Brothers thread, I'd not before heard of gigascreen.
Re: The gigascreen thread!
It will depend on what deinterlacing algorithm your TV uses, and how it interprets the spectrum's video signal.
Re: The gigascreen thread!
The polyhedron effect is visible in the RZX demo of Gyron Atrium, at the beginning anyway.5MinuteRetro wrote: ↑Mon Nov 04, 2019 2:47 pmJust checked Gyron. The effect is evident on the map, but truly awful -- very, very flickery (on my DS, anyway). Don't see it applied to the polyhedron, but perhaps I'm looking at the wrong thing.djnzx48 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 04, 2019 1:05 pm Gyron (1985) is the earliest game I know of to utilise gigascreen, for the map in the corner and the rotating polyhedron. Vradark's Sphere used a similar effect for its map.
One of the reasons these uses of the effect doesn't look so good is that they're flickering entire sections of the screen on and off. Modern demos usually interleave the two screens together using rapid screen switching, so the flicker is only applied to small screen sections and it's not so noticeable.
Re: The gigascreen thread!
Do you know any details about such a hardware mod? I've heard many rumours about this but I can't find any actual examples of mods that can do frame blending.
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Re: The gigascreen thread!
Maybe it's time to heard about MultiGigaScreen - it's a combination of multicolor and gigascreen, or even about interlaced multigigascreen as a most powerfull speccy mode?5MinuteRetro wrote: ↑Mon Nov 04, 2019 12:02 pm So, until the Super Mario Brothers thread, I'd not before heard of gigascreen. Or if I had, I'd forgotten about it. I'm gobsmacked by how good it looks on my ZXDS.
What other gigascreen games/demos do I need to download TODAY?!
Btw, my game Twinglight https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=31994 use a sort of uninterlaced multigigascreen, a combination of multicolor 8x4 and gigascreen to produce more colors.
There is a several problems with that tech and modern tvs. Gigascreen was widely use in exUSSR demoscene in 90-s just because most coders have a monitors\tvs that displays it with a very small flicker. That's why we still have a pure gigacreen flicked demos like:
https://youtu.be/OVLR4fGM2n8
At modern lcd tvs we have another problem when gigacreen works speccy switches in "LCD MODE" that doubles vertical resolution, so you gigscreen will be displayed not correctly and interlaced gigacreen too. So, that's why i prefer a ZX Evolution that supports even a English classic speccys timing but have a proper VGA scandabler that show a proper picture on LCD monitors even with gigascreen and interlaced one.
Re: The gigascreen thread!
Some images from ZX-Art:
Gigascreen:
https://zxart.ee/eng/graphics/database/ ... e:flicker/
https://zxart.ee/eng/graphics/database/ ... e:flicker/
Gigascreen with multicolor 8*4:
https://zxart.ee/eng/graphics/database/ ... e:flicker/
Gigascreen with multicolor 8*2:
https://zxart.ee/eng/graphics/database/ ... e:flicker/
Gigascreen with multicolor 8*1:
https://zxart.ee/eng/graphics/database/ ... e:flicker/
Gigascreen:
https://zxart.ee/eng/graphics/database/ ... e:flicker/
https://zxart.ee/eng/graphics/database/ ... e:flicker/
Gigascreen with multicolor 8*4:
https://zxart.ee/eng/graphics/database/ ... e:flicker/
Gigascreen with multicolor 8*2:
https://zxart.ee/eng/graphics/database/ ... e:flicker/
Gigascreen with multicolor 8*1:
https://zxart.ee/eng/graphics/database/ ... e:flicker/
Re: The gigascreen thread!
Since 288p50 (Spectrum output) is not a standard SD resolution, the TV defaults to the closest valid mode: 576i50DenisGrachev wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2019 4:55 am At modern lcd tvs we have another problem when gigacreen works speccy switches in "LCD MODE" that doubles vertical resolution, so you gigscreen will be displayed not correctly and interlaced gigacreen too.
Just like the Amiga interlace modes, this is like running the Spectrum with twice the vertical lines (256x384 active area).
In theory, if you used this effect with the Timex modes, you could get 512x384 with 4 colours...
(I'm no coder, but the Timex changed screen modes by sending data to the border address (OUT 255,62). Perhaps programmers could agree on similar signaling for other modes, that would tell emulators and real hardware what mode to display).
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Re: The gigascreen thread!
Playing Spectrum games at a 16:9 ratio?
Every man should plant a tree, build a house, and write a ZX Spectrum game.
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and zasm Z80 Assembler syntax highlighter.