[mention]moroz1999[/mention]: I've added experimental
SSX screen saving to a
new build of SimCoupe. Hopefully this will give the raw output you wanted for image preservation. Files are currently saved to a SimCoupe directory in the user's Documents directory, using an auto-generated name.
The
Save SSX option on the Record menu will save a .ssx fle in one of 5 formats:
- MODE 1 = 6144 data + 768 attrs + 16 CLUT = 6928 bytes.
- MODE 2 = 6144 data + 6144 attrs + 16 CLUT = 12304 bytes.
- MODE 3 = 24576 data + 4 CLUT = 24580 bytes.
- MODE 4 = 24576 data + 16 CLUT = 24592 bytes.
- RAW = 512x192 palette indices = 98304 bytes.
The first 4 are the the display memory exports we've been discussing, which are followed by the CLUT indices into the 128-colour SAM palette. These are used for true static screen images, where the contents will exactly reproduce what you see on the screen. The only change from what I previously mentioned is that MODE 3 saves only the 4 CLUT entries it needs. These formats are
only used if SimCoupe doesn't detect any mid-frame raster effects.
The last format is a raw display representation that is able to preserve raster-level effects. As [mention]PeterJ[/mention] mentioned in another thread, SAM titles often change video settings mid-frame. Changing CLUT colours and/or video mode/page mid-frame gives a viewed image that can no longer be represented by a simple memory dump. That's true even for the striped boot screen, which uses colour switching for the bars!
If SimCoupe detects mid-frame video changes it'll use the final raw format shown above instead of a MODE format. The raw format isn't as simple to display on the the original machine, but I already have a viewer that can show most files. The only cases I know it can't yet handle are those mixing hi-res MODE 3 with other modes, but it should be possible to extend to support that for most real-world images.
The older SS3/SS4 files seemed to be variable in size, depending on what SAM BASIC needed to store for LINE colour changes. I don't know if SS1/SS2 existed at all, but it all seemed to be a bit of a mess. The new SSX files have predictable sizes for each format, with no SAM BASIC legacy data. It's still an experimental format so if you find it doesn't meet your needs, please let me know.