Spectrum Computing

Hi, there.

During a last year a have some expeiments with an interlaced mode on speccy. Suddenly i found a valesoft have some experements too, and i start to think maybe it's worth it.

so, please test this small demo on a real machines|emulator with a proper 50hz lcd,crt and give us some feedback.It feature a ghost sprite and a dizzy sprite with no clash it requres second screen so it 128kb(pentagon or speccy timing) only, sorry. we need a small feedback - how it looks, feels and is it worth it? i'm just start to think about a game with this mode.

http://www.retrosouls.net/zx/ghost.zip

kudos!

CRT TV via RGB. Tested on a +2A and a 128K Toast Rack.

Pretty flickery. The “static” objects just have a slight but disconcerting shimmer to them; the ghost flickers like crazy while it’s moving. Additionally, the ghost has very pronounced rolling horizontal lines when it’s moving up and down.

I’m usually pretty immune to CRT flicker and low vertical refresh rates, but I can’t look at this for more than a minute or so.

It’s a neat gimmick, but I think it should be reserved for small objects, particularly those that will benefit from “natural” flicker, e.g. flames, pickup objects, etc.

I tried out with Fuse and UnrealSpeccy Portable on Raspberry Pi 2, fully synchronized on 50Hz Lcd TV and here's the impressions.

Playin area is expected to have flickering, the rest of the screen does not.
The flickering is more visible when the ghost sprite is moving, especially the right half of the sprite.
It seems to me that flicker is generally stronger in the Pentagon version, but maybe it's just my impression.

Anyway, I like the idea, this is another way to avoid color clash, but I'm not sure how useful it is in games.
Watching this kind of picture is definitely not pleasant to the eyes.

Thanks alot, seems like it's very individual experience, as for me with coupe of lcd monitors|tv it's ok.
This demo was an extreme mode, where no pixels on second screen at all and a ghost sprite is very experemental it's like a transperent sprite but overall, there must be a very careful design to make a games. thanks again

////updated
so ok and here is a quick color blending test without bright, now we need a find colors which looks ok on real hardware and 50hz

http://www.retrosouls.net/zx/colors.zip