Different resolutions on the same screen

[whitebird]

Hello,

It is often said in technical articles that the Amiga can display different resolutions on the same screen.

What does it really mean?

First half of the screen can be of one resolution and second half of another resolution?

[tero]

On Amiga you can have, for example, Hires/Interlaced Workbench and a Paint programm on a lowres screen, and then drag the screen as shown in this Video:
[ Show youtube player ]

The Vid is from Aros, but it's similar to Amiga. But works only with native OCS/ECS/AGA screens.

EDIT:Found a better Video on real amiga, the boing ball demo:
[ Show youtube player ]

And this is possible because Amiga can wait for a specified by the programmer electronic beam vertical and horizontal position and then start feeding the monitor with data in a different way .
By the way , has some experienced Amiga assembler programmer tried a crazy idea to display an interlaced screen in the middle of a low resolution one ? I mean an interlaced picture surrounded in all four directions by a low resolution one .

[whitebird]

One thing that would never be emulated by winuae as it relies on the Amiga video controller...

modern_hermit, your idea should be possible only if the resolution boundaries can be setup on a per-pixel basis.

[tero]

Originally Posted by whitebird

One thing that would never be emulated by winuae as it relies on the Amiga video controller...

It does work in winuae.

[whitebird]

OK, don't know exactly how it works but I suppose it's something like the pixels beeing larger on the low resolution portions of the screen (software duplication), but the native resolution is the same everywhere on the screen. On the Amiga it is really a different resolution as the pixel clock may be changed on the fly even at the middle of a screen.

Under Winuae, it's same as zooming a picture, it seems like the resolution gets lower and lower but the native resolution is unchanged.

[Z3k]

[ Show youtube player ] shows the "magic" quite well. In the upper side you see a bouncing bar over the lo-res logo that reveal the hi-res version of the same.
You better download it and watch in Uae.

[Toni Wilen]

It is impossible to have interlace and non-lace at the same time, PAL/NTSC display technology won't allow it. Scanline vertical position selection (odd or even) selection is simply done by checking timing of vertical blank pulse.

[Mrs Beanbag]

lowres and hires on same scanline should be possible though, right? but i don't think i've ever seen it done

[Vot]

Doesn't disposable hero do mixed resolutions in the menu / title screen

[Jope]

The resolutions you'd expect are there when you mix interlace and non-interlace, but the entire signal will be interlaced if an interlaced screen is visible, then flips to progressive if only noninterlaced screens are visible.

Get some monitor that doesn't deinterlace the signal, open some intuition screens and try dragging them around.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by Vot

Doesn't disposable hero do mixed resolutions in the menu / title screen

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

lowres and hires on same scanline should be possible though, right? but i don't think i've ever seen it done

Disposable Hero title screen and demo Innovation 2 (or Innovation part 2) by Axxis are 2 most common programs that mix lores and hires horizontally.

Resolution is simply a pixel clock value ("width" of pixel) and with copper resolution change timing is easy. Tricky part is to not have "borders" around switch point (to hide graphics garbage, Denise and Agnus gets "out of sync" until next complete bitplane "block").