Details for the next generation of Flickerfixers from Individual Computers

[robinsonb5]

Originally Posted by Mr B

So some screens are more picky then others, and show these lines, while others doesn't?

Yup, it's all to do with pixel clocks and uniformity of signal. In a perfect world the signal on the RGB lines would transition cleanly from one pixel to the next, and remain perfectly uniform for the duration of each pixel. In reality the signal doesn't behave quite like that, and a badly-constructed DVI-I->VGA adapter makes it significantly worse.

My understanding is that CRT monitors pretty much display the signal as is, so you don't notice such effects on a CRT, but TFTs sample the incoming VGA signal and break it up into a specific number of pixels. (They tend to guess how many pixels to expect, based on the scanrates, and since a lot of Amiga modes are non-standard, even if they're displayable the monitor will sometimes assume a weird number of pixels.)

If you can get the monitor's pixel clock perfectly in sync with the output pixel clock then you won't see the stripes, but if they're not perfectly in sync, there'll be an interference pattern as the position of the sampling window with regard to the incoming data will vary from pixel to pixel. If the signal's perfectly uniform for the duration of each incoming pixel (which of course is impossible in the real world) then that doesn't matter (though you can sometimes get a drifting effect from sharp to fuzzy to sharp to fuzzy over the width of the screen). If the transitions from pixel to pixel aren't clean, though - messed up by a bad DVI-VGA converter, for instance - then those interference patterns will manifest as stripes. (You can test this by fiddling with the monitor's pixel clock setting - you'll probably see the pitch of the stripes changing.)

That's my understanding anyway - I might well have oversimplified - or be flat-out wrong!

[Mr B]

Originally Posted by robinsonb5

(You can test this by fiddling with the monitor's pixel clock setting - you'll probably see the pitch of the stripes changing.)

The monitor that has the stripes is the only one i got that actually has the option to change the pixel clock. It also has a "auto-detect" mode, that, needles to say, doesn't work that well, and leaves it with these vertical lines. The auto-detect setting is as good as it gets, and well, it's more then enough to be able to configure things, so i'm all set. I'm already anticipating the roar from owners who cant, or wont get the Amiga to show a picture on any screen so they can set it up once the tool is ready for use. That will be a frightful day.

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by robinsonb5

That's my understanding anyway - I might well have oversimplified - or be flat-out wrong!

That's a pretty good explanation of what's happening on the way from the Amiga to the panel.

Jens

[Cloudane]

Great to see these have made it to market

Ordered almost a week ago but it was from Amigakit so who knows when it'll be dispatched. I suspect it would've been faster ordering from Vesalia, even though they're on another continent :P

(I know we've been waiting long enough and so another couple of weeks won't hurt, but I'm so used to ordering online and getting things next day, that having a long wait just seems... uncomfortable.)

Edit: They woke up again, yay
Don't mind me, I get impatient with new toys.

[FOL]

Originally Posted by Cloudane

Great to see these have made it to market

Ordered almost a week ago but it was from Amigakit so who knows when it'll be dispatched. I suspect it would've been faster ordering from Vesalia, even though they're on another continent :P

(I know we've been waiting long enough and so another couple of weeks won't hurt, but I'm so used to ordering online and getting things next day, that having a long wait just seems... uncomfortable.)

Edit: They woke up again, yay
Don't mind me, I get impatient with new toys.

Please pm me your order number. So i can check.
If you ordered something else with it, that requires making, then it may take longer.

Sorry for off topic reply.

@Jens, have you received any emails from me? I have sent around 3 in the last 2 weeks.
Could be server issues.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by Mr B

The monitor that has the stripes is the only one i got that actually has the option to change the pixel clock. It also has a "auto-detect" mode, that, needles to say, doesn't work that well, and leaves it with these vertical lines.

Often, the auto-detect function works best if it has a signal with sharp transitions in them. When I need to adjust an LCD monitor optimally, I usually create a background image which has alternating black and white pixels for example a 2x2 px image like this one:

B W
W B

I set it as a background image, set it to tile and I have the entire screen filled with a chessboard pattern. The autodetect function usually works fine with this image, but if it doesn't, fiddle with the adjustments and you will quickly see the impact of what you're doing as any interference patterns will be very visible.

[Mr B]

The screen auto-detects right when it's fired on, with the indivision text in the top left corner as a yardstick. And then i can jump through the menus and trigger it at any time. But as soon as it detects a screen mode change, it auto-detects again. I haven't tried anything special to help it with the autodetect, but i did go from one end to the other on the pixel-clock manually, step by step, with pretty much the only result being that i scrolled the vertical bars slightly from side to side. It looked nifty, but that was pretty much it. The auto-detect feature seams to have found a sweetspot where the verticals are less pronounced, but they aren't discreet, it's not likely you'll miss that they are there while in the workbench.

Hit a game, like settlers, and you'll forget about it.

[Cloudane]

Originally Posted by FOL

Please pm me your order number. So i can check.
If you ordered something else with it, that requires making, then it may take longer.

Don't worry, it started moving yesterday and is awaiting despatch now. I did order a SCART cable (unrelated; that's for my A500!) so if they're BTO maybe it's that. It was on a separate afterthought order but if two orders on the same account automatically try to ship together that would make sense.

I was just concerned it was sat on "pending" for a while. To be fair you do state that it can take 7 working days to process orders, I'm just spoiled

[Cloudane]

It's here Works on DVI. Purty!

Can't get it working on my TV (through VGA), which would've been more convenient. The TV acknowledges that it's SVGA but doesn't display anything. Could this be because the TV doesn't have EDID support, perhaps?
VGA does work on my monitor, but with vertical pinstripes.

One neat way to hook up to the TV would be through a DVI-to-HDMI cable, that doesn't appear to work either though.

Sorry if this is common knowledge, not easy with there being 44 pages

[duga]

Originally Posted by Retrofan

Getting off topic of your topic and inside the topic... I never have had an Indi but this. Now I can use HighGFX very well, just a little to the right of the screen. What I don't know if there's a way to force native screens to use the indi. In other words: Will I always have to be changing with the remote between Hdmi and Ext?

Uhm, the reason for getting a IndyMk2 _is_ to get native screens working with a modern monitor, through the VGA/DVI output only.

[johnim]

Cloudane try the superplus driver

[Cloudane]

Ah okay thanks, I'll have a dig around. Had a quick search and heard that it's on a1k forums but don't really know what I'm doing and my German language skills have rusted to the point of nonexistent

Edit: Found installed and tried. Didn't help with my TV, but anyway, worth having.

Edit 2: HighGFX works on my TV though (albeit very slowly, I had to take 8 pixels off the bottom because it was clipping a bit off, and adjust the TV's input clock to get rid of some light banding)

Ideally it'd work in VGA for games etc, I guess it's a matter of waiting for firmware updates though, or shifting it to somewhere where I can hook up a DVI monitor.

[vagrant]

I received an AGA MKII today and are happy that it's displaying something and I didn't break anything installing it!
However I noticed that scrolling isn't smooth.. my samsung CRT is running PAL at 65Hz.
This monitor can run 50hz fine, it used to work flawless on my a2000 scan doubler.
Just wondering is there any way to force 50hz or will I have to wait for config tools to be released?
Thanks

[NovaCoder]

Config tool all the way baby....

[chocolate_boy]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

Config tool all the way baby....

Any ETA on this yet? Are we looking at 2013 before we are likely to see it now?

[vagrant]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

Config tool all the way baby....

Fortunately, thanks to this thread I was prepared for the chance of any out-of-the-box issues
I also thought since I'm using 50hz CRT there was a good chance it would be perfect.. Oh well, looking forward to the config tools!

[vagrant]

Um, regarding interlaced modes; seems I get motion artifacts similar to winuae. Is this something that can be rectified via future updates? (Or is it impossible to fix)

[PopoCop]

Originally Posted by who

Um, regarding interlaced modes; seems I get motion artifacts similar to winuae. Is this something that can be rectified via future updates? (Or is it impossible to fix)

Do you mean that in interlace mode (for example 640*512) not moving objects don't show interlace but moving objects show interlace?

[vagrant]

Yep.. static screens are flicker-free but motion in any interlaced mode results in garbage.

[PopoCop]

I have the same "feature", maybe the config tool will fix this...