Issues adding screenmodes

[Amiga1992]

I'm not really sure a Vampire is the way to go for what you do. I am just trying for you to enjoy the Amiga without thinking you have to splurge a shit ton of money on it. The AMiga you have now is fine for what you want to do, it seems to me.

I dunno why you settled for having the Amiga on VGA, when you can get an RGB->HDMI upscaler that will work fine too. Usually for people in the US this is the best option to connect a standard Amiga to a modern-ish display (since TVs here don't have SCART RGB) without breaking the piggy bank. Read this thread: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=72555

As for A500 expansions and your possible use, I'd go for kipper's 8MB board or a modest 68010/68020 accelerator for the A500, tops. You do know you can get the ACA500 too, right? Pushing an Amiga to whatever speed the Vampire does kind of stops feeling "Amiga-ish" if you know what I mean. Also most software will not work/will not take advantage of that speed. Your old software you want to run (OctaMED, Fantavision) will get no advantage from the Vampire because it was never made to use such extra features. It will probably not even work, and also might not even work with your ECS upgrade (OctaMED will, Fantavision I think maybe not, gotta test)

As for connecting it to the TV right now, if you have a TV modulator, you can use the Composite input. but you wanted the TI there. So dunno.

[Sinphaltimus]

Originally Posted by Akira

I'm not really sure a Vampire is the way to go for what you do. I am just trying for you to enjoy the Amiga without thinking you have to splurge a shit ton of money on it. The AMiga you have now is fine for what you want to do, it seems to me.

I dunno why you settled for having the Amiga on VGA, when you can get an RGB->HDMI upscaler that will work fine too. Usually for people in the US this is the best option to connect a standard Amiga to a modern-ish display (since TVs here don't have SCART RGB) without breaking the piggy bank. Read this thread: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=72555

I will certainly look in to that, never knew it existed. Thanks for the info. *EDIT: That's about $100 with that plus the necessary scart. Nope.

As for A500 expansions and your possible use, I'd go for kipper's 8MB board or a modest 68010/68020 accelerator for the A500, tops. You do know you can get the ACA500 too, right? Pushing an Amiga to whatever speed the Vampire does kind of stops feeling "Amiga-ish" if you know what I mean. Also most software will not work/will not take advantage of that speed. Your old software you want to run (OctaMED, Fantavision) will get no advantage from the Vampire because it was never made to use such extra features. It will probably not even work, and also might not even work with your ECS upgrade (OctaMED will, Fantavision I think maybe not, gotta test)

As for connecting it to the TV right now, if you have a TV modulator, you can use the Composite input. but you wanted the TI there. So dunno.

I want Kipper's 8MB board. I would buy it next week. I have no idea how. First it said "Awaiting Parts" now it doesn't and there's still no way to place an order. I've responded on at least one post here where he advertised them and never hear a thing. I imagine they are out of them and with the VII project, I have no hopes of getting one anytime soon. I would get one of those and be done with it.

The ACA500 is tempting but I really want the 8MB ram - in my mind, I'll go with the ACA if I must but I'm in no rush get one right now until I've given up on the 8MB board and am convinced the VII isn't what I expected it to be.

I want to move the Amiga on to VGA now. To consolidate space and increase efficiency. I've already put myself off until 2017 as a realistic goal to see where the VII is at with cash in hand for one. In the meantime, I'll keep trying to get the 8MB board. I'll pop in to their IRC next week and ask around. Don't want to nag if I'm not ready to pay for it right there and then.

[Amiga1992]

Not sure if you are ignoring that part for any reason, but I have to say again that the old apps you want to run take no advantage of and sometimes don't even run on machines with any of the expansions mentioned, even Fantavision. Dunno why you feel you need the upgrades. 2MB Chip RAM, sure, but the rest is kind of complicated.

Much more important to get your Amiga on a display than adding accelerators that will break compatibility with what you want to use. For example, two days ago I tried to load up Real3D to see some of my old files on my A600 with ACA620 (we're talking a very minor accelerator here) and it wouldn't work.

[Sinphaltimus]

OK let me try to clarify this.

Long Term Goals defined are for this one project I plan to deliver in July.

After July 2017, I plan to incorporate my A500 in to my current development environment and I want to take it to new heights with a Vampire board or other big improvement accelerator. At that time, I'm not going to care if MED or Fantavision work anymore. I'm not going to care if 99% of the Amiga applications and programs won't work with it anymore. Because at that time I will develop what I need to run on my newly accelerated machine for future projects.

I would consider giving up on a VII if the 8MB was available today. But I'm certainly not going to settle for a 2MB board now.

And in reality it's all for the look and feel of it (this first show).

After my conversations with you, I'm almost convinced I should just sell everything and stick with emulation.

Forget about MED and Fantavision. This post here is simply about getting my a500 on a vga display. Period. The reasons are mine and irrelevant to anyone else. Can it be done? Yes or no? Yes? OK how? Oh, ECS and an adaptor, cool I'm balls deep on this one. Once I get it displaying on my TV, then I can plot my course for what comes next.

If that annoys you it's of no consequence to me, ignore my posts.

I'm like a big old kid in a candy store. I don't need to justify my desires regardless of how irrational or irresponsible they are. I'm a SubGenius and I have an all inclusive divine excuse.

Can't wait for my Super Denise to show up. I've got a chubby just thinking about it.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Sinphaltimus

If that annoys you it's of no consequence to me, ignore my posts.

God, I was just trying to help you out. Sorry I tried. Good luck.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by Sinphaltimus

I will be happy using MED, Fantavision and an art package on real Amiga hardware.

MED and Fantavision likely won't work on a VGA monitor, and neither will most art packages apart from DPaint V and PPaint. Your art package will also be restricted to four colours.

[Jope]

Having read that, a scandoubler will bring you more happiness than a super denise.

Your path is yours to take, hope you find something that works for you.

[Sinphaltimus]

So I finally got everything in order as far as ECS goes. I see the new screenmodes are now available and yet I'm still not getting any vga signal on my monitor and I misplaced the one sheet instructions that came with the adapter.

I'm not looking for hi res anything. All I want to do is get my Amiga to display on an lcd vga monitor. Lowest res possible. I can't seem to find any that will do. But I haven't tried then all. Got sick of changing screen mode, shutting down, dropping connections and booting up.

Any idea what setting I need to select?

@Akira- I understand and appreciate it until you kept trying to convince me to get that one board after I already expressed no interest in it, twice. It really is Vampire our bust. I've moved my music and animation desires to emulation effectively eliminating the need of the Amiga altogether. Note it's just prepping it for vga. Until I can get the Vampire board, it'll just be used for image conversions (floppies to adf). I'm also interested in seeing seeing if I can get my physical Amiga in to a whd I can run in emulation. I know it's possible, folks do it all the time. But I digress. For now, it's all about the vga.

[Jope]

Did you try loading the vgaonly driver in addition to dblntsc?

[Sinphaltimus]

Not yet, had to leave for work...

Later tonight for sure.

[Sinphaltimus]

Nope. I'm guessing this adaptor doesn't work for all vga monitors. Only some possibly. Or maybe not at all. Could be a defective adaptor. I'll contact tech support again.

[Jope]

It depends whether the monitor can display the screenmodes you want to use. Load all the monitor drivers (but not a2024) and try them out one by one?

The adapter is just a bunch of wires (and potentially a buffer chip for the sync), but if the monitor doesn't sync to any of the Amiga's modes, then you need a different monitor.

[Sinphaltimus]

So for poops and giggles I'll waste as much time a it takes to test every screen mode.

It's unbelievable that a vga adapter is not really a vga adapter. I'm guessing the Amiga is going to stay in rca video while get get my older TI computer on vga with a known true video adaptor upgrade. No BS, it just works.

Buy adapter, find out I need different chipset.
Buy needed chipset, find out I need a different monitor.

Flips table and walks away.

[Jope]

It just changes the connector, it doesn't magically make every monitor compatible. :-)

[SnkBitten]

I had a VGA monitor that would work with DblNTSC monitor only if I had the VGA monitor file in the Devs:Monitors folder with it. It was just enough of a timing change to allow my monitor to sync.

Like Jope mention, it just converts the 23 pin to a 15 pin connector, it doesn't change the signal. You'd need a Scandoubler/flickerfixer to do that.

[Sinphaltimus]

The new video modes that come with the ECS should take care of at least getting a picture on a non 15khz vga monitor.

But it's all nonsense now. Not gonna struggle with it anymore. I'll just stick to the video out on an lcd. And once I get a VII it won't matter anymore.

Thanks for the help and suggests but I'm done with this fishing expedition.

[Jope]

Yeps, the unfortunate truth is, that the higher frequency custom chip modes are rather shit due to various reasons, and 15kHz PAL/NTSC is where the Amiga is at its most comfortable. :-)

[Sinphaltimus]

I did discover something strange I can't explain. In the Amiga boot menu (new wb3.1 updated via cloanto holding both mouse buttons at boot time) I have the ntsc/pal switch. When I click pal, of course it looks bad. When I am in workbench (ntsc mode) and run sysinfo, sysinfo reports ecs agnus in pal mode. I did not notice any missing pins on the chip. I may have to pull it and check connections thoroughly but I can't imagine it being pal and running through the rf converter to rca video without an issue.

[Sinphaltimus]

Originally Posted by Akira

God, I was just trying to help you out. Sorry I tried. Good luck.

Hey Akira - I really came off like an a-hole here. My apologies. I was a bit stressed back then and was feeling pressured against my will and I snapped at you like an idiot.

[grelbfarlk]

Did you ever find a monitor that would work with your A500?