Games intended for NTSC played on PAL machines

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by Shot97

http://amigalove.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=45
For all of your sale figures, I got mine. I didn't write that by the way, and it actually gives American sales more credit than I would even give them,I give them a million

Even generously saying a million units were sold still puts the US 3rd behind the UK and Germany, so your original comment stands corrected.

Originally Posted by Shot97

more than enough to justify meaning a great deal when those expensive games and software were bought, not stolen.

Even if your not being rude and arrogant, its certainly coming across that way which won't bring you any support!

[Shot97]

My sales comments stand, European numbers are always combined, they are never separated by country. Germany was the only one where concrete numbers were ever truly given. The article I linked to, a very nicely written and researched article by the way, gives America 1.24 million. Anyway, "Europe" gets 2.65 million in that article. Europe is a big place... So, we're left to our imaginations about what, say, England bought out of those 2.65 million VS France... I'm saying I would not be surprised if it turned out America was number two. I said I might be so bold to suggest it, because it's provocative and it gets people thinking. I do not actually believe that, regardless, I believe with all my heart my other comment about piracy should be seriously considered.

And no, it's not meant to come off as arrogant. That was a truly serious problem back then and many companies, software companies, even Europe's own companies, made plenty of statements to how horrible piracy was for them. It's a market thing. Younger people in Europe, less money, more pirates... Older people in America, more money, less pirates. I believe there's a lot of good people out there... If the Europeans could have afforded the games, I believe most would have bought them. Just different economics. There's no judgment there, but it is something worth considering.

If we give all of Europe's 2.6 million to England, but because of a push by the BBC to get parents to get their children computers, the parents don't actually know anything about those computers... It's just the kids going at them... I'd like to know any and all of your serious thoughts on how many of those 2.6 million Europeans actually bought the $60 game of Civilization?

These are things I ponder. And it's not to bring anyone down, it's to bring America a little bit up. Because, we screw up a lot. There's a lot of reason for a lot of people around the world to hate American's... I get it... Because of the way we handle ourselves around the world it's very popular to hammer us when we screw up... With the Amiga, I believe there's some hammering against American's, and all I'm saying is find something else to hate us for, please. Because we loved that machine. Apple computers didn't sell much more than the Amiga here either. Computers were a vastly different thing in America compared to the rest of the world. Nerds dug them, the masses did not. But nerds, they were pretty important.

Yeah, it might not always seem like love... Honestly, it is... I love that machine... I know you love that machine... There's probably a thousand budget European titles for the Amiga, far more than any console combined... If there's only a hundred to two hundred American games, good luck covering them all... And a lot of those are going to be good... How many NES games ever made? How many were good? Yeah, if you had an Amiga in America, you had something good.

There are videos out there... Do you know the one I'm thinking of? It's an American video, LGR... Type in Amiga 500 review on YouTube, first thing you'll see... He will go on and on about how terrible his NTSC Amiga was, I do truly believe many watching that would chuck an NTSC Amiga if they came across one based purely on a very non encompassing opinion. And he's an American...

I'm here to combat that stuff... If you find an NTSC machine, keep it, you'll have a blast with it.

[Amon_RA]

Interesting topic, and similar to the Sega Megadrive vs Genesis story where many games (e.g. Sonic) are barely playable on a Megadrive and sound absolutely horrible. I own both a Megadrive and a Genesis just for this reason...

I still have to check out the videos of Shot97 because I would like to find out how to properly play Amiga games in NTSC.

The topic of US vs EU Amiga success is perfectly explained in the new documentary "From bedrooms to Billions : The Amiga years", do check it out.

[Retro-Nerd]

You can't compare the consoles sitution with the Amiga situation. 90%+ console games were true designed NTSC games which ran in PAL with slow 50fps and black bars+squeezed image. On the Amiga it's the opposite (mostly PAL), and the Amiga has no fixed usable resolutions. The screen is freely programmable.

Most people don't care about aspect ratios, smooth scrolling, latency etc. They want to play the old stuff for nostalgia (also the most Youtube player). Except from a few nerds in retro forums

[Leffmann]

Back in the day I never reacted to the NES, Master System, and SNES graphics having the squashed look, due to them having wider pixels and would only look correct when played on NTSC.

I never thought about f.ex. Jim Sachs' graphics looking flat when viewed on my PAL Amigas either. They still looked fantastic, and I think that's how all the other PAL gamers felt about them.

I think the only real crime here is the disregard many European developers had for the gamers in the NTSC regions, who missed out on many good games that could be made to play perfectly fine on NTSC machines.

[Cylon]

@Shot97 good honest statemements so far, i reject only one thing: that circle-issue. You are wrong at this, i am pretty sure. An artist not care much how perfect a circle would look? cmon, dude ;-)

And for Jim Sachs: As far as i understand was he highly involved in the complete game production. Any concerns how his art looks "wrong" in Europe is partially his own fault- he should have dealt with this during production.
Anyway i often adjust(ed) a game's small screen to almost full screen with the help of a little poti on my beloved 1084S. No black bars fo me, nono....

[Mister Octopus]

Ooh, look at this shiny box! What does this label on the side mean? "Pan...dor...a?" *opens box*

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by Shot97

Circles do not mean anything. I go into greater detail in the second video where I show a real VHS 4:3 tape made back in the day showing off Deluxe Paint III, which ONLY had an NTSC mode. There was no PAL mode. So actually, the reason so many European games were made with those black bars is because they were running Deluxe Paint, there was no support for PAL mode.

What the fuck are you talking about. Do you think all 320x256 graphics were drawn in Photon Paint?

[TjLaZer]

Almost all early software was NTSC. From 1985 to 1987 or so until the A500/2000 arrived as that is when they became popular in Europe and were available in PAL format. Then when European software houses started making games they initially used the same resolution but either left the black border at the bottom of shifted the screen down to center it. There after they would start using the whole PAL screen. I used to hate the black gap at the bottom but always had NTSC machines so it wasn't that big a deal for me. I prefer NTSC 60Hz as that's what I'm used to anyway. I use to use tools for force my machine to PAL to play the games that were truly PAL that would not run in NTSC mode.

[Shot97]

To the couple people discussing circles. I'm just not sure how to respond without sounding like such a bastard, which, apparently, many people already believe me to be.

But as far as I'm concerned, anyone who wishes to state I make very valid points, well, except for that circle thing, you obviously did not watch those videos. The evidence is clear cut and indisputable.

Please, take me through the mindset of a traditional Amiga forum poster on this one... A person posts a topic, he asks questions which were only raised because of these videos he watched, and he linked them. Now, without even watching those videos, people give out their opinion on the topic... Okay, okay... Now the creator of those videos says a few words, lots of it you agree with, but here's this one thing that maybe you feel very strongly about... Good.... But... Having agreed with so much before, and having the whole topic come to light because of said videos watched...

I just don't personally understand why you wouldn't have clicked on those videos and taken a look yourself. If the attention span is low, I get it, that's fine... It's the reason why should anyone read my descriptions to any video I make, you will find long and detailed time stamps for any topic you might happen to find interesting.

In part 1 I show Deluxe Paint, American software, on a real Amiga in NTSC and PAL modes... The circles are not perfect in NTSC mode. In part 2 I show Deluxe Paint in emulation in both PAL and NTSC mode, circles are not perfect in NTSC mode. In that part I also show (and have already discussed on this forum yet nobody seemed to be curious enough to look) an instructional video on Deluxe Paint made in America with the creator Dan Silva on it!

Deluxe Paint was THE most popular paint program not only for the Amiga, but for DOS. A great many classics owe their artwork to that program. And, it so happens, it did not have support for PAL mode until version 4. That's a side note, that's just to help answer why Europeans might have designed so many games in NTSC resolution despite having PAL machines capable of showing more. When the most popular paint program did not have support for PAL mode, there's a non memory and non desire to port to America explanation for you, which, makes a lot of sense actually.

Anyway... Again, hoping to not come off angry, because I don't feel very angry, just exhausted... I have some information to share... Some of the elite on forums might be aware of some of it, I feel they don't understand the sheer number of non elite forum members (the majority of people) who have no idea about this issue though... It's almost like a "been there, done that, discussed" kind of attitude the problem is all safely contained in this small little world. Here, all is nice, here, we know about the issue and some of us even play the games personally this way...

But there is a problem out there with how these American games are shown via video and screenshots. Believe it or not, I started out being a very nice person about all of these things. To this day, I never mention the topic besides in my own videos really. The only time I say anything about it on someone elses stuff is when they themselves bring it up in some way.

For Octotiggy, it was during his livestream for The Fairy Tale Adventure. He had figured out a way to make the game not have distorted music at the start, which is a problem for that game because of various reasons. He said it was the first time he had heard it correct. Therefore I felt it was a great opportunity to discuss the issue. I simply said that you're still hearing the music very slow compared to how it would have been designed.

I'm not just finding Amiga videos and yelling at people. I'm subscribed to Octotiggy, and the opportunity to bring topical discussions arose. So I talked about it.

Giving advise to his questions, some people wrote about looking for circles... That's a very common thing to do when discussing aspect ratios in all sorts of areas. Unfortunately, it's not a valid approach with the Amiga. You brought it up, I gave you information about it, and still, despite it being very topical, you could not have actually watched the video... And one person out there even said something like "what the fuck are you talking about?" as a sort of insult to me...

Okay... What should I do here? Should I post pictures? Pics of my real monitors on my real Amiga? Well, I did one better, I showed video of it... And then I showed off a VHS instructional video which showed the same thing my real Amiga showed. I know it's a forum, we rely on written word here. Written word is wonderful, but I can't say I have much desire to prove to people who have already long decided they are right my side of the story... Wasting time writing when quite a few people here, based on previous topics, don't like me too much... Especially when the specific topic you have questions about, circles, is discussed clearly in two separate videos of mine.

If your mind is open and you really want an answer as to why perfect circles do not matter with the Amiga, it's in both videos... Look in the descriptions, time stamps are available. Dan Silva, designer of Deluxe Paint, the most popular paint program for both Amiga and DOS, was not an artist, he was a programmer. In the instructional video he even mentions how little he uses the graphical menus and buttons of his own program, preferring to use shortcuts with the keyboard. Thinking like a programmer, I believe he took 320x200 to heart, probably not even thinking about it, as his screen showed that resolution in 4:3 - That's my opinion based on actual facts. Facts are NTSC machines show 320x200 in 4:3, and an instructional video for Deluxe Paint, probably using the Amiga Toaster to record a lot of that on, is also in 4:3 showing circles incorectly in NTSC mode.

My videos also show examples from Test Drive II, how a picture of an Amiga 1000 looks curiously like a widescreen monitor in PAL mode, yet looks exactly like an Amiga 1000 in NTSC mode. The same game shows a Farrari F40 in perfect dimensions to the real car, the windwos, the car length, everything...well, except the wheels... The circle tool was used, wheels are a bit off. Now, this does not mean it was impossible to draw a perfect circle in NTSC mode, you could, but the artist had to use the free form circle/oval tool in order to do that. The actual perfect circle tool was simply never perfect in NTSC mode. Discussed a great deal in both of my videos.

I believe I have given a very sound argument on that topic. One person asks what the fuck I'm talking about, another, says he agrees with a bunch of stuff I said but pretty much laughs off the circle thoughts... But, other than saying artists (which Dan Silva was not) would care about perfect circles, I don't believe you've given any concrete facts to look at. Circles might mean a lot when it comes to old video of TV shows or movies... Not so much with the Amiga... You can hunt out many 320x200 DOS creations, like, say, a Monkey Island... Created in DOS, which had no PAL/NTSC modes, it just had one mode... So everyone, everywhere, saw 320x200 games in 4:3 if they had DOS... You're going to be in a losing argument if you think that game was not meant to be seen in 4:3 - But there are examples in that game where circles look more like ovals. The name "Guybrush" has been publicly stated was based on the name given to the file in Deluxe Paint which was "Guy.brush" -

So yes, respectfully, which is a little hard to do when I don't think you even watched the video, I believe 100% circles do not mean anything when it comes to aspect ratios and the Amiga... Nor should they... There should be way more than enough other things to look at with 16-bit games than a circle. And in video... I never understood the circle, yeah, it's nice and simple... How about someones face? How about a car? There are lots of things to look at, at the very least, I believe anyone who watched those videos should at least hesitate before concretely assuming an Amiga game is PAL in origin simply because of a circle.

[Shot97]

You did make a nice point about the issues partially being Jim's own fault, having not thought of the Europeans. In his defense, when Defender of the Crown came out, there was only Amiga 1000, and Europe was not a blip on the radar. I mean, you design the thing for the machine you designed it on...

I truly believe Europeans, despite getting some well deserved respect with the Amiga, they still got crapped on overall with the Amiga. You missed out on seeing many great American games the best way you could, but, far worse than that in my opinion, you got game after game not taking advantage of your hardware. I would have been pissed if I had a PAL Amiga.

Simulations or Adventure games, these very detailed games that American's loved to buy, that's one thing... If a game like that was designed in Europe (not often) I do believe they would have been thinking about America. Plus, with games like that, memory and speed concerns are an issue, giving people a reason to use the lower resolution... But by and large, there's a whole bunch of 320x200 PAL platformers which have no business being in 320x200. Nobody in America would have wanted them at the time, and unless you were using a paint program that was only in NTSC then I think those people were being a little lazy.

I don't really think it's Jim's responsibility to make sure his artwork looks correct on all ports of his game... Someone else should take over at that point. Either Cinemaware or the European publishing company... It would have been very nice if 320x200 NTSC games had been made to look and run right (running right would have been very hard because of the speed thing) in PAL mode. Now, there were a lot of PAL games ported to America. Some of them might appear in 4:3 here and look wrong because they were designed looking widescreen in 320x200 in Europe. But there were indeed some 320x256 true PAL games which were ported to 320x200 NTSC mode without cropping, without stretching... Pinball Dreams was one of them. It could be done.

I believe you design for your home market, where you expect to sell the game, and quite honestly I do believe all American games were meant for America, European sales were only a bonus to them. I do believe there was a big enough market for games, and those were quite expensive, and people bought them, it was big enough in America for American developers to make Europe an after thought.

I don't think the designers of Pinball Dreams had any thoughts of America when they made that game, and they pushed their hardware to where it could go. After it became a hit they started thinking about America, and they must have done some stuff after the fact to make it work over here. And yes, games were indeed made to look damn near perfect in terms of aspect ratios with 320x256 PAL switched to 320x200 NTSC. I've read Amiga World, an American Amiga Magazine, where they talk about that very thing. It could be done... So I'm sure 320x200 could have also gone into 320x256 and looked right, as well... If someone along the line had cared, which I guess they did not.

What I really wish is that the entire world would have just picked one standard. NTSC or PAL... I don't care which... They both have positives and negatives.... But it would have made everything a whole lot easier... Maybe that was impossible due to power standards, perhaps that's asking too much, but it would have been nice to just have one mode in my mind.

I don't personally blame Jim for his own artwork looking stretched... That was the dawn of the machine, I doubt he had any idea what Europeans were looking at... And that's not a valid excuse for today, right now... To know there's an issue and not care about it. To continue to get a slightly worse experience from a game simply because that's how you remembered it. Now's the chance to get a slightly different experience than how you remember it... I can't tell you how much I'd give to play certain games again for the first time. Without knowing everything that is going to happen and exactly what to do in order to win... To where you never even die anymore... I like nostalgia... But sometimes, when you play certain games you've played a million times, once in awhile you find something new... Something you never saw before and it makes you feel something you never felt before...

That's when you create NEW memories with old games. I don't understand why people who have been made aware of the issue fold their arms at the chance to experience these games in a new light and get new memories from them. I can't possibly see how anyone could regret doing such a thing.

[Amiga1992]

I think the "problem" here is the ranting. What you say is in most parts correct, but was a rather aggressive, condescending rant necessary about it? Obviously you will generate negative reactions o your point if you call people "idiots".

NTSC games are meant to be played in NTSC mode, period. Deluxe Paint in NTSC is fucked up, (had never noticed because I don't use NTSC, thanks for bringing this up), period. You're totally right about that and the main point, which is "do not show/play NTSC games in PAL modes", is something people should really care about, especially when depicting these programs on Youtube for others to see.

You never talked about pixel aspect ratio though, which you can't ignore if you are talking about screen aspect ratios (it's not just about resolution), and I have a feeling Dan Silva must have made a mistake in this area when making his code, and there you go, he made stupid non-circles on Deluxe Paint NTSC. Second comment on this thread mentions pixel aspect ratios immediately, like one should. Assuming square aspect ratio on pixels is wrong.

Also saying that most early PAL games use only 200 vertical pixels because early Deluxe Paint versions didn't support PAL modes is incorrect, since many 200 vert line games are dated way after Deluxe Paint supported NTSC. It has to do with other factors and is beyond the scope of the subject.

Anyway, relax and tone down the aggro level. I think we're all pretty much on the same boat.

[Amimal]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

Most people don't care about aspect ratios, smooth scrolling, latency etc. They want to play the old stuff for nostalgia (also the most Youtube player). Except from a few nerds in retro forums

Smooth scrolling is what made the Amiga! you take that away, the game suddenly becomes garbage.

[Retro-Nerd]

And still, the most people using an emulator don't care anymore. They run the PAL games in 60Hz with a 16:9 stretch. Or they use a real Amigas on a modern LCD which runs in 56-60Hz with a 16:9 stretch.

[Amiga1992]

What Retro-Nerd says is true. Most people don't care even about v-sync, for them screen tearing is a normal thing! It's crazy.

Personally I am not that anal about modifying the aspect ratio of the games a bit, when I play on my main TV, I usually compromise and use a 14:9 aspect ratio for 4:3 games, because I always hated black borders with a passion. 16:9 looks terribly wrong. Then again my TV also tears scrolling up on 50Hz, so, well, no can do. Maybe I should get a proper upscaler that would promote the 50Hz o 60, I don't really know. I always have my 1084s to do things right anyway But I rather play games in the comfort of my living room. So I choose comfort over accuracy.

[spud]

By the way, the Deluxe Paint II packed in with my A500 had support for PAL modes. I'll try to dig out the disk when I get an opportunity.

I watched/flicked through a fair whack of both your vids last night on this subject and I enjoyed the rant. I can admire your preference for viewing stuff as they were meant to be viewed but a lot of people just don't care enough. We grew up watching stuff on PAL Amigas with Guybrush looking a bit on the chubby side and if that is how we are used to seeing things then that is kind of how we like to view them now. It looks *so* wrong when viewed on a proper NTSC screen

[Amimal]

If there's anything worse than a tearing, juddering scroller on a piece of trash, washed-out color flatpanel, that's an image "aspect ratio corrected" without upscaling to the minimum factor required for all lines to be of the exact same thickness (e.g. NTSC crowd, that's 1600x1200 for a 320x200 screen)

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by Shot97

I would have been pissed if I had a PAL Amiga.

Why? we weren't! I think the same the other way around tbh, sure you had it best for the first few years but around 92 onwards most games were either designed in Europe and released here first increasing in 320x256 and more cases with overscan, which increasingly made NTSC versions non existent.

Each to their own, at least everyone can have the best of both now, enjoy!

Btw @Akira I use a 60hz Lcd too, but it has a nice picture and picture mode and automatically puts it in the correct 4:3 ratio which I can resize.

[nogginthenog]

Originally Posted by Shot97

Deluxe Paint was THE most popular paint program not only for the Amiga, but for DOS. A great many classics owe their artwork to that program. And, it so happens, it did not have support for PAL mode until version 4.

Deluxe Paint 3 supports PAL:


Deluxe Paint 2 only shows NTSC modes but I didn't try too hard.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

Btw @Akira I use a 60hz Lcd too, but it has a nice picture and picture mode and automatically puts it in the correct 4:3 ratio which I can resize.

Mine is 56Hz on the lower end of the spectrum, so everything that is 50Hz goes to 56 and the jerking in scrolling does drive me nuts, but as I said, I chose convenience and comfort over accuracy in that case. Nothing bad with that and there's no need to get into a fit about it.

However when people are showing it and it is archived for future generations to see, I have to agree that you -must- be 100% accurate or as close as possible. Misrepresenting the way these games were displayed, in an archival perspective, is a tragedy. How you play them at your own home, it's up to everyone to decide. And if I want to stretch 320x200 to 16:9, I will bloody well do so