Details for the next generation of Flickerfixers from Individual Computers

[Turran]

I still can not get a decent picture on my Syncmaster 245B.

Must admit that I do not understand most settings and what they do, or why there are 3 different places where the resolution is displayed (one in VGA modes and twice in the "Indivision AGA MK2" main window.

Anyway I test, these are the two different modes I manage to get... also note the blue hue on everything on the monitor on the top. This is with Pal-interlace but same thing with HighGFX.

Default core (old one) works fine. Not centered and blinks on certain actions, but I get a great picture in all modes.

With "Lines" off, it will not fill the entire screen. Please excluse the messy room =) This is the best picture to see that all the text is in blue on monitor but black on TV.
http://www.grandis.nu/images/Indivision1.JPG

With "Lines" set to any other mode then off, it fills too much.
http://www.grandis.nu/images/Indivision2.JPG

Zoom of TV with lines on:
http://www.grandis.nu/images/Indivision3.JPG

Same picture but on monitor:
http://www.grandis.nu/images/Indivision4.JPG

Yes, some options might be hell off but I've been testing variations for over an hour with no difference. The only thing I managed to do is to get the picture to fit the screen to the left and top.

Edit:
With default core. All colors are as they should (black is black):

HighGFX 1024x768: http://www.grandis.nu/images/Indivision5.JPG

Pal-Interlace (fuzzy picture. Looks good IRL): http://www.grandis.nu/images/Indivision6.JPG

[Art]

Originally Posted by Turran

I still can not get a decent picture on my Syncmaster 245B.

Must admit that I do not understand most settings and what they do, or why there are 3 different places where the resolution is displayed (one in VGA modes and twice in the "Indivision AGA MK2" main window.

Anyway I test, these are the two different modes I manage to get... also note the blue hue on everything on the monitor on the top. This is with Pal-interlace but same thing with HighGFX.

Default core (old one) works fine. Not centered and blinks on certain actions, but I get a great picture in all modes.

With "Lines" off, it will not fill the entire screen. Please excluse the messy room =) This is the best picture to see that all the text is in blue on monitor but black on TV.
http://www.grandis.nu/images/Indivision1.JPG

With "Lines" set to any other mode then off, it fills too much.
http://www.grandis.nu/images/Indivision2.JPG

Zoom of TV with lines on:
http://www.grandis.nu/images/Indivision3.JPG

Same picture but on monitor:
http://www.grandis.nu/images/Indivision4.JPG

Yes, some options might be hell off but I've been testing variations for over an hour with no difference. The only thing I managed to do is to get the picture to fit the screen to the left and top.

Edit:
With default core. All colors are as they should (black is black):

HighGFX 1024x768: http://www.grandis.nu/images/Indivision5.JPG

Pal-Interlace (fuzzy picture. Looks good IRL): http://www.grandis.nu/images/Indivision6.JPG

Did you try with "Override Limits" ?
Check "Override Limits" and then adjust H-Offset and V-Offset accordingly.
Play with it and see what happens.

[Turran]

H-Offset and V-Offset moved the screen to the left/right and top/bottom. Those were the only ones I managed to get right to get the screen centered in the top/left.

As far as I can see, they only move the entire screen and wont help here.

[pintcat]

@Turran: The upper resolution display in the main window shows the number of pixels per line and the number of lines at all the Indi will output. These are the picture dimensions your screen will receive. They are also shown in the VGA modes window where they can be altered. It's a good thing to start here with your monitor's native resolution or at least with a VGA mode that corresponds to your monitors aspect ratio.
The lower resolution display shows the actual picture size. Try values equal to the upper ones and see what happens. You may or may not use doubled lines here. If the picture fits almost perfect you might fine-tune the position with H- and V-offsets.
Still, I can't figure out which frequency values are optimal for my screen settings. Documentation is strongly required.

[Turran]

@pintcat: Thanks. Will have a go at that =)

Edit: Cant get it to work 100%. However, I loaded the default core and checked on the monitor what it thought it got for resolution. The screen said 1624x574 so I entered that into VGA modes and now I get a decent picture anyway and can play some more with it to get it as perfect as possible =)

Gah! Ok, so I seem to be able to find a good resolution now, but still get the blue on all text and vertical lines. See image. TV bottom (OK), monitor on top (Blue text and lines).
http://www.grandis.nu/images/Indivision7.JPG

Edit: if you look really close on the above image, you can see a single red line on the right edge as well. I guess all colors are off by one pixel or something.

Edit2: Upon closer inspection, there is also a yellow line there.
http://www.grandis.nu/images/Indivision8.JPG

Edit3: Dont know if its related but if I set it to output 800x600, the monitor says 800x599. If I set it to 800x601, the monitor says 800x600. no difference in colorshift though.

Edit4: I also checked what the screen thought the resolution was with HighGFX 1024x768 using the default core. That turned out to be 1096x772, so I configured that one as well.
I now have working settings for PAL, PAL-Interlace and HighGFX 1024x768 with the Samsung 245B monitor. However, the colorshift is still there. It needs finetuning but I see no reason to do that just yet as I cant get rid of the colorshift...
Here is the config if anyone wants to play. You'll find two new modes at the bottom, both starting with SyncMaster.
http://www.grandis.nu/downloads/SyncMaster245B.lha

[pintcat]

That colour shift looks strange indeed. I had a slight shift when I was fiddling with very low resolutions (320x256 on a 1280x1024 screen). Each pixel had to be "stretched" to be 4x4 times as big as a native pixel. I think stretching the picture to a certain dimension might cause colour shifting (anyone slap me if I'm wrong). What's your monitor's native resolution and aspect ratio? And which (Amiga-)screen mode are you actually using? According to your screen shots it looks like you're trying to run a standard PAL mode (640x256?) on a 16:9 hd screen. Did you try the "HD720" screen mode? As far as I know this is the only mode which produces a clean 16:9 resolution.

[Turran]

I dont mind if it gets streched. =) Its native resolution is 1920x1200 at 60hz. Standard 24" 16:10 LCD

http://reviews.cnet.com/lcd-monitors...-32498153.html

I can try HD720 but that will only be for workbench I guess. Need to get rid of color shift on PAL to get the games running.

I've tested standrd PAL (last screenshot), PAL-Interlaced and HighGFX in 1024x768. All looks "good" with old default core.

[demolition]

Here are some close up high res pictures that shows the blue shift in the new core (I thought it was green shift earlier, but on close up it is obviously blue shift).
The first picture is how it should be, and how it is with the old core. The second picture shows the output from the MkII with the new core. It seems to be the same issue in all output modes.

I set my monitor (Dell 2408WFP) to 1:1 pixel mapping as well as no doubling in the Indivision config tool in either direction, so there should be no scaling taking place anywhere, which can also be seen in the pictures.

The picture contains a red, green, blue and white background with a straight vertical black line through all areas.

Edit: Maybe I should add that I am using DVI. Haven't tried if the problem is the same in VGA mode.

[d0pefish]

I can sort-of verify the blue shift.

I am using DVI input on my monitor, so it's not the usual ghosting that sometimes happens with poor VGA cabling/shielding.

Apologies for poor photograph but you can hopefully see what I mean.

This is a 320x200 screen on 800x600 output. Scanlines at 75%.
The monitor is cropping it and scaling it so it could be exaggerated a bit:



And with 1:1 pixel mode on the monitor, scanlines disabled:


It's more obvious towards the right where the camera has managed to focus on the surface of the monitor (see "V2" text).

Cheers

[roberthazelby]

After spending a couple of hours yesterday afternoon tweaking and tinkering I've now got myself a really nice HI RES PAL mode with scanlines, which is just perfect for gaming. Classics such as Turrican 2 look absolutely stunning, as did a number of tech demos I fired up.

There's a tiny 'chug' on what would normally be completely smooth scrolling text etc, if you ran the image through a TV, but it's a small price to pay for having such a lovely image on a monitor.

I think my only niggle with PAL HI RES is that I can't quite get the image full screen. It looks a little bit like a ZX Spectrum display with its border. It's a small border, but there all the same.

With regards to desktop resolutions, it's here that I'm really struggling to get anything useable. What screenmode would people recommend I try and tinker with for desktop purposes? If I've got that info I can at least go away and tinker some more.

[pintcat]

I already managed to set up a PAL-LoRes screen which fitted perfect (without borders) onto my monitor. But then I switched back to a setting with small borders since a few games like Settlers and D-Hero use PAL overscan and the picture would be truncated.
In my opinion, the most common resolution for Amiga desktops is still 640x512. PAL-HiRes interlaced or XTreme-HiRes are optimal screen modes here. What's your monitor's resolution?

[demolition]

Thanks to the useful tip of using a program which sets up another screen where you can switch back and forth, I've managed to get some decent settings for PAL, HighGfx, HD720 and XTREME, all in both non-interlaced and interlaced modes.
Am using 800x600 output for PAL non-interlaced, 1024x768 for HighGfx, a custom 1280x720 for HD720 and 1280x1024 for XTREME and PAL interlaced (I like the look of small scanlines on PAL interlaced as well).

I have a weird issue though. If the Amiga has been off for a while, my monitor will not turn on with PAL output, i.e. during WB load or pre-boot environment. It only turns on when it's ready in WB with HighGfx. If I then start PPaint in PAL mode, I get the correct 800x600 output that I set for PAL mode and from here on it works fine if I reboot the Amiga and even if I turn it off for a little while. If I leave the Amiga off for a long time, it again won't show PAL modes until I go back into PPaint. Anyone else noticed something similar?

[UncleSpam]

Just when things were getting exciting with the IndivisionAGA MKII, mine seems to have failed.

Currently, there is no video output, but there seems to be a sync, since the monitor (tested on two monitors) does not enter sleep mode.

The last time the Indy worked was while I was using PageStream 4 at 1024x768 and after the following power cycle, no more video output.

I have since tested my A1200 using the monochrome composite output and the 23-pin output with VGA output (via the 23 to 15-pin adapter) and there were no problems...

@Jens

I'm writing here to see if you have any testing suggestions, before I contact amigakit.

Regards.

[johnim]

unclespam

i would remove your indy and reseat it just to be sure

[Schoenfeld]

UncleSpam: Have you tried turning it off and on again ;-)? Really, some monitors don't always sync on the first try. Also, a "reflash all" may help if something in the flash got corrupted (sometimes happens on computers with bad PSUs and old caps).

Demolition, d0pefish: I am trying to make sense of that bug report, but currently cannot think of a place where this is happening on the digital side within Indivision AGA MK2.

If it would be happening in the pixel multiplexer (located in my memory controller), colour shifting would happen all the time for all pixels. That would be the first place I'd look for the cause, because I have tweaked quite a lot on the SD-Ram controller lately in order to fix flickering pixels and the vertical lines that happened "every 341 pixels".

This *may* be related to the double-datarate interface to the DVI encoder chip, which is also the DA-converter. Is this happening on all output pixel clocks? If not, what output pixel clock are you using for the mode where the colour shift is happening?

Jens

[demolition]

You could try reflashing with the old core (if it worked for you before), or just redownload the config tool and 'reflash all' with the original settings.

@Jens: I see this issue in all output modes, but I can attach the actual setting I used for the screenshot when I get home tonight.
It might help you to know that in modes with 'SHires', the blue looks like it is delayed by 2 pixels, so the delay is occuring before the horizontal pixel-doubling is done.

[bbond007]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

(sometimes happens on computers with bad PSUs and old caps).

My PS is good (mitch's a-power) but I wonder about this caps.

I wonder if this is an issue with my 1200. The program has failed a few times leaving the info in a state of no modes. No biggie. I just use composite and refresh it...

I also sometimes can't cold boot because of checksum errors and purple insert disk screen on cold boot, but the computer always start to work and is as stable as any amiga once it gets going and is warmed up. It's now got a disk on module and fastATA but it did that same thing years go with CF and 4xIDE... Strange

Caps cause that too?

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by bbond007

Caps cause that too?

Yes - any "warming up" issue is most likely a "leaked capacitor" issue. Just replace all electrolytic caps with ceramic caps - they last forever, and they're very affordable these days, even in high capacities.

Power supply: Many people believe that the power supply is "good" because it's new or has a high rating. However, the newer the PSU is, the more likely it is that it's a "cost-reduced-to-the-max" model with the cheapest Chinese components. The only way to find out if "good" power comes from it is to measure the ripple content of the +5V rail. This can only be done with an oscilloscope.

Jens

[demolition]

Here's a picture of the settings I used for the screenshot.

Also attached are my settings files, in case someone's having problems with the original prefs or just wants to try something else. You can always revert back to the original settings by overwriting the prefs files and doing a reflash all.
I changed the settings for PAL, NTSC, HighGfx, XTREME and HD720 (all including interlaced). The last one uses a custom 1280x720 60 Hz output mode. Most of my modes only work with DVI as VGA is disabled.

[UncleSpam]

The power supply that I'm using is a fairly new APower power supply which supplies more than enough power for the A1200 needs.

I have re-seated the Indi card several times, power-cycled the computer several times in between re-seatings, with no luck. Again, this was tested on two monitors which display the current Amiga Multiscan:Productivity mode, which displays well using the standard Amiga 23-pin output.

A visual inspection of the motherboard shows no visual issues with the capacitors; everything works properly on the computer except the Indi output.