Can the display device of your real MSX handle 60 Hz mode?

Par RobertVroemisse

Paragon (1327)

27-08-2012, 13:16

YES! First one to vote.

Par meits

Scribe (6544)

27-08-2012, 13:17

Ofcourse... Never expected this poll to show up... Are there actually people with a 1985 TV left?

Par wolf_

Ambassador_ (10109)

27-08-2012, 13:21

In a nutshell, that's the question ^^

Par meits

Scribe (6544)

27-08-2012, 13:26

On the composers' side of story, it's always a crappy... Especially when your mbm files are loaded by a random stranger who doesn't know on which frequency it's composed... Smart replayers are a must though... One doesn't want his music played wrong in the product he contribited to...

I remember music challenges in the past in which the MBM files got MP3ed. It happened that the mp3 was too slow... Same goes for some MSX radio streams I've listened to in the past... I think we'll never get rid of that confusion...

Par wolf_

Ambassador_ (10109)

27-08-2012, 13:30

These smart players skip interrupts during a step iirc. For simple note on/off this works (the Muzax music disk series had Hz equalisation), but it may just screw up effects that are triggered each interrupt and have a not so subtle effect on the result.

Par Huey

Prophet (2694)

27-08-2012, 14:49

Yes. Design on 50Hz and replay same speed on 60Hz using a skip every 6th interrupt. The other way around is an issue ;P

Par nanochess

Master (222)

27-08-2012, 15:00

Huey is all right , I did same with Zombie Near, Princess Quest and Mecha Eight.
In fact my problem is with games switching to 50 hz in my Sony MSX2+, then my TV screen goes to garbled black and white.

Par meits

Scribe (6544)

27-08-2012, 15:20

Huey: That's why all my mbm stuff is 50Hz

Par Huey

Prophet (2694)

27-08-2012, 15:29

All my consoles/computer I have are NTSC only, or can switch to 60hz. 50hz just takes the extra 10% fun out of games.

I even imported an NTSC NES to have the 'correct' speed. But it costed me a lot of money on shipping costs and customs

Par SkyeWelse

Champion (471)

27-08-2012, 16:40

All of my stuff computers and consoles are NTSC as well, which is good since I live in America and I usually cannot handle 50Hz PAL frequencies on my CRTs. My HDTV and computer monitors may be able to, but I haven't tried.

Sonyc, doesn't run for me correctly though. I think it plays at 50Hz by default. Shows a series of V Hold Lines constantly floating in one direction. It "sounds" like a nice game though even if I can't see it! : ) I think I read there was a boot setting awhile back, but I never got it to work on the Turbo R GT...

-Thomas

Par meits

Scribe (6544)

27-08-2012, 17:15

Sonyc is a 50Hz game...

Par anonymous

incognito ergo sum (116)

27-08-2012, 19:54

Using 1chipMSX, My TV goes funky on 50 Hz the same way nanochess describes.
Graphically quite a crappy.

Par SkyeWelse

Champion (471)

27-08-2012, 19:58

Meits wrote:

Sonyc is a 50Hz game...

I see, so not a chance of running it on a 60Hz monitor then. That straightens that out at least! : ) Thanks for the clarification.

-Thomas

Par meits

Scribe (6544)

27-08-2012, 20:34

The manual strongly advizes to play at 50Hz, but it is possible to play at 60Hz. In the menu press 5 or 6.

Par ro

Scribe (4964)

28-08-2012, 13:04

that's why the music editor itself should have "equalplay" integrated
using an external timer is the next solution.

Par meits

Scribe (6544)

28-08-2012, 13:59

Yes... The Moonsound Moonblasters at least had it...

Par Metalion

Paragon (1625)

28-08-2012, 14:14

Of course everyone can display @ 60Hz now ... The question should have been different : do you prefer the 50Hz mode or the 60Hz mode ? That would have been interesting.

Personnally I prefer the 50Hz mode, purely for nostalgic reasons. Our european MSXes were sold here with a built in 50Hz mode, and games were developed or adapted to work with that specification.

So that's the way I prefer my MSX.

Par wolf_

Ambassador_ (10109)

28-08-2012, 14:24

Hm, on my Philips monitor, 60Hz would stretch the screen and flicker a bit less. I liked both these artefacts. Why would you like more flickering? Because that's really something I don't miss with all these TFT screens these days.. it's so much more comfy to stare at screens than to stare at old TV's and/or MSX monitors.

Par wolf_

Ambassador_ (10109)

28-08-2012, 14:25

ro: that equalisation can't always work the way you want, e.g. when performing interrupt-based delta effects - you don't want to miss a delta on pitch.. to name something.

Par meits

Scribe (6544)

28-08-2012, 15:22

If you compose on 50Hz and skip stuff on 60Hz, you still have 50Hz muzak and 50 ints... From 60Hz down to 50Hz is asking for trouble...

Par Huey

Prophet (2694)

28-08-2012, 15:41

wolf_ wrote:

ro: that equalisation can't always work the way you want, e.g. when performing interrupt-based delta effects - you don't want to miss a delta on pitch.. to name something.

Can normal persons hear that? We are talking about 1/60 of a second!

Par anonymous

incognito ergo sum (116)

28-08-2012, 15:44

If you work with deltas? Sure.

Imagine a delta table like this, applied to pitch:

|-8 -8 +8 +8 | So, in essence a triangle-like vibrato. Now imagine skipping one phase!

Par hap

Paragon (2042)

28-08-2012, 16:30

Unless grote boze wolf_ is talking about hardware envelopes that keep on running without CPU interaction, it's fine. And even then, it shouldn't be a big problem.

*edit* it is comparable to missing 1 vblank irq when you're doing a high bandwidth write to the VDP for example. The sound/music handler isn't called at all. 1/60th of a second is not noticeable, and won't mess up the complete song (assuming that's what wolf_ thinks).
If you think about it, using the VBLANK irq for moonblaster music was a very bad idea The FM chips have integrated timers and support for timeout IRQ...or does YM2413 not have it? just msxaudio and moonsound.

Par wolf_

Ambassador_ (10109)

28-08-2012, 16:28

I'm talking software/custom envelopes yes. And when skipping one interrupt each 6 interrupts the triangle table I've given will steer off course.

Par hap

Paragon (2042)

28-08-2012, 16:44

Ok, lemme school ya.

Composing for 50hz and making it run same speed on 60hz, skip music handler every few ticks.
MSX frame number:  0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11
wolf's vibrator:  -8 -8 +8 +8 -8  . -8 +8 +8 -8 -8  .

Composing for 60hz and making it run same speed on 50hz, call music handler twice every few ticks.
MSX frame number:  0  1  2  3  4  .  5  6  7  8  9  .
wolf's vibrator:  -8 -8 +8 +8 -8 -8 +8 +8 -8 -8 +8 +8

Par MsxKun

Paragon (1124)

29-08-2012, 15:28

Wolf's vibrator?? 60hz sex toys?

Par wolf_

Ambassador_ (10109)

29-08-2012, 15:33

Nah, just naughty thoughts from Drooly.

Par sd_snatcher

Prophet (3659)

30-08-2012, 00:32

/. Style: "That's a very European poll, you insensitive clod!"

On Japan&USA they probably have the opposite problem: their display will have trouble showing 50Hz.

On Brazil, back in the 90's this was just a matter of adjusting the vertical hold button. Newer CRT TVs (from 2000 until now) doesn't have the vertical hold button, but OTOH they're multi-system, supporting NTSC, PAL, PAL-M and even PAL-G, most at either 50 or 60Hz.

The problem is on the newer LCD/LED-LCD displays: the vast majority don't support 50Hz properly. To make things worse, many don't even support 240p properly.

Par Samor

Prophet (2174)

08-09-2012, 00:39

but the only thing on 50hz on msx are spectrum ports... no big deal?

Par Hrothgar

Champion (479)

08-09-2012, 20:13

I had to fetch and connect my MSX again, but no, my television cannot properly display 60 Hz. The screen shifts upward quite a bit and displays a black bar at the bottom, amidst the blue. Not nearly as bad as 20 years ago on CRT TVs though, these displayed the entire MSX screen three times at different vertical offsets, wildly flickering. Fortunately I only had two games that erroneously switched into 60 Hz back then.

Par ENDDEMOGAMITAINA

Paragon (1281)

16-09-2012, 16:06

60 Hz poweeeeeeeeeeeeeeer!
all is better on 60 Hz and RGB!

Par NYYRIKKI

Enlighted (6067)

17-09-2012, 15:36

Witch Hz rate we like better is actually interesting question...

In 50Hz the pixels are square and it is native Hz rate in Europe where I live. If we take it further than just Hz-rate, I think PAL has better color encoding compared to NTSC (Newer Twice the Same Color)

On the other hand in 60Hz more of the picture area is in use, there is more space for interlaced lines and the refresh rate is better...

I like that we have both, but if I have to select then maybe... 60Hz

Par Manuel

Ascended (19469)

17-09-2012, 21:54

60 Hz with RGB is the best of course. No NTSC crap and all the benefits!

Par hit9918

Prophet (2932)

18-09-2012, 23:18

About this poll, my Hit Bit 75P interpreted it as "throw all PAL MSX1 into trashcan" and made a protest vote "NO!".
So, this answer was actually not about a display device.

Music:
there are two categories, things that you stretch and things you cant stretch.
music rhythm can be stretched, while arpeggio can't.

About ADSR I don't know, it is in between.
Some bleeping ADSR could contain some cycles that are like arpeggio, then stretching this may turn odd.
So a player would need to offer to run things in two modi, "irq rate" or "stretched rate".

This BASIC app shows the problem with things near irq rate:

1 defint a - z
10 on interval = 1 gosub 100 : interval on
11 ?"press F1"
15 on key gosub 400 : key(1) on
20 sound 8,8
30 goto 30

100 read a : if a = -2 then return
110 if a = -1 then 130
120 sound 0,a : return
130 if m = 0 then restore 200 else restore 300
140 goto 100

200 data 108,54,-1
300 data 108,54,108,54,108,54,-2,-1
400 m = m xor 1
410 if m = 1 then print "PAL vs NTSC stretching" else ?"normal"
420 return

Par hit9918

Prophet (2932)

19-09-2012, 00:00

With NTSC, you get nicer fullscreen.
But when I connected the Hit Bit to the newfashioned flatpanel and then tried "letterbox 1", I was surprised:
The border is gone, the display area of PAL MSX fits right into 16:9.

openmsx feature request
Ability to enter a number (like 0.77 or 1.17) for Y stretch.
And ability to make the window 16:9.
To tune the aspect ratio to the real thing.
Bluemsx can't stretch because of a directX problem.

Par hit9918

Prophet (2932)

19-09-2012, 00:04

Mhm but wait, as TV does smoothen horizontal, better is to also have an X stretch feature and then leave Y 1:1.
And the window size entering in pixels, so one can tune everything.

Can the display device of your real MSX handle 60 Hz mode?

Commentaires (36)