VOGONS


First post, by VirtuaIceMan

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I'm (slowly!) comparing Sega arcade games to their PC ports, over here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYDobL0b26 … DO7jZSKW9KbLfxZ

Next up I'm covering Super Zaxxon, and managed to get hold of a copy with the CGA RGB content present (unlike the version available in most places, which only supports CGA Composite). So I'll be looking at both versions (thanks to pixelatedarcade.com).

However, I also found out that Congo Bongo on the PC apparently has an undumped CGA Composite version (2-sided "flippy" disk). Just checking whether anyone in the VOGONS community might have an original disk of that game? I suspect not, but it can't hurt to ask, right? 😁

Reference: http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2014/09/t … e-versions.html

My PC spec: Win10 64bit, i7-4970K (not overclocked), KFA2 GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, Creative Soundblaster ZXr, 16GB RAM, Asus Z97-A motherboard, NZXT 410 case, ROG Swift GSYNC monitor

Reply 1 of 8, by NewRisingSun

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The composite color version of Congo Bongo has not been imaged. It has not even been proven that it exists. We have been trying to locate an original copy of this game for years, unsuccessfully.

Edit: Your Zaxxon video lacks the presentation of running Zaxxon on a PCjr. The graphics are the same, but the SN76496 sound chip is used for sound effects. (I am not sure if current vanilla DOSBox emulates the game's oddball method of detecting the PCjr.)

Edit2: What's going on with the CGA colors in your Frogger video at 6:36? 😀

Reply 2 of 8, by VirtuaIceMan

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Thanks, I'll look into Zaxxon on PCjr. There were a lot of ways to run games back then!

Not sure on Frogger, will double check...

My PC spec: Win10 64bit, i7-4970K (not overclocked), KFA2 GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, Creative Soundblaster ZXr, 16GB RAM, Asus Z97-A motherboard, NZXT 410 case, ROG Swift GSYNC monitor

Reply 3 of 8, by VirtuaIceMan

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I had a look at Frogger, looks like the colour shifts between two captures I made, not sure why!

My PC spec: Win10 64bit, i7-4970K (not overclocked), KFA2 GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, Creative Soundblaster ZXr, 16GB RAM, Asus Z97-A motherboard, NZXT 410 case, ROG Swift GSYNC monitor

Reply 4 of 8, by VirtuaIceMan

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There's some footage of the PCjr running Zaxxon here, it sounds fairly similar https://youtu.be/iN3-fKqmOo4

My PC spec: Win10 64bit, i7-4970K (not overclocked), KFA2 GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, Creative Soundblaster ZXr, 16GB RAM, Asus Z97-A motherboard, NZXT 410 case, ROG Swift GSYNC monitor

Reply 5 of 8, by NewRisingSun

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Unfortunately, that video used a DOS conversion. The original diskette contained two distinct executables, one for PC, one for PCjr, and the common DOS conversion only includes the PC one. So the guy in the video is running the PC version on his PCjr instead of the PCjr version.

VirtuaIceMan wrote:

I had a look at Frogger, looks like the colour shifts between two captures I made, not sure why!

Most likely because you used different encoding parameters for the two parts. One of them has the familiarly incorrect colors of a video being encoded as Rec. 601, but being interpreted by YouTube as Rec. 709 during upload. For video game videos, never upload RGB-format video directly to YouTube, always use YUV (with 4:4:4 or 4:2:0, since YouTube downgrades to 4:2:0 in any case) and Rec. 709 primaries for HD-resolution videos. If there were intermediate processing steps, be sure to double-check the parameters. I have been there before; it's a bit of a frustrating problem. As a final check, I always take a screen capture of any CGA or EGA footage and verify that the RGB values of the respective color (solid areas only) match those of the CGA palette.

Reply 6 of 8, by VirtuaIceMan

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I looked at my footage and the original captures are actually a bit different. It's possible one was captured using DOSbox with CGA and one maybe not. Or perhaps one used DOSBox vanilla and one DOSBox Staging version (which does a good stab at CGA Composite, as used by Super Zaxxon.

The pedant in me wants to go back and "fix" Frogger, but as I hadn't noticed the issue, despite redoing the video twice, I'm not sure I can be bothered 😁 the 1990s games are a bit more interesting to me, especially as I bought an Nvidia NV1 card and Matrox M3D card just for the Sega ports on those cards.

But I'll give a clue as to how anal this could become; most Yakuza games contain emulation of arcade games, but (for instance) Yakuza 0 has much blurrier visuals than Yakuza 6 in the emulation. And some Yakuza games seem to crop games differently... it's going to be "fun" and possibly expensive to check them all out 😁

My PC spec: Win10 64bit, i7-4970K (not overclocked), KFA2 GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, Creative Soundblaster ZXr, 16GB RAM, Asus Z97-A motherboard, NZXT 410 case, ROG Swift GSYNC monitor

Reply 7 of 8, by VirtuaIceMan

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Zaxxon on PCjr I tested it in DOSBox and the colours are stronger (as they seem to be for games like Congo Bongo too), not that I want to evaluate every graphics mode for every game (for example Out Run in Hercules vs CGA vs EGA vs Tandy could become rather lengthy, so I'll likely stick to EGA vs Tandy, aka the best looking ones (and sounding, in Tandy hardware's case)).

My PC spec: Win10 64bit, i7-4970K (not overclocked), KFA2 GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, Creative Soundblaster ZXr, 16GB RAM, Asus Z97-A motherboard, NZXT 410 case, ROG Swift GSYNC monitor

Reply 8 of 8, by VirtuaIceMan

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I've redone ZAXXON to touch on the PCjr version too!

https://youtu.be/oqLROKkXTMw

I'm not planning to redo Frogger just yet, would prefer to crack on and do some other games instead 😀

My PC spec: Win10 64bit, i7-4970K (not overclocked), KFA2 GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, Creative Soundblaster ZXr, 16GB RAM, Asus Z97-A motherboard, NZXT 410 case, ROG Swift GSYNC monitor