Color Palette difference between ATI and nVidia cards \ VOGONS

Color Palette difference between ATI and nVidia cards

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First post, by goldeng

Posted on 2014-11-30, 19:07

goldeng Offline

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Posts: 32
Joined: 2014-11-30, 17:45
Location: Israel

Hi there everyone!

I'm having an irritating issue which I couldn't find a solution here over the forum. But if I missed it please accept my apology in advanced. 😀
Please note that I'm using DOSBox for many years by now and familiar with most things you can do with the dosbox.conf file. But yet it doesn't say that I can't use some help from you guys.

A bit of background:
I've been working on a funny dubbed project of mine for the recent years, based on the classic 'Prince Of Persia' 1 & 2 games. And every a few months or so I publish new episodes for my fans at my channel on 'YouTube'. The projects are basically a video-capture of the game play + extra animations that I draw by myself, like Mortal Kombat moves for the Prince and guards and many more. And above all that I'm dubbing the Prince arguing with the guards and complains about anything you can imagine.

• Technical details: I capture the game-play with 'Camtasia Recorder' along with the 'Lagarith Lossless Video Codec' - highly recommended codec by the way.

Here are links to the playlists if you wish to know what it's all about. The dubbing is in Hebrew, however you may find English subtitles in the videos as well:

Prince of Persia - The Dubbed & Photographed Version:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5C1A40A75C855891

Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow And The Flame - The Dubbed & Photographed Version:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0A619A7830813914

Now the problem I'm having is with the color palette that doesn't match my previous game-play captures, which also includes all the animation sprites I cleaned from the background pixel by pixel. I've noticed this since I replaced my ATI Radeon 5770 with a new nVidia GeForce GTX 770 very recently. So when I video-capture the game-play now, the color palette looks brighter than my previous captures.

I encountered this issue once when I re-installed DOSBox after I formatted my PC and noted this down. I found that if the output under the [sdl] section in the dosbox.conf file is set to surface, then the entire appearance of whatever you play in DOSBox looks a bit brighter. But when I changed it to overlay, then the brightness seems to be a little darker - which is equals to the colors I've captured in my previous video-captures. In both surface and overlay settings, the machine under the [dosbox] section in the dosbox.conf file is set to svga_s3.

Now when I try to change the above settings now, equipped with my new nVidia GeForce GTX 770 graphic card, it doesn't seem to affect DOSBox whatsoever. So basically both surface and overlay settings looks brighter than my previous video-captures, and I can't seem to find a way to fix it. That is where I wanted to switch between the graphic cards again to see if there's a difference, but then remembered that my laptop is equipped with an ATI graphic card. And that way I could do the comparison LIVE screen aside to screen.

I copied the entire DOSBox folder with the dosbox.conf file along with the 'Prince2' folder which I'm currently working on, and tried to switch between the surface and overlay settings, and what do you know - I could see the change instantly! When the output was set to surface the entire level looked brighter, but when I changed it to overlay and re-launched DOSBox, the entire level's color palette was darker and identical to my previous video-captures and ripped sprites. And now I come to the question - Does any one of you knows why the overlay setting seems to work fine on ATI chips and doesn't work on nVidia?

Please see the attached screenshot that I took from my laptop (ATI chip), where you could see the brightness difference.
I usually save to PNGs and not JPEGs in order to avoid distorted artifacts.

Filename: OVERLAY vs SURFACE on ATI Chips.png
File size: 183.62 KiB
Downloads: No downloads
File license: Fair use/fair dealing exception

On my nVidia workstation both settings looks like the right picture in the screenshot (brighter).
I circled the rectangle image where on the left picture looks black (darker), while on the right looks grey (brighter). Same thing is very visible on the floor tiles. You get the picture. 😀

Any assistance would be very appreciated.
Many thanks for reading and for trying to help!

Best regards,
goldeng

Reply 1 of 8, by ripa

Posted on 2014-11-30, 20:11

ripa Offline

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Location: Finland

'Overlay' setting uses hardware video overlay. That means that the video card/driver converts the output from RGB to YUV color space, which is used in video sources (TV, DVD, BluRay, etc.). YUV has worse color resolution and depth than RGB, and there's separate controls for video in e.g., ATI catalyst control center, which explain the visual differences.

Reply 2 of 8, by TeddyTheBear

Posted on 2014-11-30, 20:28

TeddyTheBear Offline

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Posts: 47
Joined: 2013-06-30, 22:59

That is really weird, almost seems like the limited 16-235 pixel format from the rec.709 standard but not sure why that would be showing up here.
However there is a possibly unrelated issue with NVIDIA and using HDMI or sometimes DisplayPort cables to connect to your display and being incorrectly set to limited rgb but that would affect the whole screen not just the dosbox window.

edit: Ah what ripa said makes sense, this behavior can be controlled in the NVIDIA control panel under Video>Adjust video color settings>With the NVIDIA settings>Advanced>Dynamic range: Full (0-255)

Reply 3 of 8, by goldeng

Posted on 2014-12-01, 19:53

goldeng Offline

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Rank: Newbie
Posts: 32
Joined: 2014-11-30, 17:45
Location: Israel

Thanks a lot for your responses!

So as ripa has mentioned, it's probably an ATI Catalyst Center setting which has an overlay effect over DOSBox - Which setting is that exactly by the way? Is there a parallel setting for this in the NVIDIA Control Panel? I checked the 'Dynamic range' setting in the NVIDIA Control Panel as TeddyTheBear has suggested, however everything there is greyed-out. I have dual DELL monitors which are connected via DVI cables and on both of them the 'Dynamic range' setting is greyed-out. But on my 3rd monitor which is a SAMSUNG TV, connected via HDMI cable, the 'Dynamic range' setting is available and can be adjusted. It's probably a setting that is available only for HDMI.

Currently I'm very confused in which output setting I should stick as I really wish to work on the original game's color palette, and not on any hardware overlay. Does the 'output=surface' setting is the original color palette the games in DOSBox should be?

Thanks,
goldeng

Reply 4 of 8, by TeddyTheBear

Posted on 2014-12-01, 22:25

TeddyTheBear Offline

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Joined: 2013-06-30, 22:59

The settings are greyed out if you don't click the "With the NVIDIA settings" radio button. If that's not working maybe you need to reinstall your drivers but I've never heard of that being an issue.

Reply 5 of 8, by PhilsComputerLab

Posted on 2014-12-01, 22:30

PhilsComputerLab Offline

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Let me guess, connected with HDMI?

YouTube, Facebook, Website

Reply 6 of 8, by mockingbird

Posted on 2014-12-04, 22:58

mockingbird Offline

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אתה מומחה גדול! הצחקת אותי מאוד כשעשית את הקול של הבחורה!

בשורות טובות, ושבת שלום.

[Mod edit] Google Translate: You're an expert! You made me laugh a lot when you did the voice of the girl!

Good news, and Shabbat Shalom.

(Decommissioned:)

Reply 7 of 8, by Stiletto

Posted on 2014-12-05, 18:47

Stiletto Offline

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Joined: 2002-07-01, 21:57

This is quite an unbelievable and oddly hilarious project, kudos. 😀

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto

Reply 8 of 8, by goldeng

Posted on 2014-12-13, 08:26

goldeng Offline

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Rank: Newbie
Posts: 32
Joined: 2014-11-30, 17:45
Location: Israel

TeddyTheBear,
I'm using the latest driver and I've just checked the greyed-out radio buttons and verified that they are not clickable. However, philscompterlab made me think about another idea when he mentioned the HDMI, although I believe that he assumed that my monitor is connected via HDMI. You also mentioned something about a possible unrelated issue with NVIDIA and using HDMI and/or DisplayPort. But I didn't thought it's the case as I'm using dual-monitor setup of 2 DELL 1908fp monitors which are both connected via individual DVI(s). But what I came about is this:

If the HDMI port is occupied (even if the device connected is turned-off), then the video adjustment settings are available ONLY for this device, and on all other devices the settings are greyed-out. It could be a limitation of the card or the current driver. I hope NVIDIA will have it fixed.

I'll play around with the settings while my HDMI is disconnected and see if I can match the color palette I previously captured with my ATI card. Thanks for your help guys!

mockingbird & Stiletto,
Thanks a lot for your feedback! 😀

Best regards,
goldeng

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