Path: chuka.playstation.co.uk!scea!peter_alau@playstation.sony.com
From: "Ed Federmeyer" <fedeedw@charlie.cns.iit.edu>
Newsgroups: scea.yaroze.freetalk
Subject: Re: NTSC/PAL start-up convention?
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 22:10:34 -0500
Organization: Ed Federmeyer
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Message-ID: <6uf0vb$1mg12@scea>
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Elliott Lee wrote in message <3607F5AA.60709B48@shell.jps.net>...
>Heya,
>
>Anyone interested in starting a convention for doing NTSC and PAL
>initialization in their games?  How are you handling this?


Interested, yes!

But, (and I hate to be a wet blanket) considering we can't standardize
on a method for exit our programs, I doubt we could organise this.
(SELECT+START) seems to be the method favored by the original
Sony Net Yaroze demos, but not everyone followed this.  Heck, not
everyone makes it POSSIBLE to exit thier programs!  (Don't get me
wrong, if people start following a standard, I'll be all for it.)

This is pretty much why I gave up and wrote that "PAL Eater" program
on my web page because so much SCEE software was binary
only and for PAL only (especially the first round of releases).  Do any
of you SCEA members have a TV that can show PAL?  I kinda
always meant to get around to getting one, but I never could really
justify spending the money on another TV.  Instead the "PAL Eater"
program patches the Net Yaroze binary to change calls from
"SetVideoMode(MODE_PAL)" into calls to
"SetVideoMode(MODE_NTSC)".  I still have not found a program
it didn't convert.  (But I'm still only 1/2 way through all the SCEE
demos/games I could find.)

I also never heard a definite answer to a question I posed maybe
a year ago:  Do SCEE members NEED to put a SetVideoMode()
call in thier code at all?  For us SCEA members, I don't even put
the call in my code, and it starts up in NTSC mode and stays there.

I always assumed that since the "brick" console must be in PAL
mode to begin with for our SCEE friends, it would stay in PAL
mode as thier Yaroze program began.  Don't tell me the Yaroze
libs always switch to NTSC before running a Yaroze executable??!!!?!
Why on earth would they do that?  That would almost guarantee at
least one "blippy" frame every time you start a program.

>The way I'm doing it right now is that one of the first routines that
>is called (when a program starts) is an initialization routine which
>checks to see if the user has held down the START button on pad 1.
>Then based on that it either initializes in 320x240 NTSC or 320x256
>NTSC.  The game is built around 320x240 NTSC, so PAL users shouldn't
>see any clipping.  (The screen can be recentered in an Options Menu
>if there are problems.)  It also initializes some other variables to
>account for the 60 fps/50 fps problem.


If anyone builds a "standard" library, it's be good to keep other
resolutions
in mind:  I like to make my games 640x480 when I can...  Or whatever the
highest resolution is for PAL.

>I'd rather not make two builds of the program and this way seems to
>be working fine---I've been cross-testing on both NTSC and PAL.


Agreed... Two builds is for the birds.  It's easy to do,  but not easy on
the
end-user, who has to download the right build, and if you include a pre
built source tree, do you prebuild both?

I'd prefer the "CD file" method myself.  For the "ARS", maybe it's just
as simple as putting that file on your PC too?  Maybe just modify "ARS"
to "know" about that special file request and fake it out appropriately?

EdF