Path: chuka.playstation.co.uk!scea!peter_alau@playstation.sony.com From: Darco Newsgroups: scea.yaroze.freetalk Subject: Re: NTSC/PAL start-up convention? Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 19:34:59 -0400 Organization: SCEA News Server Lines: 64 Message-ID: <36083423.FEFAE3D9@bigfoot.com> References: <3607F5AA.60709B48@shell.jps.net> <36081880.C9DA4042@bigfoot.com> <3608263F.7A3DD087@shell.jps.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 101.dialup.datasys.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.05 [en] (Win95; U) Elliott Lee wrote: > > You can send text to the user and get back keyboard input via the > printf/scanf or putc/getc stuff, but that'll only work for those > with Yarozes---just imagine if you program is put on a CD for normal > distribution to grey PSXs. They don't have keyboards. > That's very true, but if you are gonna put it on a CD Sony doesn't want you to have a Video Format switch routine anyway; though I doubt they enforce this. (Did they enforce it for Total Soccer? Not to my knowledge...) Why would you want a video format switch in your game if it is going to be burned onto a black CD? 99% of the people who play it won't know it's there. (That is, unless you tell them) > > Another option is something someone else mentioned (forgot the thread) > where you check the CD for the presence of a certain config file. This > file only exists on the PAL systems, so if you don't find it you can > assume the system is NTSC. > Yeah, I've seen this too. But again you run into a problem... If your proggie is put on a CD in Europe, then unless sony puts a dummy file on the CD, your program will default to NTSC when it should run PAL. :( This works great for Net Yaroze only games though. > I've just been trying to figure out a decent way to do things: > > - without having more than 1 build---less information to > download > - without requiring the user to type something in---a keyboard > may not be accessible > - without checking the CD---what if the directory stuff changes > I personally think that having 2 builds is the way to go, but others (including it seems yourself) think that this is toom much trouble. It does give the most freedom. But if you want to do a switch thing, either the X or the O buttons would be a good choice to switch modes. Select and Start might do as well, but the finger has to go ALL out of it's way to press that Start or Select button... We wouldn't want to do that now would we? ;) !!! *light bulb goes over Darco's head* !!! I got an idea. It'll require a tad of research... Hmmm... But if it works it'll satisfy all three of those requirements. If we can find the exact differences between a [NTSC | U/C] rom and a [PAL] PlayStation ROM, then we could write a simple function that could easily determine the native video format of the unit. I just have a few questions before I start doing research... Question for SCEA - Will this violate my lisense agreement? If it might, I am asking Sony for permission to do so. Or would such an investigation be futile -- Are the ROM's the same in both systems? Question for SCEE Members - Does your playstation boot PAL or NTSC? I was thinking this might be possible because PAL TV's can view an NTSC signal, just in greyscale. 'Darco