Resolutions available on the Atari Falcon 030
Resolutions available on the Atari Falcon030
(c) 1992 Atari Corp. Written by John Townsend
This document may be re-printed again and again as long as the Atari copyright remains intact.
A couple of notes: Unlike previous machines, there are just too many resolutions to give each resolution a name. Therefore, I will do my best to describe what the resolution is and which monitor it is on.
- NOTE: TV and a Color Monitor are the same.. by Color Monitor, I am talking about the standard SC1224. By VGA, I mean a standard VGA Monitor.
40 column modes ( "column" means the number of x pixels divided by 8)
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4 color, normal, TV: 320x200, 4 colors, 2 planes
16 color, normal, TV: 320x200, 16 colors, 4 planes
256 color, normal, TV: 320x200, 256 colors, 8 planes
True color, normal, TV: 320x200, true color
4 color, interlace, TV: 320x400, 4 colors, 2 planes
16 color, interlace, TV: 320x400, 16 colors, 4 planes
256 color, interlace, TV: 320x400, 256 colors, 8 planes
True color, interlace, TV: 320x400, true color
4 color, normal, VGA: 320x480, 4 colors, 2 planes
16 color, normal, VGA: 320x480, 16 colors, 4 planes
256 color, normal, VGA: 320x480, 256 colors, 8 planes
True color, normal, VGA: 320x480, true color
4 color, line-doubling, VGA: 320x240, 4 colors, 2 planes
16 color, line-doubling, VGA: 320x240, 16 colors, 4 planes
256 color, line-doubling, VGA: 320x240, 256 colors, 8 planes
True color, line-doubling, VGA: 320x240, true color
80 column modes
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2 color, normal, TV: 640x200, 2 colors, 1 plane
4 color, normal, TV: 640x200, 4 colors, 2 planes
16 color, normal, TV: 640x200, 16 colors, 4 planes
256 color, normal, TV: 640x200, 256 colors, 8 planes
True color, normal, TV: 640x200, true color
4 color, interlace, TV: 640x400, 4 colors, 2 planes
16 color, interlace, TV: 640x400, 16 colors, 4 planes
256 color, interlace, TV: 640x400, 256 colors, 8 planes
True color, interlace, TV: 640x400, true color
2 color, normal, VGA: 640x480, 2 colors, 1 plane
4 color, normal, VGA: 640x480, 4 colors, 2 planes
16 color, normal, VGA: 640x480, 16 colors, 4 planes
256 color, normal, VGA: 640x480, 256 colors, 8 planes
4 color, line-doubling, VGA: 640x240, 4 colors, 2 planes
16 color, line-doubling, VGA: 640x240, 16 colors, 4 planes
256 color, line-doubling, VGA: 640x240, 256 colors, 8 planes and lastly.. there are compatibility modes for ST Low, ST Medium, and ST High on both VGA monitors and SC1224 monitors. (On a color monitor, ST High is achieved by using the interlace mode).
Also, the ST Monochrome monitor (the SM124) will work with Falcon030 as well.
However, it only supports one resolution: ST High Resolution.
All modes on a TV can be overscanned. This means multiplying the X and Y resolution by 1.2. For example, modes with 320 pixels of horizontal resolution (X res) will become 384 pixels across, and modes with 640 pixels will become 768 across. Overscanning is done in the X and Y resolution. You can't do them independently. Special Note: On a VGA monitor, overscan is "faked".. since the video hardware doesn't have the capability to do overscan on a VGA monitor, we made it so that if a overscan mode is set on a VGA monitor, you still see the normal size screen, but the screen is a window onto the bigger overscanned image. Make sense? We did this for compatibility. This way if a game that has an overscanned startup picture can use the same pic on both the VGA monitor and the TV monitor. Pretty cool, eh? <grin>
BTW.. Overscan can NOT be set from the desktop. The AES and Desktop will work just fine with it, but because you can't see the parts of the screen, we thought that that option shouldn't be available from the desktop. We don't want to confuse people. However, Overscan can be set using a new XBIOS call (Vsetmode()).. so it is still available.
I hope I haven't made any mistakes. I triple-checked this document in search of errors and I couldn't find any. If you do find some, send me Email on GEnie (to TOWNS) or CIS (70007,1135) and let me know.
-- John Townsend, Atari Corp.
PS. Anyone would would like to reprint this message, please do so! The smaller the number of times I have to type that message, the more my fingers with thank you! ;-)
After looking at this one more time.. one point to clear up: By saying SC1224 Color Monitor, I mean any Color Monitor that Atari have manufactured for the ST/Mega/STE/MegaSTE computers. Clear as mud? ;-)
