Dell P1914S 1280x1024 LCD. Can any owners share their ini file? I want 4x integer for Amiga and C64 but so far no luck

[markpaterson]

I don't understand why PAL Amiga games (many of which are 320x256 – a perfect 4x integer of this monitor), and C64 games (320x200) don't fit the full width (and height) of the screen. There's about a 2" border around the games. I've tried all the various integer settings. I assume my ini is not correct. I'm only interested in integer, I don't want fractional scaling.

I get perfect 320 wide integer with the Megadrive core (albeit with a border top and bottom to account for the different aspect ratio, which I'm fine with).

I'm using video_mode=4, which is 1280x1024.
I've attached my ini, which is still a work in progress.

I know that some games may request a larger resolution than 320x256 but in this case I'd like it to just crop in the same way that the 5x mode does in 1080p.

I found this post with links to an ini for this monitor by atract17, but the links are dead. viewtopic.php?t=7252

If anybody knows what GUI settings or ini settings I need to use, please share!

[FoxbatStargazer]

If you're using Amigavision/MegaAGS it cuts everything to either 216p or 270p for 5x or 4x @ 1080p respectively. Its not trivial to adjust that stuff to line up with 1024, changes have to be made inside the hard drive image itself. You might try playing with some disk images to see if you can get a better effect.

The other issue is that 1280x1024 is not a 4:3 aspect ratio, its 5:4. So even if a game stretches edge-to-edge there will be a border on top and bottom. There might be a way around this with custom aspect ratios if you want to stretch content to 5:4.

Some of the computer cores really like their borders though, like Atari ST, and you need to be running in 1080p to cut (but not eliminate) them.

[markpaterson]

If you're using Amigavision/MegaAGS it cuts everything to either 216p or 270p for 5x or 4x @ 1080p respectively. Its not trivial to adjust that stuff to line up with 1024, changes have to be made inside the hard drive image itself. You might try playing with some disk images to see if you can get a better effect.

I'm not using AmigaVision. Nothing against it, I just like to have my own Amiga installation.

The other issue is that 1280x1024 is not a 4:3 aspect ratio, it's 5:4. So even if a game stretches edge-to-edge there will be a border on top and bottom. There might be a way around this with custom aspect ratios if you want to stretch content to 5:4.

Yes, I'm aware that 1280x1024 is 5:4, as is 320x256, which is a common resolution of many PAL Amiga games. It's a perfect x4 integer and I'm simply asking how to achieve this in Mister. Surely this is possible?

And yes I'm aware that many PAL games are 320x200 for various reasons. As I said above, I'm fine with a vertical border for 4:3 content. I'm not interested in stretching to fill the screen vertically. I just don't want horizontal borders.

[Retro-Nerd]

The Amiga never had fixed resolutions. The entire screen is fully programmable, and a lot of games uses a non-standard viewable image size. You never get a real full screen or a decent integer you want for all the games. It works best for PAL overscan games like the The Settlers or some from Team 17.

[markpaterson]

The Amiga never had fixed resolutions. The entire screen is fully programmable, and a lot of games uses a non-standard viewable image size. You never get a real full screen or a decent integer you want for all the games. I works best for PAL overscan games like the The Settlers or some from Team 17.

Settlers is my go-to game on the Amiga LOL. So improving how that looks would be great. So you're saying there's no way to remove these giant borders and remain integer?

[Retro-Nerd]

Have you tried vscale_mode=5? The Settlers uses a viewable 352x272 resolution, which is close enough to 5:4. But: A higher native screen resolution gives you of course a better chance to hit a perfect integer while filling the whole screen.

[limi]

I'm not using AmigaVision. Nothing against it, I just like to have my own Amiga installation.

Hello from AmigaVision, let’s see if we can help you get there anyway

Yes, I'm aware that 1280x1024 is 5:4, as is 320x256, which is a common resolution of many PAL Amiga games. It's a perfect x4 integer and I'm simply asking how to achieve this in Mister. Surely this is possible?

As pointed out in this thread already, the output from the Amiga core in PAL is 270px tall to accommodate any theoretical overscan — whether it exists in the game or not.

So when the scaler knows that your output is 1024px tall as on your screen, and you tell it to do integer scaling, it can do a 3× scale (270×3=810), but it won’t be able to fit a 4× scale (270×4 = 1080). So it sticks to doing a 3× scale.

The scaler has no auto-crop functionality currently, but using vadjust files combined with a custom aspect ratio (AmigaVision uses 40:27 to fit the pixel grid on a 1080p screen), you can force it to render at a higher scale ratio, like we do when we scale PAL games to 5× in AmigaVision. (Some emulators call this “overscale”)

The other problem is that these settings are global, which is why we have a custom configuration file for 3000+ games in AmigaVision that sets the offsets and scale on a per-game basis when you launch them.

If you just want to optimize for Settlers, you can probably get there through a combination of doing some math and adjusting the aspect ratio in the MiSTer menu (you can specify custom ones in the .ini file in the Amiga section), keeping your monitor at 1280×1024, and then using the Adjust Screen Position in the Amiga core menu. I recommend showing a fullscreen 1×1px checkerboard image on the screen when you attempt this, so you can see when the pixels are not lining up.

This is not a fun task, and it took us a long time to get it right too, but it can be done.

The downside is that the settings for Settlers are probably not correct for other games, which is why we had to build infrastructure to handle that in AmigaVision.

[FoxbatStargazer]

Have you tried vscale_mode=5? The Settlers uses a viewable 352x272 resolution, which is close enough to 5:4. But: A higher native screen resolution gives you of course a better chance to hit a perfect integer while filling the whole screen.

If you're going non-integer I would rather work with the Mister's scaler than those built into early LCDs.

Edit: come to think of it that's a real easy way to tease out whether borders are an issue or not. Use vscale_adjust=0 just to see if it expands out to the edges.

[markpaterson]

I'm not using AmigaVision. Nothing against it, I just like to have my own Amiga installation.

Hello from AmigaVision, let’s see if we can help you get there anyway

…

If you just want to optimize for Settlers, you can probably get there through a combination of doing some math and adjusting the aspect ratio in the MiSTer menu (you can specify custom ones in the .ini file in the Amiga section), keeping your monitor at 1280×1024, and then using the Adjust Screen Position in the Amiga core menu. I recommend showing a fullscreen 1×1px checkerboard image on the screen when you attempt this, so you can see when the pixels are not lining up.

This is not a fun task, and it took us a long time to get it right too, but it can be done.

The downside is that the settings for Settlers are probably not correct for other games, which is why we had to build infrastructure to handle that in AmigaVision.

Hi Limi! Thank you for graciously offering some detailed help here, and of course thank you for your herculean efforts with AmigaVision.

I used an online ratio calculator and determined that the Settlers resolution (according to MiSTer, 356x280) is 89:70. I plugged that in to the ini and it still doesn't look right. The Settlers intro screen has some useful checker boarding on it to verify, such as the sky area, and the 45 degree diagonal lines on the shields in the corners.

This might all be a lost cause. I bought the Dell P1914S IPS a couple days ago as an Amazon renewed product for around $80, specifically for use with the Amiga core LOL. I just assumed that the 5:4 aspect ratio would fit perfectly with the Amiga screen mode of 640x512 and 320x256, not understanding that the core sends the overscan too, and is unable to crop it. My own dumb ignorance. Shame, because the monitor is in fantastic condition, no dead pixels, not a single scratch on the panel. I may return it, I don't really have another use for it, and it's too low resolution to use as a secondary monitor for my Mac.

I've since ordered this ViewSonic 15.6" OLED (16x9, 1920x1080) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BJXRZ5C6?re ... sin_title , which will find dual use on my desk, aiding me in my animation and post production work.

I will likely return to using AmigaVision on the new OLED, however the only reason I drifted away from AmigaVision is that I find its Workbench environment quite bare bones. I totally understand why – it is beyond the scope of AmigaVision to provide a fully stocked Workbench too. And I'm not sure I would want a bloated OS either.

For me, Workbench is a big part of the Amiga experience. I'm an OG user from the 90s. I had no internet back then, so between gaming time, I'd spend hours just tinkering with Workbench, installing utilities and apps from Amiga Format cover disks or Aminet CDs. Hence why I get a kick out of "rolling my own" Workbench.

I still see great value in your work though, and all its MiSTer customizations. So is it possible to "transplant" AmigaVision (the launcher and the game drive) to my own Workbench environment? Or, would it be safer and easier to upgrade the AmigaVision Workbench (perhaps to 3.2.2.1 using my own disk images) restoring it to a more standard Workbench environment that I can build upon, thereby having the best of both worlds?

edit – to clarify, I would want it to boot into Workbench first, and then I would launch AmigaVision from the desktop icon.

[Retro-Nerd]

Of course using HMDI/direct video and an external video scaler gives you the desired results much easier.

Mister can output in 0.5 and 0.25 integer steps too, via vscale_mode= 2 or 3. And integer resolution scaling (4-5) is worth a try too. I would check what this option exaclty fills on your screen (depending on the tested games). I don't have a 4:3 display with that resolution.

[limi]

This might all be a lost cause. I bought the Dell P1914S IPS a couple days ago as an Amazon renewed product for around $80, specifically for use with the Amiga core LOL. I just assumed that the 5:4 aspect ratio would fit perfectly with the Amiga screen mode of 640x512 and 320x256, not understanding that the core sends the overscan too, and is unable to crop it. My own dumb ignorance. Shame, because the monitor is in fantastic condition, no dead pixels, not a single scratch on the panel. I may return it, I don't really have another use for it, and it's too low resolution to use as a secondary monitor for my Mac.

Maybe this is a good time to mention that I have been working on finally fixing scaling in Amiga emulators (29 years and counting without a correct solution! ), so get a Mac or a Linux/Raspberry Pi, and install Amiberry with integer scaling. With that setup, we can get this all worked out to fit your your screen perfectly, since it has auto-crop — and I am also working with the developer to make NTSC scaling be correct.

I will likely return to using AmigaVision on the new OLED, however the only reason I drifted away from AmigaVision is that I find its Workbench environment quite bare bones. I totally understand why – it is beyond the scope of AmigaVision to provide a fully stocked Workbench too. And I'm not sure I would want a bloated OS either.

For me, Workbench is a big part of the Amiga experience. I'm an OG user from the 90s. I had no internet back then, so between gaming time, I'd spend hours just tinkering with Workbench, installing utilities and apps from Amiga Format cover disks or Aminet CDs. Hence why I get a kick out of "rolling my own" Workbench.

Absolutely! And that’s actually why we keep it bare-bones, so you can customize it to your liking — and everyone wants to do something different with it. Between Saves:custom-startup and using the Saves: volume to install your software so it survives upgrades, you should be able to accomplish a highly customized Workbench setup and still get the quality of life upgrades AmigaVision gives you. And, if you find something that isn’t quite possible, I am sure we can accommodate it with a change to AmigaVision or by writing some custom tools.

I still see great value in your work though, and all its MiSTer customizations. So is it possible to "transplant" AmigaVision (the launcher and the game drive) to my own Workbench environment? Or, would it be safer and easier to upgrade the AmigaVision Workbench (perhaps to 3.2.2.1 using my own disk images) restoring it to a more standard Workbench environment that I can build upon, thereby having the best of both worlds?

Yes, the best approach is likely to start with AmigaVision as a base, and then install later Workbench versions on top of that. (I am a bit of a purist and don’t really want to use any Hyperion or Cloanto software because of the damage those companies have done to the Amiga with their legal fights )

The most straightforward way to do it is to upgrade Workbench every time there is a new release, but it would also be possible to make something more automated if you have the time and interest to figure it out (which can be a fun thing to work on in itself).

edit – to clarify, I would want it to boot into Workbench first, and then I would launch AmigaVision from the desktop icon.

Understood!

[markpaterson]

Interesting. I'm a purist too, but re: the latest AmigaOS updates I must say I like the quality of life improvements such as being able to drag windows out of the screen boundary. I wish those guys could figure everything out re: their beef, but that's a topic for another day haha.

I like your philosophy re: using AmigaVision as a barebones base that can be built upon, because yes I can imagine everybody wants something different. That's why I've never been interested in something like AmiKit. I'll try upgrading and see where I get with it. I assume there's something in S: which launches the Amiga Vision UI which I can revert back to c:loadwb?

Re: custom software surviving updates. On my current setup, I've actually been using the MiSTer shared volume as my "work" drive in all but name, storing all my games and programs on it. I did this because my original FFS HDF became corrupted and I didn't have the time to figure out how to install PFS. The shared folder is on my NAS through CIFS (rather than the SD card), and connected over ethernet. I must say, while it is probably not recommended to do this, it's actually been working extremely well for me! It's more than fast enough, and very stable. It's nice having this "Work" drive easily accessible on my Mac to quickly unlha and organize files, and also able to be quickly backed up in my nightly NAS routine, rather than locked away in a HDF file.

[markpaterson]

Of course using HMDI/direct video and an external video scaler gives you the desired results much easier.

Mister can output in 0.5 and 0.25 integer steps too, via vscale_mode= 2 or 3. And integer resolution scaling (4-5) is worth a try too. I would check what this option exaclty fills on your screen (depending on the tested games). I don't have a 4:3 display with that resolution.

Interesting you say that, as I have a RetroTink 5X and would happily use that instead. The only issue is that the 5X doesn't support 1280x1024, and despite requests on their Discord, Mike Chi doesn't see any worth in adding it in a firmware update because it's 5:4. It's annoying because 1280x1024 supported on RetroTink 4K, but I refuse to spend $750 on a scaler.

[Retro-Nerd]

Yeah, i understand that. But the FPGA of the RT5x is pretty much full. Adding another resolution means you have to remove something. 4:3 display aspect was the standard though back then. Despite the fact that the Amiga (PAL) has a 5:4 pixel aspect.

Best resolution for 4:3 displays would be 1920x1440. This covers the most consoles and computers with a perfect integer scale while filling most (if not all) of the screen. I would buy such an 4:3 OLED in 32-42 inch.

[markpaterson]

Hi Limi,

I tried sending reply as a direct message (due to it veering off the original topic) but I don't think it sent as it appeared to be stuck in my outbox. I've since abandoned the idea of connecting it to the Dell LCD and have connected my trust Amiga M1438S Monitor to my MiSTer instead!

I still see great value in your work though, and all its MiSTer customizations. So is it possible to "transplant" AmigaVision (the launcher and the game drive) to my own Workbench environment? Or, would it be safer and easier to upgrade the AmigaVision Workbench (perhaps to 3.2.2.1 using my own disk images) restoring it to a more standard Workbench environment that I can build upon, thereby having the best of both worlds?

Yes, the best approach is likely to start with AmigaVision as a base, and then install later Workbench versions on top of that. (I am a bit of a purist and don’t really want to use any Hyperion or Cloanto software because of the damage those companies have done to the Amiga with their legal fights )

The most straightforward way to do it is to upgrade Workbench every time there is a new release, but it would also be possible to make something more automated if you have the time and interest to figure it out (which can be a fun thing to work on in itself).

Understood!

Tonight I had a crack at installing Amiga OS 3.2 on top of a backup of the AGS HDF file, on the "Amiga" partition. Its kinda half works. It boots first into AGS first, which is great, and here games load fine, however, once I press escape twice and go into Workbench I have a number of issues.

1. I get a request to "Please insert volume NIL in any drive". I've tracked this error down to MultiCX in the WB Startup folder. I checked the ToolTypes and I can't a reference to NIL. This is probably not a major issue, but just thought I'd ask.

2. Here is the real problem, which is a show stopper. When I manually launch AGS from Workbench, the AGS menu works, the game images and text loads, but none of the games will actually load. They just go to a black screen and then immediately back to the highlighted game in the AGS menu.

The upgrade created a new S:Startup-Sequence and automatically moved the AGS one into a folder named OLD. After upgrading, I took care to copy the AGS section of your Startup-Sequence into S:User-Startup (everything from the line ";Launch AGS" and below).

The AGS supplied apps all seem to work, like DPaint, Lightroom, etc, so I know that the big chunk of assigns I copied are functioning.

I've attached my user-startup and startup-sequence if that is any help. Note that I have commented out LoadWB from the Startup-Sequence because I noticed it's in your wb-startup file instead, which is called from my user-startup.

Any help with this is greatly appreciated. I realize this is out of the scope of what AGS is intended to be, so no hard feelings if you don't want to investigate my problem. I guess I was just curious if it was some obvious error that wouldn't take up a bunch of your time.

Thank you
Mark

[limi]

I tried sending reply as a direct message (due to it veering off the original topic) but I don't think it sent as it appeared to be stuck in my outbox.

That’s just how the wonderful 2005-style software that is phpBB works — until I have read the message, it will show as unread in your outbox. Yes, it’s confusing.

I've since abandoned the idea of connecting it to the Dell LCD and have connected my trust Amiga M1438S Monitor to my MiSTer instead!

Great! Amiga deserves a real CRT anyway.

Tonight I had a crack at installing Amiga OS 3.2 on top of a backup of the AGS HDF file, on the "Amiga" partition. Its kinda half works. It boots first into AGS first, which is great, and here games load fine, however, once I press escape twice and go into Workbench I have a number of issues.

1. I get a request to "Please insert volume NIL in any drive". I've tracked this error down to MultiCX in the WB Startup folder. I checked the ToolTypes and I can't a reference to NIL. This is probably not a major issue, but just thought I'd ask.

I assume MultiCX has not been updated since Kickstart 3.2 was released. I stick to the Commodore originals, but I assume you can just disable MultiCX since it’s not critical to any operation.

1. Here is the real problem, which is a show stopper. When I manually launch AGS from Workbench, the AGS menu works, the game images and text loads, but none of the games will actually load. They just go to a black screen and then immediately back to the highlighted game in the AGS menu.

Interesting. Since it works on initial boot, it’s likely that something happens in the later startup-sequence that was created by WB3.2 that either reassigns something, or loads something that causes an incompatibility.

The easiest way to make progress here is to use SnoopDOS — included in the Amiga (SYS:) partition under Utilities or Tools, I forget which folder it is in. Start it up right before starting the AGS launcher, and you can see exactly what files it is accessing, which should make it possible to see what’s going on.

[markpaterson]

Interesting. Since it works on initial boot, it’s likely that something happens in the later startup-sequence that was created by WB3.2 that either reassigns something, or loads something that causes an incompatibility.

The easiest way to make progress here is to use SnoopDOS — included in the Amiga (SYS:) partition under Utilities or Tools, I forget which folder it is in. Start it up right before starting the AGS launcher, and you can see exactly what files it is accessing, which should make it possible to see what’s going on.

Of course, the venerable SnoopDOS! I've pasted my output here. I see a couple of fails.

Code: Select all

Count Process Name       Action    Target Name                               Opti Res.
----- ------------       ------    -----------                               ---- ----
1     WBL                ChangeDir Amiga:AGS2                                         

2     WBL                Load      AGS2                                           OK  

3     WBL                ChangeDir SYS:                                               

4     ramlib             Load      LIBS:lowlevel.library                          OK  

5     [1] AGS:AGS2Menu   Open      AGS:AGS2.conf                             Read OK  

6     [1] AGS:AGS2Menu   Open      CON:0/40/640/150/irqimgloader/auto/close/ Read OK  

7     KingCON DOS-proces Open      ENV:Sys/def_KingCON.info                  Read Fail
8     [1] AGS:AGS2Menu   Open      AGS:skin-bg.iff                           Read OK  

9     [1] AGS:AGS2Menu   Open      FONTS:AGSml.font                          Read OK  

10    [1] AGS:AGS2Menu   Load      FONTS:AGSml/7                                  OK  

11    [1] AGS:AGS2Menu   Open      T:AGS.pos                                 Read Fail
12    [1] AGS:AGS2Menu   Open      AGS:.dir                                  Read OK  

13    [1] AGS:AGS2Menu   Open      AGS:About.txt                             Read OK  

14    [3] AGS:AGS2Helper Open      AGS:About.iff                             Read OK  

15    [1] AGS:AGS2Menu   Open      AGS:Favorites.txt                         Read OK  

16    [3] AGS:AGS2Helper Open      AGS:Favorites.iff                         Read OK  

17    [1] AGS:AGS2Menu   Open      AGS:Hall of Fame.txt                      Read OK  

18    [3] AGS:AGS2Helper Open      AGS:Hall of Fame.iff                      Read OK  

19    [1] AGS:AGS2Menu   Open      AGS:Hall of Fame.ags/.dir                 Read OK  

20    [3] AGS:AGS2Helper Open      AGS:Hall of Fame.ags/Action.iff           Read OK  

21    [1] AGS:AGS2Menu   Open      AGS:Hall of Fame.ags/Action.ags/.dir      Read OK  

22    [1] AGS:AGS2Menu   Open      AGS:Hall of Fame.ags/Action.ags/Cannon Fo Read OK  

23    [3] AGS:AGS2Helper Open      AGS:Hall of Fame.ags/Action.ags/Cannon Fo Read OK  

24    [1] AGS:AGS2Menu   Open      T:AGS.pos                                 Writ OK  

25    [1] AGS:AGS2Menu   Open      AGS:Hall of Fame.ags/Action.ags/Cannon Fo Read OK  

26    [1] AGS:AGS2Menu   Open      RAM:AGS.run                               Writ OK  

27    [1] Execute        Open      RAM:AGS.run                               Read OK  

28    [1] Execute        Open      T:Command-0-T1                            Writ OK  

29    [1] Execute        Open      T:Command-0-T1                            Read OK  

30    [1] execute        Open      AGS:Run/Game/Cannon Fodder (OCS)[en]      Read OK  

31    [1] execute        Open      T:Command-0-T1                            Writ Fail
32    [1] execute        Open      T:Command-1-T1                            Writ OK  

33    [1] execute        Open      T:Command-1-T1                            Read OK  

34    [1] execute        Delete    T:Command-0-T1                                 OK  

35    AGS2               Delete    RAM:AGS.run                                    OK  

36    [1] AGS:AGS2Menu   Open      AGS:AGS2.conf                             Read OK  

37    [1] AGS:AGS2Menu   Open      CON:0/40/640/150/irqimgloader/auto/close/ Read OK  

38    KingCON DOS-proces Open      ENV:Sys/def_KingCON.info                  Read Fail
39    [1] AGS:AGS2Menu   Open      AGS:skin-bg.iff                           Read OK  

40    [1] AGS:AGS2Menu   Open      T:AGS.pos                                 Read OK  

41    [1] AGS:AGS2Menu   Delete    T:AGS.pos                                      OK  

42    [1] AGS:AGS2Menu   Open      AGS:Hall of Fame.ags/Action.ags/.dir      Read OK  

43    [1] AGS:AGS2Menu   Open      AGS:Hall of Fame.ags/Action.ags/Cannon Fo Read OK  

44    [3] AGS:AGS2Helper Open      AGS:Hall of Fame.ags/Action.ags/Cannon Fo Read OK  

For what it's worth, if I manually execute a AGS .run file, for example, execute "002 Lemmings.run" it opens fine.

If there's no obvious fix here, I may go back to the drawing board and try again with a fresh install of AGS and installing AmigaOS 3.1 over the top instead of trying to upgrade it to 3.2.

[limi]

Yeah, nothing obviously wrong here, which makes it more mysterious that it works before loading Workbench, but not afterwards.

Try putting the AGS launcher command at the very end of your startup-sequence, before LoadWB, and see if it still works? If so, it’s the actual Workbench code in 3.2 that does something unexpected.