02682: gorf and clones: Colors washed out in Astro Battle

ID	Category [?]	Severity [?]	Reproducibility	Date Submitted	Last Update
02682	Color/Palette	Minor	Always	Nov 26, 2008, 22:58	Dec 12, 2023, 16:46

Tester	MAMEBase	View Status	Public	Platform	SDLMAME
Assigned To		Resolution	Open	OS	MacOS X
Status [?]	Confirmed			Driver	midway/astrocde.cpp
Version	0.128u4	Fixed in Version		Build	PowerPC
		Fixed in Git Commit		Github Pull Request #

Summary	02682: gorf and clones: Colors washed out in Astro Battle
Description	This has been a long standing issue - In the 'Astro Battle' (Space Invaders) section of Gorf, either a) the blue background is too bright, or b) the foreground sprites are not bright enough. Either way, the section is difficult to play, because you can't see your shots, the enemy shots,, and to a lesser extent, the enemies you're shooting at! Upon closer inspection, it appears that the yellow is severely washed out, or at lest, not as bright as it should be.
Steps To Reproduce	Play the game
Additional Information	I've looked at the video of the actual cabinet attached to the other Gorf report, and it seems as though the intensity of the blue background is softer in the real cabined as compared to the emulated game.
Github Commit

Flags
Regression Version
Affected Sets / Systems	gorf and clones

Attached Files	Gorf MiSTer.png (197,676 bytes) Oct 8, 2020, 19:45 Uploaded by StevieLloydy Gorf Astro Battles on MiSTer FPGA
	2020-08-23.png (2,901,768 bytes) May 7, 2021, 03:22 Uploaded by mikeky Yet another version of Gorf?
	gorf.jpg (189,859 bytes) Dec 1, 2023, 00:25 Uploaded by Hydreigon Gorf's RGB interface pcb

No.03130 Fujix Administrator Nov 26, 2008, 23:17	Please write down correct zip name in lower case.
No.03131 Fujix Administrator Nov 26, 2008, 23:36	Doesn't adjusting display options (gamma, contrast) help? I'd like an objective evidence or something proofs that current MAME colors are wrong.
No.03132 MAMEBase Tester Nov 26, 2008, 23:42	My apologies, I'm new to this site... I will attempt to see if changing the display options makes a difference, but if it does, would that not indicate that the default values are incorrect?
No.03135 Tafoid Administrator Nov 26, 2008, 23:57	Each monitor is different. Computer monitors CRT's, LCD all have variances to them that might cause different issue when compared to a cam recording of a dedicated arcade frequency CRT. I'll set this up for Dev discussion - hopefully Aaron can chime in on this since he was the last to clean this driver up.
No.03136 MAMEBase Tester Nov 27, 2008, 00:09	Thank you. FWIW, I tried adjusting the Gamma and Brightness to see if the situation improved... It did not. In fact, adjusting the brightness and/or gamma washes out the colors for the rest of the game. As far as I can tell (and I'll be the first to admit I'm no expert), the intensity of the blue background in the first stage is simply too bright, making the rest of the play difficult to see. Later stages, of course, have a black background, and so don't seem to exhibit this problem.
No.03217 aaron Developer Dec 4, 2008, 08:38	It is known that the colors in the astrocade games are not quite right. Making them right is very difficult and requires a hand-written test program and an oscilloscope. It's on my to-do list.
No.03303 MAMEBase Tester Dec 14, 2008, 06:18	I'm just curious - Given that it's known that the colors in Gorf are not 100% accurate, shouldn't the game be flagged to reflect this?
No.03304 Tafoid Administrator Dec 14, 2008, 15:55	We have acknowledgment here of the bug.. I'd say no, it would not be flagged. To be completely honest about it, if a flag would were to be added, there would be people posting and asking why it's flagged. Most end users who use MAME are get ticked off when they have to type and extra "OK" for no apparent reason (since this is not an entirely obvious bug). If it were, it would have been flagged like that when Aaron redid the driver.
No.03305 MAMEBase Tester Dec 14, 2008, 23:32	I see, thank you. For the record, I'm not trying to be difficult, or argumentative, just trying to gain a better understanding of the process...
No.18046 StevieLloydy Tester Oct 8, 2020, 19:49	Don't know whether this helps, but it seems that MiSTer FPGA runs GORF with the correct colour blue in Astro Battles as per attached photo. This webpage also shows some comparisons between the arcade machine and MAME https://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=353575&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&vc=1&fbclid=IwAR356t0NbCoatnSywmC3oSR02DoqsvpwL19czQz_gEQ9YO_wN-KqighJGY4
No.18266 StevieLloydy Tester Dec 16, 2020, 21:20	It seems a bad rom on the original hardware can also lead to a washed out blue in Astro Battles https://forums.arcade-museum.com/threads/gorf-help-blue-color-problem.336108/
No.18291 Mr. Do Tester Dec 28, 2020, 12:05	Mostly unscientific observation based on watching YouTube videos of multiple different arcade cabinets: Going back in history, it looks like current colors were first "fixed" in 0.37b1, by Nicola, which was a HUGE improvement over the totally wrong colors in 0.36. Everyone focuses on the blue background... but that isn't the only thing "off": 1) In current MAME, the eyes of the green invaders look red; in multiple videos, the eyes look yellow. Now, they aren't actually red in MAME, it is just how it looks, due to the surrounding green. Take a screenshot, use an eyedropper tool, and you can see that the RGB of the eyes is the same as the scoreboard and "yellow" invaders, (255,141,0), which is actually a dark orange, and not actually yellow, like other actual arcade cabinets look like (again, in video). 2) In current MAME, the red invaders are "very sparkly" matching the sparkle of the shield. The bonus ship that flies at the top of the screen and the Gorf that spews out the invaders in the beginning also has the same sparkle. In other videos, the "sparkle effect" on the invaders seems much less pronounced than what is currently in MAME. Ideally, need to get a good look at a live game running, to tell for sure these difference. As Aaron mentioned above from twelve years ago, this isn't going to be an easy fix.
No.18820 mikeky Tester May 7, 2021, 03:26 edited on: May 7, 2021, 03:38	So i've been following this thread for years..........I've uploaded yet another version of gorf showing completely different astro battle colors and background stars. This is the version I remember from the 80s. Some of the early standalone emulator versions of WinGorf had this version but then changed to the totally incorrect mame colors. BTW. What's wrong with flagging the palette colors as a bug? Other games with palette issues are flagged. Right now only the imperfect sound is brought up when starting the game. IMHO, the palette issue is a much bigger distraction than the minor sound issue. But that's my opinion-withhold all attacks please.
No.18842 aaron Developer May 14, 2021, 04:26 edited on: May 14, 2021, 06:40	Frank Palazzolo recently did some analysis of this and I think he's got something pretty close to a fix. I'll ping him about getting it in sooner rather than later.
No.18921 mikeky Tester Jun 4, 2021, 00:35	That would be great. It looks like this bug has been around since before 2008. Will this also fix the astrocade/Bally home arcade bad palette?
No.19045 mikeky Tester Jun 30, 2021, 19:20	Wonder if Frank still has his gorf machine?
No.19051 aaron Developer Jul 2, 2021, 15:57	Yes, it's still being worked on.
No.19237 joelsaacks123 Tester Sep 9, 2021, 00:49	Maybe I'm showing my age but this was my favourite arcade game lol. Astro battles had a black background on the machine I played on. I vaguely remember the original mame version also having a black background too. It certainly would fix this issue.
No.19244 Haze Senior Tester Sep 11, 2021, 18:46	If you played a version with black background it was a different game revision, or the monitor was set VERY dark, or not displaying the blue properly for some reason. Colours are imperfect, but not that imperfect.
No.19263 joelsaacks123 Tester Sep 18, 2021, 14:38	I think so too. I played other machines with the current background too. Maybe it was a different revision. It did play well though with that background. I'm a little colourblind blue/green so I really struggle to see the shots fired in mame at the moment with the washed out background.
No.19264 joelsaacks123 Tester Sep 18, 2021, 14:47 edited on: Sep 18, 2021, 14:49	This is what I meant. It looked exactly like this https://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=353575&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&vc=1 I'm pretty sure I remember Mame (pre v36) having this background
No.19700 mikeky Tester Jan 18, 2022, 21:29	Hard to believe this bug is still around after 14 years. The further out it gets the less likely any working machines will be around to test against.
No.21866 mikeky Tester Nov 28, 2023, 02:58	I’ve noticed that the arcade 1up multi game cab has the same color palette problem. Must be using mame as their emulator. Does anything know of a Gorf in the wild that a new set of Roms could be verified against?
No.21871 Hydreigon Tester Dec 1, 2023, 00:24 edited on: Dec 1, 2023, 00:25	There's also the fact the original video signal was weird to begin with (the original Astrocade video signal was intended to be used with RF modulators). To compensate, Bally ended up designing an RGB interface board, consisting of a TBA530 video amplifier, to convert the base video signal to RGBS (see attachment).
No.21880 mikeky Tester Dec 12, 2023, 16:46	Wonder if that board (when faulty)is responsible for the many palette variations I’ve seen on YouTube? Was it used also used in wizard of wor?