08412: pacmania and clones: Incorrect shading for Pac-Man's sprite?

ID	Category [?]	Severity [?]	Reproducibility	Date Submitted	Last Update
08412	Color/Palette	Minor	Always	Sep 7, 2022, 21:07	Sep 12, 2022, 18:08

Tester	ICEknight	View Status	Public	Platform	MAME (Official Binary)
Assigned To		Resolution	Bugs That Aren't Bugs	OS	Windows 10/11 (64-bit)
Status [?]	Resolved			Driver	namco/namcos1.cpp
Version	0.247	Fixed in Version		Build	64-bit
		Fixed in Git Commit		Github Pull Request #

Summary	08412: pacmania and clones: Incorrect shading for Pac-Man's sprite?
Description	Some of the shades present in Pac-Man's sprite are being assigned almost identical tones of yellow,, making it look less shaded than it really is. This can be seen when swapping palettes in MAME's graphics viewer. Interestingly, the versions made for the Amiga, PlayStation (Namco Museum Vol. 5) and Game Boy Advance (Pac-Man Collection) do indeed make a good use of those shades. Note that this may be a Bug That's Not A Bug, but might be worth investigating until it can be checked against a known legit PCB.
Steps To Reproduce	-Load pacmania (or a clone) -Wait for the Title Screen to show up. -Press F4 to bring up the graphics editor. -Press the small Enter key in the numeric keypad. -Press left and right to change between palettes. Note that Pac-Man's sprite loses part of his shading when using his in-game "0" palette.
Additional Information	The arcade version of Pac-Man has its default "Normal" brightness setting showing an unusually low contrast (at least in MAME), though this issue happens no matter its value. In order to make the game's picture have more conventional contrast levels: -Hold F1. -A menu will appear, go to the "Brightness" option and set it to "High". -Release F1. (There seems to be no way of saving setings from the Service Mode)
Github Commit

Flags
Regression Version
Affected Sets / Systems	pacmania and clones

Attached Files	0000.png (11,381 bytes) Sep 7, 2022, 21:07 Uploaded by ICEknight MAME Normal brightness
	0000bright.png (11,368 bytes) Sep 7, 2022, 21:08 Uploaded by ICEknight MAME High brightness
	0000psx.png (11,911 bytes) Sep 7, 2022, 21:08 Uploaded by ICEknight PlayStation
	0001.png (5,820 bytes) Sep 7, 2022, 21:08 Uploaded by ICEknight MAME Normal brightness
	0001bright.png (5,878 bytes) Sep 7, 2022, 21:09 Uploaded by ICEknight MAME High brightness
	0001psx.png (5,725 bytes) Sep 7, 2022, 21:09 Uploaded by ICEknight PlayStation
	0002.png (7,864 bytes) Sep 7, 2022, 21:09 Uploaded by ICEknight MAME Normal brightness
	0002bright.png (7,866 bytes) Sep 7, 2022, 21:09 Uploaded by ICEknight MAME High brightness
	0002psx.png (8,419 bytes) Sep 7, 2022, 21:09 Uploaded by ICEknight PlayStation
	mame normal.png (2,700 bytes) Sep 7, 2022, 21:17 Uploaded by ICEknight MAME Normal brightness
	mame bright.png (2,701 bytes) Sep 7, 2022, 21:18 Uploaded by ICEknight MAME High brightness
	amiga.png (2,108 bytes) Sep 7, 2022, 21:19 Uploaded by ICEknight Amiga
	psx.png (2,520 bytes) Sep 7, 2022, 21:19 Uploaded by ICEknight PlayStation
	sprite.png (883 bytes) Sep 7, 2022, 21:33 Uploaded by ICEknight Sprite shading as stored in arcade version

No.20515 ICEknight Tester Sep 9, 2022, 15:32 edited on: Sep 15, 2022, 22:01	Ok, so I guess that Namco did just screw up. Real hardware seems to look similar to MAME, except for the presence of a border that's not emulated: https://philwip.com/2018/07/20/pcb-repair-pac-mania-2/ Maybe that Brightness option they added calculates the colors wrong or something.
No.20518 Tafoid Administrator Sep 9, 2022, 21:17	So is this something that needs to be investigated or are you stating MAME matches up with PCB alright?
No.20528 ICEknight Tester Sep 10, 2022, 14:55 edited on: Sep 10, 2022, 15:00	Some direct verification of the brightness levels would be nice, but I think it can be marked as BTANB already.
No.20531 Tafoid Administrator Sep 12, 2022, 18:08	I'll mark as such, then. If this needs to be looked at more in the future, the bug will remain in a open state able to be commented on.