Patch: Commander Keen 5 - Composite 16-Color CGA Edition

[@Phredreeke]

Is it just me or does this actually look better than its EGA counterpart?

[@e8root]

You can be sure it looks even better on real composite TV/monitor

[@keropiprojects]

once more amazing work!!!!!

[@ghost085]

Damn, now I want to see Alleycat in composite.

[@x86VileR]

I've actually had that thought - it has those in-game palette changes which could be an opportunity to do interesting things with the colors. :) However (as far as I remember from my cursory check), Alley Cat makes some assumptions about its sprites (background colors, I think) that could limit the possibilities. Maybe I'll investigate further someday...

[@IllidanS4]

Beautiful.

[@proYorp]

Can't get over how cool this looks. Did you _manually_ adjust every graphic in the game, to fit the pixels into the correct horizontal positions (in order to be the correct color)?

[@arvizturotukorfurogep6235]

Interesting. It's pretty much up to par with the EGA version now :) I am wondering, if there is a way to make it run faster on a PC/XT/clone. Designed with 286-ers in mind, there must be some fluff, right?

[@x86VileR]

AFAIK the code is optimized pretty well... the main bottleneck is the need to rewrite the entire VRAM on each visible frame, since CGA doesn't have such niceties as hardware scrolling, and transferring all that data is strongly dependent on clock speed. (Then again, Keen 4 EGA does use hardware scrolling so I suspect that version would be somewhat faster on PCs/XTs). On the bright side, the faster XT clones already run the CGA version very decently (check out keropi666's video - a 10MHz V20 makes it just as playable as a 286, pretty much).

[@tarstarkusz]

@@x86VileR How does it deal with only being 1/2 the resolution as EGA? Isn't the composite CGA composite game mode a 160x200 mode?

[@x86VileR]

@@tarstarkusz It's actually better than 160x200, just difficult to define exactly for composite video, because the two components have different bandwidths/resolutions. Chroma/color is 160 cycles per line, but luma/brightness can be higher (up to 640 for CGA, just not separated all that cleanly due to modulation). So the effective "resolution" can actually change throughout the frame - it really depends on the color components that you're transitioning between at any given point. Been meaning to do a writeup about the resolution thing on the blog... maybe I'll even get to it at some point!

[@tarstarkusz]

@@x86VileR So what would you say the average is in this game? Is it displaying the whole screen effectively regardless?

[@Alianger]

Interesting, I thought the dithering patterns would blend together like on a Genesis.

[@dk14929]

I think they probably would if you watched this on a CRT monitor

[@intel386DX]

:))) another great patch ! I will try it too :) we are waiting for keen 6 :D hehe you are the great ! I wondering why they did not this way back then :P so CGA owners can experience EGA visions :)

[@Phredreeke]

intel386DX probably because it's only good for composite monitors. On a digital CGA monitor it would appear as a dithered black and white picture

[@soviet9922]

hey i looked up and down for comander keen 5 cga and only find the ega version where i can download ?

[@thodorgrabovsky3920]

Try looking on 8088mph blog

[@soviet9922]

only keen 4 is there looked every where

[@thodorgrabovsky3920]

8088mph.blogspot.com/2016/07/yet-another-16-color-cga-makeover-keen-5.html

[@natwilson3133]

Will this work on a clone CGA card with composite out, or does it HAVE to be an IBM one?

[@x86VileR]

It'll work, but the colors would likely be wrong... none of the 'solid' CGA colors are used here - only artifact colors, which were never specified in IBM's documentation, and many clones didn't bother getting them right. CGA cards from Compaq are (almost?) dead-on, I believe, but many others are off by a little or a lot. For example, see my Keen 4 patch on a Paradise PVC4 CGA chipset: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y5a1p3lmlriMosU . The phase between the pixel clock signal and the NTSC color reference (burst) is different from the IBM board, and artifact colors depend on pixel positioning, so they're all visibly shifted in hue.

[@natwilson3133]

@@x86VileR I bought a TwinHead CT-7030 CGA card w/ composite. One day I'll report back if the colors matched or not. As yet no time to test.