The real hidden color palette of the GX4000

[NiNxPe]

Hi

As seen on CPCRuleZ :
The member MUSICMAN3512 found  the "The real hidden color palette of the GX4000".
It's a pallete of the 26 colors of GX4000 who replace the old palette for the old games.... and with it, a look of 16bit games.
To more understand, try the config file with emulator PC CPC : http://cpcrulez.fr/forum/download/file.php?id=2122
It's very impressive to see the game in an other look.
And THE question is :
Is there a solution to "change" Old Palette with the new on a real hardware ? with an other ROM ? or something else ?

[Ast]

Fast answer, no!

[Gryzor]

Hm, what are we talking about here? More info?

[arnoldemu]

It is a config file for PC-CPC emulator. It allows you to re-define the colours used by the emulator for the standard CPC emulation. With this you can redefine the standard 27 CPC colours but make it look as if it was on a plus.

In reality the result is not a real CPC/Plus.

The correct way is to patch games to use real Plus hardware and use Plus palette.

[arnoldemu]

It is not possible on standard CPC to replace palette in this way.

On Spectrum, a similar thing is the ULA plus.

ULAplus

On BBC micro there was a hardware device that connected between monitor and BBC and this "read" which colour was being used and translated it into a programmed colour which could be anything.

http://8bs.com/othrdnld/tmu/tmu07-11.jpg
(Magazine cover shows the info, I can't find the article)

On CPC it could be possible to do the same with hardware.

[Gryzor]

Ah I see. Well, I guess anyone doing an emulator could do something of the sort... Not terribly interesting, but I'd sure like to see some screens if someone can post them!

[NiNxPe3]

The goal is if it's possible to make à rom that able to replace all the 27 colors of Old  by 4096 colors of CPC & GX4000 to have an other look of games.
Thé tests is very impresive with PC CPC for about 90% of Old games.
Thé idea is to  replace all the original Old CPC palette by an other more near the original convertion

[arnoldemu]

The goal is if it's possible to make à rom that able to replace all the 27 colors of Old  by 4096 colors of CPC & GX4000 to have an other look of games.
Thé tests is very impresive with PC CPC for about 90% of Old games.
Thé idea is to  replace all the original Old CPC palette by an other more near the original convertion

Understood.

It will be possible to do it with a ROM but only BASIC or games using firmware will benefit. I think a ROM like this will be limited.
I think I could make a patched OS that would do this and put it into a cartridge which you can run on plus with c4cpc.
I'll have a go later.

If you want to do 90% of all old games then you will need to patch the assembler code because most will go direct to the hardware.

[TFM]

Well, 'just' create your own GA and supply it with new colors. However I see no sense in it.

[KaosOverride]

Ahh, the fun of 9bit RGB vs 12bit RGB Because 3bit per channel can't be remade with 4bit per channel palette

You can replace the resistors at the CPC DAC with potentiometers and adjust your own palette. 

[andycadley]

If I understand it, the idea is that most games look good with a specific rearrangement of the palette? It would require hacking of individual games to work, but that doesn't necessarily make the whole idea unfeasible. It would probably help to share the actual suggested palette scheme here (I get what I think is a permissions error from your link) as well as some screenshots of the end result to see how well it actually does work. It might be the "next step" in GX4000 cart conversions.

[andycadley]

Ahh, the fun of 9bit RGB vs 12bit RGB Because 3bit per channel can't be remade with 4bit per channel palette

A common misconception, the Plus palette doesn't quite map to a standard 12-bit arrangement, it's arranged so that the mid points are (near enough) mapped onto the appropriate levels to remain compatible with the old school CPCs.

[MacDeath]

if you have a different palette, you quite have to redo the graphics... palette swaps from on palette into another led to the terrible C64 to CPC ports...

hard to translate greys and brown into CPC...

[TFM]

Agreed with that. I couldn't use the line provided before, so I can't tell if there are positive examples. But imho a well done game will just suffter from a color change.


Of course if you have a port from c64 to cpc and switch colors back to c64 palette, then if may look better. But in this case - as pointed out before - do a proper patch and use Plus colors. 

[NiNxPe]

Some screens :

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[NiNxPe]

...
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[NiNxPe]

...
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[Bryce]

Aaaarrrrggghhh! It's as brown as a C64!!

Bryce.

[gerald]

Let face it, sometimes hidden things should remain hidden 

[NiNxPe]

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[NiNxPe]

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[Bryce]

It's not a hidden colour palette, it's a hidden C64 emulator!

Bryce.

[NiNxPe]

Yessssssssssss 
It's the same pallet Color

You're right it's an C64 emu ! 

[NiNxPe]

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[NiNxPe]

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