Sometimes black/white Scenes on Virtual and real DMD

[MikedaSpike]

Odd issue,

Sometimes the colored frames are in black and white. Noticed it on different roms
Not sure if it is only VNI/PAL or also others. I hope that other people can confirm this issue as well, and for which files
I noticed it with CP_16 cp_16.zip and sfight2 sfight2.zip

I created a video on my PinDMDv3 from frames that are BW and relaunching the game it is in color
This issue also happen on my laptop and dev pc on virtual DMD

Black and white:
https://youtu.be/1GiwYaRkddo

relaunch and it is in color:
https://youtu.be/Fq-W5N2gvhc

(I hope you see the differences)
Here's the log file during BW
DmdDevice.log

[freezy]

Any special way to reproduce in the game? Doesn't seem to happen in attract mode (tested sfight2).

[MikedaSpike]

No, i can't find a reproduction scenario. Sometime some scene are good, sometime only white sprites. Some scenes could popup as color, and others bw
Differrent roms, very odd.
On real and virtual (different pc's). I will try to do checks today with your latest 2.2.1 bets

[MikedaSpike]

Just tested sfight2 , Still I see white frames . The attract mode is fully colored, but when starting the game, most of the time the first scene (for skillshot) is showed in White pixels.
Same for CP_16 (and maybe others as well)

[passionforpins]

street fighter 2 definitely has this problem. it seem as if the renderer can't keep up. I just played champion pub and the first game all the way through with no white/gray frames at all. I then fired up a second game and it played great until the second fight which then started showing grayscale frames. It only happened during a fight. all other scenes stayed full color.

[MikedaSpike]

I also see with champion pub when the chair is thrown and you see that flying. But also on some other scenes. As I dont known how colors and palettes etc are working I cant say what is causing this.

[passionforpins]

thrown chair scene was perfect on my side. like I said I only noticed the grayscale during fights and only after playing though a full game the first time. I'm sure there will be others as it seems to be a render speed/timing issue.

[passionforpins]

sigh..... Monster Bash, mb_106 also wrong colors on scenes but instead of white they are all red. I tested a pal/vni and .pac and both identical.

[MikedaSpike]

Good catch cliffy, I can confirm this as well
some scenes are colored and rest only gets a color mask
attached a log file. I hit a lot of scene's, but only played a couple from the Pac file
DmdDevice.log
Also noticed it shows incorrect it in attract mode when the scene will starts the intro scene (starting from 'Williams presents')
here's the PAC file I used
mb_106b.zip
Hope this helps @freezy to find the fix

[freezy]

I was working on way to easily compare frames yesterday to detect this in a more reproducable manner.

We still can't reproduce this reliably, right?

[MikedaSpike]

Well, sometimes it works, but most of the times it shows incorrectly.
it's not when you have a fix to test and the first run works that we say that it is fixed.
tests need to go over and over (and @passionforpins did a good job on that)

[passionforpins]

at least MB is repeatable 100% and you can tell fairly quickly. The williams logo has a rainbow of colors at the top half during attract mode. attaching dmddevice.log but looks ok to me

[passionforpins]

DmdDevice.log

[passionforpins]

shit. alphanumerics no longer work at all. should I post a new issue?
@MikedaSpike can you check a game you did with freezys styled alphanumerics? I just tried black hole and it totally crashed out. others just didnt load the custom freezys I made for them, roller games, shovel knight, time machine

[MikedaSpike]

confirmed Cliffy
It crashes the main program (VPX,FX and FX3)
I see someone reported it in issue #409 as well
@freezy Here's a log with (properly) the crash in it (hope this is an easy fix for you)
DmdDevice.log

EDIT: I thought this was only when using the alphanumeric enabled = true , but it is happening with all the alphanumeric displays.
i will revert to prevision snapshot, as I tested this week a couple of versions correctly
This issue was introduced with R8 version. I jumped from R7 to R10 and only focused on colors, but R7 was working and R8 is giving this issue

[freezy]

I've posted a new build here, can you check if that fixes it?

[passionforpins]

testing now and posted a few results on the vpu thread. Looking great so far- SUPER thanks!

[MikedaSpike]

Thanks @freezy .
Tested a lot of roms and the colors are correct again.
I received a colored version of Maverick from @passionforpins, and for both of us, the mose colors are yellow.
It works with previous versions of dmdext
mav_402.zip

[passionforpins]

Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle
pal/vni. Mostly good, some drop outs and glitches
rab_320.zip

[passionforpins]

Addams Family, Attack from Mars perfect. The standard in my opinion
Apollo 13, Austin Powers 99% good, tiny glitches feels like timing (cant fill some scenes fast enough)

Avengers Pro avs_170c sam patched- perfect
DE Batman btmn_106 pal/vni perfect
Batman Forever batmanf pal/vni glitchy, mixed up colors, some ok some not (used to work perfectly)

batmanf-pal-vni.zip

Baywatch bay_401 similar to batman forever, mostly seems good but some scenes mixed up colors, match scene missing color. Used to work perfectly
bay_401.zip

Brams Stokers Dracula drac_l1 .pac seemed near perfect to me. One of the most beautiful colorizations ever. pups triggered fine