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DarkBASIC Professional Discussion / Commodore 64 Colour Palette

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zenassem
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Posted: 4th Nov 2011 01:22 Edited at: 4th Nov 2011 02:09
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I did some research on C64 Colour Palette, and didn't expect the amount of confusion that I encountered; Mainly due to manner in which many of the emulators derived their palettes.

So far this was the closest that I have found to the original. (Of course keeping in mind various modern displays and gamma settings).

This resource-link had so much technical data/computations on "Commodore VIC-II Color Analysis", that it would be difficult for me to dispute it's validity.
http://unusedino.de/ec64/technical/misc/vic656x/colors/

But... Just as in the post from Blitz forums (where I obtained the current values I am using), I too thought that the C64 Red was more... well, Red. But, I do remember the colors being a bit muddy as well. I may have to hook up my C128 to confirm. Does anyone else have a better conversion to RGB for C64 palette?? Not a grab from an emulator, but a more precise conversion based off the original specs. I'll post the DBp code and part of the blitz forum discussion I finally decide to go with.


My DBpro C64 Colour Palette test


From a Blitz Forum Discussion




Those hex values were derived from this RGB conversion from vicII Color Analysis link.
http://unusedino.de/ec64/technical/misc/vic656x/colors/




*Note: I wasn't sure if it was ok to provide a link to the Blitz Forums. If it is ok to do so, merely for completeness of the discussion... I will post the entire link. (If a MOD sees this and says it's ok, of course)

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The Slayer
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Posted: 4th Nov 2011 01:59 Edited at: 4th Nov 2011 02:00
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Try these one instead. As far as I remember, these resemble more to the original colours.



I miss that good old Commodore 64.

Cheers

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zenassem
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Posted: 4th Nov 2011 02:07 Edited at: 4th Nov 2011 02:15
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@The Slayer,

Thanks for the suggestion. I agree those colours are more vibrant on my display,, however I feel they may be too vibrant to actually reflect the true hardware of the C64. I'd like to replicate the colours as accurately as possible, being aware that nothing I do is going to be 100%, especially with losing the scan-line and moire patterns that happen naturally on a CRT. Also, the same palette will look completely different depending on the video card gamma/saturation etc.. settings.

The difference between the 2 is similar to the image in the VIC-II source




I may have to sacrafice accuracy for overall appeal and clarity, I guess.

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The Slayer
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Posted: 4th Nov 2011 02:42
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Quote: "however I feel they may be too vibrant to actually reflect the true hardware of the C64."

Well, actually I remember the colours of the C64 being quite vibrant. Seeing some images back of C64 games shows that the colours were bright and colourfull. Of course, it depends on the monitor/screen it was running on, but nonetheless.
It's a shame I don't have my old C64 books, cuz there was a complete colour scheme, etc...
One method to obtain the 'right' colour values, would be to get an image of a Commodore game (displaying all the colours) and load that image in a paint program, and check the colour values with a colour picker.

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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 4th Nov 2011 03:47 Edited at: 4th Nov 2011 03:49
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This one looks right....



the red was bland.

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zenassem
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Posted: 4th Nov 2011 11:25 Edited at: 4th Nov 2011 11:55
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@Pincho,,
Can you provide either the RGB decimal or RGB Hex values?

I notice that "your" red,, looks more like the red I remember (rather than the brownish-clay-red I currently have). And the other colors look better as well. I actually though it was close to what I had until I put them side by side.... I think your's is somewhere between mine and The Slayers,, somehow finding a balance). It's so hard to tell though,, under lamp lighting everything looks different than when I posted earlier. This is turning out to be way more difficult than I ever anticipated.

Here is what I get out of DBpro with my first vals,, and then using the values The Slayer posted. (There's a slight loss since I saved in paint.net .bmp,, I'll compare it to photoshop and see if it makes a significant difference)

First values:
[img]
The Slayer's values:




How does one actually calibrate their display? Especially, in my situation where I am using what used to be a semi-decent laptop,, a few years ago. I know I had found calibration utilities and images when I was doing some Web Dev a while back,, but IIRC most of them assumed a professional quality/level display.

I have a nVidia GeForce 8600m GT that allows decent modification,, but my current screen is....
Display
Display Type 15.4 in TFT active matrix .
Max Resolution 1280 x 800 ( WXGA ) .
Widescreen Display Yes .
Color Support 24-bit (16.7 million colors) .
Features CrystalBrite

Oooh Good thing for the CrystalBrite????? =`(

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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 4th Nov 2011 14:12 Edited at: 4th Nov 2011 14:13
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Ok RGB colours for the above image...



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zenassem
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Posted: 6th Nov 2011 03:25
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Thanks!!! I realized after that I could have copied the image and got them... wasn't thinking

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Phaelax
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Posted: 6th Nov 2011 19:32
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_8-bit_computer_hardware_palettes#C-64

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zenassem
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Posted: 6th Nov 2011 20:05 Edited at: 6th Nov 2011 20:06
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@Phaelax,,

Thanks. I think that is on par with my link on the True Vic-II colours,, and my original example palette. Notice how muddy the Red is. I am coming to the conclusion that... that's just how it was. Perhaps the colour looks different on CRT's,, and I believe the use of emulators has changed our thoughts and memories of what the c64's actual colours were.

Here is the palette from Phaelax's link


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Phaelax
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Posted: 6th Nov 2011 22:27
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I would dig out my Amiga 500 and look at it personally, but the colors on the Amiga were much nicer than the C64 anymore so I'm not sure that'd help.

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The Slayer
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Posted: 7th Nov 2011 02:13
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Nothing can beat the beauty and feel of the C64 games.

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zenassem
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Posted: 7th Nov 2011 02:13 Edited at: 7th Nov 2011 02:15
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Yeah I have a C128 that I can fire up tomorrow to put an end to my curiosity. I'll post the results

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Phaelax
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Posted: 7th Nov 2011 19:43
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Quote: "Nothing can beat the beauty and feel of the C64 games"

I think an Amiga looked more beautiful than C64!

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Grog Grueslayer
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Posted: 7th Nov 2011 20:14
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Quote: "I think an Amiga looked more beautiful than C64!"


Amen! Didn't Amiga have 1024 colors while everybody else just had 16 colors?

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Cybermind
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Posted: 7th Nov 2011 20:42
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I like the "vibrant" better, I think the difference between the "bland" and the "vibrant" depended on how strong you used to set you colors and/or contrast setting on the CRT device in use back then

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The Slayer
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Posted: 7th Nov 2011 23:17 Edited at: 7th Nov 2011 23:18
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Quote: "I think an Amiga looked more beautiful than C64!"

Could be, as it was its successor.

According to the 2001 edition of Guinness book of records, the C64 was the most "prolific computing device ever manufactured". During its production run from 1982 to... 1993, about 30 million (!) units were sold. To put this number in perspective, that's more than all the Macintoshes in the world.

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basjak
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Posted: 8th Nov 2011 01:22
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this computer is still sold under the name of C64x. with intel CPU i7 family.
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zenassem
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Posted: 8th Nov 2011 01:32 Edited at: 8th Nov 2011 01:42
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Quote: "Amen! Didn't Amiga have 1024 colors while everybody else just had 16 colors?"


These computers get tougher to describe because the amount of model and upgrade releases so close to one another. My first Atari ST was the 520 STe and my first Amiga was an Amiga 4000.


The Amiga 1000 had a 12-bit palette for up to 4096 colors available on-screen at once . Though for higher resolutions it could have 16 colors on-screen at once.

I'll have to check the Amiga 4000...

The Atari ST was no slouch though. Again it gets muddy because of all the models that were released. The original ST's had 16 color low res with a 512 clor palette,, and a higher res 640x200 with 4 on-screen colors and a 512 palette,, and a 640 x 400 monochrome.

With the release of the STe's a 4096 color palette was available. The big thing with the ST's was it's sound. It was the first home computer with built-in MIDI ports.

[edit Amiga 4000 info '92 '93]
24-bit (16.8 million colors) and new 128, 256 and 262,144 (HAM-8) color modes. Unlike earlier Amiga chipsets, all color modes are available at all display resolutions. AGA also improves sprite capacity and graphics performance

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bitJericho
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Posted: 8th Nov 2011 14:31 Edited at: 8th Nov 2011 14:40
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I have a c64 with a proper color monitor. Unfortunately it's in my bother's house and I don't have a drive hooked up to any pc, but if you can give me a simple program to type in and run I can run it and snap some pics with different color adjustments on the monitor.

Also, this link might be helpful

http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=34564&sid=ff8abf2b82bd0f26abe24c67a48deb22


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Latch
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Posted: 8th Nov 2011 19:47
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Just my 2 cents to throw in the pot: my CRT monitor (for my pc) started acting wacky after all these years so I have this wide screen LED in it's place. The color and contrast difference is vast! I'm really sad about the loss of the CRT, it's so much crisper and brighter than the LED and of course since it was multisync, the resolution choices were many...

So it might be hard to actually "see" the c64 colors without looking at them through a proper monitor. If not using an RF adapter (and a television) the output from a c64 was Chroma Luma which is actually s-video so the picture was clear, bright and crisp.

Enjoy your day.
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Phaelax
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Posted: 8th Nov 2011 19:51
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I have the actual monitor my amiga 500 came with, however, the disk drive suddenly stopped working..... again. (it did it about 10 years ago)

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enderleit
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Posted: 12th Nov 2011 12:55 Edited at: 12th Nov 2011 12:55
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Stop it... you're making me nostalgic!

Damn I miss my C64 and my Amiga 1200. I used them long after everyone else had switched to PC's.

- Martin Enderleit
http://sites.google.com/site/menderleit
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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 12th Nov 2011 14:55
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Me too. I actually played a C64 game a few months ago... Delta.

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Mobiius
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Posted: 12th Nov 2011 14:56
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Back in the day, my Amiga 1200 was more powerfull than my pc!

My signature is NOT a moderator plaything! Stop changing it!
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WLGfx
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Posted: 12th Nov 2011 16:46
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Same here, my Amiga 1200 had a 2Gb HDD, 34Mb Memory and a 50Mhz 060 processor. I never got around to upgrading to a picasso graphics card though. I never had a C64 though, I went from a ZX Spectrum to an Atari STE.

This biggest computing jump in technologies to date has to be going from 8-bit to 16 bit computers.

Mental arithmetic? Me? (That's for computers) I can't subtract a fart from a plate of beans!
Warning! May contain Nuts!
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Cybermind
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Posted: 15th Nov 2011 20:59 Edited at: 20th Nov 2011 19:12
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I still have a couple of C64's, an Amiga 500, an Amige 2000 with 1GB SCSi HDD - 16mb fastmem - 1mb chipmem - 40MHz CPU, a stock CD32 (two, actually), a VIC20 and a Sega Master System II.

I sure do like to play retro

EDIT: Oh, I forgot my Atari 2600 Jr

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