Super MegaZeux: Difference between revisions
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| Elig | | Elig | ||
| Doubles left pixel. | | Doubles left pixel. | ||
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| S3 Trio64V2/DX | |||
| 1996 | |||
| HP Brio 8314 | |||
| smzxtest | |||
| GreaseMonkey | |||
| No doubling. | |||
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| SiS 530 | | SiS 530 | ||
Revision as of 20:31, 15 March 2024
| Super MegaZeux | |
| |
| Author | MadBrain, Akwende, Exophase |
| Company | n/a |
| Release Date | n/a |
| Genre | MegaZeux Fork, regular feature since 2.69 |
| Download | DMZX Archive |
Super MegaZeux (or SMZX mode) is the name for an alternative graphics mode accessible through MegaZeux. Its first mode (SMZX mode 1) was first introduced by MadBrain in a fork of 2.51s3.2; this original version was referred to as Super MegaZeux 100 Alpha (smzx100a). It relied on a little-documented text mode supported by NVIDIA, C&T, ATI, and possibly other chipsets. SMZX mode 1 was included in MZXAk, but not in any other MZX releases until MZX 2.69, which sported the original mode plus the more advanced mode 2. Mode 3 was introduced in 2.80, and does not correlate to an actual hardware text mode (as MZX no longer actually relied on text mode).
SMZX mode can be accessed by setting the SMZX_MODE counter to 1, 2, or 3. In the editor, the current SMZX mode can be changed with the Select Screen Mode dialog (F11).
How It Works
SMZX Mode halves the horizontal screen resolution in favor of adding two colors per character, effectively making a color palette of 256 unique colors.
Each "pixel" in SMZX can be either color I (represented in MZX mode as two 'off' pixels), color II ('on' and 'off'), color III ('off' and 'on') ad color IV (both 'on').
SMZX Mode 1
SMZX mode 1, the original mode, generates two new palette colors as intermediates of the two normal-mode colors specified by the palette. This is the simplest Super MegaZeux mode to use, and is used in conjunction with a standard 16 color MZX palette. The example below uses the default palette for simplicity.
| Palette color | Derived by | Example (c4F) |
|---|---|---|
| Color I | Background of specified palette | 42, 0, 0 (color 4) |
| Color II | 1/3 between BG and FG colors | 49, 21, 21 |
| Color III | 2/3 between BG and FG colors | 56, 42, 42 |
| Color IV | Foreground of specified palette | 63, 63, 63 (color 15) |
SMZX Mode 2
SMZX mode 2 was the first to allow 4 colors per character that the user had full control over. It uses the same color matrix as SMZX mode 1, but instead of automatically generating the new colors off of a standard 16 color palette, it references a user-defined 256 color palette to find the colors. All colors are defined in pairs of 2 hex digits, represented below by 0xNN. Given the same example palette as before, c4F, the colors are referenced as such:
| Palette color | Derived by | Example (c4F) |
|---|---|---|
| Color I | Uses the background color for both hex digits | Color #0x44 (68 decimal) |
| Color II | Uses the FG for the most significant hex digit and the BG for the least significant hex digit | Color #0xF4 (244 decimal) |
| Color III | Uses the BG for the most significant hex digit and the FG fore the least significant hex digit | Color #0x4F (79 decimal) |
| Color IV | Uses the foreground color for both hex digits | Color #0xFF (255 decimal) |
If the color indexes for colors II and III seem backwards to experienced programmers, it is not a mistake; this is how they actually are.
SMZX Mode 3
SMZX mode 3, which was added with the SDL port, uses a palette of 256 separate colors as opposed to 16 foreground and 16 background colors (each color, in hex, is a 2-digit pair consisting of the background color and the foreground color). Characters can access these as following:
| Palette Color | Derived by | Example (c4F) |
|---|---|---|
| Color I | The color in the palette specified by cXX | Color #0x4F (79 decimal) |
| Color II | Color I plus 1 | Color #0x50 (80 decimal) |
| Color III | Color I plus 2 | Color #0x51 (81 decimal) |
| Color IV | Color I plus 3 | Color #0x52 (82 decimal) |
hence yielding a set of 64 unique color palettes. The colors wrap around, so a character set to color 255 (0xFF) will use color 0 for color II, etc.
As of MegaZeux 2.90, the color mappings of all 256 subpalettes in SMZX mode 3 can be customized either by using the SMZX_IDXx,y counter or by reassigning them in the SMZX palette editor.
Compatibility
There are some minor and/or past issues with SMZX mode:
- Modes 1 and 2 only work on selected video hardware in DOS versions. Most DOS emulators, including DOSBox, do not support SMZX. Mode 3 was invented for the SDL port and has no hardware equivalent.
- Prior to MegaZeux 2.93, to support Super MegaZeux correctly on DOS versions of MegaZeux combined with certain graphics cards, the creation of an "ati_fix" file in the same directory as the MegaZeux executable was required. This causes MegaZeux to tweak the horizontal pixel shift register and reverse the nibble order of each color. Newer versions of MegaZeux attempt automatic detection.
- In MegaZeux 2.93 and above, the SVGA renderer can be used to draw SMZX in software. This enables its use on any SVGA-compatible graphics card, albeit at a performance cost compared to the EGA renderer.
- Prior to MegaZeux 2.90, the Super MegaZeux modes did not leave room in the palette for the reserved UI colors, and thus the UI borrowed the game colors. This resulted in the UI palette looking corrupted, especially in SMZX mode 3. As of MegaZeux 2.90, the UI is almost always drawn in normal mode with the protected palette.
- Hardware SMZX in DOS does not support this and still draws the UI in SMZX mode.
- 8bpp software rendering also doesn't support this and will draw the UI in normal mode but with SMZX palette colors.
- SMZX modes are not supported by the (fairly limited) Nintendo DS port.
Compatible hardware
| Video Adapter | Year | Device(s) | Last tested MZX version | Reverse nibbles? | Horizontal shift hack? | Reported by | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ATI Mobility Radeon X300 | 2005 | ThinkPad T43 | smzxtest | Yes | Yes | pagerorgy | |
| ATI Radeon 7000 (AGP) | 2001 | - | smzxtest | Yes | Yes | kepstin | |
| ATI Radeon 8500 | 2001 | - | 2.70 | Yes | Yes | ? | ati_fix |
| ATI Radeon 9100 | 2003 | - | smzxtest | Yes | Yes | asie | |
| ATI Radeon 9200 SE | 2003 | - | smzxtest | Yes | Yes | kepstin | |
| ATI Rage Mobility-P (AGP) | 1999 | - | smzxtest | Yes | Yes | kepstin | |
| ATI Rage XL (AGP) | 1998 | - | smzxtest | Yes | Yes | kepstin | |
| C&T CT65548 | 1995 | Toshiba Satellite 100CS | 2.70 | No | No | Lachesis | |
| C&T F65554 | 1997 | Toshiba Satellite Pro 465CDX | 2.70 | No | No | Jon Campbell | |
| NVIDIA GeForce 2 MX100/200/400 | 2001 | - | 2.70, smzxtest | No | No | Terryn, kepstin | |
| NVIDIA GeForce 4 MX420 | 2002 | - | smzxtest | No | No | kepstin | |
| NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 (AGP) | 2003 | - | smzxtest | No | No | kepstin | |
| NVIDIA GeForce 6200 (AGP) | 2005 | - | 2.93 | No | No | BFeely | |
| NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS (AGP) | 2006 | - | 2.93 | No | No | asie | |
| NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 | 1999 | - | 2.70 | No | No | ? | |
| Oak Technology OTi037C | 1988 | - | smzxtest | Yes | No | SpindleyQ | |
| S3 UniChrome Pro (VIA VT3344) | 2006 | Neoware CA21 (VIA CN700) | 2.93 | No | No | Lachesis |
Incompatible hardware
The most common failure mode for SMZX in video adapters seems to be a "pseudo-SMZX" mode with a 320x350 resolution where, for every pair of text mode pixels, the left 4-bit color is selected instead of combining their respective 4-bit colors into an 8-bit color.
| Video Adapter | Year | Device(s) | Last tested MZX version | Reported by | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3dfx Voodoo 3 2000 (AGP) | 1999 | - | smzxtest | kepstin | Doubles left pixel. |
| ATI Mobility Radeon X1300 | 2006 | IBM ThinkPad T60 | smzxtest | pagerorgy | No doubling. (ATI detected) |
| ATI Radeon HD 3450 (B629) | 2007 | - | 2.93 | Lachesis | No doubling. (ATI detected) |
| Cirrus Logic CL-GD5426 | 1993 | - | smzxtest | dukeboitans | Doubles right pixel. |
| Cirrus Logic CL-GD5440 | 1995 | - | smzxtest | asie | Doubles right pixel. |
| Intel 852GMV | 2004 | Dell Inspiron 1150 | 2.93 | Lachesis | Doubles left pixel. |
| Intel GMA 3100 (Intel G33) | 2007 | Dell Inspiron 530 | 2.93 | Lachesis | Doubles left pixel. |
| Intel HD Graphics 520 | 2016 | Acer Aspire E 15 E5-575G-53VG (Core i5-6200U) | smzxtest | Lachesis | Doubles left pixel. |
| Intel HD Graphics 2000 | 2011 | Intel Core i5-2400 | smzxtest | Lachesis | Doubles left pixel. |
| Matrox MGA Millenium | 1995 | - | smzxtest | kepstin | No doubling. |
| Matrox Millenium G200 (AGP) | 1998 | - | smzxtest | pagerorgy | No doubling. |
| Matrox Mystique | 1996 | - | smzxtest | asie | No doubling. |
| NeoMagic MagicGraph128XD (NM2160) | 1998 | IBM ThinkPad 560X | 2.93 | Lachesis | Doubles left pixel. |
| NeoMagic MagicGraph256AV (NM2200) | 1998 | IBM ThinkPad 380Z | smzxtest | bartitsu59 | Doubles left pixel. |
| NeoMagic MagicGraph256ZX (NM2360) | 1999 | IBM ThinkPad 600X | 2.93 | Lachesis | Doubles left pixel. |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 | 2012 | - | smzxtest | Lachesis | Doubles left pixel. |
| Paradise/Western Digital SVGA (unknown model) | 1994 | Compaq LTE Elite 4/50CX | 2.70 | Jon Campbell | Doubles left pixel. |
| S3 Trio64V | 1995 | Compaq 4704 | 2.93 | Elig | Doubles left pixel. |
| S3 Trio64V2/DX | 1996 | HP Brio 8314 | smzxtest | GreaseMonkey | No doubling. |
| SiS 530 | 1998 | Compaq Presario 5184 | smzxtest | indigoparadox | Doubles left pixel. |
| Tseng Labs ET4000 AX (ISA) | 1989 | - | smzxtest | dukeboitans | No doubling. |
Notable games that use SMZX mode
- & by Lancer-X
- Celestial Altar by Lancer-X
- red by Lancer-X
- Ultima IV (port) by Lancer-X
- Bloodlands by Maxim uses Mode 1 in a novel way: to blur the screen when the player takes damage.
- Akwende's Tetris, the pack-in game included with MZXak 1.0 and above
- Kaboink! by Logicow
- Hackers Can Turn Your Computer into a Bomb!
- Murder on the Yellow Express