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Pluge. Whatever that is.

"PLUGE" is one of the tests:

The PLUGE (picture line-up generation equipment) pattern is used to adjust the TV's "brightness" or black level.

The inner bars are a signal level slightly lower than standard black, which causes some TVs to distort or even lose sync. The outer bars are the darkest mix of colors the NES can show.

You should adjust brightness until the outer bars are clearly visible and inner bars are not.

But how would the shark image be used with the PLUGE test?

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It was the filename.

I know about the filename. But where would a shark appear in a PLUGE pattern?

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Would it be a good idea to add a screensaver that begins after five minutes of inactivity, draws a bouncing logo, and plays a fanfare whenever it hits the corner?

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240p Test Suite (NES, GB, GBA) v0.18

Add one new test from the Genesis version. This time it was the NES version's turn for size optimization.

Highlights on all platforms:

• PLUGE: Add PLUGE Contrast sub-test with shark graphic (Genesis 1.16 parity)
• Want your name in the credits? Become a patron

Highlights on specific platforms:

• GB: Mention worse smearing on Game Boy Pocket and other help tweaks
• Overscan (NES): Select to invert grays; border contrasts with BG
• Sharpness (NES): Pixel-align emblem at center
• Manual lag (NES): Remove misleading DDR-style grading

Behind the scenes:

• VWF (GB): Glyph address calculation uses 16-bit shift instruction
• VWF labels (GB): Reduce stack use, including moving tile width from stack to register C (requested by ISSOtm)
• PB16 (GB): Fix padding for odd-length packets
• gbcnamtool (GB): Fix vertical flip and conversion without incruniq
• GB: More refactoring and other size optimizations (with ISSOtm's help)
• Help (NES): Compress text with DTE; update Gus look to match GBA
• Linearity, Sharpness, Stopwatch, Crosstalk (NES): Compress map with new iu53 codec
• NES: Move several tests' code to UNROM bank 2 to make room in fixed bank
• Linearity (NES): Construct grid CHR from gridless CHR
• Stopwatch (NES): Reduce tiles of sprite circles (the "hand")
• NES: Move rectfill-based screen layouts to UNROM bank 1
• NES: Organize "library" code shared by my other projects into a separate part of the fixed bank
• NES: Move most local variables to zero page for smaller code size: now below 40 KiB
• NES: Rename some source files to match their GB/GBA counterparts

Download: GitHub release or ROM+source zipfile (below)

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240p Test Suite (NES, GB, and GBA) v0.19 is out

It took another heroic compression effort, but I freed enough space to add a Super Game Boy border and colorization to all tests that would benefit from it. Not a lot of changes on NES and GBA though.

Highlights on all platforms:

• Stopwatch: Bolder digits
• Help: Standardize phrasing: "stuck pixels", "hide or show", "start or stop"
• Help: List patrons as of release time

Highlights on specific platforms:

• GB: Super Game Boy colorization and border
• Backlight zone (NES, GB): Increase starting size to 2 pixels
• Color bleed (GBA): Fix frame # covering everything
• PLUGE Contrast and Vertical scroll (GBA): Center pattern horizontally
• README (GB, GBA): Explain rationale behind "144p" and "160p" titles

Behind the scenes:

• Help (NES, GB): Integrate Johnathan Roatch's faster DTE compressor written in C
• Linearity (GB): Compress with reflection
• GB: Improve incruniq tilemap compression
• GB: Compress font and large graphics with nibble-wise Huffman coding
• GB: Move variables to HRAM; other code size optimizations
• GBA: Use a more common makefile
• GBA: Specify each PNG's conversion settings in a grit file

Download: GitHub release or the ROM and source zipfile below

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Pin Eight | Twitter | GitHub | Patreon