*** VIDELITY: Screen resolution enhancer preview/1 page/930 words/ 3 grabs/Al Goold *** Preview. Utility Any Atari or C-Lab Falcon, (Nemesis Accelerator recommended, but not required) Commercial 90% Are you fed up looking at distorted True Colour modes on your Falcon? Videlity is the answer. Videlity is a new resolution enhancer for the Falcon programmed by the guys at Black Scorpion Software, who also brought Falcon owners Apex Media. *** scorpblb.gif *** At the time of writing Videlity is nearing its commercial release and will be distributed by Titan Designs [see boxout]. The version I am previewing is the latest beta (á) version. With the amount of testing that has been done I am sure that the release version will prove to be a very stable product. Videlity allows greatly increased desktop resolutions. It includes built in external hardware support, so if you already have either Screenblaster or Blow Up external clock hardware, Videlity can use this for even greater resolutions. You do not need to have either of these external clocks. Videlity works very well without them. It can be used even if you don't have Nemesis, and in that configuration it still does a reasonable job. However it is when you use it alongside Nemesis that it comes into its own. Videlity was primarily developed to allow access to the quarter pixel true colour resolutions made available by Nemesis. These are not currently supported by other packages of this nature. I am using it in the following resolutions on a standard SVGA monitor without having either Screenblaster or Blow Up attached, and running Nemesis at 24Mhz. 928x704 in 2 colours 896x672 in 16 colours 800x608 in 256 colours, and an unbelievable 720x544 in true colour mode. In all these modes the screen display is completely stable with no interference or distortion whatsoever. Apparently Dave Murphy of Black Scorpion Software has achieved a stable 736x560 in True Colour. Installation This is the easiest part of all. All you have to do is copy VIDELITY.PRG to your AUTO folder and ensure that it is placed after NVDI (if installed) in the running order. Disable all other screen enhancement software that you have on your hardrive and reboot. Configuration I have to admit that this is the bit that stumped me for a while. To get started double-click on the VID_CONF.PRG. This brings up the configuration dialog screen. *** videlity.gif *** [The main configuration screen] At this point can I strongly suggest that you have 2 manuals to hand. First you will need the videlity manual, and secondly you will be a lot better off if you still have your monitors original manual. If you no longer have, or cannot get a manual showing the various ratings of your monitor it is much safer to go with the default settings. Remember that when you are playing around with monitors it can be really easy to break them. Videlity does have a built in monitor protect feature. This button can be deselected so resolutions outside the currently set frequencies will be displayed. This will be of benefit to technically adept users in determining the effective range of the monitor in use without the required manual. Of course neither Black Scorpion Software, Titan designs or Atari Computing can accept responsibility for any damage caused if you choose to do this. I struggled at first to understand "horizontal synch rates" and left and right blanks and so on, but don't worry help is at hand... Standard Configurations Videlity comes with a number of pre-configured resolutions which should work with most monitors. You can thereafter build your own library of resolutions to suit your own monitor. Once you have achieved a stable test picture with the X-Res (horizontal) controls you simply need to click on the 4:3 button and videlity will configure the Y-Res (vertical) controls to give you a correctly proportioned screen display. You can then adust the various controls a little at a time to achieve the optimum picture. It certainly takes some time to learn how to do this, but once it has been set up properly once you can forget all about it unless you are an inveterate tinkerer. Ideally the pre-configured options will work first time. *** config.gif *** [The standard pre-configured resolutions] Would I recommend it. Yes. With no hesitation. My old Falcon desktop resolution was 800x608 in either 16 or 256 colours, which was achieved with Screenblaster II. I have also previously used and owned Blow Up Hard II. Of the 3 I much prefer Videlity. I can get the same or better resolutions with Videlity easily. But the big advantage is when it comes to True Colour. I now regularly use a 720x544 True Colour desktop on my Falcon. The difference this makes to running programs like CAB or any other graphics intensive program is outstanding. No more waiting for *.jpg's to be remapped. Although Videlity is a commercial program, the cost is nearer to what you would expect to pay for shareware. It is a "must have" for all Falcon owners. If you have a Falcon you should do two things, first get Nemesis fitted, and second buy Videlity. Al Goold *** Product box *** Product name: Videlity Publisher: Titan Designs Contact: +44 (0)121-693-6669 RRP: œ14.95 Requires: Atari or C-Lab Falcon, preferably with Nemesis. Pros: Greatly enhanced True Colour display, inexpensive, Cons: Could prove difficult to configure initially. *** End of boxout *** ½Al Goold and A|C|G (1997)