Yeah, I knew that NTSC and PAL had different color encoding, but I still don't understand what causes the RGB subpixels to all light up evenly in order to create those grays. You would think that on a TV that does not support 50Hz, there would be no picture at all since the set doesn't know how to light up the subpixels. UNLESS... it treats each subpixel triplet as a single white pixel (as I hinted at earlier) as a backup plan so that a picture can still be displayed in 50Hz, just one without color. Let's say that to create red, you set R to 255, G to 0, and B to 0. If your set can't interpret the color data it receives (to tell it how to distribute light to each subpixel) I would imagine that it might divide that 255 evenly among all three of the subpixels in the triplet (setting each to 85) to create the gray. Or something to that effect. For yellow, you'd have 255 on R and G, and 0 on B, which adds up to 510; divide this evenly among the three subpixels and each one is set to 170, so yellow will appear lighter than red on a black-and-white display. (Turn R and G down equally while leaving B off, and you'll get brown, which will appear darker than yellow in B&W since R+G+B is lower)
White still appears the same since all three subpixels were equally lit to begin with, as does black as they were all turned off. (One could argue that black isn't really a color, but instead the complete lack of color!)

Ah, so the console actually transmits both B&W and color versions of the picture data to the set. This is similar to what I described earlier, really-- at any rate the set receives a B&W signal as a backup in case it can't decode the color signal, otherwise you get no picture. The B&W signal, I assume, just tells all three subpixels in each pixel to light up equally to produce varying shades of gray, as I've described before.

I don't necessarily need to Pleasantville my PAL Karting experience-- if anything the lack of color is one less distraction and allows me to concentrate more on the gameplay. (My brain kinda fills in the missing color anyhow) There's one small inconvenience on CI2, where you have to NBT boost through a gap in the wall... and the section of wall bordering the right side of the gap happens to be blue, which blends in perfectly with the brown chocolate in B&W. It's, like, nearly invisible. With enough practice though you just remember that it's there and I can usually avoid it, I just tell myself not to stray too far right of the (more easily visible) yellow piece of wall on the left side of this gap.

And yes, there is a such thing as "NTSC 50Hz"... if you play an NTSC game on a modded console that's set to 50Hz mode. Yes, it will still run in black and white. And it will also run much too slow.

Quick Note:

As yahoogroups appears to experiencing delays (this is likely to return to normal over the weekend) please ensure you send any PRs directly to my e-mail address (samicetin at yahoo dot com) as well as yahoogroups. Many of you are doing so already which is fine. Just in case any others have forgotten. Alternatively please DM me on Twitter. Thanks.

Keep on karting and have a good weekend!

Harvey Kartel wrote on 05/31/19 at 14:01:39:


Yes dont attach any files, just use YouTube that's fine. And copy in my email when you send your PRs so il get a double copy in case yahoogroups delays.

Harvey Kartel wrote on 05/31/19 at 16:49:19:


Nick,

I'll just repeat again, easy solution: don't send any attachments. That is a separate issue to yahoogroups, but just don't do that. Just put youtube links, that will be all.

Your last submission was around 6 hours ago regarding a birthday. Both mails arrived. Just the approved yahoogroup messages are delaying. I expect those will fly through whenever it gets fixed at yahoogroups end.

I don't quite get this rivalry, it is supposed to be a rivalry among the top English-speaking PAL players who are not American... except that one of the players, the one who leads the rivalry, is American, even if he isn't currently living in the country.

I guess by that logic, Matt Ballard is/was "non-American" due to having spent time living in Germany, and therefore eligible for this rivalry as well...  

Also, how do we even know all of these players are truly native Engish speakers, with last names like Hasso or Tagliabue (who knows, "Gene" might be short for... Eugenio?). Okay, we do know that the Hasso was UK born and raised at least, and would therefore probably qualify as "native". And maybe the "not aliens" part might just mean that all their last names are non-English, but what else besides English would Ferguson be? Moll could be German, at least.

I think a "Kartel" rivalry would be better: me, Matt, Eric, Andrew K, and Kyle. Yes, Matt and Eric would dominate this, but Andrew would have at least one win (VL2 flap) as well.

IMO there should be more geographically-oriented rivalries, comparing groups of players who come from the same country or region.

On a side note, I googled "Italian Australians" and this result (courtesy of Wikipedia) came up:

Italian Australians comprise the sixth largest ethnic group in Australia, with the 2016 census finding 4.6% of the population (1,000,013 people) claiming ancestry from Italy be they migrants to Australia or their descendants born in Australia of Italian heritage.

Wow, I didn't realize there were so many people Down Under who had Italian ancestry. I always thought of Oz as predominately British/Irish (here is the list of all Aussie SMK players), with a smattering of Greeks and Slavs (e.g. Penev), plus Asian and Aboriginal minotiries (who do not seem to be represented in the SMK community).

While attempting a self-imposed all-Yoshi, PAL Non-NBT challenge today, I noticed what could possibly be a typo in the PAL standards. It's still interesting regardless.

Look at the Veteran standards for GV3 5lap, in particular the Veteran E. Logically, shouldn't this be 1'23"3 rather than 1'23"8?

The Knight standards progress in increments of 1"0, and Vet B through Vet F progress in increments of 0"7... except for the Vet E.

I never noticed this before because I never had any reason to check the Veteran standards for GV3 until trying the course with Yoshi (I just drove a 1'23"89, which rates Vet F). My Luigi PR for this course is also in the Veteran range.

What I like so much about SMK-- and especially its community, which makes up new challenges for the game including GP 150cc, Non-NBT, and trying weight classes other than Bowser/DK Jr.-- is the amazing amount of replay value the game has. In this case, I'm competing against the Warrior/Knight/Veteran standards on PAL using the slower characters. Once these lower standards get far too easy for you, try attaining them as, say, Yoshi-- it's not quite as easy as you think, especially if we're eschewing all NBT. I don't even think every Knight standard is reachable with Yoshi, certainly not something like GV1 flap that was clearly made with Bowser in mind. And Veteran is extremely difficult to get on MC1 with the character for whom it was named...

I'm averaging Knight ranks with Yoshi (with some Vets and Warriors), and only have VL2 left to race. Last year I tried every track with Luigi, entirely without NBT, and calculated my Luigi ASR to be in the Veteran F range (easily improvable, but there's so little incentive to work on non-heavyweight time trial times). I have also achieved five of the PAL Star F standards with Luigi Non-NBT, but none so far with Yoshi, who is even slower than Luigi (in fact Vet E is the highest standard I've driven with Yoshi!).

Flap standards are quite difficult to rank well on with Yoshi, since they were made with emphasis on the player being able to utilize Bowser's superior speed through a single lap of the race. On GV1 flap, my standard with Yoshi was Contender B! You can forget about making the platform jump here with anybody but Bowser or DK Jr. especially PAL Non-NBT. Most of my Yoshi Vets are 5laps on the more technical tracks, achieved through consistent driving. Simple, wide-open tracks like MC1 are not kind to light drivers at all since they are easily driven cleanly with a heavyweight.

I propose ASMKC 2020 topic being moved up to important topics please.
I know it's not directly a players site suggestion.

Thanks

- Eric

Thanks, much appreciated!

I still would like Sami to read and reply to this suggestion, indeed.

Hi Julien,

As discussed yesterday I am happy with this; the design is very nice, if everyone else enjoys it please let me know and I will talk to Alex.

Thanks  

EDIT:  Too late, I have already asked Alex   Please allow him some time, if there are any issues with it (size or shape or anything), he will let me know. I guess it should be fine though.

Harvey, the banner is supposed to be displayed proportionnally to your screen ratio. Meaning that if you have a screen resolution of 800x600 it should be displayed with a width of 800px.
I hope Alex will understand that and implement it this way.