If when you 're first loading Workbench, when the command line pops up, if the window for that screen covers the entire 4:3 screen, then you're in NTSC medium resolution.
After changing the jumper setting, this immediately happened. I no longer saw (to my mind) the squashed WB loading screen where the screen wouldn't fill the 4:3 space - at least, it wouldn't fill it until Workbench loaded it. For some reason, if you're in PAL mode, the startup-sequence loading screen gets squashed.
Today I flipped over to KS/WB 2.0, put in the Extras disk and fired up the "ScreenMode" program. That's one thing I wish 1.3 had. I don't
miss it but it would have been handy during this exercise.
- ScreenMode utility in WB 2.1
And I can confirm that
SysInfo is wrong. It reports a PAL Agnus, but Workbench itself sees only NTSC modes when my jumper is set to NTSC. Crazy!
- The Phoenix is indeed in NTSC mode in all its glory.
So, this is where things get strange. And I have to simply chalk it up to the Phoenix being an "odd bird" in general. She's cool, don't get me wrong. But high-maintenance, unpredictable and quirky!
She's set to NTSC.
Test #1: I insert "The Immortal" which is a floppy disk-only game (2 disks). And,
you are not allowed to use an accelerated Amiga. BUT you have to have at least 1 MB of RAM. Up to this point I've only been playing the game on my un-modded NTSC A1000. Runs great on that machine.
Technically, the Phoenix is 2MB (1 chip, 1 slow) but when I put the Boot disk in and go for it the game stops loading after a couple of minutes. It just goes quiet and unresponsive. It doesn't do this in my stock 1000. This was originally one of the first signs that something strange was going on.
Test #2 Emerald Mine: a great little game made in Germany in 1987 that works with NTSC machines perfectly - it boots off the FDD. I loaded it up and it was completely fine.
Test #3: Double Dragon - a fun brawler that previously only worked on non-modded/non-accelerated machines running 1.3.
And it worked, too! So I was glad about that but found it a little confusing when compared to The Immortal.
Could the Phoenix simply need more RAM?
- Double Dragon worked just fine, just like my bare-bones stock NTSC A500. A good sign.
Test #4: a PAL game. In the past if I tried to load Shinobi up on my stock 1000 it would never get past one of the original intro screens.
This time it did! I was able to play the (awful) game! How the hell was a PAL game running on this Phoenix in NTSC mode? Made no sense.
Test #5:
The true PAL test: Speedball 2. Previously it never worked on
any of my machines EXCEPT the Phoenix in PAL mode. It was as PAL mode as PAL mode could be.
So I loaded it up and... it froze exactly where it did on all of my other NTSC machines.
The Phoenix does indeed seem to behave a lot like it should in NTSC mode. SysInfo is
wrong. And the Phoenix even played one PAL game that it simply shouldn't have. But it also didn't play one NTSC game that it should have! At the end of the day, I've decided I'm going to hook up a switch to that jumper, which will allow me to flip between the two modes, which should cover 99% of what I throw at it. The other 1%? It'll remain a mystery. This should let me play the most games possible across the board. There's still that issue with The Immortal which I don't understand, but frankly no Amiga plays all Amiga games. The Phoenix should play more than most. That's where things are. If I can whittle down the stupid 3D printed FDD eject button, I should be pretty set.
If I could add a
tiny bit more RAM I think the Phoenix will be done. But that'll be for another day.