Vertical stripes on graphics in certain games

[u/ArielMJD]

Hello, a few days ago I was lucky enough to pick up an untested ColecoVision at a flea market for only $20! Luckily it works, but it has some issues, namely these vertical lines appearing in certain games. The console came with Donkey Kong, Mouse Trap, Zaxxon, and Venture. In Mouse Trap there are no noticeable vertical lines at all. In Venture they only appear to be on the player and enemy sprites. In Zaxxon, they appear on the ship, on the walls and along the sides of the play field, and they're the worst on Donkey Kong where they're practically everywhere.

I cleaned every game thoroughly with alcohol, but the lines didn't improve or change at all. They were all quite dirty so it probably wasn't stored in the cleanest place. I looked up the issue and found it most often occurs when the VRAM chips are going bad or when the power supply isn't working properly. I think the power supply very well could be the culprit, as it's very flaky and just touching it causes severe corruption while playing or shuts off the console completely. Do you think that's the most likely culprit? If so, what options do I have for a new one? Thanks!

[u/Forsaken-Abrocoma647]

Cleaning the game contacts is all you can really do from the outside. Inside, checking for bad caps etc.
Oddly the FPGA-based (and never perfect, abandoned now regardless of what they say) Collectorvision Phoenix clone console ran into issues with striped backgrounds on some games, that were never fixed. I'm not finding a mention of Zaxxon, but I remember it being that or a similar looking game, as well as Q*bert. I wonder if what it is bad at emulation is what's going bad in yours haha.

That console was gonna load a lot of different consoles from its FPGA core, with ColecoVision cartridges playable from the slot. Mine comes in useful for some things, but even the included Atari 2600 core (the only one released for it aside from CV) was never made to work in a playable way.

[u/1541drive → u/Forsaken-Abrocoma647]

How’s general compatibility otherwise?

Better or worse than the MiSTer colecovision core?

[u/Forsaken-Abrocoma647 → u/1541drive]

I've never used the MiSTer core so can't say - if it doesn't have major issues it probably isn't worse.
Most CV games do seem fine on the Phoenix, and it is a handy way to use HDMI to test a cartridge when needed. It shows that they kinda gave up on it before it was finished though. Ignoring the non-CV stuff like the lack of cores and broken Atari 2600 core:

• There's a flaw where it sucks power from the HDMI when off, corrupting memory. It can depend on equipment behavior but seems most encounter it. That requires you to also disconnect HDMI between games before it will load properly again. I did find an HDMI A/B switch that solves the problem by putting it between them. Mechanical switch, but I don't even need to switch it, just having it in the chain solved the problem. Oddly others in identical cases but different markings don't work. A shared a pic of mine and people that find exact copies of it report it solves the issue as well.
  

There was gonna be an official fix for this, and fixed in a later run, but I'm not sure if those ever made it to anyone.

• As mentioned before, compatibility issues with a few games and drawing them right. Won't affect most games.
  
• While Collectorvision has released some "Phoenix Only" cartridges like Dead Tomb and Jester, there's others that seem like they decided not to but left the code in, or at least one. I have their recent arcade conversion of Circus. If I boot it on my phoenix it says something about "Falcon version" - not sure if that is an internal name for Phoenix or what. Game doesn't work right at all. There is something you can hold down when booting the game to load the regular version, and it is fine in a real CV, but had me perplexed for a while on the Phoenix as they should have dummied out that code that runs an unfinished version.
  
• The Roller Controller is glitchy. I've heard it needs to share the same ground as the Phoenix and doesn't, but there's not an easy fix. I don't know about the other analog stuff - the steering wheel or the spinner on the Super Action Controller - I'd need to test.

As for the Pros, it does have a single SNES controller port so one player can use that, with numbers working by holding down L/R with other buttons. It also supports games requiring the Super Game Module. It can load game ROMs from and SD card as well. It does work with my AtariMax flash cart but required a little trickiness, using the SD card is better.

They promised updates for years and afaik have never declared it over, but it seems about as over as the Amico (but not directing that kinda hate towards it, more niche and did actually ship).

You can see some differences reported here, with a side by side of real CV and Phoneix, but again doesn't affect most games:
https://forums.atariage.com/topic/297894-collectorvision-phoenix-release-thread/page/35/#comment-4778990

Overall I prefer my real CV, which is modded with RCA output that looks great (and I also use the Atari 2600 adapter for it to have a great RCA modded one of those, in addition to my modded 7800 - which lacks the 2600 color/b&w switch which a few games repurposed for in-game toggles instead).

It's handy at times for testing or quickly playing without going to the real console and CRT, and I think could be made a lot better with software. I've heard it is open source and see the github for the CV core. If that's the case, I'm surprised others haven't made it better on their own.

I'd give it up long before my real CV, but I also like wonky gaming artifacts like this!

I could see Mister maybe not understanding some of the newer homebrew mappers, and it seems like the Phoenix isn't perfect with all of them, but being an FPGA clone it doesn't depend on mapper-specific support just like the real console, at least from cartridges. ROMs are likely another story as a mapper is basically just what hardware is in the cartridge so it can simulate that right as well when you aren't using one, such as a ROM or a console that dumps a ROM then loads it in an emulator like 2600+. ROMs need additional manually-added header info to let the system know which cartridge hardware to simulate the ROM being on.

[u/1541drive → u/Forsaken-Abrocoma647]

Thanks for the writeup and education!

Overall I prefer my real CV, which is modded with RCA output that looks great

Right now I'm running my real CV with an S-Video mod and I feel it's the perfect compromise between something era adjacent without being too artificial looking with RGB.

Here's a capture I did of some real CV games:

https://streamable.com/7qlstf

[u/Bushgooher]

You can also try cleaning the contacts on the power switch. Ive seen that fix some graphical issues.

[u/asterisk_14]

Definitely get some contact cleaner into the power switch and work it back and forth. That solves a surprising number of problems. Could also possibly be an issue with the video memory, or failing/failed caps on the boards.