To avoid destroying
another thread and getting in the way of the guy getting his answer, I'd like to ask: What's up with the obsession for RGB output on the NES? Many people treat RGB PPU's as some kind of treasure and will go through all the trouble of hunting them and mod'ing their NES's...
I don't know if it's just me, but... most of the time the composite looks better! OK, we could live without the dot crawl, but the color blending makes it look like there are many more colors than just 3+background per tile... Look at the screenshots in that thread... doesn't the composite look much nicer (disregard the color inaccuracies)?
I just don't get the whole quest for the "sharpest possible pixels". Emulators will make the ultimate sharpest awesome images ever, and it's no fun at all. It just brings out the low number of colors available.
While I agree with you that the output is supposed to look the way it is, and changing it alters some fundamental things about what we love about the system. I can also understand that many of us have big screen HDTVs and the output of a standard NES is horrendous on these modern monster displays. I'm at the point now that I'm considering buying a small color television for NES playing instead of putting it on my 55" 1080i mitsubishi.
You are right, I forgot about the HDTVs! The whole switch to HD was not very kind to the classic consoles.
BTW, my comment was not meant to be seen as a purist "it's supposed to look like...", I just said that to me it looks obviously better, but not everyone seems to think like that.
I read too much in your comment, sorry. Well for me the colors formed because of video artifacts and fuzziness is part of the experience, and I'm enough of a purist that I will go to the extra effort to get it.
This reminds me of CGA on a PC, there were several games that would draw in monochrome and I had no idea why. Until I found out what happened when you plugged it into a TV set instead of the TTL monitor. Look at the image with the monochrome bands, they turn into several nice colors because of the terrible way that chip handles generating its composite signal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Graphics_Adapter#Special_effects_on_composite_color_monitors
It seems that there is also an effect on NES composite that isn't present with RGB (or "raw" emulation). Although far less obvious of an effect compared to CGA's.
The CGA mono trick is EXACTLY how the Apple II generated its colors.
I think some people prefer the PlayChoice look because they remember playing an unauthorized copy of a given game on an emulator more fondly than playing an authentic copy on an NES.
That said, I'm experimenting with dither patterns that leverage NTSC artifacts to blend colors in one of my games, in order to approximate 8x8 pixel areas of the seven solid colors that the design document requires without having to go MMC5. After a few informal tests, I found that I can trust Nestopia's NTSC filter enough to make the dither patterns look enough like my Sharp CRT SDTV that I don't have to go downstairs all the time to test on my PowerPak.
Although the vast majority of people grew up using composite output from their NESes, I still preferred the solid colours that I saw in all arcade games, including Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, etc.
Not to mention the super-sharp snapshots that Nintendo Power Magazine always had.
For more comparisons of NTSC vs RGB, take a look at this page:
http://www.disgruntleddesigner.com/chri ... shots.html
It may come down to a matter of taste for some people, but for me, RGB is quite superior to composite.
ccovell wrote:
Although the vast majority of people grew up using composite output from their NESes
For me at least, it's not a matter of nostalgia, as I had barely played any NES games before Nesticle existed. I just feel that the composite looks more colorful.
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For more comparisons of NTSC vs RGB, take a look at this page:
http://www.disgruntleddesigner.com/chri ... shots.htmlThere are some perfect examples in that page. I might agree that on systems with more colors the RGB output looks better, but on the NES, although a bit fuzzier than RGB, the composite is overall richer.
Look at the Solstice title screen. Look at all the folds in the guys clothes, it's got real texture in composite (same goes for the block he's standing on), but is just a dithered mess in RGB. His hands also have a much more skin-like color than on RGB.
Now look at the in-game shot. In composite, the walls have a different hue from the ground, making the room look much better. Look at the floor tiles. Their upper left side has a thin highlight, that makes them look much more 3D, compared to the plain RGB version
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It may come down to a matter of taste for some people, but for me, RGB is quite superior to composite.
I agree with you on that, I just started the topic because I wanted to find out why, as composite looks much nicer to me.
Yeah composite looks better altough on my real NES which uses PAL composite, the result is different. The dot crawl is not visible, but it goes up when scrolling left. This is very visible in SMB and Castlevania.
And like tokumary Nesticle would give me more nostalgia that the actual system (hironically).
Althoug modern systems, especially the ones using interlacing, looks bad with composite. Many PS2 games flicker horribly on my old TV beacuse they are probably designed for modern TVs.
Another thing that looks quite good is the 2xSal filter. Exeption : The chessboard dithering patterns turn into diagonal lines which doesn't look exeptionnal but that's pretty much what happen with NTSC filter too.
Bregalad wrote:
Yeah composite looks better altough on my real NES which uses PAL composite, the result is different. The dot crawl is not visible, but it goes up when scrolling left.
Is that like when we turn rendering on late on an NTSC NES?
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And like tokumary Nesticle would give me more nostalgia that the actual system (hironically).
Yeah, somehow my passion for old games is not based on nostalgia at all. Most of the systems and games I own I bought long after I was no longer a kid, and only after testing them out for the first time on emulators.
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Another thing that looks quite good is the 2xSal filter.
I can't look at those filters for too long, I really don't like them. HQ2x sometimes looks better, but the picture just looks smudged to me. Nowadays I practically select my emulators based on whether they include NTSC filters or not.
ccovell wrote:
Although the vast majority of people grew up using composite output from their NESes, I still preferred the solid colours that I saw in all arcade games, including Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, etc.
Not to mention the super-sharp snapshots that Nintendo Power Magazine always had.
For more comparisons of NTSC vs RGB, take a look at this page:
http://www.disgruntleddesigner.com/chri ... shots.htmlIt may come down to a matter of taste for some people, but for me, RGB is quite superior to composite.
I 2nd that.
and add this
Color bleeding and pixel crawl on composite is horrendous.(genesis,tg16, nes, neogeo, sega master sytem)
As a little kid id drool at ultra clear pictures in magazines
Especially the Nintendo player's choice guide (big black book)
I'm not fussy and sometimes even play 8/16-bit via RF! (Shockingly most games to this day are still entirely playable via RF.)
Well my TV only have RF available so I've always played all my consoles games by RF. Many PS2 games are flickering but aside of that it's fine.
I play on RF only when I have to (top-loading NES, Sega Master System and Atari 2600), because it flickers quite a bit compared to composite on my TV.
Recent TVs I've seen show composite video badly, especially that from systems like the NES and SNES. Even on my 10-year-old CRT-based TV, I have to go into the service menu and turn off the comb filter (CTRP=0 on Sony), otherwise the hanging dots drive me nuts. Smaller TVs of the NES era were low enough resolution that they didn't need a comb filter, so they didn't have this problem.
blargg wrote:
Recent TVs I've seen show composite video badly, especially that from systems like the NES and SNES. Even on my 10-year-old CRT-based TV, I have to go into the service menu and turn off the comb filter (CTRP=0 on Sony), otherwise the hanging dots drive me nuts. Smaller TVs of the NES era were low enough resolution that they didn't need a comb filter, so they didn't have this problem.
i use to use a c64 monitor when i was young for my games( i still
have it now out in my work shop and it works great) composite looked much better on it than any set i tried that was 27 inch and larger.
I have an RGB modded NES and PowerPak and on my RGB monitor, it just looks so crisp and arcade-like. My RGB modded NES (not made by me) has a custom connector with a SCART RGB cable, which allows me to connect it to my SCART to component adaptor. That adaptor can plug into my LCD TV,
CRT TV with component, or projector, and it looks DAMN GOOD.
RGB is truly the best way to enjoy pre-HD old school gaming, and all my old school systems (NES, SNES, N64, Sega Saturn, PC Engine/Super CD-ROM, Atari Jaguar/Jaguar CD, Neo Geo 4-slot, XBOX, Sega Genesis/CD/32x, 3DO, PSX, PS2) all have RGB. For me, there was no going back from RGB, but that's just my opinion. I just like to enjoy gaming at it's fullest potential.
If you say so, but you miss effects used by a handful of games that assume standard composite PPU behavior.
Jon wrote:
If you say so, but you miss effects used by a handful of games that assume standard composite PPU behavior.
I'll deal with the missed effects to never see the nasty pixel crawl that composite displays.
Playing a rgb modded nes if pure bliss for me hands down no regrets, same with every other rgb modded system I have. which is a every thing possible before component video. even 3do and cdi
I would like to try a few games that uses composite video to enhance the graphics.
And see if the rgb mod destroys the experience for me.
acem77 wrote:
I would like to try a few games that uses composite video to enhance the graphics.
This test ROM displays "PASS" on NTSC and a jumble of diagonal lines on RGB. As for actual games, try Blaster Master.
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And see if the rgb mod destroys the experience for me.
Just Breed for Famicom fails on RGB PPUs because of its (ab)use of the tint bits in PPUMASK to darken the colors.
ok i tried the the test rom. i see whats happening but all games that i have played do not depend on the effect but its neat to see.
I do not see any thing messed up with blaster master?
colors look the same on both systems. just the rgb system has no artifacts like pixel crawl.
the japanese rom would not load on my power pak on both systems.
acem77 wrote:
the japanese rom would not load on my power pak on both systems.
It's not a matter of being japanese, it just happens to use the MMC5, which the PowerPak doesn't support (yet, hopefully).