My AVS is scheduled to arrive soon, and while I have my share of technical knowledge, I don't have a great sense of optimizing video.  What are your preferred video options on the Retro AVS?

I assume extra sprites should be on, any posts, or direction is appreciated.

Thanks,

I leave extra sprites off unless there is significant slow down.

I tweaked the pixel width a bit, but not much.

Update the firmware.

Extra sprites gives you more sprites per scan line to reduce flicker. It does not speed anything up.

Oh, I knew it did something. My mistake.

 

I just knocked pixel aspect down one notch, and turned on extra sprites.

I would recommend throwing in a game you're very familiar with. Play with default settings, get a feel for it, get up real close to the screen and see if the pixels are stretched too much for your liking. Mine were a little too rectangular, and one notch down on pixel aspect looks better to me. But yeah just keep adjusting and going back in. Find what you think looks good.

Thanks, I'll do that.  I appreciate your and everyone elses feedback.

I turned on extra sprites, but that's it other than checking out PAL mode. The default settings looked 1:1 compared to my front loading NES on the same TV, so I left everything as-is.

Since 'extra sprites' is being talked about here, has anyone experienced an NTSC title that breaks with extra sprites enabled?

I keep extra sprites on, Left Side Hide on, and Vert border is down just one notch. Scanlines to half contrast, as well 'cause I'm old school and need that old school look.  

Just hooked up my avs and hit pal mode on the picture mode now I can't get a picture at all . Tv says mode not supported . Anyone know how to fix this

Put the controller in to port 2. Then hold A, B, Select, Start and Up while turning the system on. 

You sir are awesome! Thank you so much

I set my pixel aspect at the lowest setting and verticle border at the highest.

I was getting a small white line, about 1/2 inch tall and the width of a dime, about four inches left of the border and three inches from the bottom of the border , at a title screen in a certain game. When I lowered the pixel aspect it went away.

The verticle border (set at a higher setting) cuts into some of the info at the bottom of the game screen sometimes.

What does extra sprites do?

You've robably already found some, but I know Felix the Cat messes up with it enabled. That was the one Brian used in the demo videos to show what could go wrong.



It enables extra sprites  . Joking aside, the NES can only support 8 sprites per scanline, otherwise you will see things like them flickering (if the programmers bothered to program in flickering at all). Many emulators support 15 sprites per scanline, and the AVS does too, due to some unused space in the NES. It helps with some games, and breaks other games, since if a programmer counted on the ninth sprite being hidden they might not have moved it off screen, but instead simply stacked it. TMNT is a good example of how great eliminating flicker can look (technically it is still flickering, but you'll never see it unless more than 15 sprites are on the same scanline).



Unless you program it in for homebrew games! I look forward to making this statement not true very soon  . Then you can tell me all of the ways that it was unecessary to do so, hahaha.

Yes, it happened to me on Castlevania. On the last stage against Dracula, it happened on the very last hit. Meaning, I would have beat him and he would have turned into that demon. Basically, the transition from Dracula into the demon caused the game to freeze. It happened twice. I turned off extra sprites and it allowed me to finish the game.

Ouch. So enabling extra sprites can actually cause games to crash as opposed to harmless graphical corruption?