The video that comes out of the nes is the same as earlier consoles, it’s not a true signal but a single signal that diverges out to 60 peaks. This results in the 60 colors we see but none them are defined so the nes looks different on every tv it’s plugged into. RGB is a form of clear uncompressed signal and is the standard for television displays and monitors rendering all information in three numerical values each representing red, green or blue. A scart cable is one way (if it’s wired to) of transmitting an rgb signal from a source to a destination without any loss as long as the cord isn’t too long.
Man….the quality is top notch. As for myself, I would not be willing to invest in the set up, but I really appreciate what you’ve done here. It’s really impressive.
RGB NES is one of these mods which seem to look amazing at first and in some games it really does look nicer but in reality across all games RGB mod does more harm to the image quality than it brings improvements. Super Mario Bros is an example where RGB looks great. On the other hand take game like Batman and RGB suddenly does not look that hot. In fact game like Batman will look totally broken in RGB because originally this game utilize all the tricks with artifact color and in Composite you get simply much more colors and sub-pixel resolution. RGB replaces all that with emulator-like dithering patterns - which originally you were not supposed to see. Besides, this video is very misleading showing composite capture. Not only colors are totally wrong but it also digital grabbers do terrible job at converting composite to RGB image. To do proper comparison you would either need to film CRT screen or go harder route and hack real analog TV and grab RGB signals from its insides and do it at very highline resolution (not 640 but more like 1920 pixels in a line!) and then correct brightness - first by not calibrating your capture for white on console to be #ffffff in video but giving it some room for brighter than white 'pixels'. For direct RGB vs Composite comparisons this means white would need to be slightly less bright - otherwise if you correct brightness incorrectly you get clipping. All in all digital composite grabbers do terrible job at conveying what analog NTSC decoder really outputs. Between real hardware and RGB (in my case from MISTer FPGA - which is pretty much the same PPU emulation code as RGB NES project uses and has the same palette capabilities) I don't see that big of a difference in sharpness. There is some shimmering with slight coloration on edges but then again for cases where it looks like undesirable artifacts there are tons of cases where game developers used this very shimmering to produce graphics which show not only more colors than NES supported but also do it in such way that it seems there is higher than 256 pixel wide resolution. Overall effect is such that comparing Composite vs RGB side by side (I have two identical SONY PVM 14M2E) it isn't all that immediately obvious which renditions is "sharper". There is good case for SMB looking overall nicer in RGB but like I said in lots and lots of games all that RGB gives you is broken emulator-like looks where instead of intended graphics you see bunch of pixels which itself at places look maybe sharp by itself but tricks game developers used made graphics in Composite to appear like having higher resolution than 256 pixels gave them.
I’m going to get one and have it modded because of the sheer number of games that were changed and/or were programmed on to different mappers when they were released in North America. Being able to play the games as the designers originally made them is something I want to be able to do without having to pop on a rom on switch or another way.
I got my av famicom modded about 5 years ago and it blew my mind the first time I hooked it up and compared the difference. Love being able to switch between custom palettes as well. It would be interesting to do the old school mod of swapping out the ppu with one of the playchoice 10 arcade chips but colors would obviously be weird game to game as the ppus were custom game to game.
There were two versions of the nes released in Japan like the us. That is the one you want if you want to get a famicom because the other earlier release only outputs rf. The Japanese one can play games which have hardware allowing for more voices in them. They won’t work in a North American nes because our’s doesn’t support sound hardware in game paks so If you’re an nes lover I recommend getting both so you can experience all the games in their full glory.
7 місяців тому+1
I am a purist. The game art designers intended the colors and graphics to look a certain way on a CRT television or monitor. Changing this, like having pixel perfect image or perfect RGB output to an LCD monitor for example, kind of goes against the original idea or work. But that's my opinion. Great video BTW! If I can make one suggestion, it would be to move whatever you were reading next to your camera so it doesn't look like you are looking away at something. Otherwise, good job! 👍🏻
Yup, especially Famicom/NES was a system which had NTSC generated directly out of the chip with perfect matching of NTSC phase to pixels so no such issues like Megadrive/Genesis has in their 320 pixels wide resolutions. In these SEGA systems and its Composite output it all comes down to filtering Luma component which disallows certain tricks NES can use that utilize NTSC artifacting. BTW. Almost all these RGB NES/Famicom videos use Super Mario Bros as showcase of superior RGB picture quality and often there is not enough care and attention put to capture Composite output directly - just use cheap grabber with bad phase - that should convey how much value this mod holds 4sure. Here in this video Composite capture is horrible and nothing like I see on my Famicom AV. If instead of SMB there was high quality and correct capture of CRT tube displaying e.g. Batman then between Composite and NES anyone watching seeing this stark difference in fidelity would start wondering if person presenting their new and shiny RGB mod lost their damn min. Certainly it would be plain obvious they lost bunch of money doing image degrading mod. That said being retro enthusiast I like both Composite and RGB and for something like Super Famicom / SNES I would argue S-Video is a great compromise. Really not a bad option for systems which have this option - especially ones with very high color count like SNES.
I have an HDMI-modded AV Famicom (Hi-DefNES) that has different palletes to choose from on the OSD menu. I still want an RGB-Modded one to use with my CRT.
Nope, PPU has just one video output pin where it outputs Composite signal. What you could do is to use the same Composite signal for both Luma and Chroma - and it might be a good trick to tune how your specific TV/monitor filters Composite signal. Some, especially later models would have very aggressive filters that would attempt at clearly separating luma and chroma to prevent chroma dots but due to imperfections in filters (they never have sharp cut-off frequency but rather slope) this would mean overdoing filtering on Luma side of things blurring image. With the trick I mentioned you can get full luma resolution - which in this case means having all of the chroma dots. From there you can design low pass filter that suits your needs or even has real-time control in form of potentiometer. Of course 100% correct way would be to use signal amplifier to not use the same signal twice - otherwise such trick works fairly well on its own.
The video that comes out of the nes is the same as earlier consoles, it’s not a true signal but a single signal that diverges out to 60 peaks. This results in the 60 colors we see but none them are defined so the nes looks different on every tv it’s plugged into. RGB is a form of clear uncompressed signal and is the standard for television displays and monitors rendering all information in three numerical values each representing red, green or blue. A scart cable is one way (if it’s wired to) of transmitting an rgb signal from a source to a destination without any loss as long as the cord isn’t too long.
Man….the quality is top notch. As for myself, I would not be willing to invest in the set up, but I really appreciate what you’ve done here. It’s really impressive.
RGB NES is one of these mods which seem to look amazing at first and in some games it really does look nicer but in reality across all games RGB mod does more harm to the image quality than it brings improvements. Super Mario Bros is an example where RGB looks great. On the other hand take game like Batman and RGB suddenly does not look that hot.
In fact game like Batman will look totally broken in RGB because originally this game utilize all the tricks with artifact color and in Composite you get simply much more colors and sub-pixel resolution. RGB replaces all that with emulator-like dithering patterns - which originally you were not supposed to see.
Besides, this video is very misleading showing composite capture. Not only colors are totally wrong but it also digital grabbers do terrible job at converting composite to RGB image. To do proper comparison you would either need to film CRT screen or go harder route and hack real analog TV and grab RGB signals from its insides and do it at very highline resolution (not 640 but more like 1920 pixels in a line!) and then correct brightness - first by not calibrating your capture for white on console to be #ffffff in video but giving it some room for brighter than white 'pixels'. For direct RGB vs Composite comparisons this means white would need to be slightly less bright - otherwise if you correct brightness incorrectly you get clipping.
All in all digital composite grabbers do terrible job at conveying what analog NTSC decoder really outputs.
Between real hardware and RGB (in my case from MISTer FPGA - which is pretty much the same PPU emulation code as RGB NES project uses and has the same palette capabilities) I don't see that big of a difference in sharpness. There is some shimmering with slight coloration on edges but then again for cases where it looks like undesirable artifacts there are tons of cases where game developers used this very shimmering to produce graphics which show not only more colors than NES supported but also do it in such way that it seems there is higher than 256 pixel wide resolution.
Overall effect is such that comparing Composite vs RGB side by side (I have two identical SONY PVM 14M2E) it isn't all that immediately obvious which renditions is "sharper". There is good case for SMB looking overall nicer in RGB but like I said in lots and lots of games all that RGB gives you is broken emulator-like looks where instead of intended graphics you see bunch of pixels which itself at places look maybe sharp by itself but tricks game developers used made graphics in Composite to appear like having higher resolution than 256 pixels gave them.
I’m going to get one and have it modded because of the sheer number of games that were changed and/or were programmed on to different mappers when they were released in North America. Being able to play the games as the designers originally made them is something I want to be able to do without having to pop on a rom on switch or another way.
Love this showcase and had fun watching it. This looks like a great mod you have shown off and would like to see more of it.
I got my av famicom modded about 5 years ago and it blew my mind the first time I hooked it up and compared the difference. Love being able to switch between custom palettes as well. It would be interesting to do the old school mod of swapping out the ppu with one of the playchoice 10 arcade chips but colors would obviously be weird game to game as the ppus were custom game to game.
6:25 I think you mean iffy not spiffy
There were two versions of the nes released in Japan like the us. That is the one you want if you want to get a famicom because the other earlier release only outputs rf. The Japanese one can play games which have hardware allowing for more voices in them. They won’t work in a North American nes because our’s doesn’t support sound hardware in game paks so If you’re an nes lover I recommend getting both so you can experience all the games in their full glory.
I am a purist. The game art designers intended the colors and graphics to look a certain way on a CRT television or monitor. Changing this, like having pixel perfect image or perfect RGB output to an LCD monitor for example, kind of goes against the original idea or work. But that's my opinion. Great video BTW!
If I can make one suggestion, it would be to move whatever you were reading next to your camera so it doesn't look like you are looking away at something. Otherwise, good job! 👍🏻
Yup, especially Famicom/NES was a system which had NTSC generated directly out of the chip with perfect matching of NTSC phase to pixels so no such issues like Megadrive/Genesis has in their 320 pixels wide resolutions. In these SEGA systems and its Composite output it all comes down to filtering Luma component which disallows certain tricks NES can use that utilize NTSC artifacting.
BTW. Almost all these RGB NES/Famicom videos use Super Mario Bros as showcase of superior RGB picture quality and often there is not enough care and attention put to capture Composite output directly - just use cheap grabber with bad phase - that should convey how much value this mod holds 4sure. Here in this video Composite capture is horrible and nothing like I see on my Famicom AV.
If instead of SMB there was high quality and correct capture of CRT tube displaying e.g. Batman then between Composite and NES anyone watching seeing this stark difference in fidelity would start wondering if person presenting their new and shiny RGB mod lost their damn min. Certainly it would be plain obvious they lost bunch of money doing image degrading mod.
That said being retro enthusiast I like both Composite and RGB and for something like Super Famicom / SNES I would argue S-Video is a great compromise. Really not a bad option for systems which have this option - especially ones with very high color count like SNES.
I have a Tomee C2 NES/SNES Retro Twin Gaming System. It would be nice to mod it for HDMI or RGB.
if you're not playing on a tube tv, what is the advantage of a modded system over emulation?
it'll look amazing on a newer tv while still being og hardware
I have an HDMI-modded AV Famicom (Hi-DefNES) that has different palletes to choose from on the OSD menu. I still want an RGB-Modded one to use with my CRT.
Wouldn't an unmodded AV Famicom be able to output S-Video? I feel like that would've bridged the gap better with the least amount of effort.
I don't believe so, I think anything better than composite needed a mod, including S-Video.
@@Valthonis maybe he means with an adapter.
Nope, PPU has just one video output pin where it outputs Composite signal.
What you could do is to use the same Composite signal for both Luma and Chroma - and it might be a good trick to tune how your specific TV/monitor filters Composite signal. Some, especially later models would have very aggressive filters that would attempt at clearly separating luma and chroma to prevent chroma dots but due to imperfections in filters (they never have sharp cut-off frequency but rather slope) this would mean overdoing filtering on Luma side of things blurring image.
With the trick I mentioned you can get full luma resolution - which in this case means having all of the chroma dots. From there you can design low pass filter that suits your needs or even has real-time control in form of potentiometer. Of course 100% correct way would be to use signal amplifier to not use the same signal twice - otherwise such trick works fairly well on its own.
The draw on your Vooiicceeeee drives me nuts and make this video unwatchable. sorry