For those of you who have viewed this video before, I've uploaded it a third time to fix various errors that were present in the previous two. I'd rather have this showcase be as accurate as possible than to contain errors that shouldn't have been present to begin with.
Hi! Mike here... thanks so much for taking the time to do this comparison and glad you like the output of the 2X. I think James-F, the guy who helped me with the comb filter settings, really did a good job on optimizing the composite settings. To me, the blue in the sky now looks correct.
And a big thank you for making this possible with the RetroTINK-2X. I love this little thing. Yeah, the composite signal looks very clean coming through it, I was quite surprised when I first tried it. I never had this console when I was younger (it's a little older than I am), and I know people are back and forth on the color of the sky, and I didn't know what people saw back in the day on their CRTs, so it made an ideal candidate for a comparison. I hope to keep this going with more games and consoles as I collect them, as people seem to really like this (and hopefully not have to publish a video three times to get it right :P).
Very interesting. The Composite direct definitely looks the worst. Otherwise there isn't a lot in it. I guess by personal choice I would say the RetroTink with OSSC looks the best, extremely closely followed by the RetroTink by itself and then the Framemeister. To be completely honest though any of the options other than direct are a good way to go. Well as good as composite gets.
I noticed in the side by side comparisons when i paused the video and go frame by frame, the last 3 have sort of a waving effect.. if you look at the X specifically right beside the coin, one of the diagonal lines even flashes red and blue for each frame.. but the original component version is absolutely solid.. any idea why?
Checked my local video of this and yeah, I see what you're seeing, and I believe I know why. Composite is a very low quality video signal, and often you will see this "rainbowing" effect in areas, which is what we're noticing here with that X. The reason you see it being shifted back and forth in all of them except for the direct capture is because of deinterlacing. For the latter three, they are applying a deinterlace that moves each row into the same position for each frame (480i being deinterlaced to 240p), and this is being done correctly here as the NES is supposed to output the even and odd lines on the same line. Even lines for example on frame 1, and odd frames on frame 2, they should all go into the same scanline back and forth. The reason you don't see the alternating colors on the direct capture is because there is deinterlacing happening incorrectly. The capture card is treating the image as 480i strictly, and not as 240p, meaning the scanlines don't go into the same line on the screen, and are instead held side by side, meaning the red and blue are being shown at the same time instead of alternating like the others (you can see this when Mario flashes, you get the "invisible" and "visible" frames of him at the same time, but on separate scanlines). Hope that made sense.
Direct is the only method Mario does not disappear in video from transparency flashes. Framemeister tries to deal with it but still blanks out a second, and also adds lag. I think you just demonstrated how playing on a CRT is still the best method to play.
I will agree that a good old CRT will definitely be the preferred choice for many people for the NES. I for one don't like using one as they strain my eyes very quickly and give me headaches. As for Mario flashing, make sure you're watching in 60fps. He should be appearing and disappearing every other frame except in direct feed, which is where he's being improperly deinterlaced.
@@AgentBSoD Toggling 60fps fixed Mario disappearing and now displays as you described. UA-cam should give an option to default to 60fps when available. Have you tried OSSC to PC CRT? That is my plan but not to fruition just yet. 480p should be a lot better on your eyes.
I do have a PC CRT, but I don't use it for the reason I mentioned earlier. It's more of a backup in case I'm sending out a weird signal that nothing else wants to sync to (I do have some old PC hardware that does exactly this). And it's not the resolution or anything that hurts my eyes, it's the way CRTs strobe, or flicker. I'm rather sensitive to it (even at 85 Hz), so I prefer modern displays, even if that means it's not as authentic of an experience. Anyway, I did just try that, sending the signal from the RetroTINK to the PC CRT, and it does work, and I do have to admit, it looks really good. There's a lot less wavy artifacts from the composite signal as it looks like the CRT is filtering it. Also no input lag that I can detect. Setup is composite -> RetroTINK -> HDMI to YPbPr component transcoder -> YPbPr component to VGA transcoder. Should be able to simplify that, but that's just the hardware I have laying around.
@@AgentBSoD I recently drove 10hrs to pick up a FW900 in great condition already calibrated with WinDAS and invested quite a bit into it. After seeing its condition and performance I really want to go all out as much as possible. I think it is a unit that deserves it. I'm wanting to do a similar process as you just tested as working but with an OSSC(I'm using component with all my systems except NES) and a Tendak HDMI -> VGA adapter going into a 6 inch 5BNC into the monitor. The shortest cable I can find and works without a gender changer as they come male or female. This should eliminate yet another 2 connection points in the analog path. My only delimma is which OSSC to get, the amazon ripoff or the real thing?
My personal recommendation would be to look into a reputable seller of the unit. I bought mine new from VideoGamePerfection. It also looks, from a quick search, to be cheaper there than from Amazon anyway. My recommendation is made this way because I do not know what the quality of the components used in the unit are like in the Amazon listings, and in my opinion, it's worth it to get it from a seller that is known to use high quality parts than to chance an unknown seller (they very well may be good too, though). Also, that's a very nice CRT you got there. Looks like a very nice pickup.
I'm not very good at the game so I can't make it very far yet. The latency is less than a frame on the RetroTINK and OSSC. I experience no discernible lag with these with anything I've thrown at them. The Framemeister has, according to online reports, about 1 to 1.5 frames of latency, which is not too noticeable but if you're very sensitive to it, may be a deal breaker.
Yes. I use computer monitors (the NES is situated at my computer), and I set them at 720p output. My monitors are 1440p, which makes a nice integer scale. Both monitors do have, however, an option to view them 1:1, which creates a black border on all sides but is pixel perfect (if not a bit small). Since these devices cannot output 1440p signals, 720p for me is preferable.
The NES seems to render its Composite signal incorrectly. It's supposed to be two flickering versions of an image that sort of merge to create a whole one. But the NES seems to produce the alternating versions in reverse, causing them to be unable to be merged as easily by comb filters. If you look for a video showing composite coming out of an NESRGB's analog out, which DOES produce the signal on-spec, it actually looks much more decent. It's still composite, so it still kinda sucks, but a good display or scaler can actually clean up the image very well with its built in comb filter. Found this one, it should provide a good example of the much better clarity. ua-cam.com/video/b9B1jXNYGa4/v-deo.html I wonder how that would look through these scalers?
Why u combined retro tink with ossc? Cant U go into the ossc with a tiny composite to scart adapter? I ordered the ossc and now i am scared of having to buy another 100 Dollar toy... 😭
Yeah the OSSC doesn't have inputs for composite or s-video because the processors it uses cannot handle that. I don't know about converting composite to SCART. If the converter actually does convert properly, it should be fine, but if SCART is just carrying the same composite signal (which it can), it won't work. The RetroTINK converts the signal nicely to HDMI and I transcode it to component for the OSSC with an adapter. With the TV that I have some consoles hooked up to, I just use the RetroTINK for the NES as it seems to like it better, and latches to the signal faster than with the OSSC. There is also the Koryuu which converts composite and s-video into YPbPr (component), so you don't need an HDMI to component converter in the middle. It's cheaper, but processes the image a bit differently. It's largely up to you, but I can vouch for the RetroTINK being a product that just works.
@@einnickname I guess you speak German? Ich habe mir auch den OSSC gekauft und konnte meinen NES nicht dran anschließen. Ich habe dabei ein Composite zu Scart Kabel benutzt. Der OSSC braucht allerdings ein RGB Signal ais dem Scart Kabel. Das hatte der NES natürlich nicht. Ich denke, dass der Retrotink die besste Lösung ist. Ansonsten ist der OSSC für meine anderen Konsolen das beste Gerät, das ich je gesehen habe. Das Bild bei meinen Retro Konsolen war noch nie so scharf wie jetzt.
@@Oribaa90 Ich habe für OSSC, ein SNES RGB to Scart Kabel und den Versand so viel Geld bezahlt, dass mir die Lust am NES vergangen ist und ich jetzt erst mal nur mit der SNES Vorlieb nehme. Wenn ich dann irgendwann mal im Lotto gewinne, kaufe ich mir für den OSSC diesen Composite Adapter und hoffe, so dann aus der NES das Beste rausholen zu können.
It should handle it exactly the same, as the changes don't mention anything about how it processes the image. The Pro just seems easier to use for the user, and can be firmware upgraded without special tools.
Wanted to update this. The RetroTINK-2X Pro has received some firmware updates and the composite processing has also been changed, meaning there is now a meaningful difference between the two devices.
A CRT is definitely a great way to play on this console. Those weird borders wouldn't be visible on a CRT due to overscan, and CRTs are generally really good at filtering out noise and artifacts from low quality signals (i.e. composite, RF). Since this video, I have hidden the weird borders via the OSSC which makes it look much nicer. Not much else you can do to sharpen composite for a digital output though.
Yeah, the borders weren't intended to be seen, but rather covered up from overscan. This is another reason I like using the OSSC here, I can crop those off, or do further crops to simulate what overscan would get rid of if I wanted.
That's true, and generally it is a bad idea. However, the OSSC features horizontal and vertical masks in the post processing menu, which just covers up edges only and keeps pixel density (basically black bars on all sides, or just left and right if one wants to see the full 256x240). Also, changing sampling options on the OSSC for the composite coming from the NES to my eyes makes almost no difference with the clarity of the horizontal scan since composite is such low quality anyway. Vertical scan is a different story and shouldn't be touched. I've actually tweaked it to match the 4:3 aspect ratio a CRT would display it as with no ill effects on the image. If anything, I got it at a sweet spot where horizontal scrolling is smooth with no uneven pixels, at least to my eye. I've made a bit of tweaks to the image output since this video, so I've been thinking of making a video on my settings once I'm 100% satisfied with them.
That's one of the things I'm still undecided on with regards to the aspect ratio. The NES may render internally at 8:7, but everyone saw it as 4:3 (wider). I'm probably going to revert back to 8:7 ratio, I've not found a good argument to be made for 4:3 with games' graphics. Also there's no real pixel sharpness since it's composite so that doesn't really matter in this particular case. And I'd rather not modify the system. I'm well aware of RGB mods and such for many consoles, but my personal preference is to leave everything stock. I know the RGB mod looks super crisp, but I like the console the way it is.
For those of you who have viewed this video before, I've uploaded it a third time to fix various errors that were present in the previous two. I'd rather have this showcase be as accurate as possible than to contain errors that shouldn't have been present to begin with.
I appreciate this, I've watched all the iterations!
Hi! Mike here... thanks so much for taking the time to do this comparison and glad you like the output of the 2X. I think James-F, the guy who helped me with the comb filter settings, really did a good job on optimizing the composite settings. To me, the blue in the sky now looks correct.
And a big thank you for making this possible with the RetroTINK-2X. I love this little thing. Yeah, the composite signal looks very clean coming through it, I was quite surprised when I first tried it.
I never had this console when I was younger (it's a little older than I am), and I know people are back and forth on the color of the sky, and I didn't know what people saw back in the day on their CRTs, so it made an ideal candidate for a comparison. I hope to keep this going with more games and consoles as I collect them, as people seem to really like this (and hopefully not have to publish a video three times to get it right :P).
Very interesting. The Composite direct definitely looks the worst. Otherwise there isn't a lot in it. I guess by personal choice I would say the RetroTink with OSSC looks the best, extremely closely followed by the RetroTink by itself and then the Framemeister.
To be completely honest though any of the options other than direct are a good way to go. Well as good as composite gets.
retrotink is the cheapest and allegedly has the least amount of lag
I eagerly await more upscaler comparisons
i prefer the framemeister because it's closest to original but better picture.
I used the Retrotink, hdmi to component and OSSC setup on my SNES Jr (no rgb or S-video) and it looks amazing. I use LINE 5X mode.
IMO Direct connection look quite nice besides composite artifacts and its free
it almost ALWAYS has latency issues / lag
I noticed in the side by side comparisons when i paused the video and go frame by frame, the last 3 have sort of a waving effect.. if you look at the X specifically right beside the coin, one of the diagonal lines even flashes red and blue for each frame.. but the original component version is absolutely solid.. any idea why?
Checked my local video of this and yeah, I see what you're seeing, and I believe I know why. Composite is a very low quality video signal, and often you will see this "rainbowing" effect in areas, which is what we're noticing here with that X. The reason you see it being shifted back and forth in all of them except for the direct capture is because of deinterlacing. For the latter three, they are applying a deinterlace that moves each row into the same position for each frame (480i being deinterlaced to 240p), and this is being done correctly here as the NES is supposed to output the even and odd lines on the same line. Even lines for example on frame 1, and odd frames on frame 2, they should all go into the same scanline back and forth. The reason you don't see the alternating colors on the direct capture is because there is deinterlacing happening incorrectly. The capture card is treating the image as 480i strictly, and not as 240p, meaning the scanlines don't go into the same line on the screen, and are instead held side by side, meaning the red and blue are being shown at the same time instead of alternating like the others (you can see this when Mario flashes, you get the "invisible" and "visible" frames of him at the same time, but on separate scanlines). Hope that made sense.
Direct is the only method Mario does not disappear in video from transparency flashes. Framemeister tries to deal with it but still blanks out a second, and also adds lag. I think you just demonstrated how playing on a CRT is still the best method to play.
I will agree that a good old CRT will definitely be the preferred choice for many people for the NES. I for one don't like using one as they strain my eyes very quickly and give me headaches.
As for Mario flashing, make sure you're watching in 60fps. He should be appearing and disappearing every other frame except in direct feed, which is where he's being improperly deinterlaced.
@@AgentBSoD Toggling 60fps fixed Mario disappearing and now displays as you described. UA-cam should give an option to default to 60fps when available. Have you tried OSSC to PC CRT? That is my plan but not to fruition just yet. 480p should be a lot better on your eyes.
I do have a PC CRT, but I don't use it for the reason I mentioned earlier. It's more of a backup in case I'm sending out a weird signal that nothing else wants to sync to (I do have some old PC hardware that does exactly this). And it's not the resolution or anything that hurts my eyes, it's the way CRTs strobe, or flicker. I'm rather sensitive to it (even at 85 Hz), so I prefer modern displays, even if that means it's not as authentic of an experience.
Anyway, I did just try that, sending the signal from the RetroTINK to the PC CRT, and it does work, and I do have to admit, it looks really good. There's a lot less wavy artifacts from the composite signal as it looks like the CRT is filtering it. Also no input lag that I can detect. Setup is composite -> RetroTINK -> HDMI to YPbPr component transcoder -> YPbPr component to VGA transcoder. Should be able to simplify that, but that's just the hardware I have laying around.
@@AgentBSoD I recently drove 10hrs to pick up a FW900 in great condition already calibrated with WinDAS and invested quite a bit into it. After seeing its condition and performance I really want to go all out as much as possible. I think it is a unit that deserves it. I'm wanting to do a similar process as you just tested as working but with an OSSC(I'm using component with all my systems except NES) and a Tendak HDMI -> VGA adapter going into a 6 inch 5BNC into the monitor. The shortest cable I can find and works without a gender changer as they come male or female. This should eliminate yet another 2 connection points in the analog path. My only delimma is which OSSC to get, the amazon ripoff or the real thing?
My personal recommendation would be to look into a reputable seller of the unit. I bought mine new from VideoGamePerfection. It also looks, from a quick search, to be cheaper there than from Amazon anyway. My recommendation is made this way because I do not know what the quality of the components used in the unit are like in the Amazon listings, and in my opinion, it's worth it to get it from a seller that is known to use high quality parts than to chance an unknown seller (they very well may be good too, though).
Also, that's a very nice CRT you got there. Looks like a very nice pickup.
hows the latency? can you still play/beat mario 1? i use this as a good measuring stick for input lag - can you make it to world 8-3
I'm not very good at the game so I can't make it very far yet. The latency is less than a frame on the RetroTINK and OSSC. I experience no discernible lag with these with anything I've thrown at them. The Framemeister has, according to online reports, about 1 to 1.5 frames of latency, which is not too noticeable but if you're very sensitive to it, may be a deal breaker.
Does the scaler in your tv or monitor still scale what these devices output?
Yes. I use computer monitors (the NES is situated at my computer), and I set them at 720p output. My monitors are 1440p, which makes a nice integer scale. Both monitors do have, however, an option to view them 1:1, which creates a black border on all sides but is pixel perfect (if not a bit small). Since these devices cannot output 1440p signals, 720p for me is preferable.
The NES seems to render its Composite signal incorrectly. It's supposed to be two flickering versions of an image that sort of merge to create a whole one. But the NES seems to produce the alternating versions in reverse, causing them to be unable to be merged as easily by comb filters.
If you look for a video showing composite coming out of an NESRGB's analog out, which DOES produce the signal on-spec, it actually looks much more decent. It's still composite, so it still kinda sucks, but a good display or scaler can actually clean up the image very well with its built in comb filter.
Found this one, it should provide a good example of the much better clarity.
ua-cam.com/video/b9B1jXNYGa4/v-deo.html
I wonder how that would look through these scalers?
Why u combined retro tink with ossc? Cant U go into the ossc with a tiny composite to scart adapter? I ordered the ossc and now i am scared of having to buy another 100 Dollar toy... 😭
Yeah the OSSC doesn't have inputs for composite or s-video because the processors it uses cannot handle that. I don't know about converting composite to SCART. If the converter actually does convert properly, it should be fine, but if SCART is just carrying the same composite signal (which it can), it won't work. The RetroTINK converts the signal nicely to HDMI and I transcode it to component for the OSSC with an adapter. With the TV that I have some consoles hooked up to, I just use the RetroTINK for the NES as it seems to like it better, and latches to the signal faster than with the OSSC. There is also the Koryuu which converts composite and s-video into YPbPr (component), so you don't need an HDMI to component converter in the middle. It's cheaper, but processes the image a bit differently. It's largely up to you, but I can vouch for the RetroTINK being a product that just works.
@@AgentBSoD god damn. thank u so much for this long answer. ❤️
@@einnickname I guess you speak German? Ich habe mir auch den OSSC gekauft und konnte meinen NES nicht dran anschließen. Ich habe dabei ein Composite zu Scart Kabel benutzt. Der OSSC braucht allerdings ein RGB Signal ais dem Scart Kabel. Das hatte der NES natürlich nicht. Ich denke, dass der Retrotink die besste Lösung ist. Ansonsten ist der OSSC für meine anderen Konsolen das beste Gerät, das ich je gesehen habe. Das Bild bei meinen Retro Konsolen war noch nie so scharf wie jetzt.
@@Oribaa90 Ich habe für OSSC, ein SNES RGB to Scart Kabel und den Versand so viel Geld bezahlt, dass mir die Lust am NES vergangen ist und ich jetzt erst mal nur mit der SNES Vorlieb nehme. Wenn ich dann irgendwann mal im Lotto gewinne, kaufe ich mir für den OSSC diesen Composite Adapter und hoffe, so dann aus der NES das Beste rausholen zu können.
Anybody out there know if the the retrotink2x classic handles the composite the same or worse than the retrotink2x pro?
It should handle it exactly the same, as the changes don't mention anything about how it processes the image. The Pro just seems easier to use for the user, and can be firmware upgraded without special tools.
Wanted to update this. The RetroTINK-2X Pro has received some firmware updates and the composite processing has also been changed, meaning there is now a meaningful difference between the two devices.
none of them look better than my $5 crt lmao
if i HAD to choose id say retrotink 2x alone
tbh none of them are looking good imo... unless I see more crisp pixels and not these strange borders I'll stay playing retro games on crt :(
A CRT is definitely a great way to play on this console. Those weird borders wouldn't be visible on a CRT due to overscan, and CRTs are generally really good at filtering out noise and artifacts from low quality signals (i.e. composite, RF). Since this video, I have hidden the weird borders via the OSSC which makes it look much nicer. Not much else you can do to sharpen composite for a digital output though.
@@AgentBSoD this kinda saddens me. Its much more comfortable to play in a 43" lcd screen in my living room
Yeah, the borders weren't intended to be seen, but rather covered up from overscan. This is another reason I like using the OSSC here, I can crop those off, or do further crops to simulate what overscan would get rid of if I wanted.
That's true, and generally it is a bad idea. However, the OSSC features horizontal and vertical masks in the post processing menu, which just covers up edges only and keeps pixel density (basically black bars on all sides, or just left and right if one wants to see the full 256x240). Also, changing sampling options on the OSSC for the composite coming from the NES to my eyes makes almost no difference with the clarity of the horizontal scan since composite is such low quality anyway. Vertical scan is a different story and shouldn't be touched. I've actually tweaked it to match the 4:3 aspect ratio a CRT would display it as with no ill effects on the image. If anything, I got it at a sweet spot where horizontal scrolling is smooth with no uneven pixels, at least to my eye. I've made a bit of tweaks to the image output since this video, so I've been thinking of making a video on my settings once I'm 100% satisfied with them.
That's one of the things I'm still undecided on with regards to the aspect ratio. The NES may render internally at 8:7, but everyone saw it as 4:3 (wider). I'm probably going to revert back to 8:7 ratio, I've not found a good argument to be made for 4:3 with games' graphics. Also there's no real pixel sharpness since it's composite so that doesn't really matter in this particular case. And I'd rather not modify the system. I'm well aware of RGB mods and such for many consoles, but my personal preference is to leave everything stock. I know the RGB mod looks super crisp, but I like the console the way it is.
Really great video never seen anyone comparing all three of these. Would love to see you try more systems