SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

[Guspaz]

Analog video signals don't have an aspect ratio. That concept only makes sense in the digital space.

[Ikaruga11]

Analog video signals don't have an aspect ratio. That concept only makes sense in the digital space.

So yes?

[FBX]

Will there ever be a way to output 8:7 from an SNES?

In the case of the Framemeister in 4x scale 1080p, I use the formula (256 * 4) * (8/7) = 1170 for adjusting width, and the vertical is integer scaled to 896.

Analog video signals don't have an aspect ratio. That concept only makes sense in the digital space.

He's referring to the pixel aspect ratio that was determined here on the NES (which has the same signal space as the SNES):

Multiplying the pixel rate by the scanline length gives 39,375,000*6/4/11*640/(135,000,000/11) = 280 pixels per scanline. The PPU puts signal in 256 of these and a border at the left and right sides. The color of this border is the same as the backdrop color (usually the value in $3F00). This makes the pixel aspect ratio on a 4:3 TV to be 240/280*4/3 = exactly 8:7, or about 1.143:1.

.

[Guspaz]

Yes, but you can't change the pixel aspect ratio of a SNES, you'll never get anything different directly from the SNES. Modifying it on the scaler, that's a different story, that could be done. The framemeister can do it, and IIRC the OSSC can do it on the optim mode.

[Einzelherz]

Or just adjust the H and V on your CRT to 8:7 if you have that much range.

But these are merely bandaids for GL's ridiculous ideas.

[Ikaruga11]

So basically this is yet another reason why SNES emulation is better than the real thing.

[Guspaz]

Sure, feel free to go accept lots of lag just so that you can play games with an aspect ratio that they were never intended to be played in.

[AndehX]

aspect ratios are such a niche thing anyway. I'd take my console + BVM over an emulator any day.

[Ikaruga11]

Sure, feel free to go accept lots of lag just so that you can play games with an aspect ratio that they were never intended to be played in.

Someone sounds salty. There isn't "lots" of of lag on the best SNES emulators. Less than 1 frame at worst

There are tons of things people do that developers never intended, like modding for RGB and HDMI, de-blur, overclocking, etc.

[Ikaruga11]

aspect ratios are such a niche thing anyway. I'd take my console + BVM over an emulator any day.

You do realize that you can play an emulator on a BVM, right?

[Guspaz]

What emulator? Higan is 6-8 frames of lag even when on a near-zero-lag monitor, and it's the only cycle-accurate SNES emulator. The lowest latency emulators available only knock maybe 2 frames off that. The OS display/input stack add a bunch of lag all by themselves.

[Harrumph]

I think he's just trolling now...

[Einzelherz]

Nope, that's just GL.

[Ikaruga11]

What emulator? Higan is 6-8 frames of lag even when on a near-zero-lag monitor, and it's the only cycle-accurate SNES emulator. The lowest latency emulators available only knock maybe 2 frames off that. The OS display/input stack add a bunch of lag all by themselves.

It's not that high.

Meanwhile, SNES emulation gives you 8:7 output, savestates, color palettes, and a bunch of other stuff the real hardware can't do.

[Guspaz]

Yeah, he's just trolling now. 8 frames of lag not high, "color palettes" for a SNES.

[Ikaruga11]

Yeah, he's just trolling now. 8 frames of lag not high, "color palettes" for a SNES.

Fuck off.

Not everything you disagree with is trolling.

[Guspaz]

Yeah, he's just trolling now. 8 frames of lag not high, "color palettes" for a SNES.

Fuck off.

Not everything you disagree with is trolling.

I don't think you'll find a single other person here who will agree with you that 8 frames of lag is not high. When your opinions are so unreasonable as to seem ridiculous, trolling is a logical conclusion. If you really do believe these things, I don't even know how to relate to your position.

[Blair]

supposedly, the input lag can be brought down to sub 1 frame with driver threading and by forcing NVIDIA "Fast Sync" (not g-sync) (not sure if amd cards have a similar option) but retroarch is the only way i've seen to do this. (from what I hear it's also very CPU intensive). I have not tested any of this my self yet. but I have played a few PC games by forcing NVIDIA "Fast Sync" in the driver control panel and it does make a big difference.

I did a quick PC game recording of it here.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umE4r95urFE

(please set quality to 1080p60)

[FinalBaton]

Uh, i have never felt that SNES games in 4:3 were "wrong". That's how I prefer they look, even if some circles look oval on my display. 8:7 makes everything (especially characters) look too skinny.

I can't fathom that the devs didn't design the game for a 4:3 AR when everyone had 4:3 TV sets...

well, if one really wants 8:7 AR then on a CRT monitor with H/V size adjustment this is easily achievable

[ZellSF]

What emulator? Higan is 6-8 frames of lag even when on a near-zero-lag monitor, and it's the only cycle-accurate SNES emulator. The lowest latency emulators available only knock maybe 2 frames off that. The OS display/input stack add a bunch of lag all by themselves.

It's not that high.

Meanwhile, SNES emulation gives you 8:7 output, savestates, color palettes, and a bunch of other stuff the real hardware can't do.

Wow, being able to play games at the wrong aspect ratio with the wrong colors must be amazing.

On a more serious note, I'm not sure emulators can output 8:7 SNES in SD? Not even sure how that would work. Have you actually checked?

I know emulators can output 8:7 in HD, but here a SNES+scaler can do the same thing, but I've never heard of anyone outputting 8:7 in SD from a SNES emulator.

[Ikaruga11]

I can't fathom that the devs didn't design the game for a 4:3 AR when everyone had 4:3 TV sets...

Yeah, why did NES and SNES use 8:7 in the first place? They should have just used 4:3.

[Guspaz]

A position of 0-255 fits in an 8-bit unsigned integer. The CPU was 8-bits, the registers were 8-bits, the sprite attribute memory fit in 256 bytes of address space (64 sprites using 4 bytes each), meaning it was also addressible by 8-bits... and that's particularly relevant because they use a single byte of mapped memory to specify the sprite address to write to. Makes sense that they'd stick to a width of 256. Each sprite attribute fits into just 4 bytes, and so supporting a width of 320 would have increased costs/complexity elsewhere by requiring some combination of less sprites or more memory.

This was probably reinforced by other factors, such as the PPU's pixel rate meaning that only 280 pixels max could be supported, with 256 still normally having a bit of overscan, so it seems that supporting 320 would have also added more expense to requiring more complex clock references in the NES.

[FBX]

I can't fathom that the devs didn't design the game for a 4:3 AR when everyone had 4:3 TV sets...

Yeah, why did NES and SNES use 8:7 in the first place? They should have just used 4:3.

The pixel aspect ratio of NES and SNES on a CRT is 256 * 8/7 = 292.57, but we round down because 292 is a multiple of 4, which is easier to integer scale digitally.

But at any rate, consider how crazy-wide CPS arcade resolution is at 384, yet they designed the artwork to fit 4:3.

.

[Guspaz]

I can't fathom that the devs didn't design the game for a 4:3 AR when everyone had 4:3 TV sets...

Yeah, why did NES and SNES use 8:7 in the first place? They should have just used 4:3.

The pixel aspect ratio of NES and SNES on a CRT is 256 * 8/7 = 292.57, but we round down because 292 is a multiple of 4, which is easier to integer scale digitally.

But at any rate, consider how crazy-wide CPS arcade resolution is at 384, yet they designed the artwork to fit 4:3.

.

My understanding is that the NES PPU outputs 280 pixels (blanking 12 pixels on each side with the background colour), and only actually outputs graphics in the middle 256, so you'd expect the math to look like 280 * 8/7 = 320. But then you'd expect all that extra to be in the overscan, along with a chunk of the horizontal space. It's a confusing world.

[ChuChu Flamingo]

Come on bro if you can't adapt to 6-8 frames of lag you just suck.

[FinalBaton]

Yeah, why did NES and SNES use 8:7 in the first place? They should have just used 4:3.

Well, they DID design the game around a 4:3 AR. At least that's how I understand things.

Far from an expert on this but : my theory is that the games were designed around the fact that they would be played on a 4:3 CRT and fill the whole tube. The developpers had to assumed that people would set their TV so that the image filled the whole screen. So they took that in consideration when making graphics.

As FBX said, an arcade game like Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo has a raster that's wider than 4:3, yet it was displayed on a 4:3 screen and filled pretty much the entire screen.

[Unseen]

But at any rate, consider how crazy-wide CPS arcade resolution is at 384, yet they designed the artwork to fit 4:3..

It's not wide(r), it's fast(er) than the output from a system that uses 320 pixels horizontally. 256 is slower still.

[FBX]

But at any rate, consider how crazy-wide CPS arcade resolution is at 384, yet they designed the artwork to fit 4:3..

It's not wide(r), it's fast(er) than the output from a system that uses 320 pixels horizontally. 256 is slower still.

Semantics. Digitally speaking 384 is wider than 320.

[Ikaruga11]

Interesting. So the only way to achieve a native 8:7 aspect is through emulation or scaling devices such as the Framemeister?

[Guspaz]

8:7 is the pixel aspect ratio, not the screen aspect ratio, and when you display the SNES as a 4:3 image, that is *already* showing the native 8:7 pixel aspect ratio (each SNES pixel on your screen will be 8/7 times wider than it is tall).

What you're asking to do is to change the pixel aspect ratio from the native 8:7 to 1:1, which results in a screen aspect ratio of 7:6 (~1.167), not 8:7 (~1.143).