SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

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Ikaruga11
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by Ikaruga11 »

Guspaz wrote: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).
Ohh, yes that's what I want to do.
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Einzelherz
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by Einzelherz »

My assumption has always been that it was in line with Nintendo's cost philosophy of using older and thus less expensive tech. Fewer pixels to push makes that easier.
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by Unseen »

GeneraLight wrote:
Guspaz wrote: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).
Ohh, yes that's what I want to do.
Why is it so important to you to get (incorrect) squares when rectangles are and have always been the correct way? Do you have rectangle-phobia?
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Guspaz
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by Guspaz »

Einzelherz wrote:My assumption has always been that it was in line with Nintendo's cost philosophy of using older and thus less expensive tech. Fewer pixels to push makes that easier.
As I mentioned in the post on the last page, I think it was more about fitting everything into 8-bits. X position fit in an 8-bit field, the sprite attribute table fit in an 8-bit addressable memory map, etc. Combine that with the way the pixel clocks divided only giving you 280 pixels per scanline to play with, and a 256 pixel subset of that was a very logical choice.
Ikaruga11
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by Ikaruga11 »

Unseen wrote:
GeneraLight wrote:
Guspaz wrote: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).
Ohh, yes that's what I want to do.
Why is it so important to you to get (incorrect) squares when rectangles are and have always been the correct way? Do you have rectangle-phobia?
Pixels are supposed to be square. NES and SNES games look nicer with square pixels. Proportions look right. Everything isn't fat.
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blizzz
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by blizzz »

GeneraLight wrote:Pixels are supposed to be square.
That's just plain wrong. Pixel Aspect Ratio
Ikaruga11
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by Ikaruga11 »

blizzz wrote:
GeneraLight wrote:Pixels are supposed to be square.
That's just plain wrong. Pixel Aspect Ratio
All I want is the left image, as God intended.

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FinalBaton
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by FinalBaton »

I'm sure that "god"(the devs) didn't intend them to be displayed as square pixels
therefore it can't be called more "accurate"
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bobrocks95
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by bobrocks95 »

Odd phrasing since developers almost certainly used 4:3 CRTs when developing SNES games.

Image

In the end it doesn't matter if you want 8:7, that's fine (and you've been given 3 ways to accomplish it). But it's impossible to argue that it's more "correct"
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Einzelherz
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by Einzelherz »

I mean, I did warn you guys.
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by ApolloBoy »

Only on SHMUPs!
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FBX
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by FBX »

GeneraLight wrote:
blizzz wrote:
GeneraLight wrote:Pixels are supposed to be square.
That's just plain wrong. Pixel Aspect Ratio
All I want is the left image, as God intended.
FYI, when we're talking about pixel aspect ratio, we mean each individual pixel's width versus height. So those "8:7" images would technically be 1:1 in terms of pixel aspect ratio.

But I digress, for every image you post of artists being lazy, I can post images where they did take into account CRT stretching. Which image below do you think the triforce look more correctly angled?

Image Image

bobrocks95 wrote:
Image
Sorry to nit-pick, but proper correction isn't to stretch the live graphics to 4:3, and this is because the entire signal including overscan area being sent to the CRT needs to be accounted for. As such, the correction formula ends up being 256 * (8/7). So instead of 640 pixels across on your double-scale images, the corrected image should be around 584 as in below:

Image

Note the moon is even more accurately represented as a sphere. The NES uses the same formula btw, and the technical details about this formula can be read on the NESdev Overscan page:

https://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/Overscan


.
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bobrocks95
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by bobrocks95 »

You're giving me an awful lot of credit FBX if you think I made that instead of spending 5 seconds googling for it haha. I just remembered it as an example of artists clearly accounting for CRT "pixel" ratio.
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FBX
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by FBX »

bobrocks95 wrote:You're giving me an awful lot of credit FBX if you think I made that instead of spending 5 seconds googling for it haha. I just remembered it as an example of artists clearly accounting for CRT "pixel" ratio.
Ah sorry. But yeah, whoever made that got it wrong. I will say the technically more accurate formula is to scale first and then correct, in which case instead of 584, it would be around 585 on double scale images, but it's better to stay in multiples of 2 or 4 for digital correction.
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by FBX »

By the way,

Is anyone else getting a broken link when clicking on my SNES serial database? I got a PM that it isn't working, but when I click on it, it works fine.

.
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Einzelherz
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by Einzelherz »

I vaguely recall the days when some s/nes emulators couldn't/didn't 4:3 stretch. I have memories of FF3j and Megaman X being squooshed.
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theclaw
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by theclaw »

I'm sure you can find all manner of flubs in any game. Artists contributing to the same game, each of them potentially referencing different monitor and TV types and brands.
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Blair
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by Blair »

FBX wrote:for every image you post of artists being lazy, I can post images where they did take into account CRT stretching. Which image below do you think the triforce look more correctly angled?
so, would you say that aspect ratio correction would need to be done on a game by game basis? I only say this because I was playing around with my SNES and OSSC in 240p line2x mode (I haven't updated to the new firmware with pixel perfect line2x modes yet) and I noticed that most of the circles in Akumajou Dracula XX looked kinda oval. so I used the aspect ratio controls on my scaler, and I thought the game looked generally better with the correction. but am I wrong in thinking this? (and is this only an issue with the SNES and NES? as I've never noticed this with Mega Drive titles).

here's a digi-cam shot I took from my TV (pic is a little "meh", i'm still learning how to use Open camera for android) with scanlines at about 10%

Image
Last edited by Blair on Sat Jul 08, 2017 6:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Thomago
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by Thomago »

Blair wrote:is this only an issue with the SNES and NES
Nope, PS1 and PS2 have this issue as well. I presume every console up to the HD era is affected.
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by Blair »

ah, thanks for the info. is the problem also there when ps1/ps2 games output at 480i?
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by FBX »

Blair wrote: and is this only an issue with the SNES and NES? as I've never noticed this with Mega Drive titles.
Actually it's a problem with Mega Drive as well. My own review of the game library showed 320x224 mode the artists overwhelmingly designed the graphics based on 1:1 PAR. However, the opposite was true for Genesis games that primarily ran in 256x224 mode (about 25% of the library), in which case, most of the artistic work did account for CRT AR.

In the end, it all boils down to whether or not you want to worry about each game's AR on a case-by-case basis, or just go with CRT AR because that's how all games were originally designed to be played on back then. If a game has ovals with CRT correction now, obviously it did back then too, and that's how it was played.
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by Thomago »

Blair wrote:ah, thanks for the info. is the problem also there when ps1/ps2 games output at 480i?
Yes, the problem is independent of output mode.
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by Blair »

That's very interesting, thanks for the information guys. I'll have have to be mindful of that in the future. I'm surprised somebody hasn't set up a database of games and suggested AR's. (I was thinking of doing something like that with game tittles that use lots of dithering).
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Einzelherz
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by Einzelherz »

Because it's pointless? The games are 4:3 games full stop.
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Blair
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by Blair »

True, I don't mess with AR as most of the time I'm playing on a CRT, but on a digital display or recording it might look better to do some adjustment. (And some of us suffer from ocd a bit more then others. :roll: )
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theclaw
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by theclaw »

Einzelherz wrote:Because it's pointless? The games are 4:3 games full stop.
Game design isn't that perfect. Artists make mistakes.
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Thomago
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by Thomago »

The games are 4:3, their assets aren't 8)
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theclaw
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by theclaw »

Thomago wrote:The games are 4:3, their assets aren't 8)
Wasn't Dreamcast the first console to natively draw and output at 4:3? It marked a swift end to the "240p" era.
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Einzelherz
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by Einzelherz »

theclaw wrote:
Einzelherz wrote:Because it's pointless? The games are 4:3 games full stop.
Game design isn't that perfect. Artists make mistakes.
I'm going to assume you're vaguely referencing the photos that GL posted earlier, or something similar as evidence, yes?

What do all of those "square/circular at 8:7" objects have in common? I'll wait.

Correct! They're all small and have very limited pixel counts!

Now how about those that are correct at 4:3?

You guessed it! They're large and have plenty of pixels to work around the slight rectangularity!

Artists aren't making mistakes. They're practical.
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Thomago
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Re: SNES/Famicon PCB Revisions and RGB Video

Post by Thomago »

Einzelherz wrote:What do all of those "square/circular at 8:7" objects have in common? I'll wait.

Correct! They're all small and have very limited pixel counts!

Now how about those that are correct at 4:3?

You guessed it! They're large and have plenty of pixels to work around the slight rectangularity!

Artists aren't making mistakes. They're practical.
There are plenty of games using large-scale non-hand-pixelated or even 3D graphics that look objectively wrong with a 4:3 aspect ratio, as their artists didn't care about overscan borders.
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