NESRGB board available now

[nmalinoski]

Can the NESRGB mod be installed alongside the Hi-Def NES mod on an AV Famicom?

As I understand it, no--it's one or the other.

Also, is the Hi-Def NES Mod the only way to get digital audio?

So far, yes.

[MiteWiseacre]

Hey so made a discovery today while experimenting with my nesrgb install!
I have a SCART switch, if I plug in another console and power it on BOOM the screen lights up in all the rgb glory you can imagine! Some kind of power problem? Both consoles must be on, I also noticed my switch has a led that does not light up for the NES unless I run the second console (lights up with any other single console and display is fine). It’s an Otaku 6 port switch.
What do you think?

[frsj8112]

I'm attempting to solder a wire to my NESRGB board in order to mix in the expansion audio (Wolff's mod: http://www.firebrandx.com/edn8tonesrgb.html). As I have a v1 version of the board and not a v2, I contacted the board's creator (Tim) and was given a diagram showing three different points where I can do this on the v1 board. I've never attempted to solder to something this tiny before. Any tips? I'm thinking about trying for the top component as it's not quite so flat to the board and I think I actually have a chance of getting the wire in there without making a solder bridge to an adjacent component.

I did this mod to my v1 NES RGB today.
With Konami carts like Akumajou Densetsu and Lagrange Point, sound is nice and clear!
But when using the Famicom Disk System RAM adapter, the audio is distorted. Like overdriven.

Anyone else that has the same experience?

[MiteWiseacre]

I think I figured out why my TV doesn’t like my nesrgb setup. I am getting 11.4V on the switching line pin 8 (using the supplied cable from NESRGB) my SNES only sends 4.5v on this line. My Otaku switch seems to combine these together and then I get over 11v to blanking, which I believe takes the tv out of RGB mode.
Is there a way to mod this cable to get that switching voltage down below 5v? (Going to try just disconnecting pin 8, but may cause problems in other scart setups??)

[nmalinoski]

I think I figured out why my TV doesn’t like my nesrgb setup. I am getting 11.4V on the switching line pin 8 (using the supplied cable from NESRGB) my SNES only sends 4.5v on this line. My Otaku switch seems to combine these together and then I get over 11v to blanking, which I believe takes the tv out of RGB mode.
Is there a way to mod this cable to get that switching voltage down below 5v? (Going to try just disconnecting pin 8, but may cause problems in other scart setups??)

If it's a problem with the switcher, I'd try to resolve it there. I don't think it's appropriate for the blanking and status/aspect-ratio pins to be bridged; if that's the case, then you should either try notifying the manufacturer/seller that there's a fundamental issue with the design, or, failing that, you should find out where they're getting bridged and sever it.

[thompsr2]

I don't have an NES RGB yet, but I plant to get one. Tim's Software and Errata page doesn't list the color palettes associated with Version 2.2 firmware. Does anybody know which palettes are shipping on V2.2? I'm asking because I don't know if I need to bother getting a USB blaster to change the palettes to some of Firebrandx's.

[MiteWiseacre]

I think I figured out why my TV doesn’t like my nesrgb setup. I am getting 11.4V on the switching line pin 8 (using the supplied cable from NESRGB) my SNES only sends 4.5v on this line. My Otaku switch seems to combine these together and then I get over 11v to blanking, which I believe takes the tv out of RGB mode.
Is there a way to mod this cable to get that switching voltage down below 5v? (Going to try just disconnecting pin 8, but may cause problems in other scart setups??)

If it's a problem with the switcher, I'd try to resolve it there. I don't think it's appropriate for the blanking and status/aspect-ratio pins to be bridged; if that's the case, then you should either try notifying the manufacturer/seller that there's a fundamental issue with the design, or, failing that, you should find out where they're getting bridged and sever it.

Just got some new cables in the mail, took a while because they came from UK. Works great now! Just need to wire up sound to the other two pins. Not sure what the deal was with the nesrgb supplied cables, seem to cut down the switching voltage or something, my setup didn’t like it.
Retro Gaming Cables 8pin mini din to euroscart packapunch cable
Recommended!

[leonk]

I don't have an NES RGB yet, but I plant to get one. Tim's Software and Errata page doesn't list the color palettes associated with Version 2.2 firmware. Does anybody know which palettes are shipping on V2.2? I'm asking because I don't know if I need to bother getting a USB blaster to change the palettes to some of Firebrandx's.

Same as 2.1. I would go with 2.3 unless you really need dejitter. 2.3 makes your NESRGB back into a V1 that has worked perfectly fine for thousands since 2013.

[Jcschacht255]

I was curious if anyone could enlighten me on my problem. I've tried searching everywhere to no avail.

So, I had installed a NESRGB20 board into my frontloader, and have it running to a Multi Out to a SNES Scart cable >OSSC. I'd tested the PPU in the socket after desoldering it, and when everything was confirmed to still be working I went through with installing everything. The issue I'm having is that the backgrounds are correct, but the sprites are drastically miscolored. Mega Man on the MM2 start screen shows up as purple with white hair, Koopa shells in SM3 are purple, Mario varies from being black with a red outline to be green depending on the background. What's odd, is if I hook up the original composite The colors are normal again, which narrows everything down to the RGB board. I bridged J3, J5 and omitted the palette switch by bridging pads 3 and GND. I've tried running Sync through both CS# and PPUV, but get the same results. I can't imagine it'd have anything to do with that anyway, considering everything else shows up perfectly.

I should also note that I'm using a BLW as well and have cleaned the cartridge connectors and pin slots. Any kind of help would be great.

[Spacemonkey]

What is everyone's favorite custom palette for use on CRT RGB monitors? I got a 2.0 board and the SONY CXA palette is way too colorful on a CRT.

I specially miss the PC10 palette, not as a main palette but I like how Super Mario Bros and other early games look on it.

I guess -V2 HARDWARE - V2.2 - 00 - PC10_FCEUX_Unsaturated-V6 would be the closest to the original palettes on the 1.0 boards?

[Syntax]

I prefer PC10_Wavebeam_Smooth

[pixeltao]

Hi,
Sorry to post for help with my first post, I was hoping to do better. It seems I messed up something with my NESRGB install (2.0) on my Top Loader.

Did I fry something?


The image is all garbled, especially backgrounds. Everything looks black & red in Super Mario Bros. 3. Sprites look kinda OK.

My soldering might not be Voultar level but is looking pretty OK. I don't see bridges anywhere.

And the worse thing is that when powering it on a few times to take the picture above, the issue seemed to be getting worse and worse... and now my NES barely works.

I through I had been very careful with it

EDIT: I tested for continuity an found out that one of the square pin strip of the adapter board has a bunch of bad connections on one side. I'll desolder and resolder the whole thing to see if it fixes the issue.

EDIT 2: After reading through pages of this thread, it seems the lack of continuity on pins 2-9 and 14-17 is normal. All other pins have continuity to the NES board. I probably fried the PPU or something else without realizing it. After powering it on/off a few times it degraded to the point where now I only get a black screen. I'm really not qualified to troubleshoot it more that. I'll probably try swapping the PPU by a clone just to see if that's the source of the issue. If not, that'll be the end of it.

[Sirotaca]

PC10_FCEUX_Unsaturated-V6 is the set I'm currently using. Unsaturated-V6 looks reasonably natural to my eyes, and I do like PC-10 for certain games as well. It'd be really nice if the NESRGB supported user palettes like the 2600RGB does, though. I'd probably go with PC-10, YUV, and FBX's rip from the RetroTINK-2X Pro that he posted a while back, since I quite like that one.

[radiomike31]

Can someone recommend where I can get this NESRGB mod installed? I was at an online store that's sold out and i can't seem seem to get in touch with someone else that was recommended to me.
Any ideas? Thank you!

[evewalker]

I've been trying to track down a strange palette problem with my NESRGB that is eluding me. I installed it with no issues and it's run flawlessly for 7 months, until a couple of weeks ago when two colors in the palette seemed screwy when I powered it on. 00 is tinted blue/green and 10 is tinted red - both in the gray range. Here's a video to demonstrate what it looks like in a color test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0CTI_kEe64

I figured it was a problem with the PPU, so I pulled it and replaced with a tested one. No change.

So far in troubleshooting I've done the following:
- Tested S-video out - colors are still wrong
- Replaced the PPU with a tested one
- Recapped mainboard + power supply
- Replaced entire mainboard with a tested one and completely reinstalled the kit - no change.

Other systems output RGB directly to the PVM with no problems or color issues.

Anyone have any ideas what might be up, or did something on the kit fail? Thanks for any insight!

[Valefor1985]

Good morning guys, I bring you a solution, for all the people who have that ghost effect, I do not think it is due to a problem with the board, it is due to the cables we use to make the mod, I used to solve it, cable of shielded network, and the ghost effect disappeared, it can be said that I took the av of a damaged snes and now I have it connected like this. I hope I have been helpful, for the record that I am not very good at these issues, but looking at this forum I have learned a lot about possible mistakes, and here I bring you my two cents, keep it up guys.

pd: sorry for the google translation, it is that I am Spanish.

[eightbitminiboss]

Does anyone have documentation for the AV Famicom audio mod that Voultar does?

As best as I could follow it's:

1) Cut pin 1 on BU3270S (As of June 7th, I've noticed Voultar appears to pull pin 16 and 17 out of circuit now instead of pin 1)
2) Pull R8 from the south side and connect to a via near the NESRGB's J5 with a wire extension.
3) Connect 2A03's pin 1 and 2 to the NESRGB's A and B pads
4) Connect NESRGB's O to audio solder pad near the composite solder pad next to the AV Multiout

Is that about right?

[thchardcore]

I installed a rev 2 nesrgb board that comes stock with FW 2.2 in an AV Famicom. No matter which line I use for sync - ppu composite video, stock composite video, csync) -I get the wobble on the top portion of the screen when used with an OSSC.

I have a stand alone NES dejitter board. How should I go about pulling csync from the nesrgb before anything is processed by the nesrgb?

I want to give this a shot and haven't seen anyone try it yet.

[viletim]

I installed a rev 2 nesrgb board that comes stock with FW 2.2 in an AV Famicom. No matter which line I use for sync - ppu composite video, stock composite video, csync) -I get the wobble on the top portion of the screen when used with an OSSC.

I have a stand alone NES dejitter board. How should I go about pulling csync from the nesrgb before anything is processed by the nesrgb?

I want to give this a shot and haven't seen anyone try it yet.

You can install the NES dejitter board on the version 2 NESRGB, but you will have to reprogram it with firmware version 2.3.

[thchardcore]

Hi Tim - Thanks, this is exactly what I plan to do. Just waiting on Altera USB Blaster.

[sofakng]

I thought firmware v2.2 included dejitter and firmware v2.3 removed it?

I was also thinking about flashing v2.3 to have the NES run as "stock" as possible but it's listed as experimental firmware?

[bobrocks95]

Did anyone see that post on Twitter about a cartridge-based NES RGB mod? Did I literally imagine it or something, because I can't find it again. Don't remember what developer was working on it.

[Kez]

Did anyone see that post on Twitter about a cartridge-based NES RGB mod? Did I literally imagine it or something, because I can't find it again. Don't remember what developer was working on it.

It was Krikzz

[thchardcore]

While that works, it looks disgusting.

[bobrocks95]

I mean, it's a prototype... Thanks for the link though Kez.

[thchardcore]

I finally bought a NESRGB from Tim about two months ago and finally got around to installing it about 2 weeks ago. I have a Retro Access scart cable to my OSSC, and it looks great. Except for one somewhat minor but annoying issue. The top couple of lines appear to be blurry. Its not noticeable on all games, but is on others. Looking at it using the 240p test program with the convergence grid clearly shows it, and you can see it on some other test patterns too. It actually looks like it's constantly moving/shifting.

I've played around with OSSC settings, and can't seem to get any change in it. None of my other RGB consoles using my OSSC and cables from Retro Access (Genesis, TG16, Jag, DC) seem to exhibit this behavior. Tried two different TVs, although both are Samsung 4k sets, so that may not rule out something specific to the TV. I also flashed it with the latest 2.2 firmware, just in case it happened to ship with an older version. But the issue still occurred after flashing as well.

Any ideas what might be going on here?

Thanks!

I did an NESRGB 2.0 install in my AV Famicom recently and have noticed the same thing. I don't really care about the visual effect of the jittery top lines, but more concerning is that it doesn't seem to be playing nicely with my capture card through the OSSC. It's having the same sync dropouts that I got with my SNES before installing the dejitter mod. Not sure what's going on with that, since all my other consoles work just fine with my capture card at line5x. Also, unless I increase the OSSC's H-sync tolerance, the top several lines will sometimes start blinking on and off, but this only happens occasionally and hard resetting the console corrects it. This is with a RGC Packapunch c-sync cable, for reference.

I have a USB Blaster on the way and was planning to test both 2.0/2.1 and 2.2 firmwares to see if the "sync correction" Tim mentions on his site has something to do with it.

I am in the same boat. What was the final fix for this?

I tried the 2.3 firmware with an external dejitter board. Same issue still.

[BambooShadow]

I finally bought a NESRGB from Tim about two months ago and finally got around to installing it about 2 weeks ago. I have a Retro Access scart cable to my OSSC, and it looks great. Except for one somewhat minor but annoying issue. The top couple of lines appear to be blurry. Its not noticeable on all games, but is on others. Looking at it using the 240p test program with the convergence grid clearly shows it, and you can see it on some other test patterns too. It actually looks like it's constantly moving/shifting.

I've played around with OSSC settings, and can't seem to get any change in it. None of my other RGB consoles using my OSSC and cables from Retro Access (Genesis, TG16, Jag, DC) seem to exhibit this behavior. Tried two different TVs, although both are Samsung 4k sets, so that may not rule out something specific to the TV. I also flashed it with the latest 2.2 firmware, just in case it happened to ship with an older version. But the issue still occurred after flashing as well.

Any ideas what might be going on here?

Thanks!

I did an NESRGB 2.0 install in my AV Famicom recently and have noticed the same thing. I don't really care about the visual effect of the jittery top lines, but more concerning is that it doesn't seem to be playing nicely with my capture card through the OSSC. It's having the same sync dropouts that I got with my SNES before installing the dejitter mod. Not sure what's going on with that, since all my other consoles work just fine with my capture card at line5x. Also, unless I increase the OSSC's H-sync tolerance, the top several lines will sometimes start blinking on and off, but this only happens occasionally and hard resetting the console corrects it. This is with a RGC Packapunch c-sync cable, for reference.

I have a USB Blaster on the way and was planning to test both 2.0/2.1 and 2.2 firmwares to see if the "sync correction" Tim mentions on his site has something to do with it.

I am in the same boat. What was the final fix for this?

I tried the 2.3 firmware with an external dejitter board. Same issue still.

==>that should actually fix it. At least for me it did.


Is there any up-to-date documentation on how to install the Expansion-Audio thing into an AV Famicom? Using the NESRGB HW. 2.0 here.

[jd213]

I was considering installing an NESRGB in my spare AV Famicom (already have one with NESRGB from Yahoo Japan years ago) for soldering practice.

But seems that a few people are having various problems after the install, with some problems going unresolved, at least on this thread. Doesn't seem like Voultar's expansion audio fix is publicly available yet either.

Guess I should just wait a while longer and see if a successor to the Hi-Def NES comes out from someone...

[thchardcore]

I was able to get it working fine without any top of the screen nonsense with firmware 2.3 and the external dejitter, but after 5 minutes or so the top starts dancing again...BECAUSE I USED A BAD SOCKET!

Pushing on it from the sides revealed the junk socket I used was a bad call. I broke a pin on the machine head socket Tim includes in the kit and thought this would be ok. I will try again once a proper replacement arrives.

Sorry to bother everyone. The 2.3 firmware an external dejitter board works fine. I am just a moron.

[thchardcore]

I was considering installing an NESRGB in my spare AV Famicom (already have one with NESRGB from Yahoo Japan years ago) for soldering practice.

But seems that a few people are having various problems after the install, with some problems going unresolved, at least on this thread. Doesn't seem like Voultar's expansion audio fix is publicly available yet either.

Guess I should just wait a while longer and see if a successor to the Hi-Def NES comes out from someone...

I would not hesitate to use Tim's kit. My issue was simply my botched install creating a problem that looked very similar to the jitter issue. Firmware 2.2 likely works fine and I was chasing a phantom with the 2.3 and stand alone dejitter pcb.