Nes rgb with composite colors?

[Smashbro29]

Is it though? You said done last time, you never know.

The eyeballing never truly ends!

It's for real this time. Last time would have been the end of it except for discovering the green bias issue with the Framemeister. I just got done playing several hours of NES games, and the corrected unsaturated palette is perfect.

Oh. Ok.

So YUV corrected is basically Framemeister mode?

[The_Atomik_Punk!]

Tim came through on the final palette firmware update I wanted:

http://www.firebrandx.com/downloads/nesrgbfbxfinal.zip

I've already used it to update my NESRGB, and everything looks beautiful!

I've uploaded full instructions on my project page. Hit "refresh" until you see the update date of January 19th, that's the new version with the installation instructions:

http://www.firebrandx.com/nespalette.html




Done and done!

Holy smokes, thanks again Tim! Can't wait to get this updated on my console; a big thank you again FBX for all of your efforts! Done and done indeed- game on!

[FBX]

Is it though? You said done last time, you never know.

The eyeballing never truly ends!

It's for real this time. Last time would have been the end of it except for discovering the green bias issue with the Framemeister. I just got done playing several hours of NES games, and the corrected unsaturated palette is perfect.

Oh. Ok.

So YUV corrected is basically Framemeister mode?

Negative. Let me break it down for you (even though you're being intentionally hostile and sarcastic):

1. The unsaturated-corrected palette is direct-capture with manual correction of the green bias the Framemeister was causing. This makes it look similar to the corrected YUV palette, only with brightness/contrast that mimics the real hardware.

2. The YUV-corrected palette takes the original "natural" palette and corrects four entries in the cyan area that were known to be quite 'off' compared to the physical hardware.

So you get your choice of vivid, realistic, or playchoice 10 (well not you specifically since you're never going to give them a try with your apparent attitude about the project)

[Smashbro29]

(even though you're being intentionally hostile and sarcastic)

Woah, total opposite. I am a huge FBX fan.

I just thought it was funny that last time's done wasn't done and I like that you're willing to go back to the drawing board just to fix a color or a pixel or something.

I was trying to be lighthearted about the all the hairsplitting and nitpicking we all do on these sites.

And I do plan on putting these on my NESRGB as soon as possible.

[atheistgod1999]

I just found something that totally changes everything. Read this:

So right after I got my BVM (when I was about to put it in the car), it turned out there we had a small 2005 Magnavox CRT in the trunk the whole time so I could've used that when I first got interested in going back to CRTs. Anyway, today after school I decided to hook my AV Famicom into it and I couldn't believe it: the colors on the consumer-grade TV were almost identical to the garish palette. I set all the TV settings their defaults and this was still the case. In fact, it looks closer to the garish palette than to FBX's or even the natural. I think our BVMs/PVMs/upscalers/LEDs have been washing out the composite colors this whole time, which is why I thought RGB looked too vibrant. Metal man looks almost pink on a typical CRT with composite. I'll grab a couple 20" consumer CRTs for sale nearby on Craigslist and see if it's the same with them.

[Guspaz]

There is a reason that NTSC is often called Never Twice the Same Colour. Your Magnavox CRT is just bad, those of us who grew up in the era of the NES can tell you that it never looked anything like the garish palette.

[Arasoi]

.

[FinalBaton]

This is an entertaining thread, if nothing else.

Well it's pretty simple when it comes to the NES RGB palettes that attempt to mimic the colors generated by the NTSC signal :


There is no ''right'' RGB palette,
There's only a ''your favourite'' RGB palette.

So if some people like a palette that FBX created, then hey, more power to them.
That's my stance on this whole thing.

[darcagn]

There is no ''right'' RGB palette,
There's only a ''your favourite'' RGB palette.

So if some people like a palette that FBX created, then hey, more power to them.

this x1000

It's a shame though, I would really like to have the YUV Corrected palette, but I'm not willing to sacrifice the Improved palette (which I love) or the PC10 palette (which I use for Versus titles) for a second palette which I will never use. Like I said before, if the YUV Corrected palette was really seen as correcting an error in a palette then the firmware should have been released with that change as a bug fix of sorts.

[The_Atomik_Punk!]

It's a shame though, I would really like to have the YUV Corrected palette, but I'm not willing to sacrifice the Improved palette (which I love) or the PC10 palette (which I use for Versus titles) for a second palette which I will never use. Like I said before, if the YUV Corrected palette was really seen as correcting an error in a palette then the firmware should have been released with that change as a bug fix of sorts.

Just to be clear, this optional palette set does contain the PC10 palette (I also use it for VS games), so you're good there, but as you said it cuts "Improved", so you'd lose that but gain FBX's Unsaturated palette. I also agree that if there's a general consensus that FBX's YUV corrected palette compensates for four "errors" in the Nestopia palette, then it's a worthwhile idea to offer it as bug fix for folks like you who are happy with the current selection, but would just like that adjustment to the "Natural" palette. Something for Tim to consider, I guess.

[leonk]

Tried it today ..

I must say, on my Sony PVM, its very difficult for me to tell the difference between the unsaturated palette and the YUV improved palette. The PC10 palette on the other hand is unusable with NES games on a CRT.

[FBX]

Tried it today ..

I must say, on my Sony PVM, its very difficult for me to tell the difference between the unsaturated palette and the YUV improved palette. The PC10 palette on the other hand is unusable with NES games on a CRT.

The difference is much more noticed on an LCD. Probably the best example is the heat man stage in Mega Man 2 that AP posted earlier. At any rate, the fact that they are so similar with the few entries I corrected to compensate for the green bias, means that the original YUV palette was pretty close (except for the cyan entries).

At any rate, the project is done. I got what I wanted, which was a palette that more closely represented the NTSC brightness/contrast between hues. The "Garish" palette looks NOTHING like the original experience, but then again, I had Sony Trinitron TVs when I was a teen playing these games. Aside from that, it's already been documented that the playchoice 10 palette is unique to itself and does not in any way reflect the home console colors.

Edit: BTW, if you want just the YUV palette replaced with the YUV-corrected version, you can always ask Tim if he'd be willing to make another .pof file for a fee. Paypal was acting screwy (kept getting a transfer errors), so eventually I was able to pay him after he sent me an invoice.

Edit 2: Here's that Heat Man stage comparison for posterity (left is corrected direct-capture, right is original YUV palette):

[Taiyaki]

It will come to done to personal preferences but as far as I'm concerned FBX's palette does come off as more accurate based on my visual memory of the games as I remember them.

[atheistgod1999]

Wait. Someone back on the first page of this thread said that the developers were using RGB. Is that true? How's that possible if the NES only offered composite?

[FBX]

I sent Tim another commission request (I'm sure he doesn't mind the extra cash ) to get singular firmware files made where only the "natural" palette is replaced for those that want to keep both the PC10 and the FCUX palettes intact. I'll post an update when I hear back.

Ciao!

[yxkalle]

Using Drag's NES palette generator I was able to get pretty close to the YUV-corrected palette. I like the idea of being able to calculate every palette entry rather than using something as unreliable as measuring with device X on a single NES unit Y. Can anyone tweak it even further?



Drag -> YUV corrected -> Original YUV






Here's a link if anyone wants it.

[The_Atomik_Punk!]

Using Drag's NES palette generator I was able to get pretty close to the YUV-corrected palette. I like the idea of being able to calculate every palette entry rather than using something as unreliable as measuring with device X on a single NES unit Y. Can anyone tweak it even further?

Care to post some comparative pics to demonstrate how your effort differs in games from FBX'S YUV Corrected? I don't have a Dropbox account, and frankly I'm supremely happy with FBX's Unsaturated palette, but am still curious as to your methodology, particularly pertaining to any variance it may produce in games.

*EDIT* Lol you literally just added some pics while I was posting this! Might I suggest you post comparisons for each with FBX'S YUV Corrected so as to demonstrate the differences? Looks very close to me from memory...

[FBX]

I'm curious as to how Drag determines the base line hue values. It's interesting that his generator also shows the disparaging difference on the cyan colors compared to the YUV palette.

[yxkalle]

I don't have a Dropbox account...

I fixed the link.

[FBX]

If anyone has Drag's contact info (email or something), let me know. I'd like to ask how he determines the baseline. We've had several people in this thread claim any palette is purely subjective, and I want to make sure he didn't find some sort of 'holy grail' of baseline hue calculations from actual hardware behavior.

[yxkalle]

If anyone has Drag's contact info (email or something), let me know. I'd like to ask how he determines the baseline. We've had several people in this thread claim any palette is purely subjective, and I want to make sure he didn't find some sort of 'holy grail' of baseline hue calculations from actual hardware behavior.

He has a twitter: https://twitter.com/dragwx

[FBX]

If anyone has Drag's contact info (email or something), let me know. I'd like to ask how he determines the baseline. We've had several people in this thread claim any palette is purely subjective, and I want to make sure he didn't find some sort of 'holy grail' of baseline hue calculations from actual hardware behavior.

He has a twitter: https://twitter.com/dragwx

Thanks. I gave it a try and hope to hear back from him. I asked how he came up with the baseline hues since any nes palette is supposed to be purely subjective estimation.

[panzeroceania]

Wait. Someone back on the first page of this thread said that the developers were using RGB. Is that true? How's that possible if the NES only offered composite?

I don't know if they actually did, but it's very plausible. They developed games on computers connected to development stations. Several times the Vs arcade game was developed at the same time as the home version, sometimes even before. I'm assuming they were all developed on computers.

[FBX]

Have not heard back from Drag yet, but the date stamps on his tweets indicate he probably only checks it once a week. At any rate, I uploaded versions of the YUV and unsaturated palettes with green/cyan corrections based on the Drag's generator, and I have to say they are probably a better approximation than my eyeballed fixes. For the YUV, the same 4 entries were corrected, while the unsaturated just has two corrections: The 'muted' red has been adjusted to be slightly more vibrant, and the Faxanuda castle village sky green was corrected. This is about as far as I want to go with being OCD nitpicky.

The new versions can be downloaded here:

http://www.firebrandx.com/downloads/nes ... 2-2016.zip

[gojira54]

I admire the effort going into this and am going to give it a go BUT I'm now pretty confused as to what is what...
In the last two files linked there is unsaturated v4 and YUV v3, which will be 'better' for me, I'll be using a BVM display?
And what if any of the orginal palettes are on there? If I find that the new palettes are not to my taste is there a copy of the original to go back to somewhere?
Thanks =]

[FBX]

I admire the effort going into this and am going to give it a go BUT I'm now pretty confused as to what is what...
In the last two files linked there is unsaturated v4 and YUV v3, which will be 'better' for me, I'll be using a BVM display?
And what if any of the orginal palettes are on there? If I find that the new palettes are not to my taste is there a copy of the original to go back to somewhere?
Thanks =]

That link is for emulator users that want to see what they look like. They are not yet incorporated into new .pof files for the NESRGB board.

The YUV-V3 is the same as the original "natural" palette that came with the NESRGB, only with four green/cyan entries adjusted, and the unsaturated palette just tries to reproduce brightness/contrast of the console output. Version 4 of the unsaturated palette adjusts the two colors I described (red and green).

I've not yet heard back from Tim on the new singular releases. The new releases would retain the Playchoice 10 and FCUX palettes, while only replacing the YUV palette. So with any luck, it will be as follows:


Playchoice 10 >>>> YUV-V3 >>>> FCUX

Playchoice 10 >>>> Unsaturated-V4 >>>>> FCUX

When and if they are released, you'd be fine with using either version on a BVM. Use an emulator to decide which if you're worried about not liking them.

[gojira54]

Cool thanks for the clarification, forgive my laziness
I will give the unsaturation version a go when I can =]

[FBX]

Heard back from Tim. New releases should be ready tomorrow!

Here are the new palette teaser pics:

On the left is the YUV-V3 (making use of Drag's generator to fix the cyan colors) versus the original YUV:












And below is the Unsaturated-V4 on the left compared to the original YUV:

[The_Atomik_Punk!]

Teaser pics look awesome!

[Taiyaki]

That looks fantastic.