NESRGB New Firmware Palette Updates:

[FBX]

It's looking awesome so far! A lot of the colors are ringing very true for me (Mario sky, Double Dragon 2 street, etc). Two things worth mentioning, and both are just my opinion of course.

There's a little too much green in some of the browns and reds making it feel a little washed out.

Original / Brown and Red - Green



And the Mario underworld and Zelda Dungeon 1 blue could use some more green.

Original / Blue + Green

The difference here is the CRT screen. On my CRT, the images on the left are how the colors actually look, and this is where things get really subjective.

[nakedarthur]

Oh for sure! This is the most subjective palette of all time I guess it will come down to consensus on this one. What kind of CRT are you using btw?

[austin532]

So far pretty good but much work is still needed. Wily stage 4 from MM2 seems like it has too much blue.

[Link83]

FBX just curious if your CRT's composite input has been calibrated with test images?
I only ask since my CRT also has greener blues in Mario/Zelda like nakedarther mentioned.

[Tatsuya79]

I wonder about the CRT calibration too.

Without any reference, just looking at the result, I would say the dark blue is really saturated (Castlevania water the first time you meet the fishmen on 1st stage) and the red is always a bit orange.
Overall I find it a bit too bright and saturated.

[austin532]

If that's what's coming off the CRT then I think we should leave it. We can always vote for what colors look best for the Nostalgia palette.

[atheistgod1999]

What about that Sharp Famicom TV? Why not find out the color values on that?

The C1 is notable for having provided the high-quality screenshots displayed in video game magazines of the period

[FBX]

If that's what's coming off the CRT then I think we should leave it. We can always vote for what colors look best for the Nostalgia palette.

Actually I don't mind making adjustments. This rather subjective CRT palette is the best one to do it with. I want to leave Nostalgia alone as it is pure, unmodded direct-capture.

Okay so I'll start tweaking the colors listed thus far, and then I'll post a new beta as we work our way through the palette.

Without any reference, just looking at the result, I would say the dark blue is really saturated (Castlevania water the first time you meet the fishmen on 1st stage) and the red is always a bit orange.
Overall I find it a bit too bright and saturated.

The dark blue water is ironically brightest on this palette over both direct-capture and saturated direct-capture, so yeah, it's supposed to be that dark. And also for the record, the NES doesn't actually have a straight red medium level color. There's a lot of green in it, but I can tone it down if it bothers.

[austin532]

I've noticed the water and sky from Castlevania and the menus/text boxes in Final Fantasy use the same color. I do think there is a bit too much green in it though and think the darker blue looks more natural to a CRT.


CRT Nostalgia left / Modified blue right

[nakedarthur]

I tried a few more games with the CRT palette, and overall I think it's looking pretty sweet so far. I will check out more games in depth when you post the next revision.

Btw, I totally agree with the names being a little confusing. The CRT palette definitely deserves the moniker of Nostalgia since it will be the closest to what most people remember. Perhaps you can stick with Unsaturated for the accurate Composite one since it's what people already know (and its intent is still the same)?

[atheistgod1999]

What about the C1?

[yxkalle]

Why not make a palette with full screen camera captures of a well calibrated crt displaying one color at a time, of course in a dark room or other means of making sure its only light comming from the tv gets captured.?

[FBX]

Why not make a palette with full screen camera captures of a well calibrated crt displaying one color at a time, of course in a dark room or other means of making sure its only light comming from the tv gets captured.?

I tried this, and camera captures ended up even less reliable than using the naked eye. Remember that cameras convert to digital RGB, and doesn't exactly do a good job of replicating the exact lighting, saturation, hue that we see with our own eyes.

Btw, I totally agree with the names being a little confusing. The CRT palette definitely deserves the moniker of Nostalgia since it will be the closest to what most people remember. Perhaps you can stick with Unsaturated for the accurate Composite one since it's what people already know (and its intent is still the same)?

I was thinking just simply:

"Composite Direct"
"CRT Nostalgia"

For the two palettes should be fine.

[atheistgod1999]

Seriously, though: why not look at the C1's palette!? They were the ones used for magazine screenshots!

[The_Atomik_Punk!]

So I've been checking out the CRT Nostalgia Beta1 palette compared to the Unsaturated V5 (which is what I currently have on my system), and so far I'm noticing that the purples depicted in DDII and SMB1 are far more blue with the CRT Nostalgia than what I'm seeing with a stock NES through Composite on my CRT. For that matter, your Unsaturated V5 looks near spot on to what I'm seeing on my calibrated Sony Trinitron CRT (Unsaturated V5 left, CRT Nostalgia Right):





And for the record, yes, the SMB1 sky is purple (like in the Unsaturated V5) on my calibrated CRT. Mega man 2 with those cyan colored skies looks much better in CRT Nostalgia compared to Unsaturated V5, however. (Unsaturated V5 Left, CRT Nostalgia Right):





The biggest improvement that I came across is the background sky when you take control f the protagonist in Faxanadu. In all previous palette versions, the sky was still brighter/greener than what I am seeing on my CRT through composite- this looks great with CRT Nostalgia (Unsaturated V5 Left, CRT Nostalgia Right):


So far from what I've seen, adding those blue/cyan values to the Unsaturated V5 palette (and maybe turning down the saturation on the strong blues a bit) would look awesome for copping that retro look IMHO.

[austin532]

I don't know why some colors differ so much on Trinitrons. The blue sky on wily stage 1 is correct though.

[The_Atomik_Punk!]

I don't know why some colors differ so much on Trinitrons. The blue sky on wily stage 1 is correct though.

Yeah, it looks way better than previous palettes regarding that MM2 sky, and Faxanadu, but I think that blue looks a little to intense/bright (check out first stage in Darkwing Duck), and could stand to be a little more dim to capture that CRT look I'm seeing (just a little, mind you). Keep in mind, that's just my opinion regarding the blue/purples of SMB and DDII, if everyone else disagrees with what I'm seeing on my Trinitron, that's cool too.

[austin532]

It's very possible that the purple street in DD 2 and sky in SMB are correct and that trinitrons have no problem displaying them however most people as kids got the crappiest tv in the house and played with RF. Old tv's tend to have trouble with reds which means colors that are purplish appear bluish. Using RF doesn't help either. That would explain why most people remember DD 2 and SMB for example being bluish. The blue in Darkwing Dark seems fine to me.

[atheistgod1999]

Why not find out the color values for the C1 TV? It was the display used for game screenshots in magazines. It might be the correct values.

[tomwhite2004]

Why not find out the color values for the C1 TV? It was the display used for game screenshots in magazines. It might be the correct values.

Don't think it really needs mentioning four times on the same page, chill out. Sure it they had access to such things that it would be used.

[yxkalle]

Why not make a palette with full screen camera captures of a well calibrated crt displaying one color at a time, of course in a dark room or other means of making sure its only light comming from the tv gets captured.?

I tried this, and camera captures ended up even less reliable than using the naked eye. Remember that cameras convert to digital RGB, and doesn't exactly do a good job of replicating the exact lighting, saturation, hue that we see with our own eyes.

Digital RGB, as opposed to your palette?

[nakedarthur]

Why not find out the color values for the C1 TV? It was the display used for game screenshots in magazines. It might be the correct values.

The Japanese one you're referring to that was used for screenshots uses the same palette as the Playchoice 10 that's in the current firmware and everyone hates.

[bobrocks95]

Why not make a palette with full screen camera captures of a well calibrated crt displaying one color at a time, of course in a dark room or other means of making sure its only light comming from the tv gets captured.?

I tried this, and camera captures ended up even less reliable than using the naked eye. Remember that cameras convert to digital RGB, and doesn't exactly do a good job of replicating the exact lighting, saturation, hue that we see with our own eyes.

Hmm, could you capture the colors with a colorimeter or some other type of scope?

*snip*

You have issues man.

[The_Atomik_Punk!]

I think people are getting confused with what FBX is doing here; what he's (I think) trying to dial in right now is the CRT Nostalgia palette, which affords some variance of opinion based on "eyeballing" colors, whereas the Composite Direct palette is the offering which attempts to calculate color values based on using a bunch of technical equipment . The former is still being refined, whereas the latter (from what I surmise in this thread) is pretty much settled on.

[tjstogy]

Both are awesome for framemeisters, but neither are meant for composite colors on a crt unfortunately. Hope someone makes one of these palettes one day.

[austin532]

Both are awesome for framemeisters, but neither are meant for composite colors on a crt unfortunately. Hope someone makes one of these palettes one day.

Rather than complain why not explain?

[NJRoadfan]

The Nostalgia-Final palette should be used with CRT TVs directly as it attempts to directly match what the NES hardware directly outputs over composite.

The CRT-Nostalgia palette attempts to emulate CRT colors on a LCD display and should not be used on CRTs at all.

[austin532]

Exactly.

[nakedarthur]

As promised I got my stock frontloader back. All 3 of these pictures are on the same Sony RGB monitor (OEV-203 aka PVM-20M2MDU).

From left to right:

- Stock Front-loader NES via Composite (surprise, it's not purple!)
- Nestopia w/ "Composite Direct" palette via RGB
- NESRGB toploader w/ Unsaturated v6 via RGB



The Composite Direct palette looks pretty close to stock frontloader composite in person, just not quite as saturated and slightly different hue. My NESRGB really has me thrown for a loop though. It looks WAY different than the other two. The strange thing is when I set Nestopia to Unsaturated v6 palette it looks closer to Composite Direct, not the NESRGB. This leads me to think there's something wrong with my console. I am going to look at it tomorrow and see what's going on.

Anyway, so yea definitely interesting seeing that neon blue sky on the PVM. If I adjust the Phase (hue) I can make it either purple like some see, or lighter blue like my little 13" consumer Trinitron. The picture was taken with it zero'd out in the middle. I wonder why there's such a wide variation on hue between consumer CRTs and capture equipment?

[Guspaz]

Did you calibrate the composite input on that PVM with SMPTE bars before taking those photos? Composite chroma/phase settings can be pretty off, so it can look very different from RGB until calibrated. When I got my PVM, the composite had a bit of a greenish tint before I ran the auto-calibration.