RGB or other high quality solutions for the NES

[Rock Man]

In a nutshell. I'm actively looking to order a pre-modded RGB NES. Between the rarity of those PlayChoice 10, Duck Hunt/Tennis Versus PPU chips and community modders being sold out, the situation is all but impossible. That said I looked into the DVD recorder solution, check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofFl1CMkqTY

The question is: by how much would this boost the quality? Is the video signal as good, perhaps better than S-Video or is it just a really potent Composite? The uploader claims it clears artifacts. Even if this is true I can't help but wonder about the colors appearing washed-out on an HDTV. In theory it might look PLAYABLE on the XRGB-3 but the Composite might kill the experience for me if it's too bland. What's you guys opinion on this method?

[akumajo]

As far I know, you will always need a PPU from playchoice pcb and you will have jailbar problem with almost all nes/famicom.
Best nes/famicom do this mod is a japanese AV Famicom.

* nes rgb mod : http://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=1592.0
* Mooseman nes us RGB mod : http://playoffline.wordpress.com/mod/nesrgb/
* rgb av famicom : http://moddedbybacteria.freeforums.org/ ... t1174.html
* s-video av famicom : http://moddedbybacteria.freeforums.org/ ... t1491.html

Other ressources :
* http://www.ultimarc.com/vidamp.html
* http://www.gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=av:n64rgb-amp
* http://homepage3.nifty.com/F-LABO/ProductsList.html

I have an AV Famicom + PPU but still have to find someone that can do it for me .

Good luck.

[Zapf]

acem77 does rgb nes mods. I just bought a pc10 board on ebay for about 110 shipped, and will get that shipped to him w/ an nes soon. He sells it as as all in one mod service - does the rgb, the audio mod, the powerpak mods, and disables the security chip

[Strider77]

How could one get a hold of this individual?

[Zapf]

acem77 at hotmail dot com

[Strider77]

Great.. thanx!!

[doctorx0079]

Famicom Titlers are pretty awesome, but I don't know how much they're going for these days.

[antron]

what about the color palette? when I first looked into NES RGB I gave up on the idea because I read that the colors would actually be wrong.

[Fudoh]

It's just a tiny number of games which are affected. According to Markus (Moosmann) less than a dozen in total und definitely less than 5 on which the palette change is problematic since it affects gameplay (e.g. black instead of white background).

[Ghegs]

Some emulators can use the RGB colors, so this can be easily tested. One I noticed from my own RGB-modded Famicom is Boku Dracula-kun:

Normal system:


RGB-modded:


Doesn't affect the gameplay, of course. One game I discovered (via emulation) that was entirely unplayable with RGB colors is the NES port of The Immortal. Everything is simply black.

[Shou]

It's just a tiny number of games which are affected. According to Markus (Moosmann) less than a dozen in total und definitely less than 5 on which the palette change is problematic since it affects gameplay (e.g. black instead of white background).

I had a discussion about this on another forum awhile back. Below is what came of it:

This has to do with how the RGB PPU handles color emphasis bits. On an RGB PPU they force the R/G/B values to full brightness, where on a composite PPU they add in a weaker R/G/B color and darken the luminance value of some colors.

A short list of problem games off the top of my head..

Paperboy 1/2
Just Breed
Magician
Totally Rad
Airwolf
Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy
Super Spy Hunter
Immortal

[zaphod]

There are two issuses at work here.

One is the color emphasis bits.

The other is the RGB palette is yellow boosted, to account for what was going on on consumer japanese tv sets at the time, to make the arcade games look like the NES did.

The former affects gameplay on carts that use them, the latter does not.

[antron]

The former affects gameplay on carts that use them, the latter does not.

I realize this is a subjective question but, does the yellow boost affect the aesthetics of some games?

[BuckoA51]

This might be a daft question but, couldn't the PPU chip from the Playchoice boards be copied onto a FPGA or similar kind of chip, that could be used rather than butchering the Playchoice boards?

[Zapf]

The entire nes has been emulated on fpga, so probably. That would likely involve someone putting up the cash for it to be designed though.

maybe someone should get in contact with kevtris or this guy https://rm-rfroot.net/nes_fpga/

[BuckoA51]

Oh well we live in hope

[Ex-Cyber]

If you're cloning the PPU (by far the most subtle/finicky piece of NES), you may as well just clone the rest. You'd need to level-shift a bunch of signals either way.

[mesmer]

Has anyone other than Fudoh got their hands on an Entech CVSI-1? Is this thing obtainable? Is there anything else out there that compares?

[Fudoh]

Not worth tracking one down... For my composite sources (which basically is only Laserdisc) I use the comb filter built into my Pioneer DVD recorder. It easily outperforms the Entech. Still I would not recommend the composite/comb filter route for a videogame after all. And definitely not for the NES for which a RGB mod is available.

[SGGG2]

I asked Bunnyboy @ RetroUSB about him cloning the Playchoice PPU, he thanked me for the suggestion and stated they cannot comment on upcoming projects...

[alamone]

Okay, I finished my NES RGB mod using the Texas Instruments THS7314 RGB amp, and yeah I'm getting pretty bad jailbar artifacting.
Luckily I used a socket for the chips so I'll probably just junk the NES and migrate the chips to the Famicom for my next RGB mod project.
What's the point of doing a RGB mod if the picture quality is worse than composite...

[Arasoi]

.

[mesmer]

Not worth tracking one down... For my composite sources (which basically is only Laserdisc) I use the comb filter built into my Pioneer DVD recorder. It easily outperforms the Entech. Still I would not recommend the composite/comb filter route for a videogame after all. And definitely not for the NES for which a RGB mod is available.

Really?

This looks nice enough to me:

The third and last Mario screenshot shows the NES connected to an Entech CVSI-1 which takes in composite video and outputs component video. It has one of the best 2D combfilters ever built into any device. It's ouput was connected to the component input of the XRGB-3 and the scanline option was set to 175 (medium to light scanlines).

All the issues around the NES RGB mod make me lean that way. I just need a device that will give me a nice composite to rgb conversion.

[Zapf]

I got mine back from acem today, its looking very nice. Jailbars not noticeable in normal playthrough, at least in the one game I tested with solid color bgs (megaman 2).

[Fudoh]

Really?
This looks nice enough to me:

the problem is that it looks ok with static imagines but you still get visibile dotcrawl once the picture starts moving. It's mainly the scanlines that make the image look ok. It does mask a lot of artefacts, much more than the Entech actually does.

[mesmer]

the problem is that it looks ok with static imagines but you still get visibile dotcrawl once the picture starts moving. It's mainly the scanlines that make the image look ok. It does mask a lot of artefacts, much more than the Entech actually does.

I see. Reading the gamesx thread is really turning me off though. various cap values to avoid graphics artifacts...

I'm thinking taking a PC10 board and getting it to run NES carts might be a better way. Seems like all you need is the 'Achten' BIOS burned and a 72 pin socket (game genie?) to make it work.

[doctorx0079]

How about add RGB outs to a Famicom Titler??

[Zapf]

If you can find one, that is not a terrible option.

[doctorx0079]

If you can find one, that is not a terrible option.

Ah, so the trick is finding one. I see.

[alamone]

I finished modding an AV/New Famicom, but unfortunately the result isn't too much better.
I followed this guide: http://baku.homeunix.net/RGB/RGB_FC/RGB_FC.html.