NESRGB board available now

[darcagn]

If anyone is interested in how the kit performs with the XRGB-mini Framemeister, here's some directly-captured footage: youtube

It's Mega Man 2, Bubble Man and Metal Man stages. NES with NESRGB, 240p RGB out -> Framemeister, 720p HDMI out -> elgato Game Capture HD, uploaded to YouTube. Make sure you watch in 720p for it to look correct.

[opt2not]

Wow, it looks really great!
Thanks for the video

[ApolloBoy]

I just got through installing a first batch NESRGB in an AV Fami for someone, and I also installed the external regulator to power the NESRGB. I don't know about you guys but holy shit is that regulator noisy! Even when I plug my SCART cable in without having plugged in the power, it starts making a huge amount of staticky noise on my PVM.

[darcagn]

My NES only makes noise when using the Everdrive. If I use original carts, there's almost zero hum.

[ApolloBoy]

My NES only makes noise when using the Everdrive. If I use original carts, there's almost zero hum.

It's not audio noise, it's actually video noise.

[darcagn]

Ah, that is really weird--I definitely don't have that...

[Vigormortis]

I also use an AV Fami, but I skipped the regulator and just have everything powered off the console's original 7805 regulator. I'm not too worried about stressing the 7805 with that beefy heatsink. I notice video noise when I use the cheapo 3-in-1 SNES / NES / Genesis power supply which is all over ebay. However, when I switch to an original model 1 Genesis power supply, the picture is perfectly clean.

As for buzzing audio, that's a result of cheap cables which don't adequately shield the audio from the video cables. This happens on both my scart and s-video cables cuz both of them are pretty crappy . I currently have a 3.5mm audio jack hanging off a couple wires that are sticking out of my Fami's ventilation slots. It looks silly, but it lets me get clean audio off a separate cable without having to make any permanent changes to the Famicom's shell. This will have to do until I find or build proper SNES cables.

[darcagn]

As for buzzing audio, that's a result of cheap cables which don't adequately shield the audio from the video cables. This happens on both my scart and s-video cables cuz both of them are pretty crappy . I currently have a 3.5mm audio jack hanging off a couple wires that are sticking out of my Fami's ventilation slots. It looks silly, but it lets me get clean audio off a separate cable without having to make any permanent changes to the Famicom's shell. This will have to do until I find or build proper SNES cables.

The buzzing audio problem also comes from the Everdrive, though. All of my original cartridges have no buzz, but when I use the Everdrive, there's buzz, and the buzz even changes pitch and makes more noises as the Everdrive loads the ROM into memory, etc. Once the game starts you can barely notice it, but it's definitely there compared to original cartridges.

[nesfreak]

I'm amazed over the problems you both are describing, i have no problems with my AV Famicom and Everdrive.

To be noted tho is that i have a replaced regulator, can't recall what the amps are on it.

I have yet to try the amplified audio, are you guys running with that or the internal audio?

ApolloBoy, if you can, replace the original regulator and run it all from a new fresh 1.5A regulator instead.

[thebert]

Does anyone know if it's expected behavior to get a 2-tone, grey and white game image when plugging in the original composite yellow cable? This is on a front loader. I'm still troubleshooting why I'm not getting s-video, and wondering if that is indicative of something.

[nesfreak]

Does anyone know if it's expected behavior to get a 2-tone, grey and white game image when plugging in the original composite yellow cable? This is on a front loader. I'm still troubleshooting why I'm not getting s-video, and wondering if that is indicative of something.

Have you set correct videomode? PAL/NTSC? Its jumper 4, should go hand in hand with jumper 7.

[Voultar]

Does anyone know if it's expected behavior to get a 2-tone, grey and white game image when plugging in the original composite yellow cable? This is on a front loader. I'm still troubleshooting why I'm not getting s-video, and wondering if that is indicative of something.

You will get a black & white image if you try to use the composite PPU output, and have a palette selected.

Unselect a palette and give it a shot. The NESRGB acts strictly as a pass-thru device this way, none of its circuity will be utilized.

[keropi]

You will get a black & white image if you try to use the composite PPU output, and have a palette selected.

Unselect a palette and give it a shot. The NESRGB acts strictly as a pass-thru device this way, none of its circuity will be utilized.

ah, that's a relief!!!!
I got the replacement sram from Tim and installed it today. I plugged the NESRGB board in my AV Famicom and I was getting a b/w image too from the original output with a hard-wired pallete for testing purposes.... nothing out from the NESRGB though... I did forget to short J5 to enable NTSC "luma trap frequency" I hope that's why I don't get any picture yet... will try again later, now my head is buzzing

[thebert]

Have you set correct videomode? PAL/NTSC? Its jumper 4, should go hand in hand with jumper 7.

I'm NTSC. I only shorted J5. I believe that is correct for my region.

You will get a black & white image if you try to use the composite PPU output, and have a palette selected.

Unselect a palette and give it a shot. The NESRGB acts strictly as a pass-thru device this way, none of its circuity will be utilized.

Ok, I'll try that. I have the on-on-on switch wired for the 3 pallets. If I just desolder the wires to the board, (marked GND,1,2,3) will that make it pass-throu? That will be a good test to see if my ppu is ok or not.

[keropi]

It's a shame that this basic info needs to be extracted from forums... the NESRGB pages leave a lot to the imagination...

[Zets13]

From this thread I am starting to think it might be nice to get Tim's approval to compose a general FAQ/troubleshooting guide, as well as step-by-step install instructions for AV Fami and Toploader models.

[TheRetromancer]

From this thread I am starting to think it might be nice to get Tim's approval to compose a general FAQ/troubleshooting guide, as well as step-by-step install instructions for AV Fami and Toploader models.

I think that's a wonderful idea! Get the nod from 'father', and we can sticky that sonuvabitch. I'm waiting on my board, which I'm going to slap into my AV Famicom, and while I'm a fairly experienced solder monkey, there are some facets of the install process with which I am not totally comfortable.

A comprehensive, centralised database (sorry, Tim - your pages are helpful, but a little sparse on some specifics) with per-console hi-res pictures and diagrammes would be AMAZING.

[opt2not]

I just want to post a shout-out to leonk for fixing up my botched install attempt. Awesome guy, and he really bailed me out on this one.
He messaged me right after my earlier lamentation, and offered to take a look at it for me. I really did a number on the NESRGB, and the top-loader board too! I burnt out some traces and also like a noob, used the wrong solder type. Apparently the solder I used was too heavy duty, and wasn't melting at regular temperatures. Which is why I burnt it out...too much heat! Luckily the PPU wasn't damaged.

Anyway, here are some pictures of his handy-work:




Running on a 20" PVM:


Connected through MultiAV:


Really stellar work leonk, many thanks again!

[Vigormortis]

I gotta get some of that fancy rainbow wire for my next project. Constantly double checking all black wires is no fun .

[opt2not]

Haha, yeah I love that rainbow ribbon wire too

[ApolloBoy]

I always use colored wires in my work, it makes things better when something goes wrong and you need to know what exactly's wrong. Personally I would've used pin headers for the connections instead of soldering them to the pads, I've done this with all the NESRGBs I've installed so far and it makes things so much easier.

[leonk]

Awww gosh. Thanks for sharing the pics I sent you. I solder all wires because they last longer when shipped back coast to coast.

[ApolloBoy]

I solder all wires because they last longer when shipped back coast to coast.

I've been using crimped connectors recently in my mod work and I have yet to hear any complaints about it from my customers. If anything, it's more professional to do mods this way, and they make things a hell of a lot easier if something goes wrong or if the customer wants more mods done in the future. They're especially useful in that sense for AV mods because it means the two halves of the console aren't tethered together.

[thebert]

I'm back again with "Diaries of a n00b"

I wasn't getting s-video, so I desoldered one of the palette wires so I could test pass-thru and got a picture using the built in composite. So, I didn't kill the PPU during the desoldering process, so that was good news.

So, back to my soldering station I go to put the switch back in. After that, I was checking the wires going to the s-video port, I noticed a little "1" on the pinout board (the one supplied). .....argh!!!! I was so excited to hook it up initially, I just slapped the thing on the back of the jack and I had the thing on backwards!!!

Anyway, a quick desolder and a flipity flip, and... hot damn! SMB3 never looked so good! and that's just using s-video!

Thanks everyone for their help. I'm sure once I manage to salvage a multi-out, I'll be back with another episode for you all.

Edit: oh, and I gotta flash the update too.

[eightbitminiboss]

Got the USB Blaster in the mail today. Programmed the board and finally put my Twin back together.



One of the neat reasons to mod the Twin Famicom for the NESRGB. Being able to replace the DIN connector and using a readily available pre-made SCART cable (cable is normally for a Neo-Geo):



Posted this before, but this gives you a gist of the install:




Short clip of the first level of Akumajou Densetsu. Though it looks a little jittery since I realized I was recording at 59.94fps. I'd fix it, but eh I'm tired.

[Vigormortis]

NESRGB installed in AV Fami. Audio wires are shielded to fight the evil buzz. I probably could have just used regular wire for the audio output and shielded on the expansion audio only. It turns out the real culprit for the buzzing sounds was non existent shielding for the audio wires in both my SCART and s-video cables. After a little bit of cable hacking, my audio is now crystal clear (even in the everdrive's menu)


Crystalis looks amazing on a 20" PVM

[keropi]

More on the C-SYNC adventures...
I measured it and the NESRGB output 4.90-4.95v on C-SYNC. So as advised by mufunyo I added a 1K resistor. I now get 4.50-4.55v on it, is this correct?
I haven't tried with RGB yet...

@Vigormortis
nice work there!
I decided to use the onboard AV port so I am leaving the nesrgb's audio part alone , I believe the stock one present on the port is fine...

[TheRetromancer]

Sexy. Quick question - what's with the 75Ω resistor near J5? It looks like you're grabbing audio(?) from there, but it begs the question of 'why'. Still waiting on my board to come in (stupid EMS).

In addition, it looks like you removed the surface-mount capacitors on the R-G-B video outs. Are you using the retro_console_accessories SNES cable with that? I have two - the regular one for my SNES and the RAW SYNC version for my N64, and I'm wondering which one (if either) you're using with your AV Famicom - I'll definitely go the same route.

[Vigormortis]

I removed the 220uf caps and shorted their pads on the NESRGB board's RGB lines because NTSC SNES SCART cables already contain those capacitors. If you're using a SNES style AV output, those capacitors have got to go.

The resistor near J5 is 47kΩ. Its purpose is for mixing expansion audio from pin 46 of the cartridge slot. 47kΩ is actually only good for one famicom cart's expansion audio - the Everdrive. Official Famicom carts' expansion audio is too loud with this value. They need something more around the neighborhood of 100kΩ. Actually, the AV Famicom's native expansion audio mixing is similar to my current setup - the Everdrive sounds right and official carts aren't mixed properly. If I get my hands on more official carts with expansion audio, I may consider installing a switch so I can get proper audio mixing for both the Everdrive and official carts.

All of the pins on my multi AV port (except 5v & ground) are wired to the NESRGB. I cut the traces from the AV Famicom's original audio and composite video outputs. I also had the cut the traces to pins 45 & 46 on the cartridge slot in order to isolate the expansion audio. I use a regular SCART cord, which gets sync from the composite video on pin 9. You can use this cord if you cut the trace to pin 9 and connect it to the NESRGB's composite video output. It might work if you leave the NES's native composite output on pin 9, but I could have sworn that I once saw a discussion where a guy was getting a wavy image or some other glitch because of that. If you don't wanna cut the trace to pin 9, the raw sync cable would probably work for you. It grabs sync from pin 3 on the multi out. Just make sure you wire the NESRGB's c-sync to pin 3, and the raw sync cable should be good to go.

[TheRetromancer]

I removed the 220uf caps and shorted their pads on the NESRGB board's RGB lines because NTSC SNES SCART cables already contain those capacitors. If you're using a SNES style AV output, those capacitors have got to go.

The resistor near J5 is 47kΩ. Its purpose is for mixing expansion audio from pin 46 of the cartridge slot. 47kΩ is actually only good for one famicom cart's expansion audio - the Everdrive. Official Famicom carts' expansion audio is too loud with this value. They need something more around the neighborhood of 100kΩ. Actually, the AV Famicom's native expansion audio mixing is similar to my current setup - the Everdrive sounds right and official carts aren't mixed properly. If I get my hands on more official carts with expansion audio, I may consider installing a switch so I can get proper audio mixing for both the Everdrive and official carts.

All of the pins on my multi AV port (except 5v & ground) are wired to the NESRGB. I cut the traces from the AV Famicom's original audio and composite video outputs. I also had the cut the traces to pins 45 & 46 on the cartridge slot in order to isolate the expansion audio. I use a regular SCART cord, which gets sync from the composite video on pin 9. You can use this cord if you cut the trace to pin 9 and connect it to the NESRGB's composite video output. It might work if you leave the NES's native composite output on pin 9, but I could have sworn that I once saw a discussion where a guy was getting a wavy image or some other glitch because of that. If you don't wanna cut the trace to pin 9, the raw sync cable would probably work for you. It grabs sync from pin 3 on the multi out. Just make sure you wire the NESRGB's c-sync to pin 3, and the raw sync cable should be good to go.

So let me get this straight:

1 - You've cut the traces on Pins 45 and 46, and are connecting a wire with a 47kΩ resistor to the audio out circuit on the NESRGB. (I too have an Everdrive N8, so this is particularly of interest to me). I get this. What I don't get is that the Everdrive N8's OS allows you to set the expansion audio volume to High or Low at will. I'm currently playing my AV Famicom with the volume mix set to Low - are you saying that the NESRGB mod somehow negates or otherwise invalidates this? I remember adding a 33kΩ resistor to my toaster NES when I was using the N8 with a Fami/NES adapter from Gyromite, but this is a new wrinkle. I would greatly prefer a solution that did not involve actual damage to the AV Famicom, so I'm hoping there's an alternative to cutting traces.

2 - You've removed the 220µf caps (accidentally wrote 'resistors', my bad!) from the R-G-B video lines, as these are already in the Multi-AV SCART connectors. From a technical standpoint and my own curiousity, why does this cause a problem to have two sets of caps? From my understanding, capacitors merely store-and-release the signal, with the output being 'smoothed', as it were, and less prone to voltage spikes.

3 - You've cut the audio and composite video traces going to the Multi-AV connector to presumably prevent any sort of video interference while you're grabbing Sync. I'm not super thrilled at the idea of slizzity-slicing my AV Famicom, so I think I shall take your suggestion and use the Raw Sync version.