NESRGB New Firmware Palette Updates:

[FBX]

For posterity, the first stage in Contra is a superb example of olive color correction in action:



People generally prefer the corrected olive color consistency, but you can see from RGBSource's direct capture palette that indeed the original hardware did have imbalanced darker olive colors. My original capture work also had the same imbalance, but I got too many complaints about it and decided correcting them gave a more pleasing result.

[bobrocks95]

So which palette is correct now?

[Guspaz]

PlayChoice 10

[tjstogy]

But what color is the sky in Mario?

[Tatsuya79]

Aren't those stairs a bit too saturated compared to the rest?
This orange seems a bit too punchy to me.

@RGBSource: I really like your NESCAP palette, thanks for that.

[Ikaruga11]

So which one is supposed to be better?

[FBX]

But what color is the sky in Mario?

Aren't those stairs a bit too saturated compared to the rest?
This orange seems a bit too punchy to me.

The stairs also appear orange like that on the nescap palette. It's a bit of an optical illusion due to the purplish-red bricks in the background. When you see the stair color in other games like Contra, it appears to look a normal bright red.

So which one is supposed to be better?

That's only an answer you can give yourself. The two have nearly identical hues, but mine is a bit more saturated (ironically considering the name I've been using for the palette). Take a look below and decide for yourself which you'd prefer:



.

[bobrocks95]

I'm being totally sincere here FBX, so I hope I don't come across as snarky or anything.

I thought the purpose for your custom palettes were to be as accurate as possible to the original composite signal? Now I get the impression (which doesn't mean it's the reality!) that you're just tweaking things to your liking.

So which palette is accurate at this point, if any? A summation of each would be nice. Is one accurate and another just more saturated? Has it been proven that one can even be classified as accurate, given composite's shortcomings?

[FBX]

I'm being totally sincere here FBX, so I hope I don't come across as snarky or anything.

I thought the purpose for your custom palettes were to be as accurate as possible to the original composite signal? Now I get the impression (which doesn't mean it's the reality!) that you're just tweaking things to your liking.

So which palette is accurate at this point, if any? A summation of each would be nice. Is one accurate and another just more saturated? Has it been proven that one can even be classified as accurate, given composite's shortcomings?

If you go back in the history of the thread, people didn't like the original 'accurate' dark olive colors. I had been asked many times to adjust them to be consistent in hue from dark to light. So the short answer is if you want every hue like it is on the nes deck, nescap is the baseline palette. If you want one with corrected olive colors and a little more 'pop' in the saturation, that's where mine is currently at.

Aside from those two differences, the palettes are nearly identical hue-wise.

[austin532]

Just tried it with a RF filter and it looks pretty close to how I remember it.

[bobrocks95]

I'm being totally sincere here FBX, so I hope I don't come across as snarky or anything.

I thought the purpose for your custom palettes were to be as accurate as possible to the original composite signal? Now I get the impression (which doesn't mean it's the reality!) that you're just tweaking things to your liking.

So which palette is accurate at this point, if any? A summation of each would be nice. Is one accurate and another just more saturated? Has it been proven that one can even be classified as accurate, given composite's shortcomings?

If you go back in the history of the thread, people didn't like the original 'accurate' dark olive colors. I had been asked many times to adjust them to be consistent in hue from dark to light. So the short answer is if you want every hue like it is on the nes deck, nescap is the baseline palette. If you want one with corrected olive colors and a little more 'pop' in the saturation, that's where mine is currently at.

Aside from those two differences, the palettes are nearly identical hue-wise.

I thought about it too and if I had an NESRGB (I plan to get one so I'm not trying to be difficult just for the fun of it) and a flasher, I'd be able to test them all out quickly anyway and pick the one that's most accurate or that I like the most.

[tjstogy]

I asked what color the sky in Mario is in your newest palette because you said your other one showed up as blue on crts. Does this one show up as blue on crts as well?

[FBX]

I asked what color the sky in Mario is in your newest palette because you said your other one showed up as blue on crts. Does this one show up as blue on crts as well?

The SMB sky hasn't changed really at all in the past few palettes, so it will likely show up blue on CRTs if previous ones also did. That's my prediction anyway. 145-139-255 is only a hair off from straight light blue, so your average CRT probably won't pick up the tinge of purple.

However, remember that the original designer of the game specifically chose that color because of the purple tinge, and I think that speaks volumes about artistic intent.

[tjstogy]

So to echo bobrocks, and with utmost respect to you and your contributions.... I mentioned the article about the purple sky initially because yours was showing up as light blue on crts... if the developer intended a purplish sky on a crt, then is your "hair off from straight light blue" sky actually accurate?

I asked what color the sky in Mario is in your newest palette because you said your other one showed up as blue on crts. Does this one show up as blue on crts as well?

The SMB sky hasn't changed really at all in the past few palettes, so it will likely show up blue on CRTs if previous ones also did. That's my prediction anyway. 145-139-255 is only a hair off from straight light blue, so your average CRT probably won't pick up the tinge of purple.

However, remember that the original designer of the game specifically chose that color because of the purple tinge, and I think that speaks volumes about artistic intent.

[Ikaruga11]

Just my opinion here: I think the blue sky looks much more natural and organic in SMB than the purple sky. Skies aren't purple.

That's only an answer you can give yourself. The two have nearly identical hues, but mine is a bit more saturated (ironically considering the name I've been using for the palette). Take a look below and decide for yourself which you'd prefer:



.

I strongly prefer your Unsaturated Final palette, in both Contra and Castlevania. It's brighter with more vibrant and distinctive colors.

[tjstogy]

Yeah I mean I'd love to have an option for FBXs favorite colors palette but I was under the impression the whole idea of this was to emulate what colors from rf or composite looked like on a crt. Ya know... less about interpretation and more about accuracy. Doesn't that mean purplish skies in Mario 1?

[austin532]

Eh? The sky looks purple to me in SMB. It's impossible to make everyone happy as everyone has their own interpretation of what the image should look like. I think the latest palette looks great. I wasn't crazy about V6 but this Final version looks a lot better.

[tjstogy]

I haven't played his palettes yet and was only quoting him with the light blue remarks. Maybe someone can post some pictures of Mario 1 in the new palette?

Eh? The sky looks purple to me in SMB. It's impossible to make everyone happy as everyone has their own interpretation of what the image should look like. I think the latest palette looks great. I wasn't crazy about V6 but this Final version looks a lot better.

[bobrocks95]

Starting to feel the burn a bit on not being able to easily load custom palettes on the NESRGB. I'm sure FBX has as well, paying Tim for the firmware updates.

I'd like to try out RGBSource's NESCAP palette and I wouldn't imagine myself using the Playchoice-10 palette.

[austin532]

Yoshi's Cookie is one of the few games that looks best with Playchoice 10. Unsaturated Final on left, Playchoice 10 on right.

[tacoboy42]

anyone know where I can download the playchoice-10 .pal palette file for an emulator?

[FBX]

Yeah I mean I'd love to have an option for FBXs favorite colors palette but I was under the impression the whole idea of this was to emulate what colors from rf or composite looked like on a crt. Ya know... less about interpretation and more about accuracy. Doesn't that mean purplish skies in Mario 1?

It started off about being "accurate" to the original hardware, and it still is for all but two entries. Again, the only change I made was to the two dark olive colors, which people requested because it was turning them off from using the palette. When I made the correction, everyone was universally happy.

As for the SMB sky, the color is accurate to the original hardware and always has been. I merely pointed out that the original artist himself specifically used the color because of the slight purple tinge. We can see this effect on digital displays, bu CRT displays typically drown out the effect. I stick with what comes out of the console in every case, not what happens on the CRT screen. There are dozens of palettes already on the internet that attempt to mimic CRT colors, but that's such a subjective area that I felt there was no real need to "go there" per se.

So I hope that clears up what's going on with my pallete: It still goes by what comes out of the console on every entry, with the exception of the two corrected dark olive colors, which look ugly when digitally converted as is.

[austin532]

Right, and since the NES could only do composite there is no master RGB palette to go by. So the Unsaturated Final is 98% correct to what an unmodified NES looks like through composite. So why are people complaining? All of the other palettes out there are someone's interpretation of what a true RGB palette should look like.

As a person who was playing NES using composite for most of my life I can say that the Unsaturated palettes look a hell of a lot better than the default "FCEUX" and "Improved" palettes that come installed with Tim's RGB board. Job well done FBX

[tjstogy]

Awesome thanks for clearing that up for me and once again, you're the man.

Yeah I mean I'd love to have an option for FBXs favorite colors palette but I was under the impression the whole idea of this was to emulate what colors from rf or composite looked like on a crt. Ya know... less about interpretation and more about accuracy. Doesn't that mean purplish skies in Mario 1?

It started off about being "accurate" to the original hardware, and it still is for all but two entries. Again, the only change I made was to the two dark olive colors, which people requested because it was turning them off from using the palette. When I made the correction, everyone was universally happy.

As for the SMB sky, the color is accurate to the original hardware and always has been. I merely pointed out that the original artist himself specifically used the color because of the slight purple tinge. We can see this effect on digital displays, bu CRT displays typically drown out the effect. I stick with what comes out of the console in every case, not what happens on the CRT screen. There are dozens of palettes already on the internet that attempt to mimic CRT colors, but that's such a subjective area that I felt there was no real need to "go there" per se.

So I hope that clears up what's going on with my pallete: It still goes by what comes out of the console on every entry, with the exception of the two corrected dark olive colors, which look ugly when digitally converted as is.

[FBX]

Since I'm going to have an extra day free to work on this (no thanks to UPS), and since there was a little bit of controversy over the unsaturated-final palette, I decided to give it one last try on getting the best compromise. This time around, I'd like everyone interested to vote on which they prefer: Pure raw capture, or the corrected dark olive colors that people liked before but are not accurate to original hardware.

Addressing the first bit of controversy, I turned the saturation down two notches, so here's the difference between Unsaturated-Final and the new WIP:




Next is in dealing with raw versus corrected. Below are 3 examples of raw capture (on the left) and corrected dark olives (on the right):







I'd like votes on which should be used as the final palette. Personally, I've always preferred the corrected dark olive colors, but if everyone feels raw is the better way to go, we'll go with that one.

[xadox]

I would prefer:

Pure raw capture

[austin532]

+1 for 100% raw capture palette. No saturation adjustments, no slight color corrections, no nothing. If that is how Nintendo intended it to be when they originally designed the NES, then that is how it shall be done. Honestly how many other games use that olive color anyway? It can't be much.

[FBX]

+1 for 100% raw capture palette. No saturation adjustments, no slight color corrections, no nothing. If that is how Nintendo intended it to be when they originally designed the NES, then that is how it shall be done. Honestly how many other games use that olive color anyway? It can't be much.

It's interesting because when I first started this project, everyone whined about those olive colors. "Eww Mario's got a green mustache" and "What's with Metroid's title screen having that green tint on the ground?". People swore the raw capture hue just didn't look right, but now that there's confirmation from both the NES Classic and RGBSources own direct capture, it seems everyone is okay with it now?

[Tatsuya79]

Same here: I prefer the untouched olive / no bum in saturation way.

But you're going to end with something so close to NESCAP that it's perhaps best to keep it the way it is now for diversity.

[Unseen]

+1 for 100% raw capture palette. No saturation adjustments, no slight color corrections, no nothing.

Original NTSC color decoding matrix or CXA2025? Here is a page that has examples of both from a C64 context.