NESRGB New Firmware Palette Updates:

[Ikaruga11]

Unsaturated V6
Unsaturated Final
PC-10
NESCAP
NES Classic
Nostalgia
Nostalgia Gold

There should be a comparison between all 7.

[FBX]

FBX, do you have the Nostalgia palette ready for download yet? I'd like to compare it to NESCAP.

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

[austin532]

Unsaturated V6
Unsaturated Final
PC-10
NESCAP
NES Classic
Nostalgia
Nostalgia Gold

There should be a comparison between all 7.

I agree except use various pictures from various games.

[FBX]

What you can do is list each game screen you want compared, and I'll do up a png comparison for each screen.

Anyway, back at work on the NES Classic. To differentiate my rip, I'll have to name it NES Classic-FBX or something to that end.

[Unseen]

NES Classic arrived and I've already been hard at work capturing gameplay to rip the palette. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the colors are not washed out at all in Pixel Perfect mode, and I'm getting vibrant and beautiful colors thus far! I don't know why RGBSource's rip came out so grey-washed, because that's not showing up at all on my end. Perhaps he ripped from a different screen mode like CRT?

Maybe that was a Full-Range-RGB vs. Limited-Range-RGB problem?

[Link83]

I'm having difficulty understanding all the differences between the following palettes:-

Unsaturated V6
Unsaturated Final
Nostalgia
Nostalgia Gold

-Are both Unsaturated V6 and Nostalgia 100% direct captures?
-Are both Unsaturated palettes two notches more intense in saturation than the two Nostalgia palettes?
-Is it only Unsaturated Final and Nostalgia Gold that use the two corrected dark olive colors?
-Where does Unsaturated V7 fit in?

Also, on a 100% direct captured palette are all the color hues equidistant from each other, apart from the two imbalanced dark olives colors?
If so is this disprecency mentioned at all in the original Ricoh PPU design documents that were released a few years ago? I only ask as IMO it would make sense if all the colors were meant to be equidistant originally, like the 'corrected' palettes.

[FBX]

I'm having difficulty understanding all the differences between the following palettes:-

Unsaturated V6
Unsaturated Final
Nostalgia
Nostalgia Gold

I'll go down the list number style:

1. Unsaturated V6......= Older palette that used NTSC color output instead of NTSC-J (resulted in Castlevania stage 2's bricks appearing more purplish than red). Also featured adjusted dark olive colors.
2. Unsaturated Final...= Newer palette that fixed the Castlevania stage 2 issue, was also a few notches more saturated. Also featured adjusted dark olive colors.
3. Nostalgia...............= Latest direct capture that tones down the saturation, retains the fix to Castlevania stage 2 bricks, and does NOT correct the dark olive colors (for the accuracy purist's sake).
4. Nostalgia Gold....... = Exact same as Nostalgia, but features adjusted dark olive colors for those that prefer them (this palette I have not uploaded yet).

Anyway, after 6 hours of sampling all 30 games on the NES Classic, I finished the palette. However, I'm still concerned about how my results were much more 'bold' on each entry as best as I can put it. I think I need to go ahead and snag a new capture card (likely the Intensity Pro 4K). I put my results next to each swatch of RGBSource's version so you can see the issue (his is the left swatch on each entry):

[nakedarthur]

I grabbed a few shots from games I remembered well to compare. Compared to the original RGB palettes, the delta is definitely way smaller between these more accurate ones. The NESCAP and Nostalgia look best to me, with NESCAP just barely beating it for accuracy, but it's splitting hairs at this point except for some very specific games and scenes (which no one will ever fully agree on).

My personal pick for the ultimate NESRGB firmware would be PC-10, NESCAP, and Nostalgia as tweaked by Firebrand with the olives and whatever else everybody likes. The NES Classic palettes seem redundant since they're inaccurate, and the other Unsaturateds only confuse things if Nostalgia is an improvement and already doing what they are.

NESCLASSIC (Rgbsource), NESCAP (Rgbsource), Nostalgia, Unsaturated v6, Unsaturated Final

[The_Atomik_Punk!]

Wow, you've certainly been busy FBX; I last checked into this thread when you released Unsaturated V5, and that's what I still have on my AV Famicom. Holy smokes, even I think you may have taken it a little too far this time- you've finally gone palette crazy . The results of your tinkering do look fantastic though I must say. It's certainly a little confusing with the 7 recent palettes however, and I think everyone can agree (as you mentioned), that some of those palettes are somewhat redundant.

Additionally, the naming conventions are also a little confusing. The whole concept behind the Unsaturated palette (as I recall it) when I was posting in this thread months back, was that relative to the "Natural" palette offered by Tim with the stock kit (Nestopia YUV palette), the custom offering you came up with was far less saturated, amongst other things, hence your "Unsaturated" naming convention. The issue as I see it now is, the Unsaturated palette is actually more saturated than the Nostalgia/Nostalgia Gold, and currently appears to be a more saturated Nostalgia + adjusted olive tones. My point is FBX, maybe you should rename the Unsaturated-Final palette to something else; perhaps swap them so that Unsaturated-Final is known as Nostalgia, and Nostalgia becomes something else, maybe "Authentic"? Just a thought, and thank you for the continued phenomenal work!

[FBX]

NESCAP and Nostalgia look best to me, with NESCAP just barely beating it for accuracy, but it's splitting hairs at this point except for some very specific games and scenes

I'd like to know what you base the "accuracy" on? Just about the only difference between NESCAP and Nostalgia is brightness level, and that's merely the difference between one capture card and the next. If I'm paying for a new firmware that has one of the two on there, I'm putting Nostalgia on it. If people want the hair dimmer NESCAP, they can pay for it themselves.

[austin532]

Impressive how close these palettes are. The NES Classic has a purplish hue to it though and looks a little off but other than that they are very similar.

So I've been doing some eyeball comparisons between MM2 with composite to an old cheapo CRT vs the available palettes and none of them match what I see.


The Robbit, Sniper Armor, and Flash Man's weapon all use the same purple color. I tinkered with one of the palettes and made my own colors. Here is a close approximation of what it looks like on my CRT. With other palettes they appear violet.

[Link83]

Thanks for the reply FBX
I think for me personally the best NESRGB palette update would be:-

Nostalgia (Natural)-------Unsaturated Final (Improved)-------PC-10 (Garish)

...Still confused about what the changes/differences are with Unsaturated V7 though?

[FinalBaton]

The NESCAP and Nostalgia look best to me, with NESCAP just barely beating it for accuracy, but it's splitting hairs at this point except for some very specific games and scenes (which no one will ever fully agree on).

I 100% agree with that.

Both great palettes

[Ikaruga11]

Great work, nakedarthur!

Now I'm no expert on NES palettes, but I think NESCAP looks the best, and NES Classic looks the worst.

[CkRtech]

Footing the bill aside - as far as decisions go, we could run a poll once the palette possibilities are set. Shmups users could vote on their personal top three and then we would have data for making a three palette selection - or at least get a good idea of what people like and go from there. Polls can be setup to allow multiple selections per user, so we could set it to three.

[nakedarthur]

NESCAP and Nostalgia look best to me, with NESCAP just barely beating it for accuracy, but it's splitting hairs at this point except for some very specific games and scenes

I'd like to know what you base the "accuracy" on? Just about the only difference between NESCAP and Nostalgia is brightness level, and that's merely the difference between one capture card and the next. If I'm paying for a new firmware that has one of the two on there, I'm putting Nostalgia on it. If people want the hair dimmer NESCAP, they can pay for it themselves.

Sorry, I didn't mean to come off authoritative about it, it was only my opinion based on my eyes. I think you did agree though that RGBSource had the better capture setup, and you had changed colors because you thought they looked better in certain games (the ground in Contra for instance). Anyway, I don't mean to step on your toes, this is your thread about your palettes and you've done fantastic work (I have Unsaturated v6 on my RGBNES now). I think a lot us are here because we want the most accurate palette (to each of us at least), but it's also not fair for anyone to try and force you to include palettes that aren't yours since you're the one coordinating and paying for the firmware updates. The best avenue is definitely just doing an alternative firmware if Tim is up for it.

[austin532]

I think we should wait until FBX feels confident about his results before we vote. As I said before I'm all for direct capture.

[CkRtech]

I think we should wait until FBX feels confident about his results before we vote. As I said before I'm all for direct capture.

Right. That's why I said once the palette possibilities are set. Ultimately, I think it might be a good idea to help wrangle the options.

[tjstogy]

I agree with the poll... i think we can all agree on one of them being the accurate palette whatever it may be called. The NES mini one seems like a waste of time imo though, but that's what polls are for.

[FBX]

Seeing as how I spent 6 hours last night trying to work on all this, and nobody seems to like my work any more, I'm thinking of calling quits. RGBSource is having a ball at my expense (even so far as to taunt me on his nes classic rip post), and since you've all jumped ship, I'm not seeing any reason to spend any more money on this.


Edit: I've updated my web page on the project. It's now officially scrapped.

Thanks for your support guys. I really appreciated it.

[Tatsuya79]

Nooo, don't take it like this.

I was really curious to test your Nes Classic palette.
I thought RGBSource perhaps took the average color inside of the noise while taking the deepest tone was probably the right way to do it.

[austin532]

That's sad news to hear. We all appreciate your hard work not just on palettes but on the profiles as well and want you to continue. Who is RGBSource anyway? He just showed up one day with a palette and I'm like "Umm ok, who's this?" Don't let him get to you. Don't you plan on doing an episode with MLiG? If you quit, no one will be able to see what you've created.

Best thing to do is take a break, gather your thoughts, and continue this when you are ready. There is no need to rush.

Take care.

[Ikaruga11]

Seeing as how I spent 6 hours last night trying to work on all this, and nobody seems to like my work any more, I'm thinking of calling quits. RGBSource is having a ball at my expense (even so far as to taunt me on his nes classic rip post), and since you've all jumped ship, I'm not seeing any reason to spend any more money on this.


Edit: I've updated my web page on the project. It's now officially scrapped.

Thanks for your support guys. I really appreciated it.

Please don't quit, FBX. We absolutely love your work, and progress would be halted without you. RGBSource?

[FBX]

The problem I have is nobody can seem to give me a straight answer on WHY they think nescap is "more accurate" than Nostalgia. Both are identical hue-wise, and the ONLY difference is in brightness/saturation. I mean, is that the complaint? Do you really want your display that dim? I can just as easily do a new capture with the same result. My point is what looks good on a flat panel isn't necessarily going to be what is 100% "accurate" to the composite output levels. Those dark olive colors are a perfect example. My initial capture work featured them as-is, and everybody HATED it. I changed them to be more consistent in their respective swatch, and BOOM! Everyone loved it. Then along comes "NESCAP" and now suddenly everyone wants the uncorrected olive colors again because it's "accurate". It's this kind of shit that is making me want to quit. You know, like this whole time I was missing the mark when I could have done that same palette MONTHS ago.

So if you want me to do a capture palette with the exact same brightness level as NESCAP, fine. I'll do it. But I'm telling you now, it's not going to be as fun to play on as a palette tuned for flat panel displays.

BTW, I'm starting over on the NES Classic rip attempt. I determined the bold colors were the result of poor video chroma sampling. I've got a new method that takes the raw image data as-is, which is similar to the method RGBSource used. The only difference is I will not be averaging the noise into the palette because that clearly gave a washed-out result on his finished palette. Instead, I'm going to experiment with low-point sampling and work my way up.

[xadox]

Still having v5 on my NESRGB and enjoying it.
At the end gameplay stays the same

Why not just releasing the palette set you like the most.
Do not give so much attention to other opinions.

No matter how much time you spend on your palettes, there will be always someone who does not like yours.

Finaly I like your work and I would be glad if you continue your work!

[FinalBaton]

Don't take it like that FBX
You've given a great solution to many people who wanted corrected colors and they're now enjoying playing their NES more than ever.
You've gotten accolades from MLiG and an influent staff member on Megaman collection, take pride in that! use that as motivation

It's a free market out there, and competition is what makes makers push their product even more. And the consumer are allowed to compare and voice their opinion.
Besides, the "close to original" palettes, like NESCAP and Nostalgia, only serve a part of the market. Other people will want a more vibrant palette.
Also : there as been like 3 people saying that. 3 people. it's not a big chunk of the market there.

Maybe these people (myself included) should have stated our preference more. But it's hard to describe what you want until you see it, ya know? "this color a little bit darker... that color a little bit lighter..." the process(the tweaking of a palette), by it's nature, is bound to evolve slowly with customer feedback as vague as that.

As for the differences themselves, I would point out, in example, at the dark green in the Bionic Commando background. In your palette it is a bit too saturated/bright for my taste. Same with the sky in Ninja Gaiden 2.
Also, the bottom of the garage door in Double Dragon 2 is a slightly darker blue in NESCAP and I love that. One thing that bugs me with the stock NESRGB "Natural" palette is how light that color is.
And as far as general brightness : just because a palette is less bright, that doesn't mean that it's not bright enough. What I see on NESCAP is PLENTY bright, believe me.

[FinalBaton]

That's sad news to hear. We all appreciate your hard work not just on palettes but on the profiles as well and want you to continue. Who is RGBSource anyway? He just showed up one day with a palette and I'm like "Umm ok, who's this?" Don't let him get to you. Don't you plan on doing an episode with MLiG? If you quit, no one will be able to see what you've created.

Best thing to do is take a break, gather your thoughts, and continue this when you are ready. There is no need to rush.

Take care.

very well said

[Tatsuya79]

I prefer the untouched brightness (which is of course a bit relative).
When you bump the brightness/saturation it reduces the range that separates the darkest tones to those close to white.
I like the dark backgrounds, brighter the whole picture becomes a bit more flat.

I think brightness or saturation can already be adjusted in many ways with TV controls or emulators options.

That's a bit like dynamic range in music. (which is on a whole different level nowadays = heavy, crazy, volume range compression)

[FinalBaton]

When you bump the brightness/saturation it reduces the range that separates the darkest tones to those close to white.
I like the dark backgrounds, brighter the whole picture becomes a bit more flat.

You just nailed it right there

[blizzz]

Both Nostalgia and Unsaturated-Final are awesome palettes that I want on my NESRGB. I think there's no consensus on what people prefer, "authentic" vs adjusted.

The problem I have is nobody can seem to give me a straight answer on WHY they think nescap is "more accurate" than Nostalgia.

Going through the screenshots nakedarthur posted. For Zelda, I prefer NESCAP, simply because it is slightly darker, which fits a dungeon theme. For Mario 2 I prefer Nostalgia, because it is slightly higher saturation, which fits the overworld theme. The only other screenshot where I can see a difference is the Blaster Master one. Again, NESCAP is slightly darker while Nostalgia is slightly brighter. I don't have a preference in this one. My point is, it will depend on the game and scene if people will prefer one or the other. From what I can tell there is no clear winner. Personally I'd rather have a palette that's one notch brighter, because it's easier to lower the brightness on a CRT than it is to increase it.
Edit: Looking at my CRT in composite the Nostalgia pic for Blaster Master is closer to what my CRT shows.

Composite on a CRT always has some differences depending on which TV you look at. Calling one palette more authentic than another, when they only have tiny differences, doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Since you put a lot of work (and money) into this, your own palettes should be the ones that get picked, unless someone could point out objective flaws. With Nostalgia and Unsaturated-Final in one firmware both camps should be happy.

For the crowd that wants the "official" palettes, a firmware with PC-10, NES Classic (yours) and either Nostalgia or Unsaturated-Final would probably make them happy.

Which leaves the final spot in the "Nostalgia + Unsaturated-Final" firmware. What would be the options here? PC-10, YUV-V3, FCUX (improved) or maybe Hybrid?