Nintendo 64 RGB Blur fixing

[Ikaruga11]

Is there a US distributor for the N64-RGB boards yet?

Seconding this notion, it would be awesome to save on the shipping costs (AU$31.00 to Mexico)

Some countries have an unreliable postal services. All orders from these countries (Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Russia) must be sent registered. That's why it's expensive to post to Mexico. It would cost even more if sent from the US.

I do offer padded envelopes as an option now. It can fit one N64RGB board and costs only AU$5. Not available to the four countries mentioned above.

Can you flash Borti's new software onto your board as a custom request or are you coming out with a new version that has it already on?

[tacoguy64]

Just got my hands on an RGB modded N64 with blur fix and Bortis mod. Hooked that baby up to my 20' inch BVM and it looks amazing. My first impressions is that I am blown away. Though I will say that I haven't noticed that much of a different when I toggle on and off Bortis firmware. And also I haven't tried taking off the de-blur yet.

I plan on trying this N64 on all my displays when I get off from work. Will show off pics off course

[tjstogy]

Pics or it didn't happen

Just got my hands on an RGB modded N64 with blur fix and Bortis mod. Hooked that baby up to my 20' inch BVM and it looks amazing. My first impressions is that I am blown away. Though I will say that I haven't noticed that much of a different when I toggle on and off Bortis firmware. And also I haven't tried taking off the de-blur yet.

I plan on trying this N64 on all my displays when I get off from work. Will show off pics off course

[andykara2003]

Just a suggestion but it'd be awesome to see:

1: Comparison shots of in-game 3D graphics - the real test and something we haven't seen yet. Ideally filter on/off shots of a 3D game that is already fairly clean looking (Mario 64, say) and one that is terribly blurry (i.e. Jet force Gemini).

2: The same games compared both on a pro monitor and a consumer CRT, each display shown with deblur on and off. This would be interesting as these displays will handle the deblur effect quite differently.

[Josh128]

^^

Second that motion.

[tacoguy64]

All I got is a cell phone camera.
And i suck at doing any type of video editing.

I recorded some footage of me playing and messing around in a few games. I think these images are with the de-blur on and its on my BVMD 20F1U. Next should I record the same games using botis firmware with the de-blur on? and then do one of the normal rgb for comparison?

I thought these came out better at first but heres what i got.
Don't know what was up with the camera but the colors look more rich in person. I think these first batches of games have the de-blur enabled and bortis firmware disable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvIQ4pHka_A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUAsg8urgXo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zafe2yRi9TM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK14BENaXAU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9MUf5GJ7NI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4lFIbLqzlI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyZH50hCYQQ

[tacoguy64]

Tried the N64 rgb for the past few days and i'm pretty happy with the results so far but I must say I really can't see any benefits with Bortis firmware. In fact in most cases i'd say games look worse with the color shift. I'll take some there really hasn't been something I seen an improvement with. Maybe I have been trying them on the wrong games.

Back to the de-blur, as we all know this thing cant be applied to all situations to fix all your games. This is still a game by game basis and preference thing. The BVM made for the best pairing with the rgb modded n64. The sharpness combined with the scanlines and color reproduction made for the best i've ever seen the n64 look. Sadly I don't have a nice camera and I dont know any good methods to take pictures on my camera phone to let you all see. The videos I took don't really do it justice.

Plugging this to the plasma with the xrgb was good too. Very close to the level of the HDMI mod except I had some annoying vertical black bars on it. They didn't show up anywhere else except on the xrgb. If it didn't have that I would say it is probably virtually identical to the HDMI mod when the de-blur is applied. I used FBX profiles both 4x and 5x.

Finally I tried this on my giant NEC and they looked nice on here too but my screen was initially too dark. I had to turn up the brightness a couple levels to make it look good. The deblur looks good here as well but the scanlines on this monitor kinda bothered me a little bit. I'm not sure why either because the BVM has thick scanlines as well? I probably should have been sitting further back.

Didn't try this with my PC monitor yet but I think the results might be the same as with the plasma since i think the xrgb is responsible for the black bars.

That's all I have for now.

[Ikaruga11]

What color shift?

[tacoguy64]

I probably used the wrong description for what it's doing. The easiest scene to spot this is in the start of majoras mask at the start of the game. Made the whole forest foggy scene look mono-chromatic and ugly. I can snap pictures of it when I get home.

[Mantis128]

I've been wanting to upgrade to RGB on my 64 but I've been worried about it bringing out the AA, so I'm glad to hear about this. Using this with component on my CRT should be perfect for me.

[tacoguy64]

I think it's totally worth doing the RGB mod with the de-blur firmware.
Most games I played with the de-blur on, felt like they really benefited from having the scanlines. They helped clean up the images when the AA came off and they sharpen the image of the games with the blur. There were some games that I did think might look better hooked up on an HDTV monitor with no scanlines.

[tacoguy64]

Heres some pictures to show you what I'm talking about
All images are taken from my plasma tv with the xrgb mini.
The imgur link shows a few more picture and gives a better comparison, I just dont know how to post images on here without having them get blown up.

http://imgur.com/a/3B02t

*Black vertical bars (only seen on the xrgb mini combo so far, haven't really looked much into it yet)*




*de-blur on with bortis firmware applied*



What you see here is a good representation of what im seeing.
Like I said before those black vertical lines only appear on my xrgb mini set-up, my crt monitors don't have that.

[Skips]

I had to test an N64 for someone today and decided to post a video and screenshot to show off the deblur.

https://youtu.be/qIhS5fVDUvc

[Ikaruga11]

Absolutely amazing.

[CobraKing]

It's been a few years, but how does it look with the Blur ON? The De-Blur does look great though, just forgot what the blurry image looked like though.

[jay]

So I tried flashing borti's firmware to my N64RGB using tim's guide, I keep getting error code 44. Here's a picture of what the error is. I used this pinout diagram to wire it to the N64 RGB. Has anyone else had this issue? I'm using pin 4 on this for the 3.3v, I assumed that was correct, or do I need to pull 3.3v from elsewhere?

[Ikaruga11]

Will a new version of Tim's RGB Board come pre-flashed with the software down the road or can he do it per request?

[borti4938]

So I tried flashing borti's firmware to my N64RGB using tim's guide, I keep getting error code 44. Here's a picture of what the error is. I used this pinout diagram to wire it to the N64 RGB. Has anyone else had this issue? I'm using pin 4 on this for the 3.3v, I assumed that was correct, or do I need to pull 3.3v from elsewhere?

Pin 4 of the USB Blaster is an input - the reference voltage. You have to power the CPLD from elsewhere, e.g. by simply switching on the N64

[jay]

So I tried flashing borti's firmware to my N64RGB using tim's guide, I keep getting error code 44. Here's a picture of what the error is. I used this pinout diagram to wire it to the N64 RGB. Has anyone else had this issue? I'm using pin 4 on this for the 3.3v, I assumed that was correct, or do I need to pull 3.3v from elsewhere?

Pin 4 of the USB Blaster is an input - the reference voltage. You have to power the CPLD from elsewhere, e.g. by simply switching on the N64

Ah, well I had the N64 powered on whenever I tried flashing. Still doesn't work. I could post a picture later if it helps illustrate how I have it hooked up, but I feel like there shouldn't be anything that complicated with the wiring. I just soldered from the pads to the pins on the usb blaster after pulling out the existing jtag cable.

Edit: I'm also on Win8, not sure if that might be an issue

[leonk]

I did the install yesterday into an N64. I wired up the 2 wires (for reset + joystick controls) and flashed the latest firmware from Borti. Just some personal observations:

1) On the games I tried, the deblur is minimal but noticeable. Most noticeable in text; text is now sharper without any "shadow".
2) The button combination is INSANE! I guess it has to be done so it's not pressed by accident. We need to print stickers documenting them and include on controller base.

[jay]

So I tried flashing borti's firmware to my N64RGB using tim's guide, I keep getting error code 44. Here's a picture of what the error is. I used this pinout diagram to wire it to the N64 RGB. Has anyone else had this issue? I'm using pin 4 on this for the 3.3v, I assumed that was correct, or do I need to pull 3.3v from elsewhere?

Pin 4 of the USB Blaster is an input - the reference voltage. You have to power the CPLD from elsewhere, e.g. by simply switching on the N64

Ah, well I had the N64 powered on whenever I tried flashing. Still doesn't work. I could post a picture later if it helps illustrate how I have it hooked up, but I feel like there shouldn't be anything that complicated with the wiring. I just soldered from the pads to the pins on the usb blaster after pulling out the existing jtag cable.

Edit: I'm also on Win8, not sure if that might be an issue

I found the problem, the trace for the 3.3v pad on the N64RGB board was broken. I jumpered the pad to the SMD component the trace led to and I was able to update the firmware successfully. I feel kinda dumb for not spotting that sooner, but at least it's fixed now.

[andykara2003]

I'm a little torn on whether to wait and see what Tim's version of the firmware will be like or to just go ahead with Borti's. Does anyone know if the actual deblur effect would be exactly the same visually with either firmware version?

[bahamutfan64]

My N64 is no longer outputting video after flashing with Borti's firmware. I've tried to flash back Tim's original firmware (everything went well, no errors) but the problem still persists.

I've tried checking all traces on the 1.2 RGB board, and everything seems to be fine. Any suggestions, guys? For what it's worth, I'm also using an Everdrive 64.

Edit: Ff course, I forgot to plug the Expansion Pak back in. All is well now! The deblurring effect appears modest, but noticeable. Certainly more pronounced on 2D elements.

[mikejmoffitt]

I finally fixed the remaining sync bug with my N64 line doubler and de-blur FPGA thing. I might throw together a little budget mod board that can aim to be between the price of the N64RGB board and the N64 kit.

[andykara2003]

Has anyone tried both this deblur solution and the Gameshark antialiasing removal trick & so can give an opinion as to which gives the superior method of increasing N64 clarity?

[Guspaz]

They're not the same thing, but My Life in Gaming did a video comparing them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDiHgKil8AQ

[andykara2003]

Thanks, I've seen it - great video from MLIG as usual. I'm still interested if anyone who has access to both methods has a personal opinion they can share on this, particularly using a consumer CRT..

[mikejmoffitt]

I worked on something:

[andykara2003]

What is it?

[bobrocks95]

Look closely...
N64VGA written on the board. HS, VS, R, G, B, and GND outputs. Some RCP Video Data inputs...

The question is if I can buy an assembled one in the future