NESRGB board available now

[mvsfan]

i was wondering if theres a chart or something out there that shows side by side the differences between Natural Improved, and Garish Palettes.

Im just curious about how many colors are significantly different between them.

[Sensato Kurai]

i was wondering if theres a chart or something out there that shows side by side the differences between Natural Improved, and Garish Palettes.

Im just curious about how many colors are significantly different between them.

I don't know if this would do but I plan to do a comparison video including all 3 color palettes as well as original composite video.

In the meantime, I don't know if something similar has been done but I have just uploaded a comparison video for the Improved color palette of the NESRGB vs the default composite video on a front loader NES.

http://bit.ly/1pSybcA

The signal was upscaled to 1080p with an XRGB Mini and captured with an XDPVR2.

Let me know what you guys think. Does this look representative to you? Thanks!

[mvsfan]

well - I have an actual rgb nes. i dont think i need a video since it looks better in person anyway.

but it would be nice to see them side by side on a chart just so i could see if theres any greens instead of reds, etc..

so far my favorite palettes are Improved and Garish. I dont use natural much.

[bobrocks95]

i was wondering if theres a chart or something out there that shows side by side the differences between Natural Improved, and Garish Palettes.

Im just curious about how many colors are significantly different between them.

This should answer your question:

The Natural palette has the same colours as the normal composite video output. It comes from the Nintendulator NES emulator. Improved is from the FCEUX emulator. There is more variety in the colours. Some games look significantly better with this one. Garish is also from the Nintendulator but it is a palette from the Nintendo Playchoice PPU.

Just load up Nintendulator and FCEUX with the same game running and compare the differences. Change the palette in Nintendulator to see the garish palette as well.

[mvsfan]

this http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?t=9027 is what im looking for.

scroll down until you see the palette chart. its the last post on that page. How did they do that?

id like to see one like that with all 3 palettes.

[mufunyo]

Someone should make a palette test rom that cycles through screenshots of various popular games that show different aspects of the palette, preferably with games that make heavy use of the full technical possibilities in terms of colours displayed on a single screen.

[mvsfan]

i found loopys palette test. Looks like what i was looking for. thanks.

[ms06fz]

This should answer your question:

The Natural palette has the same colours as the normal composite video output.

Yeah, that's not true, though. At least, "natural" palette doesn't look like the composite out to me. It's much brighter, and a few colors stand out way to much. Like these red (not brown) rock details in Rockman 3.

Both Natural and Improved came from FCEUX - I have no doubt that the intent of the "improved" palette was to imitate the actual look of NES color, but the actual result is a different story...

[mufunyo]

Both Natural and Improved came from FCEUX

Natural comes from Nintendulator.

[ms06fz]

Both Natural and Improved came from FCEUX

Natural comes from Nintendulator.

Ah. Derp. Well, the point stands... The palette doesn't really match that of the original PPU, at least not in my experience.

[Sixfortyfive]

Yeah, that's not true, though. At least, "natural" palette doesn't look like the composite out to me. It's much brighter, and a few colors stand out way to much. Like these red (not brown) rock details in Rockman 3.

I think your camera might be playing tricks on you. This is what I get comparing a stock NES to the NESRGB in Natural, recorded with the XCAPTURE-1. It's pretty close overall.

[Zets13]

Maybe I'm wrong but can't some of that be attributed to it being in RGB vs composite, and some colors being clearer and more vibrant as a result? I know from looking at comparisons between consoles that don't need a mod for RGB (in below link) that even then some colors look rather different between composite and RGB.

http://www.chrismcovell.com/gotRGB/screenshots.html

[bobrocks95]

Yeah, that's not true, though. At least, "natural" palette doesn't look like the composite out to me. It's much brighter, and a few colors stand out way to much. Like these red (not brown) rock details in Rockman 3.

Both Natural and Improved came from FCEUX - I have no doubt that the intent of the "improved" palette was to imitate the actual look of NES color, but the actual result is a different story...

Colors are going to be brighter, clearer, and overall just more vibrant switching from composite to RGB regardless of what you set the palette as. That said, I was quoting viletim himself, so it's not like I was making it up myself. I personally wouldn't want a palette that perfectly matches the look of composite video anyway, it's very washed out imo.

[ms06fz]

Yeah, that's not true, though. At least, "natural" palette doesn't look like the composite out to me. It's much brighter, and a few colors stand out way to much. Like these red (not brown) rock details in Rockman 3.

I think your camera might be playing tricks on you. This is what I get comparing a stock NES to the NESRGB in Natural, recorded with the XCAPTURE-1. It's pretty close overall.

Well, there are certainly some issues with different levels of auto-exposure in some of my comparison shots, including that one I posted from the Hard Man stage... But things looked wrong on-screen as well. I do think that particular color (darkest red, I think) is a little too vibrant. I don't really know how the rest of the palette fares (and your comparison shot didn't include that dark red, let alone in a context where a little bit of a change would make it stand out) - personally I'd like to tune the palette to get results a bit closer to a stock NES - though I haven't done any digging to find out if that's even practical for me to do.

Of course as Zets says it may not even be a palette issue, as the video signal's taking a different path which may result in some things coming through stronger than they would on a stock NES. Admittedly, this is something I didn't take into account. But it is something the palette has to account for. The original palette isn't even in the RGB color space, it exists only as composite. Any RGB palette is only an approximation - to be an effective approximation it needs to take the whole end-to-end problem into account. It's probably not possible to hit a color palette that will look right on any given monitor (especially given the way the NES's janky dot crawl and color bleed affects the appearance of the output), but I think there is room for improvement.

At any rate, I think the colors aren't close enough for a blanket statement like "The Natural palette has the same colours as the normal composite video output" - I'm sure that was the intent, but I don't believe that's the end result.

[mufunyo]

At any rate, I think the colors aren't close enough for a blanket statement like "The Natural palette has the same colours as the normal composite video output" - I'm sure that was the intent, but I don't believe that's the end result.

I dunno, man, but you're one of the few if not the first to run into this "inaccuracy" of the natural palette. Composite, due to its YIQ nature can be interpreted in a few different ways (although greatly exaggerated on the internet -- no, a CRT TV does not operate in YIQ space natively, it has to convert the signal to RGB impulses for its electron guns), and then there's comb filtering and other processing performed by your display. I think most of what you're seeing can be attributed to your display. Many have gone before you and Nintendulator's palette (which is what is used for the NESRGB's "natural" palette) is pretty much unanimously considered the most accurate. You can chase your tail for however long you want trying to pin down exactly how you're used to seeing NES games, but I'd say it's a bit of a fool's errand. Just accept that natural is as close as it's going to get and enjoy the fact that there isn't any nasty colour smearing or dot crawl artefacts.

Comparisons like this are pretty spot-on, if you ask me:

[ms06fz]

It's a comparison that doesn't include the color that I think looks off, so it kind of has no bearing on the issue.

[mufunyo]

It's a comparison that doesn't include the color that I think looks off, so it kind of has no bearing on the issue.

My AV Famicom looks different on my Mitsubishi presentation monitor than it does on my Philips TV. RGB sources like JAMMA boards look the same on both screens. Which one would I be supposed to compare the NESRGB's palette to?

[ms06fz]

It's a comparison that doesn't include the color that I think looks off, so it kind of has no bearing on the issue.

My AV Famicom looks different on my Mitsubishi presentation monitor than it does on my Philips TV. RGB sources like JAMMA boards look the same on both screens. Which one would I be supposed to compare the NESRGB's palette to?

Either? Both? I don't care.

[mufunyo]

It's a comparison that doesn't include the color that I think looks off, so it kind of has no bearing on the issue.

My AV Famicom looks different on my Mitsubishi presentation monitor than it does on my Philips TV. RGB sources like JAMMA boards look the same on both screens. Which one would I be supposed to compare the NESRGB's palette to?

Either? Both? I don't care.

My point is you're chasing windmills. If it really matters so much to you, open up NESten and use the palette editor to tweak the values until you're satisfied. Then save the .pal file and mail it to viletim. He sometimes programs custom palettes for an extra fee if he's got spare time for it. For literally everyone else, the natural palette emulates composite adequately.

[ms06fz]

My point is you're chasing windmills.

It's possible. I understand things like this can come up just as a result of differences between different monitors, and colors are bound to stand out more when they're not all muddled up with their neighbors. And making one game look "better" can make another game look worse (which is basically the whole problem with "improved" palettes anyway). And so on. If you have some relevant screen-shot comparisons (like, say, from the Hard Man stage) I'd love to check 'em out.

If it really matters so much to you, open up NESten and use the palette editor to tweak the values until you're satisfied.

I plan to, when I can make time for it. If nothing else I'll see how the issue plays out in different emulators (and whether it's even a problem)

[kamiboy]

To be fair this hardware section of the forum sees its fair share of windmills being chased and hairs being split.

[ms06fz]

After trying nintendulator, I'd say yes, I think it's a problem of the palette, not just a result of different signal processing.



Nesten's "Nesticle" palette has other problems (it has those creme-colored grays, for instance, and I suspect color 0x28 was chosen specifically to make Pac Man look better) but it gets those dark background colors suitably dark:


Higan's palette seems kind of similar to Nintendulator's, but, again, the dark colors are darker and the whole thing's a bit less saturated. It's enough to make that Hardman background look much less conspicuous.



Looking at the palettes in Nintendulator's palette settings dialog I get the impression that the Nintendulator NTSC palette is too "normalized" - like in many columns you'll see four very similar-looking colors differentiated by regular intervals of value and/or saturation... The NES palette just isn't like that. It doesn't follow logical patterns, at least not from what I've seen of it.

As for which result is "correct"... I recognize that it's a complicated and potentially intractable problem, but I think there's some room for improvement here. The Higan palette looks pretty promising, actually.

[TheRetromancer]

Everything byuu touches turns to gold.

[Einzelherz]

If any of you guys are like me and wanted to use a different size mini DIN for your multi out I got lucky and found this at Radio Shack today

http://www.schmartboard.com/index.asp?p ... s_th&id=18

It lines up very well for my Mini Din 9 PCB mount. I suspect it would for most of the other PCB mount ones as well.

[sazyario]

All, does anyone know where EXT2 and EXT3 run to?

I have a defective board. These 2 lines are connected to anything. I'm getting garbled graphics from my board.

[sazyario]

All, does anyone know where EXT2 and EXT3 run to?

I have a defective board. These 2 lines aren't connected to anything. I'm getting garbled graphics from my board.

[Pasky]

Normally EXT0-EXT3 are grounded on the NES PCB. If you mean the NESRGB, I'm unsure. You could trace the continuity on the board to find out. EXT0-EXT3 are pins 14-17 respectively on the PPU.

[sazyario]

Normally EXT0-EXT3 are grounded on the NES PCB. If you mean the NESRGB, I'm unsure. You could trace the continuity on the board to find out. EXT0-EXT3 are pins 14-17 respectively on the PPU.

That's the problem. I can't find continuity between the pins and any place on the NESRGB board foR EXT2&EXT3. I can find continuity for EXT0&EXT1.

Hence why I'm asking for help. I want to run a jumper wire between the physical pin an where it should go, and see if that fixes my problem.

[Pasky]

I just checked. Both EXT2 & EXT3 go to a 10K (pull down) resistor to ground.

[DarkAries]

So I finally made an account to post here. Got my NESRGB board, all is good, pulled the PPU, installed the NESRGB, and nothing works. Now I'm afraid I either fried the NESRGB board or the PPU. I already broke a few pins off the PPU but I fixed it by using legs from resistors. Lesson learned, I need a proper desoldering iron or atleast a new desoldering bulb. I spent so many hours trying to get it out and in the end zip. I'm just debating shipping it off to somebody to finish the job now I'm so angry at the time I've spent with zero results. Atleast the NES itself isn't dead. Any tips on where to start?