NESRGB New Firmware Palette Updates:

Yamato · Post by **Yamato** » Fri Jan 20, 2017 10:04 am

FBX wrote:Edit: Spent a couple hours doing a new write-up on the project page. It's been uploaded, but you may need to hit the refresh button on your browser if it still shows old content.

Fantastic overview, thank you so much!

austin532 · Post by **austin532** » Fri Jan 20, 2017 9:47 pm

Composite Direct does look better for LCD, have yet to try Original Hardware on a CRT yet. The rocks finally look correct in Wily Stage 1 though and are more whitish in color as they appear on a CRT. We are getting closer and closer.

RGBSource sure got quiet didn't he...

FBX · Post by **FBX** » Sat Jan 21, 2017 2:44 pm

austin532 wrote:
RGBSource sure got quiet didn't he...

Actually his input was what caused me to have to brainstorm a better way. I was certain direct capture wasn't telling the whole story, and that's when I got the idea to use the PVM to reverse-reference the intensity levels. What really kept irking me about direct capture was Ninja Gaiden II. In that game, the HUD cycles through the top tier colors quite smoothly on a CRT, whereas even the very latest direct capture results made it look a bit 'jumpy' in overall brightness transitions. After finishing the PVM reverse palette, I loaded up Ninja Gaiden II and was thrilled to see it finally looks like it does on a CRT; much more subtle and smooth.

FBX · Post by **FBX** » Sat Jan 21, 2017 8:47 pm

Update:

I just used "hakchi2" to add my color test rom into the library of the NES Classic, and it works like a champ! This means I will be able to do fullscreen samples of each and every color to get perfect rips of the entire palette. The previous effort had to use bits and pieces from the 30-game library, with some colors having extremely small samples sizes (thus more room for sample error). I'm going to start the process now of ripping each fullscreen to update the NES Classic palette.

I'll post the new link when it's finished here in an hour.

FBX · Post by **FBX** » Sat Jan 21, 2017 10:03 pm

Done! As I suspected, many of the small-sized sampled colors were inaccurate. Here's the new palette:

http://www.firebrandx.com/downloads/NES ... BX-FS).zip

So why are the smaller sample sizes inaccurate? Answer: Because of the noise Nintendo introduced. The smaller the sample size, the more inaccurate the color becomes. Using the color test ROM to force fullscreen colors, I was able to sample each individual color entry at maximum full screen spread. The only thing that would be more accurate would be if hackers found the actual RGB coded entries (which I wouldn't doubt happening at some point). A such, I'm just simply naming this one "NES Classic (FBX-FS)", where the FS stands for Full Screen samples.

tjstogy · Post by **tjstogy** » Sun Jan 22, 2017 8:40 pm

FBX you're the man! Ever plan on doing the same thing for the 2600?

FBX · Post by **FBX** » Wed Jan 25, 2017 4:45 am

I might look into 2600 down the road, but still too much on my plate for the next couple of months.

So I spent a few more hours on the PVM-style palette. It's just about down to splitting hairs now, so here's what might end up being the final version:

http://www.firebrandx.com/downloads/PVM ... beta04.zip

austin532 · Post by **austin532** » Wed Jan 25, 2017 7:05 am

Bart vs the Space Mutants actually looks pretty good with Beta 4.

Although I never understood why the colors were wrong on the title screen. Did the developers have trouble? Here is what it should like it.

nakedarthur · Post by **nakedarthur** » Wed Jan 25, 2017 7:48 am

austin532 wrote:Although I never understood why the colors were wrong on the title screen. Did the developers have trouble? Here is what it should like it.

One of the difficulties of working with older hardware like NES is that you're limited to how many different colors you can use per tile. I don't remember the exact color limit for NES, but it's probably not possible to have the peach color, black, white for details, yellow for the skin plus a different color for the clothes all in one tile. That's my guess at least.

FBX · Post by **FBX** » Wed Jan 25, 2017 11:23 am

Did one final sweep on the PVM palette. It's as good as I can possibly get it, and it passes the Ninja Gaiden II HUD test. So here's the final version now named "PVM Style (FBX)"

http://www.firebrandx.com/downloads/PVM ... 0(FBX).zip

So now I'm going to compile the colors using a nifty tool Tim sent me to make it easier for him to make firmwares from, and then we'll get the options set up for firmware packages. According to Tim, slot #3 is the one that will be default for people that don't have a toggle switch.

xadox · Post by **xadox** » Wed Jan 25, 2017 11:47 am

Great News!
Finaly there will be the new palette firmware

FBX · Post by **FBX** » Wed Jan 25, 2017 12:03 pm

These will be the options to choose from on the new Firmwares (the 3rd slot is the default for consoles that don't have the toggle switch):

Option 1:

PC-10 >>> Composite Direct (FBX) >>> Original Hardware (FBX)

Option 2:

PC-10 >>> NES Classic (FBX-FS) >>> PVM Style (FBX)

Option 3:

PVM Style (FBX) >>> NES Classic (FBX-FS) >>> Composite Direct (FBX)

Option 4:

PVM Style (FBX) >>> Original Hardware (FBX) >>> NES Classic (FBX-FS)

I'll be personally using option 4 on my console as I don't care about PC-10, and I'll have Original Hardware available when hooking it up to my PVM.

Looking back on it all, the PVM Style palette was by far the most difficult. I must have put in close to 30 hours scrutinizing hundreds of NES games. But it turned out great, and I can load up an emulator and put the LCD monitor next to the PVM, and it looks spot-frikken-on.

copy · Post by **copy** » Wed Jan 25, 2017 1:22 pm

Super exciting!

I feel selfish because I'm always asking you for things, but would it be possible to get an option with Composite Direct, Original Hardware, and PVM Style? That would be amazing.

Guspaz · Post by **Guspaz** » Wed Jan 25, 2017 3:09 pm

nakedarthur wrote:
austin532 wrote:Although I never understood why the colors were wrong on the title screen. Did the developers have trouble? Here is what it should like it.
One of the difficulties of working with older hardware like NES is that you're limited to how many different colors you can use per tile. I don't remember the exact color limit for NES, but it's probably not possible to have the peach color, black, white for details, yellow for the skin plus a different color for the clothes all in one tile. That's my guess at least.

Without sprites getting involved, each background tile can be 3+1 colours where the +1 is transparent to show the screen-wide background colour. Probably salmon, in that photo. In the "corrected" version, you've got an area between Marge and Homer that has black, white, blue, green, yellow, and still needs to have salmon for the background colour, so that's six colours in close proximity. Of course, the tile breakdown can trick you into thinking there's more colours than 3 per tile, but in this case it's clearly more than the hardware supports.

nakedarthur · Post by **nakedarthur** » Wed Jan 25, 2017 3:42 pm

copy wrote:Super exciting!

I feel selfish because I'm always asking you for things, but would it be possible to get an option with Composite Direct, Original Hardware, and PVM Style? That would be amazing.

I second this, I don't really care about the NES Classic or PC-10 palettes..

Triple Lei · Post by **Triple Lei** » Wed Jan 25, 2017 3:53 pm

Something for everyone! Option 2 looks like everything I wanted. Thank you.

Link83 · Post by **Link83** » Wed Jan 25, 2017 5:41 pm

Nice work FBX

Just one question - I was looking at your "Composite Direct (FBX)" and "Original Hardware (FBX)" comparison picture, and the Original Hardware blue in the 3rd swatch looks almost the same as the Original Hardware blue in the 2nd swatch, whereas the Composite Direct blues seems to have more variance between the 2nd and 3rd swatches. Are these two blue colors really almost identical on original hardware? Just expected there to be more of a difference between them, like the Composite Direct palette.

FBX · Post by **FBX** » Wed Jan 25, 2017 7:18 pm

Link83 wrote:Nice work FBX

Just one question - I was looking at your "Composite Direct (FBX)" and "Original Hardware (FBX)" comparison picture, and the Original Hardware blue in the 3rd swatch looks almost the same as the Original Hardware blue in the 2nd swatch, whereas the Composite Direct blues seems to have more variance between the 2nd and 3rd swatches. Are these two blue colors really almost identical on original hardware? Just expected there to be more of a difference between them, like the Composite Direct palette.

I think you're referring to the the DARKEST blue in the 3rd swatch. If you check the value in a paint program, you'll see that it is the polar-opposite of the darkest blue in the 2nd swatch. In this case, it has a red weight instead of a green weight. Your eyes just can't pick it up because your looking at it on a digital display. As I said before, it is NOT meant for digital displays. It is meant to be viewed on a CRT, where that subtle red weight is all that is needed to differentiate it from the green-weighted blue in the 2nd swatch. Trust me, I spent quite a lot of time on this.

nakedarthur wrote:
copy wrote:Super exciting!

I feel selfish because I'm always asking you for things, but would it be possible to get an option with Composite Direct, Original Hardware, and PVM Style? That would be amazing.
I second this, I don't really care about the NES Classic or PC-10 palettes..

I'll send the request to Tim with the compiled colors. No promises, but hopefully he won't mind the addendum.

nakedarthur · Post by **nakedarthur** » Wed Jan 25, 2017 7:36 pm

FBX wrote:
nakedarthur wrote:
copy wrote:Super exciting!

I feel selfish because I'm always asking you for things, but would it be possible to get an option with Composite Direct, Original Hardware, and PVM Style? That would be amazing.
I second this, I don't really care about the NES Classic or PC-10 palettes..

I'll send the request to Tim with the compiled colors. No promises, but hopefully he won't mind the addendum.

Thanks!

Link83 · Post by **Link83** » Wed Jan 25, 2017 8:56 pm

FBX wrote:
Link83 wrote:Nice work FBX

Just one question - I was looking at your "Composite Direct (FBX)" and "Original Hardware (FBX)" comparison picture, and the Original Hardware blue in the 3rd swatch looks almost the same as the Original Hardware blue in the 2nd swatch, whereas the Composite Direct blues seems to have more variance between the 2nd and 3rd swatches. Are these two blue colors really almost identical on original hardware? Just expected there to be more of a difference between them, like the Composite Direct palette.
I think you're referring to the the DARKEST blue in the 3rd swatch. If you check the value in a paint program, you'll see that it is the polar-opposite of the darkest blue in the 2nd swatch. In this case, it has a red weight instead of a green weight. Your eyes just can't pick it up because your looking at it on a digital display. As I said before, it is NOT meant for digital displays. It is meant to be viewed on a CRT, where that subtle red weight is all that is needed to differentiate it from the green-weighted blue in the 2nd swatch. Trust me, I spent quite a lot of time on this.

Thanks FBX, your right I am looking at it on a digital display, so must not be seeing the red/green weight.
You have obviously put in a great deal of work with these palletes

Do you think it might be possible to have an update with the following palette choices? (Not necessarily in this order)

PC-10 >>> Composite Direct (FBX) >>> PVM Style (FBX)

austin532 · Post by **austin532** » Wed Jan 25, 2017 9:17 pm

Guspaz wrote:
nakedarthur wrote:
austin532 wrote:Although I never understood why the colors were wrong on the title screen. Did the developers have trouble? Here is what it should like it.
One of the difficulties of working with older hardware like NES is that you're limited to how many different colors you can use per tile. I don't remember the exact color limit for NES, but it's probably not possible to have the peach color, black, white for details, yellow for the skin plus a different color for the clothes all in one tile. That's my guess at least.
Without sprites getting involved, each background tile can be 3+1 colours where the +1 is transparent to show the screen-wide background colour. Probably salmon, in that photo. In the "corrected" version, you've got an area between Marge and Homer that has black, white, blue, green, yellow, and still needs to have salmon for the background colour, so that's six colours in close proximity. Of course, the tile breakdown can trick you into thinking there's more colours than 3 per tile, but in this case it's clearly more than the hardware supports.

I thought the backgrounds could handle more than 4 colors? Plus on that screen I'm seeing at least 5 colors not counting white or black. What they should have done was program Marge to be green, her necklace peach, have Maggie be the blue color, and have Homer's shoes be black and dark blue.

leonk · Post by **leonk** » Wed Jan 25, 2017 10:42 pm

FBX - you'll need to post a "dummies" guide to all your naming conventions:

Palette A - sourced from XYZ .. suggested use case LCD
Palette B - sourced from DDD .. suggested use case PVM/CRT
etc

nakedarthur · Post by **nakedarthur** » Wed Jan 25, 2017 11:00 pm

austin532 wrote: I thought the backgrounds could handle more than 4 colors? Plus on that screen I'm seeing at least 5 colors not counting white or black. What they should have done was program Marge to be green, her necklace peach, have Maggie be the blue color, and have Homer's shoes be black and dark blue.

This is a good video that explains how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfh0ytz8S0k

FBX · Post by **FBX** » Wed Jan 25, 2017 11:52 pm

leonk wrote:FBX - you'll need to post a "dummies" guide to all your naming conventions:

Palette A - sourced from XYZ .. suggested use case LCD
Palette B - sourced from DDD .. suggested use case PVM/CRT
etc

Already done on my web site project page (hit refresh if not showing Jan 25th update):

http://www.firebrandx.com/nespalette.html

leonk · Post by **leonk** » Thu Jan 26, 2017 1:24 am

thank you.

So (correct me if I'm wrong) the following should look identical:

- an LCD TV that was properly tuned with PVM style
- tuned PVM with Original hardware palette
- composite NES plugged into tuned PVM

How bad would original hardware palette look fed into xrgb? better or worst than last unsaturated palette?

FBX · Post by **FBX** » Thu Jan 26, 2017 1:59 am

leonk wrote:thank you.

So (correct me if I'm wrong) the following should look identical:

- an LCD TV that was properly tuned with PVM style
- tuned PVM with Original hardware palette
- composite NES plugged into tuned PVM

How bad would original hardware palette look fed into xrgb? better or worst than last unsaturated palette?

The last two in theory, yes, but the LCD example in that first line had to use approximated colors. There are a few colors CRT phosphor produces that cannot be exactly replicated on an LCD display. For example, the way a CRT shows green light. Load up Contra and get to the 2nd stage on a PVM (or any CRT for that matter). Now look at the green mossy stones that border the hallway. That green you see there cannot be imitated on an LCD. But for the majority of the palette, you'd find it looking pretty much identical to a calibrated PVM.

As for the Framemeister, I moved away from that being an influence on palette work. It's got some problems with hue accuracy that just caused more headaches than it's worth dealing with. However, Unsaturated-V6 should look pretty close to a real NES console fed into it. I recall it was tuned around that concept, with a little bit of tweaking in a few colors. The only minor regret I have with Unsaturated-V6 was the purple bricks in Castlevania's stage 2, which again was based on the Framemeister's default interpretation of NES video.

leonk · Post by **leonk** » Thu Jan 26, 2017 2:17 am

so if you're moving away from xrgb ... what do you play on now? PVM?

PascalP · Post by **PascalP** » Thu Jan 26, 2017 6:31 am

FBX wrote:These will be the options to choose from on the new Firmwares (the 3rd slot is the default for consoles that don't have the toggle switch):

Option 1:

PC-10 >>> Composite Direct (FBX) >>> Original Hardware (FBX)

Option 2:

PC-10 >>> NES Classic (FBX-FS) >>> PVM Style (FBX)

Option 3:

PVM Style (FBX) >>> NES Classic (FBX-FS) >>> Composite Direct (FBX)

Option 4:

PVM Style (FBX) >>> Original Hardware (FBX) >>> NES Classic (FBX-FS)

I'll be personally using option 4 on my console as I don't care about PC-10, and I'll have Original Hardware available when hooking it up to my PVM.

Looking back on it all, the PVM Style palette was by far the most difficult. I must have put in close to 30 hours scrutinizing hundreds of NES games. But it turned out great, and I can load up an emulator and put the LCD monitor next to the PVM, and it looks spot-frikken-on.

Thanks for your efforts, can't wait to update the Unsaturated-V6 palette to the new ones

Would it be possible to get a palette like this?

"Composite Direct (FBX)" -->> "PVM Style (FBX)" -->> "Original Hardware (FBX)"

This allow everyone to connect to either a CRT or digital display and have the direct capture as reference?

copy · Post by **copy** » Thu Jan 26, 2017 7:54 am

PascalP wrote:Would it be possible to get a palette like this?

"Composite Direct (FBX)" -->> "PVM Style (FBX)" -->> "Original Hardware (FBX)"

This allow everyone to connect to either a CRT or digital display and have the direct capture as reference?

I guess you missed it, but nakedarthur and I asked for that above, and FBX said:

FBX wrote:I'll send the request to Tim with the compiled colors. No promises, but hopefully he won't mind the addendum.

For me, it will be interesting to see how these three palettes compare upscaled through the XRGB on my HD CRT. I'm leaning toward Composite Direct as my go-to because the purity of it appeals to me, but perhaps Original Hardware would also work well in my setup. And whenever I finally transition to a modern flat panel, I'll have PVM Style readily available.

PascalP · Post by **PascalP** » Thu Jan 26, 2017 8:46 am

copy wrote:
PascalP wrote:Would it be possible to get a palette like this?

"Composite Direct (FBX)" -->> "PVM Style (FBX)" -->> "Original Hardware (FBX)"

This allow everyone to connect to either a CRT or digital display and have the direct capture as reference?
I guess you missed it, but nakedarthur and I asked for that above, and FBX said:

FBX wrote:I'll send the request to Tim with the compiled colors. No promises, but hopefully he won't mind the addendum.
For me, it will be interesting to see how these three palettes compare upscaled through the XRGB on my HD CRT. I'm leaning toward Composite Direct as my go-to because the purity of it appeals to me, but perhaps Original Hardware would also work well in my setup. And whenever I finally transition to a modern flat panel, I'll have PVM Style readily available.

I read the comments, but somehow didn't realize we ware talking about the same things, all these different names for the palettes confuse me sometimes

Good it is addressed and I'm eagerly awaiting the feedback on this, thanks guys!

shmups.system11.org

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