Nintendo 64 (and SNES) output issue with new TV

[I.S.T.]

Kind of off topic, but man, playing Virtual Console games with a component cable looks amazing. I've never seen Super Mario Bros. that clear before.

That's because they've been touched up a bit... >.> I read a site once not long after the Wii's launch that did conclusive tests to determine that, but I do not recall where it is. Sorry.

[mudlord]

That's because they've been touched up a bit... >.> I read a site once not long after the Wii's launch that did conclusive tests to determine that, but I do not recall where it is. Sorry.

..I thought that Nintendo would stick to trying to simulate them accurately. Or so I'm aware from something I read on GameSpot...

but thats OT, anyway.

[franpa]

its a standard CRT TV. the issue is that the image is scaled down to fit it all instead of cropping the edges or simply not adjusting the image like what good old televisions used to do.

*bangs head*
You're seeing the entire image! IT'S A GOOD THING!

There is no exotic scaling down of resolution taking place! Just a TV with overscan settings that leave your entire game inside the screen!

Well then, the game was designed to be viewed on a resolution of 720×576 right? now generally speaking, -lowering- the resolution generally makes the image blocky/pixelated more right? so why in this case does the quality NOT get reduced?

i would rather a HIGHER resolution with some unimportant parts cut off on the sides... kinda like what you get when watching a 16:9 DVD on a 4:3 TV.

[blackmyst]

Kind of off topic, but man, playing Virtual Console games with a component cable looks amazing. I've never seen Super Mario Bros. that clear before.

That's because they've been touched up a bit... >.> I read a site once not long after the Wii's launch that did conclusive tests to determine that, but I do not recall where it is. Sorry.

Uhh, what? No they haven't.

N64 games now run at a higher resolution but I don't call that touching up. But that's all.

And I don't see how you could like a low res NES game better when it looks sharper i.e. MORE blocky. The good old regular screen mode looks infinitely superior.

its a standard CRT TV. the issue is that the image is scaled down to fit it all instead of cropping the edges or simply not adjusting the image like what good old televisions used to do.

*bangs head*
You're seeing the entire image! IT'S A GOOD THING!

There is no exotic scaling down of resolution taking place! Just a TV with overscan settings that leave your entire game inside the screen!

Well then, the game was designed to be viewed on a resolution of 720×576 right? now generally speaking, -lowering- the resolution generally makes the image blocky/pixelated more right? so why in this case does the quality NOT get reduced?

i would rather a HIGHER resolution with some unimportant parts cut off on the sides... kinda like what you get when watching a 16:9 DVD on a 4:3 TV.

The hell? The game (assuming we're still talking SNES) was meant to be viewed at 256x223 (not 720x576) so there won't be any loss of pixels unless it's reduced to a miniscule thumbnail in the middle of the screen or something. In fact, making the image smaller makes it look more detailed. I think you're just having a case of rose-tinted glasses and aren't remembering what these games looked like.

In fact, I'm wondering the same with your N64 problem. Games from Rare, especially, often ran at a really low framerate. If you come directly from a modern game running at 60FPS, and then go back to a particularly graphically intense area of, say, Banjo-Tooie, it's gonna hit you real bad and you're gonna wonder if there's anything wrong with the console.

[I.S.T.]

Kind of off topic, but man, playing Virtual Console games with a component cable looks amazing. I've never seen Super Mario Bros. that clear before.

That's because they've been touched up a bit... >.> I read a site once not long after the Wii's launch that did conclusive tests to determine that, but I do not recall where it is. Sorry.

Uhh, what? No they haven't.

N64 games now run at a higher resolution but I don't call that touching up. But that's all.

I was referring to NES and SNES games.

[blackmyst]

Yes, I know. Hence the "that's all". Other than N64 games, nothing has been done to ANY VC games. Period.

[Gil_Hamilton]

its a standard CRT TV. the issue is that the image is scaled down to fit it all instead of cropping the edges or simply not adjusting the image like what good old televisions used to do.

*bangs head*
You're seeing the entire image! IT'S A GOOD THING!

There is no exotic scaling down of resolution taking place! Just a TV with overscan settings that leave your entire game inside the screen!

Well then, the game was designed to be viewed on a resolution of 720×576 right? now generally speaking, -lowering- the resolution generally makes the image blocky/pixelated more right? so why in this case does the quality NOT get reduced?

i would rather a HIGHER resolution with some unimportant parts cut off on the sides... kinda like what you get when watching a 16:9 DVD on a 4:3 TV.

*sigh*

The resolution is still 256*224(or 512*448 in rare cases).
The only thing that's changed is the size of the actual pixels. There's more than one way to change the size of an image, and in a CRT TV it can be done with no additional damage to the picture .

If it didn't resize the pixels, the game would look wrong. The SNES uses a non-4:3 resolution, but expects the image to be displayed at a 4:3 aspect ratio.


Your TV is NOT downsampling the image. It's just got less aggressive overscan than your old TV.
Which means that the calibration of the display is set to show more of the picture it receives. THIS IS A GOOD THING! NO HARM IS DONE TO YOUR GAME IMAGE!

[adventure_of_link]

....come to think of it guys, I once had a Sylvania 19" TV, (analog+SDTV, made in 1999-2000) and with my N64 running Majora's Mask, it went choppy. this is even with the red/yellow/white cables.

However, just about all the other TVs played it fine. even my LG HDTV does. As well as an oldschool 1978 13" TV with the little tuner knobs on it played MM fine.

[franpa]

The hell? The game (assuming we're still talking SNES) was meant to be viewed at 256x223 (not 720x576) so there won't be any loss of pixels unless it's reduced to a minuscule thumbnail in the middle of the screen or something. In fact, making the image smaller makes it look more detailed. I think you're just having a case of rose-tinted glasses and aren't remembering what these games looked like.

Have you seen a TV that outputs at 256x223 and have they ever been widely available to the public?

In fact, I'm wondering the same with your N64 problem. Games from Rare, especially, often ran at a really low framerate. If you come directly from a modern game running at 60FPS, and then go back to a particularly graphically intense area of, say, Banjo-Tooie, it's gonna hit you real bad and you're gonna wonder if there's anything wrong with the console.

you might be right but i highly doubt it. the very first game to show issues was SouthPark 64. the game pak overheats (too hot to hold firmly) after like 20 minutes lol but the rest of the console is still cool to the touch oh and the game fucks up when it overheats too. the 2nd game to exhibit would be Star Wars -Episode 1- Racer which exhibited snow much earlier then it used to and the game/console heats up much more rapidly then it used to (the white snow is from overheating and used to take hours for it to first appear. now it appears in minutes). Majoras Mask fails after like 3 - 4 hours of play which is roughly what it takes me to get to the boss in the water temple. I am afraid it would screw up shortly after the boss before i get control after the cut scenes. and now its been months since i last touched that game because now even Zelda OOT crashes after playing it up to meeting princess zelda for the first time... which is pretty damn early in the game.

so yea, a lot of signs point to something in the console not working right. perhaps a fan died inside it? or the heatsink came loose or i dunno.... i am still going to test it along side another one if possible. for the time being tho ill try getting a fan to blow on it or something tho i think that what ever failed has ultimately damaged something else in the console so cooling it now probably won't do much good.

[blackmyst]

The hell? The game (assuming we're still talking SNES) was meant to be viewed at 256x223 (not 720x576) so there won't be any loss of pixels unless it's reduced to a minuscule thumbnail in the middle of the screen or something. In fact, making the image smaller makes it look more detailed. I think you're just having a case of rose-tinted glasses and aren't remembering what these games looked like.

Have you seen a TV that outputs at 256x223 and have they ever been widely available to the public?

Surely you know how CRT's work? I meant what the SNES projects onto your TV, obviously. Considering a CRT TV can display a maximum of 576 scanlines, where the hell are you getting the notion of loss of detail on a low-res image that barely even uses one third of that? It would have to be ridiculously tiny, like a thumbnail in the middle of your screen, to even begin to show any signs of resizing uglyness.


As for your N64, well, overheating and crashes are obviously not part of its regular functionality. Have you tried taking out the expansion pack and putting that jumper thing back in? If you still have it.


(edit: I said "cathode ray tube tubes" which is silly)

[Gil_Hamilton]

The hell? The game (assuming we're still talking SNES) was meant to be viewed at 256x223 (not 720x576) so there won't be any loss of pixels unless it's reduced to a minuscule thumbnail in the middle of the screen or something. In fact, making the image smaller makes it look more detailed. I think you're just having a case of rose-tinted glasses and aren't remembering what these games looked like.

Have you seen a TV that outputs at 256x223 and have they ever been widely available to the public?

Yes. ALL of the tube-based analog TVs do.


If you actually did a little research, you'd know that NTSC, PAL, and SECAM don't spec actual resolutions.
They spec waveform frequencies and color encoding schemes.
These set an UPPER LIMIT on resolution, but do not in fact lock you to that resolution. Anything lower than that upper limit can be represented losslessly at any size. Though if it's not reasonably close to spec in terms of scan rate and lines per frame, a modern digital display may choke on it.


Quick experiment: Get a CRT monitor. Go ahead, I'll wait.
...
Back yet? Good.

Find the geometry controls. Specifically the H-size and V-size controls. If your monitor happens to have a "zoom" control, use that instead.

Start playing with the controls. Note that the image is NOT CHANGING as the size shifts, aside from the new aspect ratio as you fuck up the H-size and V-size relations.

Now go ahead and play with the more advanced stuff like keystone, pincushion, and rotation.
While you are drastically altering the viewable image, occasionally with hilarious results, you might also take time to note that there are no artifacts appearing in the underlying pixel structure.

Now for the coup de grace...
Get a magnet.
Bring the magnet near the screen.
Start dragging it around.
Twist it a little.
Set it on the side of the display.
Note that through all of this abuse, the underlying pixel structure STILL stays constant.


All you're seeing is that different TVs have the magnets controlling their electron beam calibrated a little differently.


If you start swapping systems between multiple TVs, you'll probably notice that different sets clip different parts of the image. The BEST sets clip the least.

[franpa]

aside from the fact that magnets can damage your TV screen. you appear to be right.

[sweener2001]

wow you're dense

[Gil_Hamilton]

aside from the fact that magnets can damage your TV screen. you appear to be right.

I just said it was an experiment to prove that the image on a CRT is highly adjustable without altering the data in any way, shape, or form.

I never said you couldn't cause permanent harm. If you used a LARGE magnet, or left it there for a LONG time.
Basically, if you damaged your display in the process of testing this, you're an idiot.

[Panzer88]

it's fun to grab a magnet and stick it in front of your screen for a second and then degauss, pretty colors.

or you can just degauss, either way.

[franpa]

you ca damage a tv in 5 seconds with a tiny magnet... i guess the particular magnet i had used was pretty strong lol. it made the screen bright purple then the purple stayed forever that was a few years ago tho.

[adventure_of_link]

you ca damage a tv in 5 seconds with a tiny magnet...

NO.





I held a telephone speaker to my TV accidentally before and it didn't get destroyed.

I also had a CRT monitor next to one of those radiators, didn't get destroyed.

Got a lot of pretty colours in the process, but hey. no destruction.

Also, aren't LCD screens immune to the magnets anyway? (I know the topic is CRT screens, but hey, thought I'd ask.)

[Gil_Hamilton]

Also, aren't LCD screens immune to the magnets anyway? (I know the topic is CRT screens, but hey, thought I'd ask.)

Yes, LCDs are immune.
So are plasmas, and DLP, and...

CRTs are only sensitive since they spew a stream of magnetically-sensitive electrons to generate the image. In fact, they use magnets to move the electron beam.

There's also a secondary concern in that the aperture grill/shadow mask can be bent by a large magnet. But again, most display techs don't use magnetically-sensitive materials.

[franpa]

Ok, at the time the SNES was released, was there any TV's publicly available that showed the full image? If not then do you know if the games were designed with this upsampling of the image kept in mind? if they were then it would explain the shit quality graphics when played on a t.v. that doesn't upsample the image by the same degree.

[sweener2001]

you need to re-read what everyone else has already written about CRT technology. there is no upsampling involved.

and you'd already said that a cable switch helped out a lot. i would also suggest tweaking the tv's display settings.

[franpa]

If there was no upsampling, then wouldn't you get a very tiny picture surrounded by a ton of black?

[Gil_Hamilton]

Ok, at the time the SNES was released, was there any TV's publicly available that showed the full image? If not then do you know if the games were designed with this upsampling of the image kept in mind? if they were then it would explain the shit quality graphics when played on a t.v. that doesn't upsample the image by the same degree.

EVERY SINGLE DISPLAY displayed a different range.
Some WOULD display the entire image.

And THERE IS NO UPSAMPLING.

If there was no upsampling, then wouldn't you get a very tiny picture surrounded by a ton of black?

NO! WE'VE ALREADY ESTABLISHED THIS! IT IS A LOSSLESS STRETCH!


Look...
The SNES doesn't pass a bitmap.
It passes a series of waveforms.

The TV "sees" something like "Start frame, start line, next line, start line, next line, start line, next line, etc until last line of frame... end frame"
The design of TV standards is such that the width from "start line" to "next line" is ALWAYS the width of the television screen. In a CRT display, it's because these signals DIRECTLY CONTROL THE ELECTRON BEAM SWEEP.




Or, if it helps you wrap your head around the concept, we can throw out the totally invalid argument that the SNES passes graphics data to the TV in a vector format instead of a bitmap, so there's no scaling artifacts.
It's a complete lie, but it's more accurate than your assumption that it's passed a bitmapped image.

[funkyass]

the problem here is there to much use of the word "stretch".

[blackmyst]

I think it's time for wikipedia action~!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathode_ray_tube

See that pattern of dots? CRT screens don't have a "native resolution" in the traditional sense. The beam that creates the scanlines passes over those dots, and a group of dots will light up (some dots only partially) depending on where the beam currently hits. It's all analogue, there's no digital resizing or whatever. It's more apparent when looking at the two pictures further down.

It also explains the idea behind the "scanlines" visual effect in emulators. The beam doesn't get thicker, the scanlines simply move further apart when the image gets larger (or the resolution becomes lower), creating dark unlit spaces between them.

[franpa]

Yea i now understand. i asked my dad about it and yea, for a low resolution image the TV used to guess the colour of the dots not included in the output. so the image is stretched and any spaces between the pixels are filled in based on surrounding pixels. (sounds like upscaling but it isn't)