Getting the best out of your old consoles

o1s1n

Thought it might be a good idea to write up a guide as to how to get the best display out of your consoles for anyone who is a bit unsure. I've been hearing people mention RF cables and LCDs. (The horror)

Starting with the wiring -

RF - chances are, your older console had one of these when you took it down out of the attic. A lot of people are going to be taking this and connecting it to an LCD. The result will look like ass. In fact it'll be worse than ass. Ass you can barely see. Detail is blurred, colours washed out and you might even have some nasty interferance. Good luck reading small text too. Take these cables and burn them. Or throw them in the bin. They do not deserve to exist.

RGB/Fake RGB

Oh look, it's two scart cables.



No wait, it's not.

On closer inspection, one looks like this -



The other, this -



The first one is fake scart. This is pretty much just AV. They give the false illusion of being scart due to the casing. Don't be fooled.

The second one is true RGB scart. This has all the pins, including the ones that support RGB. These are the best audio/video quality cables for your older consoles and you'll want to be buying one for every unit you own. The increase in quality is dramatic. If a console supports this (Most do, bar the N64 and RF only units like the Atari 2600) then get one. They're between 10-15 euro on average.

/edit - RGB scart only requires eight pins. So it is possible you have a cable missing pins but it still supports RGB.

Check the pinout diagram here on the Scart wikipage to make sure -

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

RGB scart also has another fantastic little up side. You can use RGB cables to play NTSC consoles on your PAL television without the image turning black and white. Hurrah! Time to start importing NTSC consoles.

With RGB, the main thing here is to make sure you plug the cable into the right scart socket on the back of the TV. As most of them only have one that is capable of supporting RGB, the other isn't. You'll also probably want to invest in a scart switch box to go to this connection if you have multiple consoles. Make sure to get one of the boxes with buttons. As far as I am aware, the auto detection ones can cause loss of quality.

Televisions -

I guess for many, widescreen LCDs are going to be the only option. Which is a shame as the picture really does looks ****e. I weep for the day when this is all we can use.

Anyway, if you can, salvage an old CRT.

Aspect ratio and size are always going to be debatable, but personally after a few different sized sets I've found that 28 inch 4:3 aspect ratio is the best for older games. The screen is big enough to go 'wow, a nice big image!' but not too big as to make everything look like lego blocks. Plus you don't get any of that widescreen distortion.

Anyway, that's it for the moment. I hope as a result of that many RF/AV cables get thrown in the bin

Retr0gamer

Thanks for this. I hate RF cables but hate AV cables even more and I'm amazed that people with a 360 or PS3 still use them because the image quality is so bad out of them. RGB improves the picture so much it's like going from one generation of consoles to the next. The jump from AV to RGB is massive, I felt even the jumpin quality from RGB to 720p wasn't as big. You really aren't getting the full experience with out RGB.

Tallon

RGB is a must. I hate scart.. but I will not be throwing them out (hoarder) just not using them.

I always buy RGB's for all my consoles on ebay even if they came with them because I Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate crap SD

I'm very fussy when it comes to stuff like that, I play my PS3 with component because of my PVR and it's 1080i when I go to my nephews house to play, he has full 1080p and I actually notice the difference... Sad really

o1s1n

Tallon wrote: »

RGB is a must. I hate scart.. but I will not be throwing them out (hoarder) just not using them.

p

Hoarding is the first step to using. Kill them! Wipe them off the face of the earth!

I know what you mean about AV Retr0. I think people see a scart connection case so automatically think 'ah, scart..I can use this'. When they are just plain wrong. So wrong.

At least RF doesn't try to fool people into thinking it's anything else.

Joe Musashi

My Dreamcast cable is missing plenty of the pins on it. :mad: The picture looks good though.

I seem to have a dud rgb scart cable? It's meant to be this one -

Retr0gamer

I got an official DC scart cable as well and it has pins missing but the picture quality looks good.

o1s1n

Check the pin out diagram on the wiki page and see if it has the RGB pins -

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

The ones I have for older consoles that are missing pins are all missing RGB pins and only have the AV ones. Not sure if I've checked my Dreamcast one though. Perhaps it still includes the RGB pins.

Retr0gamer

It's the official sega one that has the pins missing. I'll check when I get home if I'm not playing starcraft 2.

Retr0gamer

Just read somewhere else that to get an RGB signal all you need is 8 pins:

Red
Green
Blue
Sync
Video
Audio left
Audio right

Although that's 7???

Most of the other pins are grounding pins, s-video pins and composite pins.

Retr0gamer

This is rather interesting for audio/visual-philes:

http://members.optusnet.com.au/eviltim/gamescart/gamescart.htm

Anyway if you've got these:



then you are doing it wrong.

o1s1n

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Just read somewhere else that to get an RGB signal all you need is 8 pins:

Red
Green
Blue
Sync
Video
Audio left
Audio right

Although that's 7???

Most of the other pins are grounding pins, s-video pins and composite pins.

OP edited.

I guess two other things that could be included are LCD lag and lightgun features.

Atavan-Halen

I'm actually quite ashamed to say I only have proper scart for the megadrive and rf for the dreamcast and 2600. AV for everything else

I'll get some proper cables one day. I can't believe I used av for my 360 for so long. As soon as I got a new tv with HDMI it was hooked up straight away with that. Now it's running lovely at 1080p.

o1s1n

rf Dreamcast? Jesus man, that's like trying to watch HD television on a tv from the 50s with a coat hanger for an aerial. Insanity!

You need to do what I did a while ago. Just go on an RGB blitz on ebay. It does add up, but it stops you going blind. So I guess it's worth it in the end.

Retr0gamer

The cables are cheap and they make such a massice difference. The day you try them out I bet you'll spend the day just playing all your favourite games to see just how good they should look. They shpuld be priority no. 1!!!!

o1s1n

I had to test out a Megadrive 1 to see if it was working a while ago and the only option was RF. The picture was so bad I thought the console might be broken. When I got the Scart cable for it it turns out it was working perfectly. That's just how bad RF looked. I was horrified. Wish I could go back in time 20 years and give myself the proper feckin cable.

Retr0gamer

When I got my DC it came with RF. I hooked it up, booted up Soul Calibur, turned it on in disgust and went on playasia and ordered an RGB cable. Didn't turn on the DC until it arrived.

Jack burton

Well my DC I cant even make out the picture when I hook it up RF style, its horrible, completly unplayable, Think there might even be somthing wrong with it.

I'll get a RGB cable for it anyway and see what the story is then

Myrddin

Is this the foundation thread of an Anti-RF group? Will the charter be ammended to include bannings of RF discussion? Find the answers to these questions, and more, @ rfandcompositesignalsmakeo1s1nsbloodboil.org

CiDeRmAn

This reminds me of Toy Story, with the Plastic Corrosion Awareness Meeting!

Get the most out of your old consoles:
Plug them in and play them now and again!

o1s1n

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Get the most out of your old consoles:
Plug them in and play them now and again!

Indeed! Get off that computer and up into your attic

Jack burton

o1s1n

Hahahahahaha!

I need that on a tshirt.

Jack burton

Well I have MySoti store open now so i might do a proper deign and throw it up there

CiDeRmAn

I have an unfortunate few RFs still in action, and many composites as well.
I may have to abdicate my mod-hood of the A&R forums due to this obscenity.

o1s1n

100 lashes with an RGB cable for all those who obscene and blaspheme against the church of no RF/AV.

CiDeRmAn

Thing is, and i'm sorry to bring this up, but perhaps there is an elitist element here, amongst the A&R troop.
I know it sounds incredible, it sounds like it couldn't possibly be true, but I fear it is.
Case and point, most irish people who ever played Sonic the Hedgehog, drunk or not, played it at 50hz, on a PAL crt, probably a 19" colour portable, in mono, via an RF.
If they were really lucky they played it on a 25" colour crt, via a composite scart.
Same with Starwing on the Snes, most players played the stunted choppy piece of crap and not the if not silky at least smoother NTSC version our American and Nipponese cousins got to play, and one again through the same range of tv sets as before.

Now I know this thread is "getting the best from your retro consoles" but I'd just thought I add that in, just to engender some forgiveness for my lack of RGB/Component cableness.

Jack burton

Get him boys!

Myrddin

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I add that in, just to engender some forgiveness for my lack of RGB/Component cableness.

There's just no hiding it Cider, we are bigger geeks than you Enjoy your lashes. Actually o1s1n, if your administering the punishment, may I suggest the use of component cables over the traditional RGB whip? Given the extra connectors, it might act as a cat-o-nine tails type whip. Probably only for the extreme cases, but Cider is a mod now & should know better

o1s1n

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Thing is, and i'm sorry to bring this up, but perhaps there is an elitist element here, amongst the A&R troop.
I know it sounds incredible, it sounds like it couldn't possibly be true, but I fear it is.
Case and point, most irish people who ever played Sonic the Hedgehog, drunk or not, played it at 50hz, on a PAL crt, probably a 19" colour portable, in mono, via an RF.
If they were really lucky they played it on a 25" colour crt, via a composite scart.
Same with Starwing on the Snes, most players played the stunted choppy piece of crap and not the if not silky at least smoother NTSC version our American and Nipponese cousins got to play, and one again through the same range of tv sets as before.

Now I know this thread is "getting the best from your retro consoles" but I'd just thought I add that in, just to engender some forgiveness for my lack of RGB/Component cableness.

Favouring better picture over crap picture and wanting games to run at the speed they were intended is not elitist.

Looking down on people who don't own a Neo Geo AES, now that's elitist.

Kiss my Hardcore gaming shoes, you lower class philistines.

EnterNow wrote: »

Actually o1s1n, if your administering the punishment, may I suggest the use of component cables over the traditional RGB whip? Given the extra connectors, it might act as a cat-o-nine tails type whip. Probably only for the extreme cases, but Cider is a mod now & should know better

You genius! You may be my second in command. My torturer if you will.

I got an RGB cable for my Nintendo consoles from eBay last year. While it does have the full 21 pins and does work in RGB, there's some nasty moiré patterns in the picture. I'm assuming there's something duff about the cable?

Atavan-Halen

o1s1n wrote: »

You genius! You may be my second in command. My torturer if you will.

*Runs for hills*

Myrddin

Karsini wrote: »

I got an RGB cable for my Nintendo consoles from eBay last year. While it does have the full 21 pins and does work in RGB, there's some nasty moiré patterns in the picture. I'm assuming there's something duff about the cable?

Check this out, you might need to make a little modification.

atavan-halen wrote: »

*Runs for hills*

No no, run to DA hills

brianon

I got an RGB modded Megadrive off ebay a while back with s-video output. Picture looks fantastic.

landsleaving

Spotted one of these 'amazing' cables in Game for 99c for the PS2 yesterday and decided to see how much of a difference it made, I'm not one to go in for this kind of thing to be honest, so I wasn't expecting to notice much.

I started a game of Tekken with the standard cable that came with the console. Looked nice. Paused, plugged in the new lead... huge difference. I was shocked to say the least, I thought you were all just nuts.

landsleaving

landsleaving wrote: »

I started a game of Tekken with the standard cable that came with the console. Looked nice. Paused, plugged in the new lead... huge difference. I was shocked to say the least, I thought you were all just nuts.

Nope, welcome to the club! I know it's a cliché but you need to see it to believe it. For example, my cousin was playing his Wii on a composite cable last week and while I could see all the dot crawl artifacts he didn't notice a thing.

Retr0gamer

landsleaving wrote: »

Spotted one of these 'amazing' cables in Game for 99c for the PS2 yesterday and decided to see how much of a difference it made, I'm not one to go in for this kind of thing to be honest, so I wasn't expecting to notice much.

I started a game of Tekken with the standard cable that came with the console. Looked nice. Paused, plugged in the new lead... huge difference. I was shocked to say the least, I thought you were all just nuts.

Ah, another convert!

o1s1n

Yay! Welcome to the club indeed.

This thread needs pictures.

Here's RF. If you think this is okay, you must be blind. You can't really make out the white lines in the Sega logo, it's all just a big blur -



AV. A bit better. Starting to see some of the detail. Still blurry though -




The beauty of RGB. Look at the Sega logo now. All the lines are there. This is how it's meant to look -


(edit - pictures stolen from this thread - http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=145340 )

Retr0gamer

AV composite looks even worse in motion due to the dot crawl artifacts.

Composite is the reason most people think HD was such a massive jump in quality. I found the jump from composite to RGB to be a huge jump while the jump from RGB to 720p isn't all that great.

Retr0gamer

Here's a great gif showing dot crawl artifacts:



And the site I got it from explains why composite is so bad:

http://www.disgruntleddesigner.com/chrisc/gotRGB/screenshots.html

How the hell can you live playing your games in composite (ciderman? :P )

K.O.Kiki

Clearly, emulation on a CRT monitor is the only way to go.

Myrddin

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Clearly, emulation on a CRT monitor is the only way to go.

Not always, any genuine "feel" is completely lost. Emulation often surpasses the abililties of retro consoles too (AA, Filters etc), so often won't resemble what the original hardware actually looked like on a CRT.

If you want an original, retro feel, then clearly original hardware is the way to go.

Retr0gamer

I really hate all those smoothing filters some emulators have. It looks nice but on some really detailed games like metal slug you can lose a lot of detail.

Myrddin

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I really hate all those smoothing filters some emulators have. It looks nice but on some really detailed games like metal slug you can lose a lot of detail.

Agreed, despite making things convenient & fun, it's a completely unrealistic representaion of the actual game/graphics. To me the whole point about collecting retro consoles is to actually use them & be able to see them in action. I''ve used emu's in the past believe me, but if I felt they were in any way accurate I'd have saved myself a LOT of money.

Banjo Fella

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I really hate all those smoothing filters some emulators have. It looks nice but on some really detailed games like metal slug you can lose a lot of detail.

Definitely, I can't understand why people like using them! The scaling algorithms used are very simple and clever, so it's admirable that somebody came up with them, but still... it totally spoils the integrity of the original pixel art. It's a constricted art form, but pixel art can still be really beautiful.

Anyway, those comparison pics have convinced me to track down some RGB cables! Amazing difference, I always wondered how some friends seemed to get a much higher quality image out of their consoles. Sadly, my crummy TV only has one SCART input and getting at it is a nightmare. I've been using a SCART splitter to get around that, but I'll have to abandon it as it probably only outputs in composite.

Any tips on where to buy an RGB cable for a Wii? I've never seen any in the local games shops so I'm thinking of buying online.

K.O.Kiki

Well, you could compromise and not use any filters -- all you want are the true colours after all.

Retr0gamer

I think the worse use of filters I've seen is the PSP port of Valkyrie Profile. That's one of the most beautiful 2D games ever made and spoiled by really horrible bilinear filtering on the graphics.

Myrddin

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Well, you could compromise and not use any filters -- all you want are the true colours after all.

It's certainly an option, but I still find it different to the original console. I don't think any emulator is 100% perfect, even the authors would agree with that.

There's no disputing the simplicity/availability of an emulator (save states, higher res, better sound etc), but there is a point against their authenticty. I have emulators however to thank for my re-interest in console gaming, after discovering them years ago.

o1s1n

Banjo Fella wrote: »

Sadly, my crummy TV only has one SCART input and getting at it is a nightmare. I've been using a SCART splitter to get around that, but I'll have to abandon it as it probably only outputs in composite.

Any tips on where to buy an RGB cable for a Wii? I've never seen any in the local games shops so I'm thinking of buying online.

Be careful if your tv only has one scart socket. Most older tvs with multi scart sockets on the back only have RGB support in one of them. Plugging RGB into the other scart sockets will just give a black and white picture.

As you only have the one scart socket fingers crossed it supports RGB. It might not though.

Best place to get them is ebay. On average they're always between 10 and 15 euro each. I guess just buy one and test it out!

Andrew76

Just got a Nomad in the post and was thinking of sending it off to the UK to get the following mod done, it's fairly cheap and they seem to do a class job on it. What do you folks think Switchless Nomad Mod?

(For some reason I can't get the youtube embed working).

o1s1n

EnterNow wrote: »

It's certainly an option, but I still find it different to the original console. I don't think any emulator is 100% perfect, even the authors would agree with that.

Exactly. Why use emulation when the originals are still functioning and most are really cheap?

I would imagine long into the future we'll all be extremely glad all these roms were dumped and saved and the old hardware is starting to pack it in. But right now there's no reason not to use the originals. Unless of course the originals are expensive/hard to find. But in most cases they're not.

I suppose the other reason is if you have one of those videogame hating wives. Thank feck I dont

o1s1n

Andrew76 wrote: »

Just got a Nomad in the post and was thinking of sending it off to the UK to get the following mod done, it's fairly cheap and they seem to do a class job on it. What do you folks think Switchless Nomad Mod?

(For some reason I can't get the youtube embed working).

How much does that work out at in the end? I'd love it done myself. Although before I invest any more money in my one I'd like to get a new screen installed and maybe the caps changed.

edit/ best thing I ever did with my nomad was take off the old scratched screen cover and put a new one on. They're just glued on and pop right off.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sega-Nomad-Replacement-Screen-Cover-BRAND-NEW-/280542823191?pt=UK_VideoGames_VideoGameAccessories_VideoGameAccessories_JN