Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
N64 owners, your video problems are over.
Options
-
06-05-2011 2:56pm#1Join Date:Posts: 50136
Good news for PAL N64 owners sick if shitty composite video, I've found the solution.
Recently on a thread someone said that s-video worked on PAL N64's. My bull**** alarm sounded but curiosity got the better of me and I had a look. Seems I was right and wrong. S-video does work on the PAL N64 but Nintendo left out components so that it doesn't work properly. The video displays but all the colours are ultra bright and over saturated. However I stumbled across a thread about someone that hardwired a s-video cable to the N64 console and added the extra components himself and got it to work. There was a message on the thread saying you could mod the s-video cable itself with the components for a cleaner mod.
Anyway was on consolegoods.co.uk and saw that rob had modded s-video cables for sale so inquired and seems these cables would work on a PAL system but not NTSC so I took a chance.
The cable arrived today and I can happily report it works beautifully. The picture quality is amazing. No more dot crawling and the colours are far more vivid. To the naked eye there's no difference between this and RGB. I tried Perfect Dark which is massively improved by this cable. Goldeneye was improved as well but less so since it seems to over use the N64 blur and looks absolutely terrible anyway. Other games like Mario 64, Mario Kart and 2D games like Mischief Makers really are substantially improved.
Now the difference between composite and s-video on the N64 isn't as amazing as the difference between composite and RGB on a megadrive and the SNES because of the awful N64 anti aliasing blur. if you look at the edge of a polygon instead of a diagonal with a staircase effect going up it you have pixels smudged randomly along the edge which looks even worse. Still I highly recommend this cable because even with Nintendos awful anti aliasing this cable is a massive improvement over AV composite.
Edit: I also tried this on the NTSC machine. The only game I had was Conkers Bad Fur day which unfortunately a very dark game anyway. It was hard to see the screen but it is at the best of times anyway but I have a feeling that this cable displays an image that is a bit too dark on a NTSC N64 consoles.
6
Comments
-
-
-
-
Join Date:Posts: 50136
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 34,544 CMod ✭✭✭✭
Join Date:Posts: 33767
Retr0gamer wrote: »Seems I was right and wrong.
Just thought I'd pop that there, for no reason :rolleyes:
0 -
Join Date:Posts: 50136
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
Oh - I thought everyone here knew about the consolegoods s-video cable?! Whoops - I've had one of these for a while
I was stung before with an unmodded s-video cable which displayed a far too bright and over saturated picture.
The one on consolegoods is the only one I know of that actually works properly. If you're into your 64, it's a most buy!0 -
-
-
-
80s Synth Pop wrote: »you're really missing out using a PAL n64. Switch to a USA model and rgb mod it with the amp method (Google "THS7314 N64 RGB mod") - here is a screenshot I took after completing this mod:
Looks perfect to me!
The PAL N64 svideo cable is damned close to the NTSC RGB. Way less hassle too.0 -
-
-
80s Synth Pop wrote: »50hz.... just couldn't do it
I've both an NTSC & PAL console, the mod just isn't worth it. Trust me, I love modding things 0 -
-
It's true, I used to be a girl called Mary before Enter modded me.
.
0 -
Advertisement
-
-
-
I've both an NTSC & PAL console, the mod just isn't worth it. Trust me, I love modding things
I thought videophiles preferred the separate lines for red, green, blue as being superior to the two line luminance and chroma... Perhaps the difference is not noticeable. Regardless, RGB is required for the SLG3000 scanline generator tool chain anyway.
Check out this mod for direct VGA output
0 -
-
There would be a difference, between the two the mod isn't really justified. The svideo cable makes it pretty close. Then again I'm no videophile80s Synth Pop wrote: »I thought videophiles preferred the separate lines for red, green, blue as being superiour to the two line luminance and chroma... Perhaps the difference is not noticable. Regardless, RGB is required for the SLG3000 scanline generator tool chain anyway.
Check out this mod for direct VGA output
0 -
80s Synth Pop wrote: »
Easy peasy.
Enternow - I'll pick up my N64 and have it down to you tomorrow, cool? Will be back an hour afterward to pick it up.
I don't have that VGA board, but I'm sure you could put it together in minutes.0 -
Join Date:Posts: 50136
I have an NTSC N64 (20 euros from Rage, felt like robbery ) but by the time I got my hands on one I was 2 games away from owning every N64 game I deem worth owning so it's just too much hassle and money to go and collect everything again for NTSC. So at least with the modded s-video cable I don't have to play games in composite. The N64 looks absolutely abysmal in composite so it's very welcome. If you aren't going for any fancy pass through video processing then an NTSC machine with s-video is fine. The difference between RGB and s-video is very minor, almost unnoticable and it gets rid of dot crawl.
For anyone starting off an N64 collection or thinking of starting an N64 collection whatever you do do not collect PAL games. NTSC all the way.
0 -
-
-
Advertisement
-
Join Date:Posts: 50136
The main problem is I got a lot of the best games in a very reasonable bundles from adverts or whatever it was when it was still on boards. I'd have to buy all the games individually now and some games like Majoras Mask and Ocarina have gone up in value because of all the ****ing idiots paying over the odds for games that aren't rare at all. It would cost a lot more.
The problem isn't how the games look on a PAL consoles. Get a modded s-video cable and it looks fine. It's the slow down on a lot of games which makes then not as much fun to play. An considering a lot of N64 games have major framerate issues then it makes playing a lot of games really bad.
Nintendo were very good (with the exception of a god awful Wave Race conversion) with PAL conversions as were the UK based devs like Rare and DMA but outside of the you've got some very dodgy PAL conversions from the likes of Konami.
There's also the fact that there's a few very good Japanese and US exclusives that are must haves like Ogre Battle and Sin and Punishment. TBH I just used the virtual console for these games.
0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFBOQzSk14c
Advertisement