N64 // Sharper image // (Gray vs. Colored) Nintendo 64 colored(funtastic) models have a sharper image quality. But seems Ice Blue (PAL & USA) consoles isn't sharper image. The first pictures are European PAL versions, 4th picture taken with CRT TV and the last picture is USA & Japan NTSC versions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Additional information needed USA and especially the Japanese consoles. If you have 2 consoles or more (it would be great!). What information is needed: 1. Console's Serial Number (NS, NUP or NUJ & numbers), found in the bottom of the console. 2. Console's color (Gray, Fire Orange, Grape Purple, Ice Blue, Jungle Green, Smoke Black, Watermelon Red, Clear Blue and Pikachu). 3. Sharper image? YES or NO. 4. If you have a camera, take a photos from the TV screen. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Attention! Composite cable would better to use (no S-Video cable). PICTURES: Europe PAL = NUP USA NTSC = NS Japan NTSC = NUJ EUROPE PAL (NUP) SHARPER? YES Fire Orange: NUP 16339442 Grape Purple: NUP 16060024, NUP 16111072 Jungle Green: NUP 16085491, NUP 16237979 Smoke Black: NUP 16122646 Watermelon Red: NUP 16315707 Clear Blue: NUP 16748999 Pikachu: NUP 16476127 SHARPER? NO Gray PAL consoles (Probably all?) Ice Blue: NUP 16143699 Pokemon: NUP 15742019 USA NTSC (NS) SHARPER? YES Jungle Green: NS 284xxxxxx SHARPER? NO Gray USA consoles (Probably all?) Ice Blue: NS 294329436 JAPAN NTSC (NUJ) SHARPER? YES Gray: NUJ 11861562 (Looks sharper image)
Interesting. Are all pictures photographs of a television screen and using composite cables? Are they all the same television and cables? Is there any source of interference nearby in one, but not others? I wouldn't ever say composite is better to use than s-video! I appreciate you're saying for uniformity in tests, but surely if you're complaining about the sharpness of the image, you'd want to use the best connection possible? Whilst I appreciate that you want to differentiate PAL and NTSC and various models, there's always the possibility of overlap of internal components within a particular colour model. Surely it would be better to use the motherboard version or a similar identifying feature, e.g. particular chip?
What are you using as a power supply for these consoles? Are you testing with one or more PSUs, and are they identical or different? Are they Nintendo or generic brand, and are they region specific (FR, US, JP, etc)? Despite similar external appearances, internal components and circuit designs varied widely across the Nintendo branded and generic PSUs. Some PSUs satisfactorily filter out the 12V rail, others pass on a considerable amount of noise into the A/V circuits - the 5V regulator won’t necessarily suppress it depending on the nature of the noise. I wonder if 12V bypass caps (and 3.3V too) have different values in different board revisions in different regions. Some PSUs spec their rails pretty close to 3.33V and 12V, other PSUs come over- or under-volted depending on how the internal potentiometer(s) for each rail are preset (I don’t recommend cranking up the voltage knob beyond 3.33V – even if clocking/stability are in mind). By the looks of the serial numbers you provided, it seems some NUS-CPU(P)-02 boards (1999) can output either a better or worse video signal when comparing to its own revision and the Pikachu NUS-CPU(P)-01 boards – if noise/interference or PSU is not a factor, (who knows) perhaps some boards won the lottery for a good yielding of silicon and capacitors? The boards you used appear to be all late models (NUJ is exception). NTSC and PAL boards used fewer components as time went on: fewer ICs (MAV-NUS) and fewer bypass caps too – though PAL boards (except French revision) did not use a 220μf filter cap for composite and S-video outputs. http://forums.modretro.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=1417 What type of video cable are you using?
All what I did the N64 test image, Composite cable (official N64's), Expansion Pak (official N64's), Power Supply (official & european N64's), TV and TV settings are all the same. Official N64 power supplies are universals. My Europe PAL consoles are not France (SECAM RGB) versions. This image N64 thing, I heard for the first time in Finnish language in the forum. I wanted to tell the N64 fans, because it is badly known thing.
This is the Main Chips information. USA & Japan THE FIRST MODELS Main Chips: CPU-NUS or CPU-NUS A RCP-NUS RDRAM18-NUS A or B RDRAM18-NUS A or B VDC-NUS or VDC-NUS A or MAV-NUS ENC-NUS BU9480F AMP-NUS THE LASTEST MODELS (Sharper Image) Main Chips: CPU-NUS A RCP-NUS RDRAM36-NUS MAV-NUS AMP-NUS Europe PAL THE FIRST MODELS Main Chips: CPU-NUS A RCP-NUS RDRAM18-NUS B RDRAM18-NUS B DENC-NUS BU9480F AMP-NUS THE LASTEST MODELS (Sharper Image) Main Chips: CPU-NUS A RCP-NUS RDRAM36-NUS MAV-NUS AMP-NUS
