NES caracteristic Dot crawl while scrolling, shimmering, shifting pixels.

Well, I do not know how to properly call this "issue" really but if you played a NES console a bit you probably know what im talking about.

ITs about how everything kind of "shimmers" when the image is moving. So far I only ever experienced this on the NES.
Maybe it happens on the PCE too but been a while since i played this one so not sure.

Anyway, its a bit weird as it happens on both my US NES and my Famicon twin but not on the emulators. Its not like Composite video dot crawl, its different. Also, depending on the speed at which the screen is scrolling it can become more/less pronounced.

Ex. Batman is quite terrible while Mario 3 is not that bad.

When the screen does not move everything is stable, then you walk around and everything shimmers like crazy. Also, if you move by small increments you will notice that pixels actually shift places and some patterns change as a result. It almost looks like some kind of scaling is going on!!?

I find it quite annoying to be frank.
Thoughts on the subject?

If RGB mod "fixes" this, well, I WANT IT.
From watching some videos, it seems a RGB mod might "fix" this.
Im mostly talking about this one.

 

Just look at the large trees! Closer to indistinct mush than looking like wood. Bad video cables, encoding, decoding, etc, can easily lead to results that bad.

 

They look like a friggin band saw!

 

I think I know what you're talking about. I've always wondered about it too, and I don't know what causes it. The PC Engine does the same thing. It does, as you say, almost look like the image is being scaled, but I find that hard to believe. Hopefully someone can shed some light on this.

 

That would be rather weird. As far as I remember good PC Engine units hide inside some of the most downright fantastic RGB ever known to man.

 

My uneducated guess at this point is that the encoding part is responsible for this, This would explain why RGB modded Nes does not seem to suffer from this ( from the video above ) and would also explain why the PCE, despite having a good RGB source, can output this shimmering crap also.
I can say for instance that Hyperdyne sidearms on my TG16 via composite has similar kind of shimmering color issues and it does not happen in emulation.

 

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Wouldn't this also be caused by the image noise? I noticed if I turn the noise filter on my LCD the problem is close to gone.

 

It is to do with how NTSC colour works and how early consoles fudged it, using timing signals which were close but not quite NTSC standard. PAL systems tend to have be closer so the problem is not as noticable as it is on NTSC systems. Read up on NTSC colour encoding and search of NES dot crawl / bandwidth for a more detailed explanation.

 

Nope, old systems with SD output weren't scaled on contemporary TV sets of the day (unless you interpret the systems outputting pixels slower than a 320-pixel system as being "scaling" which I do not).

 

This sounds like it makes sense! Sure makes more sense than the Scaling theory which cannot explain many things, Such as why it does not seem to happen on a RGB nes and why it does not happen on a NTSC SNES, which also outputs 256 horizontal res.

So according to this I guess RGB NES does not exhibit this problem because the color encoding Is the fudged part right?

Anyway, ill try to find more infos and read up about this, thanks!

 

The "problem" is going to be more or less noticeable depending one what TV you play on. High quality CRTs from the 90s probably won't bother you so much.

The "RGB mod" for NES while it does give great clarity, you should notice how the colors are way off. I don't think the colors being flat out wrong is an equal trade for image clarity. The RGB PPUs are meant for VS system games usually. They aren't meant for home console games. Some games has serious problems with RGB PPUs. Also the color emphasis effect doesn't work on the RGB PPUs. It's better to get a TV that does a better job displaying NTSC composite video.

 

I don't think its just an NTSC or LCD TV issue, my PAL nes and CRT TV has the same issues. The Nes has crappy video output as standard, its worse with games which have a lot of dithering/detail, so Ninja Gaiden looks really awful but the Mario games aren't so bad. The best solution is to play a Master System instead and enjoy perfect RGB

 

I have a High end Trinitron Wega CRT from early 2000s and it has a very good 3d Comb filter. Everything is bright, colorful and sharp on it. It does not seem to help much. In fact i almost think its the opposite. It would possibly be less noticeable on a lesser CRT as everything would be mushed together. As a kid we all played on old 70s- early 80s set via RF, it looked like crap but i never noticed so much this issue.

It does not seem to me that the colors are so badly off in contra, from what i read it is not really an issue for most games. Anyway if it reduces or eliminate this shimmering issue i consider it more than a fair trade for slightly off colors.

I mean just watch the video i posted above, Before and after!

 

someone just post a tutorial on how to mod a nes to do that already !

 

It has to do with NTSC color, sort of, but it is not a NTSC artifact. It has nothing to do with timing. The NES actually has *perfect* timing, it's as accurate as the timebase will allow. All consoles are practically this way (arcades are a little less so). Wayyyy too many things are falsely attributed to timing, the TV's PLL doesn't care. The shimmering doesn't have anything to do with bandwidth really, just the artifacts in the first place. The way NES video is generated there is no decoupling of luma/chroma so they may be properly filtered/bandlimited.

Noise in video is typically radio interference and/or thermal noise from high impedance circuits, you'll only see that through RF video. The artifacts and the shimmer are the result of the video itself, not added to it.

Scaled where? This doesn't make any sense, these consoles make analog video remember? Those 256 pixels (along with the hidden border pixels) have the same period as the active portion of broadcast video.


The characteristic shimmer was put there on purpose, the intention is to spatially average out the composite artifacts instead of leaving them static (like the Mega Drive/Genesis). Most people think it looks better.

 

Hehe, i like how everyone so far has a different say in the matter, very interesting. Glad i started the thread.
In the meantime i decided I was going to RGB/s-video mod a famicom. Ill also s-video mod my TG16 and see how this thing behaves.
Dont know when this will happen between all the other things, mod and repairs i have to do but it WILL happen.

 

You don't need to RGB mod. Just spend the $600 or whatever it is on a Famicom Titler which has S-Video output. What would be nice is if someone would get ahold of the Famicom Titler PPU and get it decapped and cloned. But then again, I haven't been bothered by any of this.

Calpis, doesn't the NES behave similar to the MegaDrive in games like Battletoads that enable rendering late? I will say if I was to be picky that does look worse. But I've played several NES games recently and never been bothered by the Video output. It's pretty sharp, clear, and doesn't bother me at all.

 

If you ever played any NES virtual console game on the wii over s-video or component, that's how clean the RGB nes/famicom looks, no shimmering. Same thing with FCE ultra gx nes emulator in 240p mode.

RGB nes is an expensive mod, and depending on how much you can stand the color pallet and jailbars, it may not be worth it to you.

I've done an RGB AV famicom before and while the video was nice and sharp, I was never completely satisfied with it.

Playing on the wii with fce ultra gx and a retro port nes controller adapter was far more enjoyable because the the image is completely jailbar free and the colors are more accurate depending on which pallet you select.

You might say "yea but an emulator won't be the same as playing on original hardware", well....actually...gameplay wise and with a nes controller adapter, the experience is identical. I for one don't look at the console when I play my games.

I may do another RGB famicom in the future is this thing ever come to fruition: http://universalppu.com/

 

It would be pretty nice if a RGB capable PPU clone was made that used the NTSC colors and supported color emphasis bits correctly. So you'd get all the benefits and none of the problems mentioned. But I'd like to see that rolled into a full accurate system clone.