SNES Station on my PS2 was a pipe dream so I did what any sensible person would do. Now yesterday I ordered some new Cables for my XBOX and Dreamcast knowing I'd have some spare room in the back of my TV I hooked up my SNES using a $60 S-Video cable a Friend gave me for my gamecube. SNES on an HDTV.....never looked better. My collection is sadly Sparse. SF II Turbo, Super SF II and Castlevania IV are basically the only playable games I have. (the Rest being Killer Instink, Samuari Shodown and Both World heroes) So I got myself Rushing Beat Ran, F-Zero and Vortex to fix the lack of games problem. Well anyways. I was impressed with the results on my TV After hearing here how bad retro looks on HD Screens I was VERY impressed with what my TV gave me my SNES game never looked cleaner or clearer even considering my PC Monitor. So.........anybody else using expensive Cables for their retro? and what old school are we all playing?
Original SNES outputs S-Video, second model (Jr.) doesn't. I don't use expensive cables on anything. $60 for a <60ft copper cable is beyond stupid, unless you call yourself a A/Vphile and enjoy being taken advantage of. I always go for official cables because their construction is good enough and since they match the console they look best.
I used the DC SNES emulator some time ago and it was dog poo, some games worked "fine" but most we're too much slow. Now I have my Super Famicom so I guess I'll get some games on the real deal. I have all my retro consoles on a Bravia HDTV screen and they look like if I was playing on an emulator, just there is some noise with the composite video but it's really sharp.
Cables aren't going to make retro console look good or bad on a HDTV. The quality of the scaler in the TV is what matters. -hl718
It depends on your source and your TV and then you. I use a Super Famicom with an RGB monitor. It's fantastic. On the LCD though they have nasty signal noise even on S-Video there's ghosting. My collection is pretty good, and anything else I've got the GDSF7 for. And then I have the NES with a healthy collection and a Powerpak for anything else again. I do lots of retrogaming. That and Gears of War.
Well yeah...but....I dunno, I can see a difference in composite and Svideo, unless you meant the brand or somethin'. For some reason SNES looks really good on HDTV's with S video, compared to others, at least in my case. It's totally nice compared to some systems. I've been playing lots of Genesis on my Xeye lately, but the games are so nasty on my HDTV with composite, so I venture into the living room or my mom's house to use the Svideo/Component/composite flat CRT or the 32inch composite CRT. The little surround sound system and HDTV I have just ruin the games too much for me.
Seconded, I have my N64, Dreamcast, Mega CD and Saturn all plugged in by RGB scart into my ye olde 28" bush widescreen. Bright non bled colours, sharp sprites and non stop fun. Should be getting a Neo Geo AES for christmas too....
I use SCART with my RGB monitor. It would be nice if our TVs had supported SCART with RGB, but most people probably don't give a shit. Nowdays though you could probably use a RGB -> Component Video/Color Difference converter to use your Component Connection on the TV.
well since we never got SCART We don't really know what we're missing. Isn't SCART like the precursor to HDMI?
Did you do the mods yourself? I've found Magic Engine + Arcade VGA to be a very nice RGB solution for the PC-Engine. That's like saying some people's turds look better than others. Surely some will have more peanuts than others, but retro games line-doubled (scaled) never look good. Hmm... yeah, never looked worse, really. Certainly w/ a high dollar cable and a good TV there will be less signal loss, but it's a 31khz display, and the SNES/SFC only ouputs 15khz. The result is a line-doubled mess of shit. Even some old turd CRT w/ composite will give a "truer" picture than anything on an HDTV, although there will be plenty of signal loss, and color washout. ALTHOUGH, since you're playing it on an Xbox, you can probably use some nice fake scanline filter and make it look pretty close to a 240p signal. SCART is no more than a connector. What MottZilla is referring to is the RGB signal which is commonly carried over a SCART connection in Europe. It's the same casing (although different pin assign) for Japanese RGB. If you can't get one, don't bother looking. It's night and day. Makes S-Video look like diarrhea and will surely be one more reason to hate Europeans. Coupled w/ their strong currency, they ain't getting shit from me for Xmas. If you are serious about getting one, probably the easiest way in America is to buy a trisynch arcade monitor (15khz, 24khz, 31khz) and start a moddin'. Throw it in a case, and make some cables. Viola - you can play anything with the best clarity (arcade monitors are indeed on average better than TVs) in their native resolution.
http://www.disgruntleddesigner.com/chrisc/gotRGB/fctitler.html http://www.disgruntleddesigner.com/chrisc/gotRGB/pcengine.html Anyone can hook an emulator up to a TV. But it certainly isn't the same as the real system. Magic Engine is good but definitely not the most compatible/accurate.
The reason I use SCART is because it's easier to import RGB SCART cables for game systems from Europe than to build a custom cable for each and every system myself. It definitely makes a difference. While some systems do generate a good composite signal, RGB always looks nicer to me. And no matter what old game systems look like ass on HDTVs. Don't fool yourself into thinking they don't. On a HDTV, your only option really is a Xbox with emulators. I highly recommend getting a standard CRT that's good quality, preferably with RGB input. You really should keep one around for old school gaming. GP is NOT kidding. I have a cheap chinese CRT TV that has Composite video only. It was my first TV for myself. I got it cause it was 19" and cheap. When I replaced it later on with a 21" HD LCD monitor, it was pathetic how bad every game looked if it wasn't in Component Video, preferably 480p. Seriously, NES just looked like ass. There was horrible color distortion patterns and such. The cheap old CRT though looked crystal clear. I really think if you honestly compare a good quality CRT (standard def) to a HDTV with something like NES, SNES or Genesis the CRT will win.
But not everyone does. And they probably use some shitty S-Video when they do. But it can be... you just need proper hardware. It actually is the most compatible PC-Engine emulator (save VC), although it does have some issues. Besides, a hardware mod isn't in the cards in my house. I have my eyes on a trisynch arcade monitor as described above. I'll need to use an XRGB-2 like device, or of course tap the audio off the RGB cable (pain in the ass) to get sound, but hey -- it looks fucking primo. I get hard just thinking about it.
