18th September 2020, 7:54 PM
On the subject of that NES, or rather Famicom, what a lot of work! It sounds like you got a great result though, one system which does everything is kind of the dream but it isn't one you currently can get with anything other than a heavily modded system like yours, anything else leaves something out, like how mine doesn't have Famicom accessory port or Famicom Disk System support.
The two kinds of RGB are analog RGB and digital RGB. Digital RGB came first, first used by computers of the early/mid '80s. These are 15khz RGB signals and are often incompatible with modern screens -- the 30Khz VGA standard is the one that has been used ever since, the lower-frequency RGB signal is not supported by lots of monitors and TVs. You need adapter hardware boxes to use 15Khz digital RGB computers with any kind of display other than a real RGB monitor with digital RGB support, or a short list of modern screens that happen to work with it. Example, Commodore 128's 80-column high-res output is digital RGB, as are some other computers from the West and Japan. I believe digital RGB is also called "CGA" and is the format used by CGA cards for the original IBM PC and Tandy 1000.
Analog RGB is the better-known format, used by consoles starting with the Sega Master System and Genesis and some computers from the late '80s to early '90s such as the Apple IIGS, Amiga, some Japanese computers, and such.
Both analog and digital RGB need conversion to run on a modern TV, but the two are different and some things only convert one or the other, they are not the same. RGB monitors in the later '80s, or Apple RGB monitors for the IIGS, are analog RGB only, as well.
So yeah, RGB is two formats, not one. And they are definitely different from VGA in important wasy . Digital RGB is only used by computers as far as I know, so it's somewhat outside of the scope of this article -- I can't list every possible computer connection in a little console-focused article like this, that would be impossible -- but old computers are sometimes used like a console as a games platform attached to a TV, that's how I use mine for the most part, so I probably should at least mention digital RGB now that I know about it.
Quote: I prefer SATA to USB 2.0 because there's that inherent delay in a USB connection. I can get around that on the PS3, and that's why I much prefer their solution. It doesn't even require a mod to do it. I can use the USB workaround- but ultimately my internal drive is going to die and there's certain data that you can't store on devices plugged into other slots, such as the Original Xbox BC emulator data.I doubt SATA is much faster with these systems though, it's not like a mechanical 5400RPM drive or whatever is much different in speed via USB2.0 than it is on SATA... and the amount you can store is so dramatically different between the two systems in the Xbox 360's favor that it isn't even close as to which one is better.
Quote:I have no clue how to "break out" of a quote box to split it into multiple quotes like you did, so I just ended up bolding my responses.You just add quote and /quote tags where appropriate.
Quote: RGB is exactly the signal sent over VGA. RGB just means "red green blue" (with additional considerations for the sync signal), and that's exactly what VGA is. It's MOSTLY compatible except for the interlace issue. There are some differences like PAL or NTSC which really are pretty distinct signals, but the separation of RGB and sync is built into both. Oh, and there's actually nothing keeping high def signals from working over SCART except that the receiver at the end won't know what to do with it in most cases because it's not part of the spec. They kind of ditched SCART right around the time HD signals became commonplace.So looking it up and doring more research since, I really should break RGB out into two categories. I will edit that into this list eventually.
The two kinds of RGB are analog RGB and digital RGB. Digital RGB came first, first used by computers of the early/mid '80s. These are 15khz RGB signals and are often incompatible with modern screens -- the 30Khz VGA standard is the one that has been used ever since, the lower-frequency RGB signal is not supported by lots of monitors and TVs. You need adapter hardware boxes to use 15Khz digital RGB computers with any kind of display other than a real RGB monitor with digital RGB support, or a short list of modern screens that happen to work with it. Example, Commodore 128's 80-column high-res output is digital RGB, as are some other computers from the West and Japan. I believe digital RGB is also called "CGA" and is the format used by CGA cards for the original IBM PC and Tandy 1000.
Analog RGB is the better-known format, used by consoles starting with the Sega Master System and Genesis and some computers from the late '80s to early '90s such as the Apple IIGS, Amiga, some Japanese computers, and such.
Both analog and digital RGB need conversion to run on a modern TV, but the two are different and some things only convert one or the other, they are not the same. RGB monitors in the later '80s, or Apple RGB monitors for the IIGS, are analog RGB only, as well.
So yeah, RGB is two formats, not one. And they are definitely different from VGA in important wasy . Digital RGB is only used by computers as far as I know, so it's somewhat outside of the scope of this article -- I can't list every possible computer connection in a little console-focused article like this, that would be impossible -- but old computers are sometimes used like a console as a games platform attached to a TV, that's how I use mine for the most part, so I probably should at least mention digital RGB now that I know about it.
Quote:This is a bit of a misunderstanding of those high quality displays. They aren't fixed pixel, which is what I think you're thinking of. The pixels still "blend" right at the edges because of the unavoidable nature of phosphors and how the electron beam activates them. Here's the issue with perfect pixel displays vs a CRT of any kind including the super sharp PVMs. A CRT doesn't actually have a built in resolution of any kind. What you're seeing isn't actually pixels at all. There is a line count, which amounts to a vertical resolution, but there is NO horizontal resolution at all on a CRT. It's analog and originally it received an analog signal. There is fidelity, which is how accurately it scales down to small details, but not pixels. What this means is that a CRT can display any horizontal resolution you want without issue. It just need to activate the right color beam at just the right time.Yeah, this all sounds right. Sorry, I know I've read/watched before about how TVs work, but I'm not an engineer, I didn't remember the details. But yes of course CRTs don't have individual pixels, I know that at least. They draw on the screen with an electron beam. There probably are some changes I should make to the article to better reflect how CRTs work, but I'm not sure what they are... remove the specific resolution stuff and mention electron beams perhaps? I definitely didn't remember that part about CRTs kind of not having a maximum horizontal resolution, interesting... though 640x480 interlaced must be an effective detail limit, because isn't that the most any videogame has ever gotten out of a non-HD CRT? Unless there were some with like 720x480 or something, I forget offhand. But there is only so high you can go while still having visible detail...
Why does this matter? Well, consoles DO have internal resolutions which are then converted to a signal sent to the TV. What it receives is just a modulating wave of intensities in three colors, but the console doesn't send any concept of pixels or resolution to the TV and the TV has no clue where one "pixel" ends and another begins. It simply obeys the insruction to shift colors here or there and the end result is that we- if we look close- can see those pixels. However, they are an artifact of the console not of the video signal or the display. Vertical line count however IS fixed and unchangeable. The result is that while a retro console can't change the vertical height of a pixel, locked at that faked 240p with gaps that it uses by simply never flipping the display to "field 2" for the interlacing effect, it CAN change the horizontal length of a pixel. So, you end up with things like the Genesis and the SNES having different horizontal resolutions. Again, this is all internal on the console hardware and not something the TV can detect or cares about. It isn't "real" in that sense.
Now we can get right to it. Modern fixed pixel displays DO care about horizontal resolution. It's "real", the screen really is cut up into individual pixels and it has to fit the detail of old analog signals into those shapes. In modern displays it's been agreed on that all pixels should be perfect squares. I agree, that makes the most sense for a number of reasons. However, it is inherently incompatible with countless internal display modes used across numerous retro consoles. A CRT including PVMs can perfectly display the pixel "width" of any of these consoles without any ugly artifacts simply because it doesn't care or even "see" in pixels. A modern display has to take an average of that analog signal and decide which color each square should be, and that results in ugly misfits of rectangular pixels sliced and diced with bits "left over" to shove into square spots. Worse, again the LCD screen doesn't actually "see" the intended pixel shape of those retro consoles, it's just interpreting a constant analog signal and doing it's best with it's post processing to figure out how to cut it up into fixed pixels. Other than that, it also "expects" a 480i signal, period. It assumes that and goes ahead and "fills in" the gaps in lines each frame rather than leave them blank. Empty scanlines are after all far more noticable on fixed pixel displays because there's no "bloom" to color in neighboring dark space. Even PVMs have this bloom, so the blank scanlines don't look all that blank due to naerby ambient light from the filled scanlines above and below it. In other words, there really is no issue with PVMs, they are simply superior displays that show the signal in the best possible conditions exactly as intended. That is in fact exactly what they are designed to do. They are reference sets built for TV studios so they can properly calibrate their signals and know with certainty that regardless of the quality or settings on home sets, the signal itself is perfectly calibrated. They were also used during game development but this was usually limited to the richest game studios that could afford it like Nintendo and Sega. Poorer fly by night places likely just used whatever common sets they could afford.
Quote:There is one other issue that has nothing to do with the sets themselves. Composite blurs pixels which on certain consoles was manipulated using dithering patterns to add the illusion of more color detail or transparencies. These effects still show up on not just PVMs but even modern LCD screens. These instantly vanish using higher quality signals such as S-Video and higher. Well, transparencies vanish for sure. Dithering just becomes more noticable, but the effect still "works" more or less (which is why many old PC games used dithering even though all PCs used RGB and not composite).Yeah, this is very noticeable, particularly when you attach the Genesis via component RGB, as I have -- the Genesis was designed heavily for dithering, so if you take it away you're left with a ... very alternating-lines-focused... image. The same goes for early PC games designed to dither in other colors out of 4-color CGA, the dithering doesn't work on anything other than an RGB monitor. I think the Genesis looks better through RGB anyway, because of how bad the composite signal is, but the dithering is really noticeable sometimes, yeah, and does look better on a CRT with composite or RF.
That said, you're right. PVMs and BVMs, as reference sets, weren't designed for a living room. They're small and you have to buy your own external speaker solution (I'd recommend purchasing an older sound system as those have no signal delay for post processing).
Quote: I see we're talking about two very different aspects of "complexity". Noted.What kind of complexity do you mean?