@-wc- what they're listening to mostly isn't the music or the speakers so much as the amplifiers. The sound they look for from vinyl and wooden blocks and all of that mostly comes from tube amps.
Konami's conversions from arcade to NES tended to tighten the controls and expand the content. Contra, Gyruss, and TMNT stand out to me in particular, especially the Famicom version of Contra.
I prefer to play these versions, but of course I'd love even more to have remakes of Contra and TMNT that play like the home versions but with the arcade graphics missing content restored.
@Blofse I think PSX could be better described as a dark horse than as an underdog. An underdog you expect to lose based on their history. A dark horse comes out of nowhere and wins.
If Saturn had been able to play Genesis and 32X cartridges, there would've been more incentive to develop 32X games as a way for publishers to hedge their bets. With more games available, consumers would have more reason to own a 32X. And the backwards compatibility would've made the Saturn more appealing to existing customers as well.
It's still doubtful the add-on would've been highly successful (add-ons never are). But keeping an older platform on as a third pillar, with enhanced games and backwards compatibility is something Nintendo had success with during the overlap between GB/GBC/GBA and between GBA and DS.
@NinChocolate the old fix used to be to get a 32X. It pulls nice clean RGB from the main console, and they had much better composite encoders. Obviously there are much more practical solutions now, but it was effective!
@Cyber_Akuma it's not the only one, but there are a lot of misconceptions about that. The blurring is less to do with CRTs and more with composite and RF video. Checkered dithering is often assumed to be intended for blending, but is actually common even when it's not (e.g. Game Boy games) and vertical bands are more effective for that.
I'm not aware of any convincing evidence that developers relied on visible scan lines (no, not even the SoR piano), and that idea actually runs counter to the idea of reliance on general blurriness. Most NTSC consumer TV sets throughout the 80s and 90s hid scan lines almost completely due to shadow mask patterns and phosphor bloom. Unless you were gaming on a high end Trinitron or a video monitor made for computers, you weren't likely to see gaps between lines. It definitely wasn't something the developers could rely on being present.
A good rule of thumb for separating the myth from the reality (which I'm stealing from the developer of I Wanna Be The Guy) is to ask yourself, "if the effect wasn't intended, would this have been done any differently?" If the answer is no, then it's probably a neat coincidence.
@Cyber_Akuma in this case it's actually an effect of the composite video encoder chip. Sega sourced those from multiple vendors, so some boards ended up with worse ones than others, which accounts for why lots of people never encountered it.
The rainbowing is almost certainly not intended, only happens over composite on consoles from batches with especially cheap/bad encoder chips, and was definitely never as pronounced as it is with this filter. The intended effect was fake transparency, which you'd get on composite from any batch, of any revision, on any screen.
On the specific consoles that have this issue, it's present not just in waterfalls, but also in palm fronds, glass tubes, lighting and shadow effects, and basically anywhere a transparency effect was attempted.
The SGB 2 Vaporwave Edition pallets are originally from a ROM hack: "Super Game Boy 2: Vaporwave Edition"
I don't know if I'm allowed to post a link, but you can find it on RHDN. It features the same 32 custom palettes plus a full set of custom Super Game Boy borders, and it works on FXPAK Pro carts as well as multiple emulators, MiSTer FPGA, and the Super Game Boy core for Analogue Pocket.
The Vaporwave Edition palettes in the APGB pack are converted directly from the ROM hack. In the future I'll make expanded versions to take better advantage of the APGB format.
Comments 13
Re: "The Most Bafflingly Poor Products We Have Ever Reviewed" - Marseille's mClassic RGB Collection Fails To Impress The Experts
@-wc- what they're listening to mostly isn't the music or the speakers so much as the amplifiers. The sound they look for from vinyl and wooden blocks and all of that mostly comes from tube amps.
Re: Talking Point: Is There A Home Port You Prefer To The Arcade Original?
Konami's conversions from arcade to NES tended to tighten the controls and expand the content. Contra, Gyruss, and TMNT stand out to me in particular, especially the Famicom version of Contra.
I prefer to play these versions, but of course I'd love even more to have remakes of Contra and TMNT that play like the home versions but with the arcade graphics missing content restored.
Re: Random: This US Bakery Still Uses A Commodore 64 For Sales In 2024
We did it. We found the comic bakery.
Re: Don't Forget The Sega 32X Turns 30 This Year, Too
@Blofse I think PSX could be better described as a dark horse than as an underdog. An underdog you expect to lose based on their history. A dark horse comes out of nowhere and wins.
Re: Don't Forget The Sega 32X Turns 30 This Year, Too
If Saturn had been able to play Genesis and 32X cartridges, there would've been more incentive to develop 32X games as a way for publishers to hedge their bets. With more games available, consumers would have more reason to own a 32X. And the backwards compatibility would've made the Saturn more appealing to existing customers as well.
It's still doubtful the add-on would've been highly successful (add-ons never are). But keeping an older platform on as a third pillar, with enhanced games and backwards compatibility is something Nintendo had success with during the overlap between GB/GBC/GBA and between GBA and DS.
Re: What Do You See In Sonic The Hedgehog's Waterfalls?
@NinChocolate the old fix used to be to get a 32X. It pulls nice clean RGB from the main console, and they had much better composite encoders. Obviously there are much more practical solutions now, but it was effective!
Re: What Do You See In Sonic The Hedgehog's Waterfalls?
@Cyber_Akuma it's not the only one, but there are a lot of misconceptions about that. The blurring is less to do with CRTs and more with composite and RF video. Checkered dithering is often assumed to be intended for blending, but is actually common even when it's not (e.g. Game Boy games) and vertical bands are more effective for that.
I'm not aware of any convincing evidence that developers relied on visible scan lines (no, not even the SoR piano), and that idea actually runs counter to the idea of reliance on general blurriness. Most NTSC consumer TV sets throughout the 80s and 90s hid scan lines almost completely due to shadow mask patterns and phosphor bloom. Unless you were gaming on a high end Trinitron or a video monitor made for computers, you weren't likely to see gaps between lines. It definitely wasn't something the developers could rely on being present.
A good rule of thumb for separating the myth from the reality (which I'm stealing from the developer of I Wanna Be The Guy) is to ask yourself, "if the effect wasn't intended, would this have been done any differently?" If the answer is no, then it's probably a neat coincidence.
Re: What Do You See In Sonic The Hedgehog's Waterfalls?
@Cyber_Akuma in this case it's actually an effect of the composite video encoder chip. Sega sourced those from multiple vendors, so some boards ended up with worse ones than others, which accounts for why lots of people never encountered it.
Re: What Do You See In Sonic The Hedgehog's Waterfalls?
The rainbowing is almost certainly not intended, only happens over composite on consoles from batches with especially cheap/bad encoder chips, and was definitely never as pronounced as it is with this filter. The intended effect was fake transparency, which you'd get on composite from any batch, of any revision, on any screen.
On the specific consoles that have this issue, it's present not just in waterfalls, but also in palm fronds, glass tubes, lighting and shadow effects, and basically anywhere a transparency effect was attempted.
Re: New Doom Cheat Code Surfaces After 27 Years
@mashk I know the Saturn version is clunky, but even the DOS original was hard capped at 35 fps 😅
Re: Anniversary: The Super Game Boy Is 30 Years Old
Somewhat related ROMhack:
https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/6449/
Re: We're One Step Closer To A "New" Sega Neptune Console
Does it work with the Power Base Converter? That would be a cool improvement over existing methods.
Re: Guide: How To Use Game Boy Custom Palettes On Analogue Pocket
Thanks for the mention!
The SGB 2 Vaporwave Edition pallets are originally from a ROM hack: "Super Game Boy 2: Vaporwave Edition"
I don't know if I'm allowed to post a link, but you can find it on RHDN. It features the same 32 custom palettes plus a full set of custom Super Game Boy borders, and it works on FXPAK Pro carts as well as multiple emulators, MiSTer FPGA, and the Super Game Boy core for Analogue Pocket.
The Vaporwave Edition palettes in the APGB pack are converted directly from the ROM hack. In the future I'll make expanded versions to take better advantage of the APGB format.