Beer Monkey
Member
1) "720p" TVs are 768p and scale.
2) Buying a Hi-Def NES is way cheaper than buying a 4k TV, and lower lag options exist for 1080p sets.
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- RetroUSB AVS - Real Hardware HDMI NES Clone Console
- Thread starter Rich!
- Start date
1) "720p" TVs are 768p and scale.
2) Buying a Hi-Def NES is way cheaper than buying a 4k TV, and lower lag options exist for 1080p sets.
cacophony555
Member
3) 720p forces either a 1:1 (1) or 4:3 (1.33) integer aspect ratio, neither of which looks correct for NES. You want something closer to ~1.22. With a windowed 1080p image you can get 5:4, which gives you a 1.25 integer aspect ratio.
So basically you have:
1--------------------------------1.22---1.25----------------1.33
Too skinny--------------------looks perfect--------------too wide
Just for the heck of it, here's close detail of the kind of non-integer scaling artifacts you get when you scale the integer scaled to 720p image to 1080p. This is using the best quality scaling in PAINT.NET, algorithms (and lag) will vary by television.
It's relatively subtle (possibly not noticeable at a distance and in motion), but you wouldn't have these artifacts if integer scaled to 1080p (with small black bars at 4x or mild cropping at 5x).
Also worth mentioning that if scanline effects had already been applied when building the 720p image before it was scaled to 1080p, the result might create more softness and artifacts.
Ideally you would want something simpler like nearest neighbor for upscaling square pixels. Any other kind of upscaling will just add varying levels of blurriness to pixel edges.
This won't be true universally. It will depend on what aspect ratio the original artists for the game developed for. I'm sure there are a large amount of games developed for 4:3 since that was the only existing standard at the time.
Edit: Crap, meant to append this to the previous post.
cacophony555
Member
Not sure I follow. Getting the correct look has to do with the non-square nature of "pixels" on CRTs. From what I've seen forcing a NES game to 4:3 looks too wide for everything. The 4:3 I'm talking about here is the pixel aspect ratio not overall display aspect ratio.
https://youtu.be/TI60A3DpI6w?t=4m51s
https://youtu.be/TI60A3DpI6w?t=6m25s
http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8063
The original artists designed everything with a certain aspect ratio in mind. I usually see this discussed more with the snes in mind.
cacophony555
Member
From the thread you linked: http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8063
Firebrandx said:
Basically thinking there is one correct aspect ratio is incorrect. If you absolutely had to have the aspect ratio correct you would have to alter it game by game. Going by that thread it does appear most games were developed with an aspect ratio skinnier than 4:3 though.
cacophony555
Member
"... though I feel the range can be tightened down to say 280 to 288 to allow room for error. I wasn't able to find any game examples outside of this range."
The range he's talking about would yield a pixel aspect ratio between 1.17 and 1.2, which supports my original point that 1 is too skinny and 1.33 is too wide.
angrywoodchuck
Member
foxdvd
Member
a video from a friend of the guy that made this system..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhUBnJ3Vzd8&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhUBnJ3Vzd8&feature=youtu.be
NoFaceNico
Member
Oh wow, I didn't know there was a startup menu.
How did they get Game Genie support? I thought Hyperkin bought out the rights to it and that's how they were able to include it in the Retron 5.
And yeah, I think I can see a tiny bit of distortion around the pixels, especially in Luigi's sprite. Still looks good though and I don't think it will be distracting.
How did they get Game Genie support? I thought Hyperkin bought out the rights to it and that's how they were able to include it in the Retron 5.
And yeah, I think I can see a tiny bit of distortion around the pixels, especially in Luigi's sprite. Still looks good though and I don't think it will be distracting.
Sir_Crocodile
Member
Are they built in or just supporting the devices? Even if it's built in, is there anything even copyrightable in what they're doing - it's only very basic changes to data values right? I know the hw patent's dead too, so there's no issues on that side (although I imagine that's irrelevant as it's about the idea of interfacing device itself). Only issue I can see for sure is using the name game genie on the actual product.
NoFaceNico
Member
I don't know. The guy says in the video that it has Game Genie support "built right into the system" and there is an icon at the startup menu.
That's pretty worrying if this article is correct in stating that the term Game Genie is a trademarked term that's now owned by Hyperkin.
I'm no expert in the law behind this, nor am I an expert in how a Game Genie works, but if a Game Genie uses its own written code and RetroUSB copied that code then I think there's a problem here. From what I understand, programming code is protected by copyright. Back in the 80's some company was caught selling unlicensed copies of games and tried to fight it in court saying that games cannot be copyrighted because unlike reading a book page by page, a game is played a million different ways. The court came back and said no, the actual lines of code written by a programmer are a protected literary work just like words on a page.
Full disclosure- I hate Hyperkin. I think they themselves are lying, stealing shitheads and I've even banned their products from my channel after they were exposed for stealing open source emulators to use in their Retron5. But at the same time, I think RetroUSB has a very cool product here and I hope we're missing a part of the story that resolves this question. Maybe someone's sitting on the Game Genie rights and RetroUSB did license it properly? I'm hoping this all means nothing for the AVS in the end.
That's pretty worrying if this article is correct in stating that the term Game Genie is a trademarked term that's now owned by Hyperkin.
I'm no expert in the law behind this, nor am I an expert in how a Game Genie works, but if a Game Genie uses its own written code and RetroUSB copied that code then I think there's a problem here. From what I understand, programming code is protected by copyright. Back in the 80's some company was caught selling unlicensed copies of games and tried to fight it in court saying that games cannot be copyrighted because unlike reading a book page by page, a game is played a million different ways. The court came back and said no, the actual lines of code written by a programmer are a protected literary work just like words on a page.
Full disclosure- I hate Hyperkin. I think they themselves are lying, stealing shitheads and I've even banned their products from my channel after they were exposed for stealing open source emulators to use in their Retron5. But at the same time, I think RetroUSB has a very cool product here and I hope we're missing a part of the story that resolves this question. Maybe someone's sitting on the Game Genie rights and RetroUSB did license it properly? I'm hoping this all means nothing for the AVS in the end.
Everybody can implement Game Genie support, as long as they don't use actual code written by Codemasters. Just like anyone can make a console that reads NES cartridges, as long as they don't use Nintendo code 
The icon may be problematic though, as it's trademarked by Codemasters, or whoever is currently holding the license. It's terribly ugly anyway, better get rid of it.
The icon may be problematic though, as it's trademarked by Codemasters, or whoever is currently holding the license. It's terribly ugly anyway, better get rid of it.
I've been mulling over this for days and concluded that the AVS is not a viable option at this point for anyone concerned with crisp, perfectly scaled visuals. Since the console tops out at 720p, the display will need to handle scaling. A 1080p display won't scale this properly and 720p sets are all actually 768p, and so the recommendation was made to get a 4K display. The problem is that apparently no 4K TV has nearest neighbor integer scaling. They all do bilinear filtering which results in blurry upscaling: fine for TV and movies, terrible for video games (especially sprite-based retro games). This was a problem discovered by 4K TV owners on both the Geforce forums and AMD forums. They are currently trying to get Nvidia and AMD to release drivers that will allow proper integer scaling at the video card end since all their UHD displays' internal scaling is falling short. Therefore, no display that will present AVS's 720p at its theoretical best.
The only truly good options then are an RGB-modded NES with a quality upscaler (OSSC, XRGB) or best of all: the High Def NES. And only on a 1080p panel for either of these solutions as they top out at 1080p and their sharp upscaling will be undone by the inferior upscale on a 4K display.
The only truly good options then are an RGB-modded NES with a quality upscaler (OSSC, XRGB) or best of all: the High Def NES. And only on a 1080p panel for either of these solutions as they top out at 1080p and their sharp upscaling will be undone by the inferior upscale on a 4K display.
Solid analysis in my opinion. But I'd guess that people who use capture equipment probably can accept perfect 720p visuals. (That's just me guessing though as I never capture my games).
NOLA_Gaffer
Banned
For budget-conscious customers like myself the AVS is going to be good enough; a happy medium between the garbage of composite NES on a flat-panel display without getting stupid expensive as a RGB NES setup would be.
As far as I can tell the NES RGB board is $100, installation service is $200, the XRGB Framemeister is $400, and cables for the setup is $50.
You're looking at a $750 investment to play NES games on a modern television, which is way out of the price range of most people, myself included. The $185 AVS is a much better choice, and one I'll be going with eventually.
(Though I'll always prefer just playing it the old school way on a CRT television.)
^I get that. I'm just saying it's not quite there if you're wanting a perfect picture out of your HDMI solution.
That's a good point. But then you're factoring in a $150-$300 external device and additional software into the equation. It stops being a simple, sub-$200 plug and play solution.
I myself could use the HD Fury IV to put the AVS' 720p image in a 1080p frame so that the TV won't do its blurry non-integer scale. Problem is that this is both an expensive solution and kind of small (see representative blue area below), especially compared to the Hi Def NES's 4X scale (1024 x 960px) that will proportionally fill most of the screen. As noted earlier, AVS is also missing the proper NES aspect ratios but at least that can probably be fixed with a future firmware update.
That's a good point. But then you're factoring in a $150-$300 external device and additional software into the equation. It stops being a simple, sub-$200 plug and play solution.
I myself could use the HD Fury IV to put the AVS' 720p image in a 1080p frame so that the TV won't do its blurry non-integer scale. Problem is that this is both an expensive solution and kind of small (see representative blue area below), especially compared to the Hi Def NES's 4X scale (1024 x 960px) that will proportionally fill most of the screen. As noted earlier, AVS is also missing the proper NES aspect ratios but at least that can probably be fixed with a future firmware update.
It's perfect for me then since I use my capture cards weekly.
You should never pay over 250 bucks for a capture device, heck many good ones are between 150-200 even. And as for software, just use the free AmaRecTV.
Polioliolio
Member
I'm just excited about being able to play real NES games on modern televisions. I can play at home, take it to friends' homes where CRTs aren't present, whatever. Almost more importantly for me, it plays both famicom and NES and has 4 controller ports. That's cool!
I briefly wanted to get into the rgb and pixel perfect craze, but in the end I played these games on junky TVs as a kid, and that's part of the nostalgia. With the AVS, I'm getting the compromise between the ridiculously deep rabbit hole of rgb mods and whatnot, and the convenience of being able to play NES on any moden television. I can simply put the system and some games into a plastic tote and surprise friend's with a night of classic gaming, and it's going to look crisper and more attractive than it does on even the best quality CRT.
Hyped!
I briefly wanted to get into the rgb and pixel perfect craze, but in the end I played these games on junky TVs as a kid, and that's part of the nostalgia. With the AVS, I'm getting the compromise between the ridiculously deep rabbit hole of rgb mods and whatnot, and the convenience of being able to play NES on any moden television. I can simply put the system and some games into a plastic tote and surprise friend's with a night of classic gaming, and it's going to look crisper and more attractive than it does on even the best quality CRT.
Hyped!
Timu, I was giving a decent range, but I know... Paid under $200 for mine. The point was more about the total added costs, complexity and steps.
So close to a perfectly fine post! That's gonna be a solid noooo from me!
So close to a perfectly fine post! That's gonna be a solid noooo from me!
Ok, fair enough. It's still worth it though!!!=p
Polioliolio
Member
Haha well I mean clearer and crisper than a CRT through composite.. Unless we're factoring in projection and other unique side effects that may add charm.
MooMilk2929
Junior Member
For those of you wondering about Hyperkin releasing and owning Game Genie. You can see
http://gamehacking.org/wiki/Game_Genie
here that they already released PS3 and DS/3DS versions and that's it. They were gonna release PSP and Wii versions but they were cancelled.
http://gamehacking.org/wiki/Game_Genie
here that they already released PS3 and DS/3DS versions and that's it. They were gonna release PSP and Wii versions but they were cancelled.
cacophony555
Member
Installation isn't nearly that much. Retrofixes is the most expensive mod shop I know of ($200), but that includes the RGB board. The other main recommended installer Yurkie charges between $150 and $200 depending on exact console/options, but again that includes the parts. You can also buy pre modded front loaders on eBay for ~$200 when they become available (the $300 example has the multiout port): http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odk...oader.TRS2&_nkw=nes+rgb+front+loader&_sacat=0
The Framemeister is currently $385 shipped to the US from Solaris Japan. I think the cable you would need is about $25 for a high quality one.
So yes it's expensive, but somewhat less than you think.
Personally, I've decided to go for the hidef nes route by having my top loader modded with kevtris' kit. The parts cost ~$120 and the mod is ~$85, so total cost (assuming you already have a NES) is only ~$205.
I went for the Hi Def NES too. A premodded AV Famicom on eBay. Bit of a premium over the cost if I had gotten all the components myself and sent it off to a modder, but not too bad and worth it... no waiting weeks or possibly a couple months(?) for the next batch of Hi Def kits + a few weeks more for modding work. I'll have it in a few days. Okay, don't wanna derail the thread further by going on about a competing product.
If not TVs, I'm hoping 4K monitors have good scaling to do the AVS justice.
If not TVs, I'm hoping 4K monitors have good scaling to do the AVS justice.
BONKERS
Member
1080p makes integer scaling beyond 4x impossible without losing lines. And then you have to have the logic available to hit 5x. Which = more cost for the FPGA,.
720p is the far better choice since you can fill the entire screen with 3x scaling. Once upscaled to 1080p by the TV, then the image still will still look great. Also keep in mind the XRGBMini does not have 100% sharpness at 720p or even 1080p either. The signal is still soft as there is bleeding on pixel edges. You can look at MLIG's HDMI NES vs RGB video to see this. It looks similar to this comparison using MMLC http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison.php?id=142201 it looks similar to that. Which is honestly not that bad.
4k Tvs shouldn't even be considered in the equation, because even if it supported 1080p. The upscaling on most 4k TVs is not that great. (4k really came too early. 1080p TVs EOL and consoles still struggle with framerates at 1080p. Or even outputting 1080p consistently) And almost zero of them offer a line doubling 4:1 pixel mapping mode. Which is infuriating! We should really still only be in a 1080p era. The average person out there barely consumes any real HQ 2k content. Let alone 4k content. HD Cable is still a fucking joke. 1080i, 720p feeds that are ridiculously compressed. The only real benefit of 4k, is real true native 4k content on blu-ray on a very big screen. And Video Games on PC, if you can handle it. Or use it to downsample to 1080p for better AA. Because 4k native still does not solve aliasing issue in a significant way. Good luck hitting native 4k on the updated consoles on a regular basis. Scorpio might edge by barely. But we'll see.
In NIS's PC port of Phantom Brave, the sprites without the terrible bilinear filter are scaled on a non integer scale, causing scrolling artifacts. To fix it, you basically have to some driver level SSAA that just so happens to benefit the sprites and fills in the gaps with edge bleeding/gradients to make the pixels and scaling look more correct.
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison.php?id=180322 It does cost some sharpness, but it's not that noticeable (compared to the bilinear filter in the game)and in motion looks way better.
No method is going to look perfect, especially since not every CRT displays exactly the same. Getting the pixel aspect ratio perfect feels pretty impossible. You can try to aim for a 4:3'ish setting and that's about it.
And digitally stretching the image with nearest neighbor is going to result in scaling artifacts no matter what since the pixels being generated are still square.
That's what you are wanting to talk about. Not image aspect ratio. The *Pixel Aspect Ratio* is what is important in getting somewhat correct scaling close to a CRT.
After it's been padded correctly (Might be incorrect in 1.125 example below) cropped and then a PAR can be derived from a single individual CRT setup.
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison.php?id=143035 You can see that a 1.25 PAR (Should be near equivalent with padding removed) still works just fine at 720p
Edit: http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/Overscan According to this however, the correct PAR is actually 1.431
I should take a picture of my CRT running a NES game for example, it'd probably be slightly different as I have horizontal stretch set up customized through the service menu.
720p>1080p scaling is better than most 1080p>4k scaling i've seen.(720p>1080p is 1.5x1.5 in each direction = 2.25x. 1080p>2160p is 2x2 in each direction = 4x but they still use similar/same'ish upsampling methods. Which looks worse the higher the scale. A 4:1 line double mode could fix this) Plus, it might have the additional benefit of cleaning up any scaling artifacts if one attempts to use a non 1:1 mode trying to approximate the PAR as mentioned above and probably will end up looking similar to the XRGBMini at 1080p when doing so thanks to the filtering in upsampling. (Someone with an HDMI NES should test this.)
At the end of the day, The AVS is probably going to be the best, cheapest, hassle way free to play NES games on hardware that doesn't stolen emulation code and has never been improved. Or that isn't going to cost you 500$+
The NES HDMI Kit is 120$+install costs, has scaling artifacts when attempting to stretch the image to something resembling the correct PAR at 1080p. Can't recall if adds lag. don't think so.
The XRGB Mini is 400$+ requires a scart cable, the NESRGB be installed (Additional $$$). Hope nothing in your signal path is fucked that causes problems.
It does have the benefit of being able to stretch it any way you want without artifacts, but it does so with some kind of filtering. Also adds an additional frame of lag.
Analogue NT is 500$+, uses HDMI NES
Retro Game Freak costs between 200-300$+, basically the same as the Retron 5.(160$+) Stolen Retroarch, 720p only. Lagerific on many consoles.
AVS, 185$ requires nothing extra, 3x3 scaling with 1:1,4:3,5:3 SAR modes (I've yet to see a video of anything but 1:1 however), supports both FDS,Famicom and NES. 4 controller ports, Famicom controller port. And potentially next to zero lag from the console itself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Tv1-vWKFjg
For the average person, if this is as good as it could possibly be. Then there's literally nothing better, and it should deserve to sell at such a low price for such quality compared to shit clones and the likes of the Shitron5. Which AFIK still only outputs at 720p with it's low powered Android SOC.
cacophony555
Member
The correct pixel aspect is ~1.2 which is about what you can achieve with 5x width and 4x height on the NES HDMI kit. There will be zero scaling artifacts in this setting and zero lag b/c it only buffers a small handful of scanlines. The pixel aspect on the AVS is limited to less accurate values (1:1, 4:3, 5:3), and will introduce scaling artifacts and lag as it gets upscaled to 1080p by the TV. How much will depend on the TV.
dolabla
Member
Just saw this. It's a little unboxing/overview video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZdvQVi3Quc
I pre-ordered mine a few days ago. I can't wait.
I pre-ordered mine a few days ago. I can't wait.
I'm really impressed with the scoreboard feature. We should definitely get some GAF competitions going!
NoFaceNico
Member
Review by Lon Siedman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40w_BrPiImM
Polioliolio
Member
Seemed like a very positive review overall. The only issue he mentioned was audio cutting out on a couple TV's he tried, which he mentioned he would address to the team in hopes of a firmware update possible in the future.
Personally I think I'm going to wait till the systems are out before pulling the trigger but we'll see. I just ordered a region-free Super Famicom along with Everdrive and SCART cable so my Nintendo fix will be abated
Polioliolio
Member
Thanks!
Wonder if that has to do with equalizer a or other audio processing in the television.
Well, hope it's not a problem!
Wonder if that has to do with equalizer a or other audio processing in the television.
Well, hope it's not a problem!
sixteen-bit
Member
Folks were inquiring about 1080p
NOLA_Gaffer
Banned
I like that it outputs S-Video and Composite--I wish the AVS did that.
Edit: I do love that the product page is seemingly mocking the NES Classic Mini.
Analogue...the market for your Nt Mini and the Classic Mini don't exactly cross over.
It does indeed look pretty awesome. Have people's reactions to the prior release been generally positive? It offering HDMI and RGB is definitely attractive to me.
Holy crap! That looks amazing
Fuck me, it ain't cheap.
Polioliolio
Member
Wow awesome!
But utterly out of my price range.
For 185 I was splurging against responsibility for the AVS as is.
Well, this NT Mini came out of nowhere. $450 for RGB, Component, S-Video, 1080p HDMI, pretty much every feature one could want in a nice package... that's actually really nice. Much better value than the original NT. I would have reconsidered my Hi Def NES purchase had I known about this sooner!
It's not. The page looks very similar to the original Analogue NT page which was up about a year before the NES Classic Mini was announced.
It's not. The page looks very similar to the original Analogue NT page which was up about a year before the NES Classic Mini was announced.
If this was $350 it would had been an amazing deal!!!
DarkConfidant
Member
I think NOLA meant in its language when it says:
It almost seems like they saw that Nintendo was making something that may draw attention away, so they felt like saying that they upped the ante with their own mini system.
Calling out the 30 games number, and calling the Classic Mini a "toy" is mocking, definitely.
Oh gotcha, thought he meant mocking through mimicry!
DarkConfidant
Member
Yeah, it was pretty funny, though I disagree with NOLA.
The hi end and lo end NES products still compete, simply because any buyer of either probably needs only one of the 2 to be satisfied.
Obviously the most hardcore enthusiasts won't want the mini, and will only buy the analogue (or even an AVS).
However, everyone else will still look at those, and see a simpler, cheaper option, that still outputs in HD, and also comes with the games they would have had to hunt down.
I'm a retro gaming enthusiast to some degree (I own a PVM, and have all my old consoles, except for NES, hooked up at all times via RGB, if that counts for anything). However, if I did get an Analogue (which I'd love to do so, since I love great product design) or AVS, I would probably only play the same games that come with the Classic Mini by Nintendo.
The only difference for me would be that I'd gain the option for scanlines (which is a plus), and the ability to import some Famicom gems (if there are any) that I never got to try.
dcx4610
Member
I like the design of the AVS and like supporting Brian/RetroUSB. $185 is a nice price point for what it does.
The NES is my favorite system of all time but you really have to put into perspective on how much you are actually going to play it. I'll play it from time to time but nothing to justify the price of the Analogue NT. Even at $185 it felt a little expensive but to have a nice looking system connected to HDMI on my TV to get my NES fix, it more than does the job.
The NES is my favorite system of all time but you really have to put into perspective on how much you are actually going to play it. I'll play it from time to time but nothing to justify the price of the Analogue NT. Even at $185 it felt a little expensive but to have a nice looking system connected to HDMI on my TV to get my NES fix, it more than does the job.
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