NES PAL color reproduction in le-nestopia

thelostsoul

Hey guys. Today I started reading about the alternative emulators for some of my installed systems. I read the Nestopia is best in accuracy and the Raspberry Pi 3 (non overclocked) is strong enough to play all games at full speed. So I changed to it. If i am wrong here, please let me know.

For my main question, in the Options menu from Retroarch there are two settings which I am interested in: Blargg NTSC filter and palette.

Does it make a difference if the rom itself is ntsc or pal version?

I was using a PAL system and therefore the Blargg NTSC filter would lead to complete wrong colors to me right? But it have a composite setting and I think we did have composite too in PAL Germany. Should I just leave this to default?

And now about the NES color palette. It is known the colors on ntsc tv was different to pal. All those palett settings are for ntsc only, right? Should I stay at default, if I want pal like colors? Pal was superior in color production back then and probably don't need any further setting here. I am a bit confused here.

I am playing on a modern Samsung monitor (several years old) with HDMI output and crt-pi filter at 720p resolution. Actual Retropie with updates, Raspberry Pi 3. Games ar mixed, some ntsc, some are pal.

Here is some of the source I was reading about:

thelostsoul

Ok, what do you think about setting in Nestopia?

Blargg NTSC: composite
Palette: PAL

Still not sure about rom versions, if there is a color difference built in to games. NES system is set to 'auto', as I have different sets like pal and ntsc versions of games in my collection for various reasons.

mitu

@thelostsoul You can have different color palette in the (default) lr-fceumm emulator - https://docs.libretro.com/library/fceumm/#custom-color-palettes and you can also set NTSC palette on/off (https://docs.libretro.com/library/fceumm/#custom-color-palettes).

thelostsoul

So its possible with both emulators. Nestopia is said to be more accurate and less problems with sound production, so I switched to it.

I probably wrote too much again. My main question is, what should I set them to if I want a similiar experience like my old PAL tv? Note, not NTSC, as the produced colors was different. Most in the web are talking about NTSC.

mediamogul

@thelostsoul said in NES PAL color reproduction in le-nestopia:

So its possible with both emulators.

Yes it is. They both even share many, if not all, of the same filters. However, in a few cases, the filters have different names.

Nestopia is said to be more accurate and less problems with sound production

Neither core will run every game, so you'll probably want both if you're looking for maximum coverage. lr-nestopia does seem to handle some of the more finicky unlicensed titles, like 'Action 52' that lr-fceumm won't even launch.

My main question is, what should I set them to if I want a similiar experience like my old PAL tv?

I'm a Statesman myself, so that'll best be answered by someone else.