Switching default NES emulator - Opinions wanted.
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You know what I want on the Pi Zero BuZz! (something that runs at 60 FPS non-overclocked...i.e. lr-quicknes).
To the color palettes, do any of you guys have an original NES and a CRT TV to test it on? Colors look decent on all emulators to me - and this is coming from a Graphic Designer who deals with color every single day.
The problem you see online (which is bitched about) in regards to color accuracy is totally flawed. There is NO way to get the same look on a LCD TV that you get on a CRT TV. Even setting up your LCD (with a Pi) and CRT (with an actual NES console) next to each other is a flawed comparison as your exact LCD TV is going to have a different color scheme than somebody elses LCD TV has. Same goes for your exact CRT TV as well (which by this point is at least 20 years old too you have to remember and not in new condition by any means) - that isn't going to look the same on another CRT TV. You can't simply plug in the NES console to both TV types and expect identical colors either (not to mention upscaling issues too). And don't believe the photo comparisons you see online either - it's impossible to get the camera to take the same picture with different lighting conditions due to the amount of light that comes off each TV type...
Even the exact chipset your exact console has can change the color vs. somebody elses console made at a later date with a chip by a different manufacturer, different cables and connection types, the list just grows and grows (even sound - the Sega Genesis systems in the USA for example had like ~4 different audio chipsets with noticeable sound differences). Anyway, I can go on and on and on about the subtle differences in regards to color but I hope you see my point (which to put it simply: if the game looks good to you, it looks good to you, don't worry about 100% exact color matching because there's no standard to match it to so it will NEVER happen ;)
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@Dochartaigh But then again people still try there hardest to get it to look like it "almost" did on CRT's
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I use Nestopia as my default for everything, FCEumm has this weird setting where it tries to cut off the overscan, but it results in some weird effects in certain games.
Play castlevania 1 with FCEumm and see if you can get a high "core" and see the health of the "nemy"... since the left letters are all cut off.
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@Rion said in Switching default NES emulator - Opinions wanted.:
@Dochartaigh But then again people still try there hardest to get it to look like it "almost" did on CRT's
I totally get it! And I don't know if that's your project or what, so I don't mean any disrespect, but that's pretty flawed as well. In the very first sentence he mentions a PVM monitor....who in their right mind as a 6-year old kid (or even a 30-year old kid back in 1986 ;) played on a multi-thousand dollar PVM monitor? Nobody that's who ;) Hell, a tiny --to us American consumers-- 20" PVM is still like $1,000 probably 30+ years later! People always want what they had "back in the day", and that is a JC Penny special TV for most of us!
His PVM monitor is also going to look different than another PVM monitor (unless they were bought at the same exact time, from the same lot, fine-tuned at the factory right next to each other for identical color profiles, then were tested using an identical NES, same cables, on the same revision of the NES cartridge, were serviced by the same place at the same time over the years using parts ordered from the same supplier, at identical times, from the same parts lots, etc. etc. etc.)...again, you see where I'm going. It's GREAT to match close, but just not "identical" because that simply doesn't exist.
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@Dochartaigh said in Switching default NES emulator - Opinions wanted.:
It's GREAT to match close, but just not "identical" because that simply doesn't exist.
This is very true, but then again, expecting 100% accuracy in any area of emulation will usually invite disappointment. Below is a nice reference to see just how much the color palettes can vary from the original hardware. As many people are aware, the Retron 5 is using lr-fceumm (somewhat illegally) with it's default color palette.
In RetroArch, and by extension RetroPie, the color pallets can of course be altered in both lr-fceumm and lr-nestopia. General consensus seems to have "unsaturated-final" for lr-fceumm and "unsaturated-v7" for lr-nestopia being as close to the original NES color palette as currently possible. Both palettes are actually the same, just named differently between the cores for some reason.
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@Dochartaigh I understand completely what you mean. This is not my project but fun reading and to play around with.
Here are some more links to more Palettes to try out. These are already included in the latest nestopia.
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@mediamogul said in Switching default NES emulator - Opinions wanted.:
Below is a nice reference to see just how much the color palettes can vary from the original hardware. As many people are aware, the Retron 5 is using lr-fceumm (somewhat illegally) with it's default color palette.
Again, sorry to say but that's flawed as well. You're viewing those images (on this forum) on your monitor. I'm viewing them on my monitor. Who's seeing how they "really" are with the different monitors, video cards, cable connections, settings on the monitor itself, etc.
Whose definition is used for the "original hardware"? On what exact NES, what Cartridge, what connection method, what CRT TV, what image capture device or what camera was used to compare the original to these other NES systems/emulators? What was the lighting in that room if the naked eye alone is being the judge of the correct "original hardware" color of an original NES???
Also, how were those screenshots obtained? Via camera? If so what's the lighting in that room? Incandescents or fluorescent lighting, natural lighting? Mixed lighting between all those...? Color balanced with a 18% gray card? What brand card? What sensor does the camera use, what lens?
Or were those screenshots taken with an in-device screen-capturing program, or an in-line capture device? If so, what color space does it use? RGB, sRGB, Adobe RGB, Wide Gamut RGB? Were the images saved as JPGs or PNGs? What program did you convert those 3 images into 1 image for the comparison? What color space did that use? What saving algorithm did they use? What online service did you post them to (those jack up color with their image compression as well!). Again...see what I'm getting at? "Kinda-close approximation" is the best we can get...
P.S. welcome to my color correction hell lol. I just finished a huge project with about 5K worth of just the color proofs to get it absolutely perfect... (well, technically, it was almost, not-quite, kinda but not really 'perfect' ;)
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Again...see what I'm getting at? "Kinda-close approximation" is the best we can get.
I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's what everyone else here is saying as well. Having these palette options to approximate a real NES will get you incredibly close, but nothing is ever going to be one hundred percent accurate in all situations. Expecting that level of accuracy in any area of emulation is unrealistic to begin with. However, these palette approximations are more than accurate enough for most people and few would disagree that a close approximation is better than nothing at all.
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interestingly i have been playing with shaders and i noticed that lr-fceumm drops frames at 1080p + crt-pi shader (the retroarch FPS reads 60.x but you can tell if you watch the clouds in super mario bros whilst running)
...unless i use FAKE_GAMMA on the shader.
if i switch the lr-nestopia it runs great. so on that basis my vote is for nestopia as the default for pi2 + 3. it leaves enough system headroom for shaders, as well as vanilla.
also @mediamogul i updated nestopia and i couldn't find the 'unsaturated-v7' palette? here's the ones available in latest, if anyone has any recommendations:
consumer
canonical
alternative
rgb
cxa2025as
pal
composite-direct-fbx
pvm-style-fbx
original-hardware-fbx
nes-classic-fbx-fs
raw
custom
see https://github.com/rdanbrook/nestopia/blob/master/libretro/libretro.cpp#L678 -
@dankcushions said in Switching default NES emulator - Opinions wanted.:
also @mediamogul i updated nestopia and i couldn't find the 'unsaturated-v7' palette? here's the ones available in latest, if anyone has any recommendations:
consumer
canonical
alternative
rgb
cxa2025as
pal
composite-direct-fbx
pvm-style-fbx
original-hardware-fbx
nes-classic-fbx-fs
raw
custom
see https://github.com/rdanbrook/nestopia/blob/master/libretro/libretro.cpp#L678apparently cxa2025as is the latest version of the unsaturated palette - https://github.com/rdanbrook/nestopia/issues/214#issuecomment-271077891
seems fine. i never played much original nes so i defer to everyone else here :)
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@dankcushions said in Switching default NES emulator - Opinions wanted.:
apparently cxa2025as is the latest version of the unsaturated palette
Thanks for the heads up.
i never played much original nes
What was your particular childhood poison?
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@mediamogul said in Switching default NES emulator - Opinions wanted.:
@dankcushions said in Switching default NES emulator - Opinions wanted.:
i never played much original nes
What was your particular childhood poison?
the original nes never seemed that popular here (uk). i think it was released quite late or something. my parents had a BBC micro which had a load of nes/arcade clones, and then i had a megadrive :) it's cool playing all these classics i missed on the nes etc.
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@dankcushions The Nes was hugely popular in Sweden when i grew up. There was one main importer Bergsala AB that actually did go to Japan and requested to be one of the first countries in Scandinavia to import it.
Been written a book about it and all.
Then there was of course the Master System but it was not as popular as the Nes.
C64 & Amiga had a big scene to.
Funny Trivia
Bergsala AB is located at Marios Gata 21 (Mario's Street 21), named after the famous Nintendo character Mario.
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One more fun-fact/curiosity about NES in several contries.
Here in Brazil we had a bunch of NES clones. We don't know why, but looks like Nintendo turned a blind eye about it...
I had the most popular one, named Phantom System, from the Gradiente company. The curious thing about it is that the original Grandiente's plan was to release a Atari 7800 clone, but changed the plans due to the NES popularity. And they didn't change the design, the console looks like an Atari 7800. Also, due to the Mega Drive popularity, they used the Mega Drive joystick design. Here is the result:
(Looking at this picture almost makes a tear trickle from my eyes.)
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the original nes never seemed that popular here (uk).
I've heard that was the case in many areas of the world. Nintendomania existed at such a fever pitch here in America that it can be somewhat hard to imagine. Here it was so ubiquitous that adults would use the name "Nintendo" to make reference to any video game, much the same way "Atari" was used just a few years earlier.
Then there was of course the Master System but it was not as popular as the Nes.
That's how it was here, but in some areas it was king. Walking through the video game aisle at my local Toys R Us, the Sega Master system section always comprised just a little under half of the space. However, I never knew one kid at my school who had one, which always baffled me. I've only become familiar with the SMS library in the past ten years and I was initially surprised to discover just how great a system it really was. Out of the 973 home console ports of 'Double Dragon', it's easily the best and 'Ghostbusters' not only trounces it's NES counterpart, but also makes quite a few improvements over the David Crane original for the Commodore 64.
Here in Brazil we had a bunch of NES clones... I had the most popular one, named Phantom System, from the Gradiente company. The curious thing about it is that the original Grandiente's plan was to release a Atari 7800 clone, but changed the plans due to the NES popularity. And they didn't change the design, the console looks like an Atari 7800. Also, due to the Mega Drive popularity, they used the Mega Drive joystick design. Here is the result:
That's too cool! The build quality looks surprisingly good for being a clone system from that time. I love how the company adjusted it's course with the wind. The 7800 was set to be an amazing system in 1983. It's too bad the video game crash caused it to be mothballed until 1986 where it was then too easily outclassed by the NES and SMS.
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I'd like to put a vote in for Nestopia being the default for pi 2/3. The sound emulation is perfect in Nestopia, and it doesn't have FCeumm's cropping issues. I have seen some posts that are supposed to correct the cropping problem with FCeumm, but they've never worked on my pi.
My only Nestopia issue is that it will not load the game Gradius II for some reason. That's the only thing keeping me using FCeumm at all. But there are still more games I've had trouble with on FCeumm, so Nestopia still gets the nod.
As for palettes, nearly everyone played their NES on an NTSC television (given that Japan and the US were where it sold best), which means that basically no one's color was the same. I think a good selection of palettes is more important than worrying over the default (which seems fine).
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@Lyle_JP I just tested Gradius II in lr-nestopia and it runs great. You might want to try a different ROM. The one I'm refering to has an md5sum of >6dd42d8da20a20aa0760745bc9207f3f<
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@Lyle_JP Uninstall fceumm, then reinstall it. The option to crop is in the retroarch settings now. Works fine here. I still prefer fceumm for the reasons I already posted.
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@BuZz said in Switching default NES emulator - Opinions wanted.:
Some people have requested the default nes emulator is also switched to lr-nestopia from lr-fceumm (eg on rpi2/rpi3) so interested in hearing arguments for or against that too.
I defeated Snake Man without taking damage in Mega Man 3 playing with Nestopia and the achievement didn't work (damn't!).
And then I tryied to get some cheevos for Castlevania and it didn't work. Changed to FCEUmm and everything is fine (but couldn't defeat Snake Man without taking damage again...) :(Not sure if it's enough to make you decide, but it's worth to mention.
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