Switching default NES emulator - Opinions wanted.
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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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