Dithering on the Genesis/Mega Drive with Composite Video

Hey guys -

I really love RGB, and I think the Genesis/Mega Drive is among the best in terms of native RGB output. However, I do feel that the recent years of promoting RGB via PVMs and upscalers has cast a bit of a shadow over the use of dithering on the system - something that I feel was done quite well by the artists of the time.

No matter what your choice - RGB, component, S-video, composite video, or RF - I hope you guys are enjoying your Genesis/Mega Drive games!

For those of you interested in dithering - I tried to give it a bit of a promotion or at least help propagate acknowledgement with this video. I hope you enjoy it.

https://youtu.be/x0weL5XDpPs

I use rgb and at times I do miss composite. I just can’t give up that color. If I were able to get the quality of composite you displayed in your emulator example on real hardware without the rainbow banding I would go for it hah. The phosphor glow and scanlines I think further enhance the image in terms of detail and color depth. Currently without a crt we only can achieve scanlines with upscalers.

Please make more videos!

I can't play the Genesis in anything other than composite. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I don't like how the first seconds are "you should use". Would have been better to say you may want to use.
Not all games (very few IMO) where made with composite in mind. For some very few parts of some games like the sonic exemples don't justify the blurry smearing (not to mention genesis composite quality is known to be very poor)
Grid/ordered dithering was always a part of graphic design and creation. Dithering is not dirty. Ecco and Ecco 2 probably feature the most dithered graphics on the plateform, but I would never want to lose all the details.

Vertical dithering patern was made for composite bluring, but very few are completely made with this kind of dithering, and many of them are from western devs. And even then the gain in detail and clarity far outweights the blending effect.

The one game I can get behind playing in composite is Vectorman, it's downright ugly in higher quality signals, but with all the blending it get good to amazing (the underwater level is incredible).

Oh and as for the classic "like the devs intended" argument, please say "as SOME devs intended" cause some devs intended dithering (and scanlines too)
https://i.imgur.com/Zybyscwl.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Oc3ITQdl.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Q5qpApQl.jpg

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Originally Posted by ironnick23

I use rgb and at times I do miss composite. I just can’t give up that color. If I were able to get the quality of composite you displayed in your emulator example on real hardware without the rainbow banding I would go for it hah. The phosphor glow and scanlines I think further enhance the image in terms of detail and color depth. Currently without a crt we only can achieve scanlines with upscalers.

Please make more videos!

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That's awesome. I really float around in terms of display for gaming - RGB, composite, even RF on an 80s TV. I agree about phosphor glow and scanline effect. I think there is a lot of aesthetic of using (and simulating) a CRT TV. I hope to see some good solutions for simulating it in the future. Thanks for watching and for your words of encouragement!

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Originally Posted by cowboyscowboys

I can't play the Genesis in anything other than composite. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

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I am glad you shared this, cowboyscowboys. I got the feeling from cruising sega-16 over the years (long before my join date, too) that a lot of guys here feel the same way you do. Honestly, sega-16 was one of my reasons for deciding I wanted to hit the dithering topic because I feel that there are actually a good number of guys here that tip their hat to composite video, and it is somewhat... dismissed by many - especially in the modern era. I feel that it is primarily judged by what it looks like plugged directly into a fixed pixel display - a display it was not designed to use. That is similar to asking someone to make an apple pie after handing them oranges. (... if that analogy made any sense... Ha!)

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Originally Posted by Ryoandr

I don't like how the first seconds are "you should use". Would have been better to say you may want to use.
Not all games (very few IMO) where made with composite in mind. For some very few parts of some games like the sonic exemples don't justify the blurry smearing (not to mention genesis composite quality is known to be very poor)
Grid/ordered dithering was always a part of graphic design and creation. Dithering is not dirty. Ecco and Ecco 2 probably feature the most dithered graphics on the plateform, but I would never want to lose all the details.

Vertical dithering patern was made for composite bluring, but very few are completely made with this kind of dithering, and many of them are from western devs. And even then the gain in detail and clarity far outweights the blending effect.

The one game I can get behind playing in composite is Vectorman, it's downright ugly in higher quality signals, but with all the blending it get good to amazing (the underwater level is incredible).

Oh and as for the classic "like the devs intended" argument, please say "as SOME devs intended" cause some devs intended dithering (and scanlines too)

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Hey Ryoandr.

I am sorry. I certainly didn't mean for it to sound like I was wanting to point people in a single direction - far from it. My intention was to merely make sure that the door leading to composite video existed and is unlocked - awaiting those that seek it intentionally. I feel that the video signal is dismissed these days, and I just wanted to make sure that it got a little tip of the cap.

The "you should use" line wasn't meant literally as a declaration from me - It was meant more as an "earcatch" or hook for the start of the video to help generate interest and discussion.

It was tough to choose which games to hit. I knew I wanted to touch on Sonic because of the waterfall and Earthworm Jim because it has been cited on the subject in the past. I was playing Shinobi III recently and included it because I saw some really great examples (throughout the entire game). Now that you mentioned Vectorman, I want to mess with that one a bit!

I personally don't like the "devs intended" argument (be it "the devs" or "some devs") because I feel that while a statement or assumption on what developers intended might appear to lead credence to one side of an argument over how something should be displayed, what signal is used and what display is used is ultimately 100% up to the individual gamer and not meant to be a consensus reached by the masses.

My take for any video I make will always be for an individual to discover what he or she likes the most and then game on!

It's not that composite is never worth using for more complete dithering effects, it's that the Genesis in particular has poor composite quality and excellent RGB quality. Only a few games on the system benefit enough from full dithering effects via composite to make it more appealing than RGB.

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Originally Posted by Ryoandr

Not all games (very few IMO) where made with composite in mind.

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What are you talking about. When these games were developed, 99% of TVs in Japan and the US had composite, and no one cared about Europe except for European developers.

all you need to do is put sharpness down on your tv screen with rgb if you don't like the sharpness of the graphics. I can't stand anything else than rgb though.

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Originally Posted by Blades

What are you talking about. When these games were developed, 99% of TVs in Japan and the US had composite, and no one cared about Europe except for European developers.

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Did you open the full images of the TF4 manual I posted ? If they intended composite use, they would have put photos from a composite setup and you would not see the dithering.

It's obvious some devs did their work purely on an RGB setup and then let the console and its owner do whatever for the signal (most probably those with an arcade background), while others went for the most common cable and tinkered with it.

I found acceptable solution to deal with genesis dithering on PC emulators, the best way is to use either ntsc shader usually the one that mimics s-video or for games like Jurassic Park or a Sega CD fmv game use a composite ntsc. Also faint scanlines can help also.

Note this advice is for somthing like retroarch, if kega fusion is use, then download the video plugins and try them out and never use xbrz or hq2x, because those make games look like bad paint smudges.

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Originally Posted by cowboyscowboys

I can't play the Genesis in anything other than composite. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

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+1

Composite was highest native option for the US market back in the day edit: for the Genesis. I am use to it but has to be on a CRT.
Don't know what I'm going to do when the CRT dies?

Anyone who thinks RCA leads are better than RGB Scart really haven't played a Mega Drive in RGB. The MD RGB output is one of the best out of any consoles and totally and utterly kills the crap display from the basic RCA leads. The only time it hurts the MD is when playing the Mega CD full motion games with real footage (not cartoon) the picture is so pin sharp it really shows up the limited FMV display and the grain.

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

Anyone who thinks RCA leads are better than RGB Scart really haven't played a Mega Drive in RGB. The MD RGB output is one of the best out of any consoles and totally and utterly kills the crap display from the basic RCA leads. The only time it hurts the MD is when playing the Mega CD full motion games with real footage (not cartoon) the picture is so pin sharp it really shows up the limited FMV display and the grain.

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Clearly you just don't "get it" because I completely disagree.

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Originally Posted by cowboyscowboys

Clearly you just don't "get it" because I completely disagree.

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Have you actually played an MD in RGB? (i don't mean that as a insult) . It's by far and away the best option for the best picture quality. The RBG output of the Model 1 Mega Drive is staggering and makes up for any issues over dithering. TBH dithering looks pretty rubbish even on RCA leads or Scart, much like for the Sega Saturn.

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Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

Have you actually played an MD in RGB? (i don't mean that as a insult) . It's by far and away the best option for the best picture quality. The RBG output of the Model 1 Mega Drive is staggering and makes up for any issues over dithering. TBH dithering looks pretty rubbish even on RCA leads or Scart, much like for the Sega Saturn.

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Yes I have and I consider every Genesis game worse looking in RGB and some flat out ugly. Some people want a sharp crystal clear image. Others like myself prefer a softer image with smoother gradients and proper looking effects. I don't want to see dithering, mesh instead of transperincies etc.

Saturn I play using composite as well... No checkerboard transparency complaints coming from me :) because I don't see the checkerboards.

I can appreciate the dithering effects, but I definitely prefer s-video or rgb over composite.

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Originally Posted by Blades

What are you talking about. When these games were developed, 99% of TVs in Japan and the US had composite, and no one cared about Europe except for European developers.

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Well, when you look at old pictures of Sega developers' offices from Japan, they often have RGB monitors on their desks next to the computers. And the XMD was a thing.

The originals mega drive models sucks in composite output..
also you got alot of other problems on the pack.. like jail bars, rainbow branding, weak colors, one of worst image quality on retro games consoles...
Some game are of course dither oriented (developed in USA) but the majority of games will take advantage playing it over RGB.
So.. someone recommend composite output to be "the right way to go" is hard to me accept

But if you really want play it on composite run for 32x to have at least some quality playing it.

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Originally Posted by Gryson

Well, when you look at old pictures of Sega developers' offices from Japan, they often have RGB monitors on their desks next to the computers. And the XMD was a thing.

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And next to those monitors they had Sony Trinitrons hooked up through...composite.

Obviously artists won’t draw in composite, but composite was the reality they were developing for.

Here is my opinion. Prior to Sonic, Altered Beast was the pack-in game that came with the console. I do not notice any dithering or transparency effects being used- rather it was meant to showcase the power of a home console having the ability to play arcade games.I think transparency effects such as in Sega’s newer showcase packin Sonic serves a different purpose. They not only showed the power of the console in terms of speed but was meant with such effects to be a way to have the Sega look it’s best on not just high quality monitors but common home TV sets. Dithering is a technique to blend and create new colors that not just occurs on composite, but when you are a certain viewing distance from the said dither. The impressionist movement relys on this optical trick, and paintings are not composite or rgb lol. We had vhs and most of the time rf was used, and rca if you were tech savvy enough to know the difference. The issues we have today with rf and rca were not as prominent on crt’s and console with new capacitors. I do remember sometimes having to wiggle the rf cable or getting interference on cheap TVs.

Everyone playing Sega using emulators are typically a foot away from their led screens and see the pixels in much more detail than say the max distance a controller cable allows. When I use extension cables effectively doubling the distance from my plasma it tends to allow the colors to blend due to the simple fact I am further from the screen despite it being rgb.

Fourth generation consoles varied in price. If you could afford a neo geo you probably also could afford a stellar television. Snes was more expensive than the Genesis, and it makes sense to me that they would consciously make the Sega to work on a wide range of budget TVs. I may have exaggerated this point but prior to Sega I had a nes. I didn’t at such a young age have the choice between snes or genesis, but I presume my parents thought it was cooler and different compared to just another s”nes” with the same games with more colors. Who knows. I think they made the better choice.


I’m completely speculating on the whole thing. But growing up rf, and as a teenage using composite, now as an adult I get rgb and stereo on my near lifelong console.. I get to play all my old games with new life to them! One day when I get the room I’ll get a professional monitor and maybe switch to composite for Sonics sake. But for me there’s nothing game breaking either way. I may prefer rgb today, but in the grand scheme of things the total hours combined 90% of my gaming has been done on composite.

If you need to play your games a foot away from the tv, use composite. If you have the luxury of sitting 6+ feet away from the screen, rgb your heart out.

P.s. I dislike s-video. Give me detailed vibrant colors, or give me blending and transparencies. S-video on Sega is for the lazy and/or the cheap.

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Originally Posted by ironnick23

Here is my opinion. Prior to Sonic, Altered Beast was the pack-in game that came with the console. I do not notice any dithering or transparency effects being used- rather it was meant to showcase the power of a home console having the ability to play arcade games.I think transparency effects such as in Sega’s newer showcase packin Sonic serves a different purpose. They not only showed the power of the console in terms of speed but was meant with such effects to be a way to have the Sega look it’s best on not just high quality monitors but common home TV sets. Dithering is a technique to blend and create new colors that not just occurs on composite, but when you are a certain viewing distance from the said dither. The impressionist movement relys on this optical trick, and paintings are not composite or rgb lol. We had vhs and most of the time rf was used, and rca if you were tech savvy enough to know the difference. The issues we have today with rf and rca were not as prominent on crt’s and console with new capacitors. I do remember sometimes having to wiggle the rf cable or getting interference on cheap TVs.

Everyone playing Sega using emulators are typically a foot away from their led screens and see the pixels in much more detail than say the max distance a controller cable allows. When I use extension cables effectively doubling the distance from my plasma it tends to allow the colors to blend due to the simple fact I am further from the screen despite it being rgb.

Fourth generation consoles varied in price. If you could afford a neo geo you probably also could afford a stellar television. Snes was more expensive than the Genesis, and it makes sense to me that they would consciously make the Sega to work on a wide range of budget TVs. I may have exaggerated this point but prior to Sega I had a nes. I didn’t at such a young age have the choice between snes or genesis, but I presume my parents thought it was cooler and different compared to just another s”nes” with the same games with more colors. Who knows. I think they made the better choice.


I’m completely speculating on the whole thing. But growing up rf, and as a teenage using composite, now as an adult I get rgb and stereo on my near lifelong console.. I get to play all my old games with new life to them! One day when I get the room I’ll get a professional monitor and maybe switch to composite for Sonics sake. But for me there’s nothing game breaking either way. I may prefer rgb today, but in the grand scheme of things the total hours combined 90% of my gaming has been done on composite.

If you need to play your games a foot away from the tv, use composite. If you have the luxury of sitting 6+ feet away from the screen, rgb your heart out.

P.s. I dislike s-video. Give me detailed vibrant colors, or give me blending and transparencies. S-video on Sega is for the lazy and/or the cheap.

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Altered Beast uses dithering. Turn on the game 1st stage see the checkerboards for clouds which would be smooth gradients over composite. To me that is ugly as hell knowing it doesn't have to look that way and clearly "wasn't intended to look that way" for the home consumer.

Every Genesis games uses dithering.

I am pro choice just wanted to make that clear. If I am coming off as a hater.

Actually.
Just use retropie and gdapt shader.
Tweak some settings and Picture looks like or better than original RGB
But! Things that should be dithered, they are. Things that shouldn't - aren't.
All games look way better than on my md1 through rgb.
Comix Zone, Final Fight CD, Ristar alone looked way better than before.

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Originally Posted by cowboyscowboys

Yes I have and I consider every Genesis game worse looking in RGB and some flat out ugly. Some people want a sharp crystal clear image. Others like myself prefer a softer image with smoother gradients and proper looking effects. I don't want to see dithering, mesh instead of transperincies etc.

Saturn I play using composite as well... No checkerboard transparency complaints coming from me :) because I don't see the checkerboards.

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Why you want to to play any system with its worst output is beyond me, but its your choice and it doesn't matter wherever you play with RCA leads or in Scart the lack of Transparent effects show up in MS and Saturn games.
The only time I even look to use my RCA leads is if I want to play some FMV games like Prize Fighter or Dracula Unleased becase Scart shows the grain up too much.

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Originally Posted by cowboyscowboys

Altered Beast uses dithering. Turn on the game 1st stage see the checkerboards for clouds which would be smooth gradients over composite. To me that is ugly as hell knowing it doesn't have to look that way and clearly "wasn't intended to look that way" for the home consumer.

Every Genesis games uses dithering.

I am pro choice just wanted to make that clear. If I am coming off as a hater.

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I totally missed that! I guess you are right. You mean pro choice as in the best setting is at the players discretion?

I’m a purist in the sense that I play on original hardware. The colors are more vibrate on rgb, no? How could one achieve the blending on composite whilst using rgb? It was suggested to turn sharpness all the way down but I already have and still have a sharp picture.

Another “artifact” or hardware fault if I may call it that is the ringing around things that give letters almost a drop shadow like effect. Rgb allows me to avoid rainbow banding and a bypass removed the jailbars. To remove ringing it’s suggested to use a low-pass filter.

I do not wish to come across as being an annoying perfectionist, as I didn’t even learn of any of this regarding my console until maybe last year . Had I seen op’s video then, I may have not gone through the trouble of going rgb. Would be nice to have a tutorial written up to remove jailbars on composite

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Originally Posted by ironnick23

P.s. I dislike s-video. Give me detailed vibrant colors, or give me blending and transparencies. S-video on Sega is for the lazy and/or the cheap.

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A modern s-video mod looks pretty close to rgb these days. It’s difficilt to tell them apart on my crt because they both look so good. There is an extremely minor change in some of the colors, but I believe it is a very acceptable alternative to spending money on expensive scalers, converters, and cables.

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Originally Posted by beigemore

A modern s-video mod looks pretty close to rgb these days. It’s difficilt to tell them apart on my crt because they both look so good. There is an extremely minor change in some of the colors, but I believe it is a very acceptable alternative to spending money on expensive scalers, converters, and cables.

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Very true, the S-Video output of the Dreamcast was utterly brilliant and not far off RGB

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Originally Posted by cowboyscowboys

Every Genesis games uses dithering.

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Ok but for different purposes too, dither can be used in different aspects..
its common on pixel art uses dither to add details and smother the transition between shades

https://i.imgur.com/mPFCa9m.gif

Once again there's that argument that ordered dithering is made for composite blending, no matter what.
Ordered dithering was always present, as a gradiant, as a palette space saving, as a style, or as any combination of the previous 3 cases.
It exists in arcades or game computers (particulary the japanese ones), despite monitors being RGB only or systems being able to display hundreds or even thousands of colors simultaneously. Arcade Altered Beast also uses dithering in the sky you know.
Distance to screen and perception in motion also have a big role in overall felt image quality.
Ordered dithering over composite produces very bad rainbowing (even worse in motion), that can only be resolved by using much high quality encoders and very fine tuning.

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Originally Posted by ironnick23

P.s. I dislike s-video. Give me detailed vibrant colors, or give me blending and transparencies. S-video on Sega is for the lazy and/or the cheap.

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S-Video is great upgrade and on sega consoles it can give results ranging from great (MD model-1 mod) to excellent (MD model-2 mod, Saturn, Dreamcast). Some video monitors such as the JVCs display some marvelous images with S-Video. It is a perfectly valid middle ground for some regions where RGB input is sparce.

My biased opinion on s-video comes from when I svideo modded my Model 1 originally and discovered the wonder of jailbars. I never gave it a second chance, though it did perceptibly seem more washed out than rgb.

This thread is making me want a new old television terribly

Wait til you all find about woodcut dithering used for pressed artwork back in the 1800s and early 1900s. :D

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Originally Posted by cowboyscowboys

Yes I have and I consider every Genesis game worse looking in RGB and some flat out ugly. Some people want a sharp crystal clear image. Others like myself prefer a softer image with smoother gradients and proper looking effects. I don't want to see dithering, mesh instead of transperincies etc.

Saturn I play using composite as well... No checkerboard transparency complaints coming from me :) because I don't see the checkerboards.

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well I suppose being blind has it's advantages then, although I wouldn't want to swap with you for a million dollars.

Not sure how you did the mod, but I found that the jailbars on s-vid are greately reduced if you run the chroma and luma lines from the encoder as far away from the VDP as you can...

I actually reroute mine now around the voltage regulator and keep the wiring as far from the center of the mainboard as possible.

If you want to see more dithering examples, I've made this post a while back:
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...shader-(GDAPT)

You can use an anti-dithering filter in emulators and get that CRT goodness without compromising quality, I wish there was such function in RGB upscalers.

http://i.imgur.com/rzP6uXE.png

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Originally Posted by CrossBow

Not sure how you did the mod, but I found that the jailbars on s-vid are greately reduced if you run the chroma and luma lines from the encoder as far away from the VDP as you can...

I actually reroute mine now around the voltage regulator and keep the wiring as far from the center of the mainboard as possible.

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That was years ago I couldn’t tell ya. It was excellent practice though :)

I’ve never seen a direct comparison of composite and rgb with a fmv game.

In any cases the best way is to play on real Mega Drive hardware and on CRT screen. In comparison, emulators look fake, have crappy filters and lack that lovely dynamic and glow from a genuine CRT.

Then composite or RGB is just a matter of taste, no need to force the others about your personal preference with such subjects. It's like music or how you season a dish, it's subjective.

Nice video anyway, CkRtech :)