NES on an LCD HDTV, ouch!!!

[the.importer]

My NES 2 is connected with an RF switch on my LCD TV and looks like shit.

Vertical lines are everywhere, I see ghosting of stuff that I wouldn't see on a CRT, the text is very fuzzy and it looks like shit overall. Thinking that it might be an RF thing, I asked my friend to bring over his NES Front Loader so that I may compare RF with Composite. Believe it or not, by trying to improve the resolution, the Composite cables made the resolution worst.

So now I'm left to wonder where can I go from here?

Do I:
-Stick with emulation even if I spent like $150 for all 6 Famicom Rockman game >_> ?
-Do I try one of these recent Famiclones which might solve these HDTV issues since they were made this millennium (my TV is a Samsung 32" LCD BTW) ?
-Or do I simply take it up the ass and endure this resolution?


EDIT: I have no room for anything else including a small CRT!!!!

[QuickSciFi]

Why not just get a separate CRT unit for retro games instead? It can still be compact enough to fit in your gaming room, yet sly enough to pull-off a cool looking retro TV stand with all your retro game consoles on the side of your HDTV.

[the.importer]

Why not just get a separate CRT unit for retro games instead? It can still be compact enough to fit in your gaming room, yet sly enough to pull-off a cool looking retro TV stand with all your retro game consoles on the side of your HDTV.

No more room, seriously.

[QuickSciFi]

^I feel ya'. What about one of the newer handheld famiclones?

[edit] If you still don't like the res, at least you'd have a decent handheld on which to play your NES games.

[the.importer]

^I feel ya'. What about one of the newer handheld famiclones?

I try to avoid handhelds as much as possible since I have DS games for that. I got a GameCube with GB Player just to play GB, GBC and GBA games on my TV (I play my NGC games on my Wii with Component Cables).

[Da_Shocker]

Get an old ass GXTV 13 incher great sound system.

[QuickSciFi]

I know what you mean. I was going to get a GC just to play my GBA games on a big screen. Let us know what you come up with.

P.S.> Don't settle for a shitty resolution, though.

[retrospiel]

So now I'm left to wonder where can I go from here?

Get a Dreamcast with VGA adapter and burn yourself a copy of ROM linking that's not allowed.

[Ace]

I once tried using a RetroDuo Famiclone on a big Sony Bravia 50" LCD TV, and, I don't know if my eyes were playing tricks on me, but the video actually looked REALLY good on that TV. You could probably try to pick up a cheap, accurate Famiclone if you can't stand the NES' bad video quality on your TV.

[nathanallan]

There's a scan rate issue, I've tried to hook up several older consoles to newer large LCDs and TFTs. Adjust the rates of the TV set, they'll need some serious tweaking to make it look right. Hope you saved your user manual, you'll need it.

I second the motion of getting a smaller TV that's CRT. Much less headache (cause you have to set it all back to use it for anything else).

[the.importer]

I once tried using a RetroDuo Famiclone on a big Sony Bravia 50" LCD TV, and, I don't know if my eyes were playing tricks on me, but the video actually looked REALLY good on that TV. You could probably try to pick up a cheap, accurate Famiclone if you can't stand the NES' bad video quality on your TV.

And what kind of output did you use, Composite or S-Video?

There's a scan rate issue, I've tried to hook up several older consoles to newer large LCDs and TFTs. Adjust the rates of the TV set, they'll need some serious tweaking to make it look right. Hope you saved your user manual, you'll need it.

I second the motion of getting a smaller TV that's CRT. Much less headache (cause you have to set it all back to use it for anything else).

I fiddled with all of the options of my Samsung, nothing seems to work and the NES is the only one that looks this shitty.

-My Wii (which acts as my GameCube as well) is connected via Components, no problem there
-My PS3 has HDMI, no problem there
-My Dreamcast is hooked via the VGA of my TV, no problem there
-My PS2 slim is hooked via S-Video on a switch box, no problem there
-My GameCube for GBA player is hooked via S-Video on a switch box, no problem there
-My N64 is hooked via S-Video on a switch box, looks a bit dated, but still very acceptable
-My Super Famicom is hooked via S-Video on a switch box, looks better than the N64, so no problem there
-My Genesis his hooked via Composite on the side of my TV, doesn't look as perfect as my Super Famicom, but it's OK, few graphics glitches now and there

[Ace]

I used Composite. Both the NES and Super NES sides looked good, but stretched, since the TV's set up to make the image fill the entire screen.

The only thing is that the RetroDuo has really dirty video output that's LOADED with interference. It's not the line noise problem that the Top-Loader NES suffers from, but while playing NES games, there's a series of diagonal bars that scrolls from left to right via Composite, and in S-Video, it's like playing an NES through a faulty RF box. The Super NES side isn't any better; its S-Video is very dark and you can clearly see 2 strips of static that scroll from top to bottom on both Composite and S-Video).

I just remembered that I also used an FC Twin on that exact same TV. Looked just as good, but with slightly more saturated colors(the RetroDuo's video output is quite washed out in comparison to the FC Twin) and no interference(Composite only - you need to modify the FC Twin to use S-Video, and even then, there wouldn't be any NES S-Video).

EDIT: Another word of note on the RetroDuo: the sound on the NES side is absolute GARBAGE unless you solder some extra components. Without them, the sound will strain like crazy, sometimes to the point where the only thing you'll hear is the Triangle wave sound channel mixed in with a bunch of garbled, staticky sounds. The FC Twin doesn't suffer from this problem.

[tomaitheous]

Your LCD doesn't have "game" mode? But yeah, LCD's are a gamble when it comes to old console systems. You never know which LCD has which kind of conversion algorithms. My advice would have been to take your NES to the store (best buy, whatever) and try it out on such LCD sets. You might think this is crazy, but I know of people that have done just this. But you've already purchase the set, so the advice is moot.

[the.importer]

Your LCD doesn't have "game" mode? But yeah, LCD's are a gamble when it comes to old console systems. You never know which LCD has which kind of conversion algorithms. My advice would have been to take your NES to the store (best buy, whatever) and try it out on such LCD sets. You might think this is crazy, but I know of people that have done just this. But you've already purchase the set, so the advice is moot.

Yes, Game Mode is activate, but this feature was never meant to remove garbage from the screen. I'll keep your idea in mind the next time I go TV shopping.

[retrospiel]

-My Dreamcast is hooked via the VGA of my TV, no problem there

in that case:

burn yourself a copy of ROM Linking that's not allowed