NES on an LCD HDTV, ouch!!!

[17daysolderthannes]

how can you people not have space for a 20" or even a 13" CRT TV? What kind of refrigerator boxes are you living in? You'll spend 20X as much trying to get HD cables/upconverters/rebuying your collection/getting a dedicated emulation computer/etc. as you would spend on a simple CRT TV to do it right. This is why I really want to build my arcade shaped entertainment center, that way, I'll always have a CRT TV hanging around to play pre-Dreamcast games properly.

As another solution, and this might not be everyone's cup of tea, you could get a portable DVD player. Surprisingly, retro games look fucking NICE on those screens. N64 almost looks like it isn't made of vaseline.

And here's an idea, how about Nintendo make cartridge converters that plug into the Wii that let you play the old games right on the Wii and upconvert it that way? Oh wait, stupid me, they are money grubbing douchebags that could give a fuck about what their customers would appreciate. My bad. Thanks for all of that support for those of us that bought all of those systems over the years and can't play them properly on modern TVs and could be fixed with some Wii backwards compatibility, thanks alot Nintendo, glad you appreciate all that money I've thrown your way, most of which you didn't deserve. [/bitter hate speech toward Nintendo for being greedy assholes]

[kool kitty89]

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

What about a small LCD? One specifically meant for SD stuff (480i), or would even a 15" LCD take up too much space? (our phillips looks fine for old game systems, as I mentioned)

You may also want to try making changes to the settings on your HD set, turn off filters and lower the sharpness maybe play around with contrast and color intensity as well.

And here's an idea, how about Nintendo make cartridge converters that plug into the Wii that let you play the old games right on the Wii and upconvert it that way? Oh wait, stupid me, they are money grubbing douchebags that could give a fuck about what their customers would appreciate. My bad. Thanks for all of that support for those of us that bought all of those systems over the years and can't play them properly on modern TVs and could be fixed with some Wii backwards compatibility, thanks alot Nintendo, glad you appreciate all that money I've thrown your way, most of which you didn't deserve. [/bitter hate speech toward Nintendo for being greedy assholes]

If they ever did I'd bet it would be Japan only. I seem to remember such a thing being released for the GBA, but maybe that was 3rd party. I thik it was called the time machine.

[17daysolderthannes]

If they ever did I'd bet it would be Japan only. I seem to remember such a thing being released for the GBA, but maybe that was 3rd party. I thik it was called the time machine.

VERY 3rd party, possibly illegal. IIRC it was a chinese product. I didn't really see the point though, I'm pretty sure modded PSPs were out and about by the time that thing came out, and I'd take 1000 ROMs over 1 cartridge or 1 ridiculous multi-cart with hacked to death pirated games, and it's just an NOAC working with the GBA screen anyway. And because I'm realizing just how much more I hate Nintendo, I feel the need to mention it took Nintendo about 10 years to FINALLY catch up with the Game Gear with the GBA SP. Took ya that long to get color, backlight, and decent graphics Nintendo? awesome.

[kool kitty89]

And because I'm realizing just how much more I hate Nintendo, I feel the need to mention it took Nintendo about 10 years to FINALLY catch up with the Game Gear with the GBA SP. Took ya that long to get color, backlight, and decent graphics Nintendo? awesome.

I'm kind of surprised that Sega never released a cost reduced unlit version of the GG actually. (more compact, cheaper, much less of a battery hog) I mean, even with its life cut short by SoJ's focusing on the Saturn, I think by 1994 they could have done that at least... (hell even Atari had the lynx II, granted they needed that even more and it was still bulkier than the GG)

The battery life would probably the major point, except that that shouldn't hold true for a sidelit mechanism, LED or not. (even back in the early 90s that should have been feasible, like older digital watches, rather limited yes, but better than noting, and maintaing low cost plus the reflective screen that works great in direct sunlight) A togglable true backlit screen looks very poor with the light off (no reflective surface), the Gameboy light was lame (not the kind of watch light I'm taliking about), and even with the light on they look like crap in direct sunlight.

[the.importer]

I'm kind of surprised that Sega never released a cost reduced unlit version of the GG actually. (more compact, cheaper, much less of a battery hog) I mean, even with its life cut short by SoJ's focusing on the Saturn, I think by 1994 they could have done that at least... (hell even Atari had the lynx II, granted they needed that even more and it was still bulkier than the GG)

The battery life would probably the major point, except that that shouldn't hold true for a sidelit mechanism, LED or not. (even back in the early 90s that should have been feasible, like older digital watches, rather limited yes, but better than noting, and maintaing low cost plus the reflective screen that works great in direct sunlight) A togglable true backlit screen looks very poor with the light off (no reflective surface), the Gameboy light was lame (not the kind of watch light I'm taliking about), and even with the light on they look like crap in direct sunlight.

The GameGear got ass-raped so much by the GameBoy that it wasn't worth it anymore. Also, from what I recall, SEGA wanted to release the Nomad much sooner than 1995 in order to replace the GameGear but that system came out too late for most people to care.

[kool kitty89]

The Nomad was a bad move, at least from a buisness standpoint. It was just an expensive addition for current Genesis users, more or less, not increasing Genesis software popularity or such, and not offering its own games. That and it was an even less practical handheld than the GG, bulkier, more power hungry, and with bulky genesis cartridges. Game sales is where the money is, sell the hardware cheap, possibly at a loss, and profit from software sales. That's where the 3DO missed it.

Perhaps the Game Gear did need a successor, or maybe just compete more directly with the GB in cost, size/convienence, and battery life.

A good successor would need to correct the size, cost, and battery life issues with the original GG, and preferably be Backwards compatible. Perhaps a modest upgrade, closer to the Genesis in some aspects, but still simple enough to be cost/size/power efficient. (like upgrade the VDP to capabilities closer to the Genesis, but maybe just using a faster Z80 rather than adding a 68000, plus a sound upgrade, maybe the YM2413 of the JP SMS, or the YM2612 of the Genesis, and add more buttons)

This is off topic though, and deserves its own thread if continued.

[the.importer]

Found a solution to my problems BTW, or more likely my friend has.

Before buying all of this stuff, I was using emulation on a Media PC that I've built. I still use this media PC for watching movies, Anime, listening to music, etc... but no longer for emulation.

My friend told me that in theory, I should be able to get a filtered pictured by passing my consoles via my Media PC with an input card.

I didn't have one on my Media PC, but my desktop PC does have an old Nvida card with Composite and S-Video In and Out. I plugged my Desktop PC on my LCD TV, plugged his NES Front Loader (for composite out) on the video card, opened Media Player Classic and voilà !!!!

NES games with no shit on the screen and bonus filtering, reminds me of emulation. Best part is that my input card is garbage and Media Player Classic is not the best thing to run inputs, so whatever I'll buy in a store for input will be better.

I just need to see if I can find a card with multiple input such as a couple of S-Video/Composite-in and Cable-in for all of my systems minus Wii and PS3.

[kgenthe]

Weird solution, glad you got it figured out.

I'm with everyone else, buy a small cheap CRT I use a 19" for all my composite systems and a 26" for my s-video systems. Xbox 360 gets the 55"

[tomaitheous]

Found a solution to my problems BTW, or more likely my friend has.

Before buying all of this stuff, I was using emulation on a Media PC that I've built. I still use this media PC for watching movies, Anime, listening to music, etc... but no longer for emulation.

My friend told me that in theory, I should be able to get a filtered pictured by passing my consoles via my Media PC with an input card.

I didn't have one on my Media PC, but my desktop PC does have an old Nvida card with Composite and S-Video In and Out. I plugged my Desktop PC on my LCD TV, plugged his NES Front Loader (for composite out) on the video card, opened Media Player Classic and voilà !!!!

NES games with no shit on the screen and bonus filtering, reminds me of emulation. Best part is that my input card is garbage and Media Player Classic is not the best thing to run inputs, so whatever I'll buy in a store for input will be better.

I just need to see if I can find a card with multiple input such as a couple of S-Video/Composite-in and Cable-in for all of my systems minus Wii and PS3.

Nice fix - haha Take a look at Dscaler software too. From what I've heard, it does 240p60 to XXXp60 output in realtime from the capture card.

[the.importer]

Nice fix - haha Take a look at Dscaler software too. From what I've heard, it does 240p60 to XXXp60 output in realtime from the capture card.

I'll check it out with the new ATI TV Wonder I just bought, thanks

[kool kitty89]

There's no lag from running it through the video card? I suppose it uses a different mechanism than video capture cards then... (which convert stuff to MPEG 2 iirc for display)

[the.importer]

There's no lag from running it through the video card? I suppose it uses a different mechanism than video capture cards then... (which convert stuff to MPEG 2 iirc for display)

Don't see why there would be any more lags than running these consoles with Composite or S-Video on a TV, it's not like I'm recording anything.

Anyway, I'm returning this TV Tuner mainly because I'll get a new Video Card which includes one (turns out that my onboard card of my Media PC sucks for inputs).

[17daysolderthannes]

The GameGear got ass-raped so much by the GameBoy that it wasn't worth it anymore. Also, from what I recall, SEGA wanted to release the Nomad much sooner than 1995 in order to replace the GameGear but that system came out too late for most people to care.

I can only imagine that was because of lack of proper advertising. Barely anyone knows what a Game Gear is if they aren't somewhat on the retro scene. So the battery life is short, buy a battery pack, I don't know why it was so hard for people to figure out. I was FIVE and I figured it out. I simply charged my battery pack overnight, then played all I wanted to whenever I went somewhere, rinse, repeat. The PSP battery only lasts about 3 hours if you run it at 333 Mhz (the proper speed), so it's virtually the same thing. A smaller Game Gear would've definitely sold much like the Gameboy pocket somehow got people to rebuy essentially the same damn thing again for a smaller form factor. I think they should've really kept the Nomad alive as well and simply turned the Genesis into the new hot handheld format. Had that happened, we might have had consistent new Genesis releases into the turn of the century. Like I've said many times, that was always Sega's problem: they cut their losses and ran before they even got their product in motion. The Genesis somewhat flopped initially, but they stuck with it and had great success. The pulled the plug on Sega CD and 32X before people even knew they existed. Basically the same thing with Saturn and Dreamcast. I think that's why Sony blew everyone away with the PSX and PS2 sales (and soon PS3, just wait, the $300 price point is going to rocket this thing to the forefront), when you keep a system around long enough, people respect the dedication and realize they will have plenty of software to go with their hardware investment.

[kool kitty89]

Don't see why there would be any more lags than running these consoles with Composite or S-Video on a TV, it's not like I'm recording anything.

Anyway, I'm returning this TV Tuner mainly because I'll get a new Video Card which includes one (turns out that my onboard card of my Media PC sucks for inputs).

With video capture cards at least, they have to encode the video into a digital format before it can be displayed (which causes a delay, but not really a problem for watching TV and such, but bad for games), but since you mention feeding it into you video card, it's probably a bit different than the way a TV tuner/capture card works.

[tomaitheous]

With video capture cards at least, they have to encode the video into a digital format before it can be displayed (which causes a delay, but not really a problem for watching TV and such, but bad for games), but since you mention feeding it into you video card, it's probably a bit different than the way a TV tuner/capture card works.

I would assume the faster the computer, the less of the delay. For any sort of processing effects. I mean, the frame digitization is done in hardware by the capture card. A 1 or 2 frame delay is probably the norm on the PC (depends wholly on the display app though). Which is good compared to a lot of LCD/Plasma TVs. That's what 'game' mode is for on these TVs. To bring down the lag of the filter processing.