
AVS RetroUSB: FPGA-Based Re-Implementation of the NES/Famicon - guruz
https://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=36&products_id=78&
======
AceJohnny2
> _A NES with composite compared to the AVS is a stunning difference in
> picture quality._

So one counter-intuitive complaint of many modern emulation systems is that
they provide "pixel-perfect" rendering. I.e. what the console outputs is what
you get on screen.

Except that's not how the games looked back then! The video artifacts of TVs
at the time, composite signal and NTSC, meant you had color bleed and slightly
blurry pixels that weren't even square. It's not just scanlines. For practical
examples, see this Gamasutra article [1]. Most telling to me is the
comparisons of Link (from Zelda 2) therein.

The AVS page doesn't mention any of this, so am I to deduce it forgoes
emulating these artifacts?

[1]
[http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/KylePittman/20150420/241442/C...](http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/KylePittman/20150420/241442/CRT_Simulation_in_Super_Win_the_Game.php)

~~~
anonbanker
I attended Powerfest '90 (The Nintendo World Championships)[0], and every game
on display was shown on an SVideo connection. The beta Final Fantasy's pixels
looked sharp and defined (I spent an hour playing it, though it reset every 15
minutes). They explicitly used the best connections possible to ensure video
fidelity and minimize color bleeding.

Magazines were the same; outside of the "Take a picture of your TV Screen with
a Polaroid Camera" section of the magazine (scoreboards), Nintendo Power
always had screenshots of the game using a Super Wide Boy, which outputted the
screen to a crisp video feed perfect for articles. EGM used the same device.
Nobody wanted blurred pixels or color bleeding. They certainly didn't want
cathode ray distortion.

There is nothing but anecdotal information that the developers of NES games
_intended_ the blurring and bleeding to affect their game designs. The only
purveyors of the "CRT Experience" seem to be milennials born after the NES's
reign.

I didn't have the best TV for my NES, but it looked tons better than some of
these scanline effects. If you were using a CGA monitor to play NES games,
then maybe the shaders were accurate, but even the _black and white_ TV I had
for a while was a superior experience to the scanline shaders available in the
NES mini or RetroArch.

Playing Bionic Commando: Return of Hitler[1] on the NES right now, with no
shaders. You should too.

0\.
[http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1990-12-07/entertainment/...](http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1990-12-07/entertainment/9004110423_1_thor-
aackerlund-jeff-falco-video-game-showdown)

1\.
[http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2031/](http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2031/)

~~~
tekklloneer
It's not anecdotal, it's a comment that showed up in design documents of games
by experienced developers. Trade shows and magazines used the best quality
possible, because it was marketing.

However, I'm not aware of any gdds that specified coloring as a technical
challenge; most of the concerns were around overscan and making sure games
weren't unplayable on B/W TVs

~~~
anonbanker
> It's not anecdotal, it's a comment that showed up in design documents of
> games by experienced developers.

care to post some? I'm cool with being wrong.

~~~
tekklloneer
I hate to be unable to put my money where my mouth is, but I read a bunch of
early 3d game GDDs in college as part of understanding and overcoming hardware
limitations in computer graphics. It wasn't so much "dont do this" as
justifications such as "we did this because many tvs dont have stereo sound"
or "using colors of the same hue is unviewable on black and white TVs and our
portable systems"

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nerdy
It's "Famicom," not some kind of organized convention!

It's short for _Fami_ ly _Com_ puter.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_abbreviated_and_contr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_abbreviated_and_contracted_words)

~~~
0xcde4c3db
The Japanese transliteration of "computer" (コンピュータ) _is_ written with the "n"
(ン) character, but it's pronounced more like an "m" sound because the lip
movement for the following sound modifies it. The same dichotomy is seen with
_shinbun_ / _shimbun_ , for example. Of course, "Famicom" is the official way
to romanize it, so it's usually preferred.

~~~
grzm
Same thing happens in English: _incredible_ vs _important_. _input_ is still
spelled with an _n_ but pronounced conversationally, you'll get _imput_.

~~~
userbinator
It depends on the accent; I certainly say "input" and "incredible" with an _n_
sound.

~~~
grzm
I pronounce _incredible_ with an _n_ sound as well. I included it to contrast
with _important_ , showing how the following consonant influences its
pronunciation. When enunciating, I pronounce _input_ with an _n_ ; when
conversationally, with an _m_. Different dialects are of course going to be a
factor here as well.

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Tobold
I love these kind of projects. I'd love it even more if it was open source.

Preservation of the software is the most important thing and I'm glad the game
pirates are very fastidious about it, but preservation of hardware like this
is - if not as important - at least as fascinating!

And still, I won't buy one. I doubt I'll ever earn enough money to make retro
game collecting feasible, so I'll stick with collection retro game controllers
and connecting them to PCs for faithful emulation ;)

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mmastrac
Interesting project - I wonder if this uses the 6502 core from Visual6502.

The price point might be tough for people. I think you can buy original NES
systems for less. They aren't going to be HDMI compatible, but I think those
adapters will run you $20 on Amazon.

~~~
khedoros1
On Ebay+Amazon, It looks like the front-load consoles are going for $75 and
top-load ones are going for about 30% more. When I bought mine (front load) a
couple of years ago, I think I spent $20-$30 on it, so those numbers are a
little bit of a shock to me.

~~~
mmastrac
Hmm. Is this a sign of the publicly available stock dwindling? I guess we
could see the market for these original systems start to really dry up and
prices increase dramatically.

~~~
serge2k
Demand increase. Retro gaming is big right now.

~~~
Tobold
Seriously. I bought The Legend of Zelda (the original one) 10 years ago for
<10 Euros. Now it's over 100! And that's a super common game (I assume)!

~~~
khedoros1
Wow. I see it around $35 on Amazon, and I know that I didn't pay that much for
it around 6 years ago (can't find the order though, so I probably bought it in
a large lot of games from Ebay).

A Link to the Past: Bought for $17.56 about 5 years ago, and it seems that I'd
be paying around $45-$50 to get it now.

Zelda 2: Adventure of Link: bought for about $5 in 2010, selling for about $15
now.

Oof! This one's the biggest jump I've seen so far. Metal Warriors on SNES. I
bought that in 2009 for $40, and the cheapest listing for it on Amazon right
now is for $200.

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linker3000
Maybe it's my knackered, 50-year old eyes, but the white writing on blue
background is not nice to read.

