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Old Doesn't Have To Mean Ugly: Squeezing Better Graphics From Classic Consoles

Posted by samzenpus on from the what's-old-is-new dept.

MojoKid writes If you're a classic gamer, you've probably had the unhappy experience of firing up a beloved older title you haven't played in a decade or two, squinting at the screen, and thinking: "Wow. I didn't realize it looked this bad." The reasons why games can wind up looking dramatically worse than you remember isn't just the influence of rose-colored glasses — everything from subtle differences in third-party hardware to poor ports to bad integrated TV upscalers can ruin the experience. One solution is an expensive upscaling unit called the Framemeister but while its cost may make you blanch, this sucker delivers. Unfortunately, taking full advantage of a Framemeister also may mean modding your console for RGB output. That's the second part of the upscaler equation. Most every old-school console could technically use RGB, which has one cable for the Red, Green, and Blue signals, but many of them weren't wired for it externally unless you used a rare SCART cable (SCART was more common in other parts of the world). Modding kits or consoles cost money, but if you're willing to pay it, you can experience classic games with much better fidelity.

4 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. It's supposed to look that way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Classic consoles, notably the NES, purposefully used the blur of the CRT for shading and other effects that the console couldn't do. The graphics simply aren't meant to be seen in super clarity. You see all of the pixels, and the colors are overly bright and flat. It's just... wrong.

    1. Re:It's supposed to look that way by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 3, Informative

      That the (S)NES and Genesis can output RGB via modding doesn't change the fact that game developers did use the artifacts from the composite output and the CRT to do what the GP mentioned.

    2. Re:It's supposed to look that way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      I'm not sure I'm buying the "NES relied on blur and shadowing" argument. The first two years of US first-party titles had purposely blocky box art. This was apparently done as to not raise buyers' expectations of the graphics (compared to box art for other systems like the 2600).

  2. Re:Just buy a CRT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    The blocky pixels were put there by an artist on purpose.

    Oh fuck off. The developers were dealing with 240 line hard limits, that's why the sprites have fewer pixels.