Games really look different on their original systems

[DaMadFiddler]

Over the last several months, I've found myself in possession of an NES, a SNES< and an N64. I recently got them all hooked up to the TV, and got a few surprises.

Before acquiring the systems, I'd gotten a fair number of games on the Wii Virtual Console. I also had a plethora of emulators installed on the Wii, and since all I really had growing up was a Gameboy and a computer, I'd long been used to the "clean" emulator look of games as my point of reference for how pre-Dreamcast games should look.

Of course I'd played plenty of NES, SNES, Genesis, and N64 at friends' houses, but these are old memories colored by nostalgia. The only consistent point of reference I've had is my own experience at home, which has always been emulators.

Before I start, I should mention that my TV is a rear-projection HDTV, and is CRT-based. As a result, it tends to do much better with 480i sources than most HDTVs. However, it is a 51" widescreen, which is a much larger display than these games were probably intended for. The TV is set up to play the games in 4:3 mode with sidebars to preserve the screen ratio. Also, all systems were connected using composite video.

Also, while emulators have been my primary means of exposure to cartridge-based games and thus I am used to the clean, "naked pixel" look of emulators... I never really like the harshness of this low-res pixel "perfection." When possible, I use things like 2xSaI and bilinear filtering to soften the harsh edges. However, for the sake of comparison, all observations below will be made assuming the person was using an accurate but barebones emulator with a clean "naked pixel" display, such as the Nintendo Virtual Console.

NES
The real NES does look worse than the "naked pixel" version. Interlacing is very apparent, which causes sort of a frozen dot-crawl effect, meaning individual pixels aren't always shown 100% accurately. Rather than gently and uniformly smoothing or softening the picture, this is clearly a lower-quality image than one gets with more modern means. However, it is interesting to note the significantly different colors, which often results in a very different "look" to things. I don't think I've ever seen an NES emulator that was consistently color-accurate, and it can be quite jarring to see how different things look with various parts in darker/more muted colors than I'm used to, and others more vibrant. Plus, despite the square corners, I've always liked the simplicity and feel of the NES pad... it's what I first learned to play games on, and the tactile experience and nostalgia factor are enough to push this one into the "net positive" category for the actual hardware.

N64
The N64 was very--different--from what I was expecting. Never one of my favorite systems (we only have one because my friend was going to throw it out), I have a lot more experience with emulated N64 games than I do with seeing the actual output of the system. And most of the time I *have* played N64 has been on traditional CRT TVs. What I remembered of the experience is sharp, jaggy polygons, and blurry, slightly smeary textures. What I actually got was... hm. Well, I don't know how I ever got "sharp edges" out of this before. It looked like the whole image had been put through about five different rounds of image softening, so that the end result looks like you're watching it through fogged-up goggles or glasses coated in Vaseline. There was absolutely nothing sharp, jaggy or harsh about the image, but it started to hurt my eyes after a while. Due to the nature of 3D graphics, N64 games look *much* better emulated, and even the Virtual Console releases render the games both at a higher resolution and more cleanly than the original hardware. Plus, I've always hated the N64 controller with its cumbersome layout and short-lived, ache-inducing thumb stick. This system benefits from emulation far more than the others; it's a shame that none of the N64 emulators seem to be particularly accurate. I don't think I'll put too much effort into collecting N64 cartridges.

SNES
Okay, the exact opposite here. The real SNES looks *way* better than the Virtual Console. This could just be the TV's built-in upscaling routine, but the picture looks both smoother and less harsh than you get with a naked emulator output, without any of the smeariness I got with the N64... sort of like a bilinear filter on steroids. It makes the edges and pixels look much less harsh, while still letting all the details shine through. And with SNES games, the graphics are both low-res and complex enough that emulator filters such as HQ2X and 2xSaI tend to lose some of the pixel-level detail from the visual design. The NES is mainly for nostalgia fun, but after seeing what SNES games look like on actual hardware, I think going back to an emulator would be both jarring and disappointing. The SNES was my all-time favorite console, and the more time I spend with the console, the more convinced I become that the actual hardware is the best way to experience these games.

[cube_b3]

Good read, N64 image output bothered me even back in the day. It is good to hear that emulators can fix that but I really can't think of any game I would want to try out on N64.

[Specially Cork]

My N64 got a lot of use back in the day, but I'm much happier emulating those games now. Not that there's a lot of games...but I still love Banjo Kazooie.

[DanteJay]

That's why I used to hate the N64, everything was blurry. But now on emulators, I can really appreciate the games.

[Jeeba Jabba]

Yeah. Even during its prime, I always referred to N64 as blur-o-vision.


On a related note, if anyone is interested in playing some greats from your collection (primarily PS and Saturn), get a CRT television. Looks god awful on the newer flat-panel displays (tried it on both my plasma and LCD sets).

[Jeeba Jabba]

Also, aren't you in your 20s? How did you not have an intimate relationship with the cartridge era?

[DaMadFiddler]

Also, aren't you in your 20s? How did you not have an intimate relationship with the cartridge era?

27.

But like I said: I played a lot at friends' houses, but I never had the systems myself. My mother banned game consoles from the house, as she was convinced that I wouldn't ever do anything else if I had a video game system. As a result, I never really had any consoles of my own until I started college.

I did, however, have a computer. And when I was in high school was about when the emulation "scene" exploded (1997-2001), so I did end up having most of those games I'd always wanted on my computer. Thus, my predominant experience with cartridge-era games was through emulation.

[DanteJay]

@Jeeba I completely agree, especially because most of the newer (if not all) HDTVs do not have an s-video input. Which upsets me because I recently bought s-video cables for my Saturn, and couldn't use it on my Samsung. So in the meantime I hooked it up to my Sony Trinitron, and it looks crystal clear without an fuzzy lines that plagues composite hook-ups.

In the future I'm going to look into some kind of s-video to hdmi/vga/component adapter with a built in line doubler, so I can keep all my consoles connect to my HDTV

[Zealous zerotype]

Kinda funny when it comes to saturn games is that I've never played one on a CRT screen before. I got mine with s-video cables (which awesomely my hdtv has) and it looks great. As much as I like the look that some of the older tube screens give games that were meant to be played on those screens I simply don't have the room for that. Also, everyone talks about the n64 looking like vaseline was smeared all over it.

[Jeeba Jabba]

Also, aren't you in your 20s? How did you not have an intimate relationship with the cartridge era?

27.

But like I said: I played a lot at friends' houses, but I never had the systems myself. My mother banned game consoles from the house, as she was convinced that I wouldn't ever do anything else if I had a video game system. As a result, I never really had any consoles of my own until I started college.

I did, however, have a computer. And when I was in high school was about when the emulation "scene" exploded (1997-2001), so I did end up having most of those games I'd always wanted on my computer. Thus, my predominant experience with cartridge-era games was through emulation.

Were you in a cult?

[Eviltaco64X]

Conversely, I've been playing SNES and Genesis games on my Xbox 360 XDK in 1080i on an HD CRT.

Sonic 3 and Knuckles looks great upscaled.

[|darc|]

What I remembered of the experience is sharp, jaggy polygons, and blurry, slightly smeary textures. What I actually got was... hm. Well, I don't know how I ever got "sharp edges" out of this before.

You were thinking of the PlayStation. The Nintendo 64 actually had anti-aliasing, whereas the PlayStation didn't.

[melancholy]

When we bought this house in the fall, I turned the spare bedroom into a 'retro room,' where all my consoles pre-PS2 are all hooked up simultaneously through a series of 4 switch boxes (11 systems in all), directly to a 36" tube television. I even built my own shelves with false walls to hide all the wiring, and that hover above the couch so the systems are directly over my head instead of across the room, therefore alleviating the problem of stretching controller cables across the room. It's still a work-in-progress, but it's definitely shaping up to be pretty nice.

[DaMadFiddler]

Kinda funny when it comes to saturn games is that I've never played one on a CRT screen before. I got mine with s-video cables (which awesomely my hdtv has) and it looks great. As much as I like the look that some of the older tube screens give games that were meant to be played on those screens I simply don't have the room for that.

This is one of the many reasons I really like rear-projection TVs. In addition to giving you a bigger screen for less money than flat panels, standard-def sources tend to look a lot better. My TV is a 51" Toshiba that my college housemates and I got in 2004 (720p/1080i), and everything we've thrown at it since that time--from analog cable to VHS to DVD to the aforementioned vintage consoles to modern sytems like Wii and PS3--has looked great. In fact, even the Wii seems to look a lot nicer than it does on flat panels.

Of course, the big trade-off is space. I love this TV, but it's nearly 5 feet tall and 2 feet deep. It's been through two moves since I got it and we're gearing up for a third, and that's always an adventure since it doesn't fit in my car. Some would also argue that it is inferior since the the image is not pixel-perfect as it is with LCD or plasma... but in my opinion, the resulting image is much smoother and more "natural" looking.

What I remembered of the experience is sharp, jaggy polygons, and blurry, slightly smeary textures. What I actually got was... hm. Well, I don't know how I ever got "sharp edges" out of this before.

You were thinking of the PlayStation. The Nintendo 64 actually had anti-aliasing, whereas the PlayStation didn't.

No, I knew that. I couldn't stand the Playstation even when it was new; the textures were not only unfiltered and blocky, but large texture-mapped areas (such as walls and floors) tended to "wobble" as the camera moved. I'll pick the N64 over that any day. I just remembered the N64's "smeariness" as being localized to textures and pseudosprites, as opposed to the image as a whole... apparently my memory was wrong.

When we bought this house in the fall, I turned the spare bedroom into a 'retro room,' where all my consoles pre-PS2 are all hooked up simultaneously through a series of 4 switch boxes (11 systems in all), directly to a 36" tube television. I even built my own shelves with false walls to hide all the wiring, and that hover above the couch so the systems are directly over my head instead of across the room, therefore alleviating the problem of stretching controller cables across the room. It's still a work-in-progress, but it's definitely shaping up to be pretty nice.

That actually sounds kind of interesting. You'll have to post pictures when it's done. I seem to recall seeing an RF adapter kit on the market a while back that let you use original SNES pads wirelessly (the controllers plugged into a battery powered box, and a receiver fit across the ports on the front of the system), but I can't for the life of me remember who sold it.

[Jeeba Jabba]

When we bought this house in the fall, I turned the spare bedroom into a 'retro room,' where all my consoles pre-PS2 are all hooked up simultaneously through a series of 4 switch boxes (11 systems in all), directly to a 36" tube television. I even built my own shelves with false walls to hide all the wiring, and that hover above the couch so the systems are directly over my head instead of across the room, therefore alleviating the problem of stretching controller cables across the room. It's still a work-in-progress, but it's definitely shaping up to be pretty nice.

That's pretty badass.

[cube_b3]

Yeah pretty bad ass, please share photos.

I need inspiration.

[pixel]

When we bought this house in the fall, I turned the spare bedroom into a 'retro room,' where all my consoles pre-PS2 are all hooked up simultaneously through a series of 4 switch boxes (11 systems in all), directly to a 36" tube television. I even built my own shelves with false walls to hide all the wiring, and that hover above the couch so the systems are directly over my head instead of across the room, therefore alleviating the problem of stretching controller cables across the room. It's still a work-in-progress, but it's definitely shaping up to be pretty nice.

You've described my childhood. I remember my dad and I giggling when we got all the Radioshack coax switch boxes hooked up and turned all nine systems on at the same time. My mom just stood there and facepalmed.

[vicviper74]

Yeah. Even during its prime, I always referred to N64 as blur-o-vision.


On a related note, if anyone is interested in playing some greats from your collection (primarily PS and Saturn), get a CRT television. Looks god awful on the newer flat-panel displays (tried it on both my plasma and LCD sets).

I can never get saturn emus to run. could you help? so many options, I get confused.

[Smiley]

on a side note, the atari jaguar looks awful when connected to an lcd tv.

[DanteJay]

on a side note, the atari jaguar looks awful.

FTFY.