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SUPER NT ｜OT｜ a TRUE 1080p FPGA-SUPER NINTENDO GALORE
- Thread starter ThorHammerstein
- Start date
I never had a dedicated import machine, I just had a small converter plug that allowed me to plug my US carts in my PAL machine. Though I only played RPGs and not anything like Mario Kart.
ktroopa, can you set your height to x4 instead of x5, and adjust the width accordingly. If this game is using the full 288, a x4 will get you 1152 pixel height, where as a x5 is 1440. Let me know how it looks then. I definitely had to adjust my height the other day when playing a few PAL games like Terranigma because of similar issues. I'll test again tonight when I get home.Tried it as above and still crops off the UI at the top :( stupid PAL res :p
Oh, good point. Sorry, I didn't actually address how to fix it!
(Note: It isn't using the full 288, in fact I'm just about convinced not only do no SNES PAL games use the full 288, I suspect you are not even able to address the lines outside the 240 range. I dug through all the SNES dev docs I could and I could not find any way to do so though I admit I am not a SNES dev. I looked through so many PAL games and none of them draw outside 240. The PAL PPU simply adds the extra lines beyond 240 and they will always be blank, as far as I can tell. If anyone knows otherwise please let me know. Far as I can tell Super Mario Kart is the only PAL game to need this kind of adjustment, and that is just because of the unusual positioning it uses, so I will make special note of it in my write up unless something else is found.)
(Second Note: If curious you can see this reflected on a PAL TV. Note the big gap at the bottom here: https://youtu.be/BAI1EupffsA?t=36 as well as the garbage data/green sprites displayed at the bottom of this video: https://youtu.be/GG9nVgAY4Us?t=29 no Idea why nintendo decided to position the frame so high)
ktroopa all you should need to do is adjust the vertical position up to max 64 in Width & Height. You will lose a bit of the top of the screen but the numbers should be fully legible.
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Put this thing through it's paces tonight , it worked just fine with all 3 of my repros (though my terranigma seems to have a dead battery and my 60% completed save is gone wig-waahm) along with a copy of super mario world a friend gave me last night. Pleased to say it also worked just fine with the SD2SNES which I've been playing MSU1 mods on , just remember to turn cartridge audio ON folks and based on my experience, you can probably adjust the volume down to 100 from the 175 it seems to default to. As well, remember to hold reset until the RED LED comes on ,on the SD2SNES itself or you'll lose your save files. I gave both included Turican games a go as well, always loved the sound design for the second one. I didn't bother to test the settings listed here fully as I only updated the firmware after trying a few games out and the included firmware is missing about half of the features they have now. What I did was a quick sampling , I tried 720p with scanlines on and found it looked a bit darker (from the scanlines) as well as softer (from the resolution decrease) wasn't sure if I liked it or not so for now I basically have the default visual settings enabled.
Outside of that , everything has worked great - my 23 year old SNES pad still works fine (although my snes wasn't purchased until late 1995 and it was only used heavily for about a year or 2 so...) and I actually really love the hardware design for how simple it looks. It's also kind of funny to me that the Turrican DC box they include was printed incorrectly so when you fold the box up it's backward one at least one side. Ah well , it's still a neat little freebie.
Outside of that , everything has worked great - my 23 year old SNES pad still works fine (although my snes wasn't purchased until late 1995 and it was only used heavily for about a year or 2 so...) and I actually really love the hardware design for how simple it looks. It's also kind of funny to me that the Turrican DC box they include was printed incorrectly so when you fold the box up it's backward one at least one side. Ah well , it's still a neat little freebie.
Played some Jurassic Park, Turn & Burn No Fly Zone, and Secret of Evermore. Went with a customized version of MLiG's output settings:
Code:
Width: +1313
Horizontal Position: +38
Height: +1149
Vertical Position: +42Resolution is 1080p@60fps. No Scaler or Scanlines. Just clean, crisp chunky pixels.
Edit: There's a weird issue with the SN30 Pro not being able to bring out the menu. Kevtris says it could be game code, but I find it odd I was able to perform soft resets (Up + Select) without any issues.
Using the Wii U Pro Controller alleviates this problem, however.
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OP
OP
Yes, it's been updated with the latest firmware. The Retro Receiver too.
OP
OP
I tried 1152 pixel height but its too small, i get borders now at the top and bottom.
This would probably be a good thing to add to the SNES OT. Also worth noting that RetroFixes offers a service to replace your batteries and they offer replacement batteries for those of you who want to replace the batteries yourself:
https://store.retrofixes.com/produc...nes-sega-genesis-gameboy-zelda-pokememon-more
https://store.retrofixes.com/produc...ery-for-nintendo-64-nes-snes-with-solder-tabs
Unfortunately they don't seem to install easy to use battery holders but I can vouch for RetroFixes as they do great work.
I do it for $1.25 for the battery, and whatever the shipping charge is for how someone wants it shipped. I don't charge for the service per se.
Ahhh...then its a shame too much gets cut off for that game at x5. I went back and retried a couple of my PAL carts, and yeah I just left the settings* the same as they were for NTSC and they were ok, with barely anything cutoff. These were Terranigma and DKC 1. I could have sworn I had to resize Terranigma the other day because things were not fitting on screen when I was showing my daughter. Oh well.
* I did have to set the screen res to 50Hz though, as leaving it at 60Hz caused weird glitching on the top part of the screen, but that is kind of expected with PAL games.
I'm pretty sure that you're right on that. I looked around a bit and found the documentation on the NES PPU better to read/understand. If I got it right both the SNES and the NES PPU have at least some things in common, so maybe what's written here should also apply to the SNES PPU:
- NTSC video
- PAL video
- Overscan
In the Overscan part it says on PAL: 'The width of the picture is nearly the same as on NTSC, so we need not reconsider horizontal placement. The border is always black, and it extends into the leftmost and rightmost 2 pixels and the top scanline, the one that never shows sprites. However, the total picture is 288 lines tall, making the safe area roughly 260 lines tall. This means every TV shows blank bars at the top and bottom of the 240-line active area that the NES generates. So for a PAL-only title, the developer need not concern himself with TVs cutting off the status bar, but minimizing artifacts caused by nametable mirroring and sprite pop-on at the top becomes paramount.'
^^ Hah, approriately enough just wrote this all out:
So... turns out PAL TVs have a different Pixel Aspect Ratio than NTSC, meaning all my recommended settings are wrong for PAL games. I do not own a PAL CRT so all I can do is trust the math here as I have no way to compare and confirm, if someone has one and is willing to take comparison pictures that would be amazing. The math has proven right up to this point so I'll take it for granted. I'd imagine basically no developer bothered adjusting for it, but if you want it to look like it did on a TV back in the day here is a quick 1080p recommendation. I'll go into more detail in my write up.
I admit it sounds pretty wide to me, but according to this the PAR for PAL the pixels were fairly squashed vertically due to the extra scanlines. For reference the PAR on NTSC is 1.14285.
So... turns out PAL TVs have a different Pixel Aspect Ratio than NTSC, meaning all my recommended settings are wrong for PAL games. I do not own a PAL CRT so all I can do is trust the math here as I have no way to compare and confirm, if someone has one and is willing to take comparison pictures that would be amazing. The math has proven right up to this point so I'll take it for granted. I'd imagine basically no developer bothered adjusting for it, but if you want it to look like it did on a TV back in the day here is a quick 1080p recommendation. I'll go into more detail in my write up.
Code:
PAL 1080p
Width & Height
- Width 1774
- Height 1200
- Vert Pos 42 (64 for Mario Kart)
Scalers
- No Scalers ON
- Disable H Interp OFF
- Disable V Interp ONI admit it sounds pretty wide to me, but according to this the PAR for PAL the pixels were fairly squashed vertically due to the extra scanlines. For reference the PAR on NTSC is 1.14285.
If I get you right, you did the math like that?
Code:
Internal Res 720p (3x) 1080p (4x) 1080p (5x)
Width: 355 3 * 355 = 1064 4 * 355 = 1420 5 * 355 = 1774
Height: 240 3 * 240 = 720 4 * 240 = 960 5 * 240 = 1200What about the * (8/7) multiplier?
Oh nice!
If we have a consensus on this then this may be worth adding to the OT, no?
Yep. 8/7 is the pixel aspect ratio for NTSC. I don't have enough coffee in me at the moment to work out a simplified fraction for PAL so I am just going to trust the math on this one for the time being.
Playing through Super Metroid right now in German because I am curious how fat the morph ball looks at this config. Will report back.
Nah, I'd hold off until I've put this all into something easier to digest. Everything up to this point is mostly just rambling as I put it all together so I don't go slowly mad.
According to the wiki entry on overscan mentioned above:
'Emulator developers can simulate this system's pixel aspect ratio by stretching the picture to a multiple of 355×240, such as 1065×720 or 1420×960.'
So there's no need for an additional multiplier since it is already part of the 355 width!?
Will give it a try when I'm at home.
6.93/5. ^Yeah, looks like if you just use 355 as the base horizontal value you don't need to worry about it.
I looked for some photos of games running on actual PAL CRTs, and man... I am so sorry, Euro dudes. So sorry.
^ Yep. Here you go. As far as I can tell this should be accurate. I'll keep experimenting though and confirm as I can. I doubt any developer bothered adjusting for PAL's pixel aspect ratio so I would suspect using NTSC is going to be fine across the board, but for the sake of accurately describing all this stuff I think this adds up.
These were all captured directly from the frame using the PAL Super Metroid on Super Nt.
8:7 Display Aspect Ratio ("wrong", but popular because early emulation and scenarios such as this)
8/7 NTSC Pixel Aspect Ratio (accurate to CRTs in every comparison I have done)
PAL Pixel Aspect Ratio (I thiiiink this is accurate. Again can't confirm side-by-side)
These were all captured directly from the frame using the PAL Super Metroid on Super Nt.
8:7 Display Aspect Ratio ("wrong", but popular because early emulation and scenarios such as this)
8/7 NTSC Pixel Aspect Ratio (accurate to CRTs in every comparison I have done)
PAL Pixel Aspect Ratio (I thiiiink this is accurate. Again can't confirm side-by-side)
I seem to remember in the old thread something about scanlines not looking good except at 720p...is that still the case? Does anybody have a good resolution for an accurate (NTSC) picture with scanlines?
Mine is out for delivery!
So, I didn't get an answer last time, so I'll ask once more:
For 4K tvs, should scaling settings be any different?
I do know that 4k should be good for scaling, as it's exactly 9 times the resolution.
However, I assume it's not that easy.
Any advice on settings or how they might be different?
Also, someone I used to work with told me you can enhance the audio for SNES games. How does that work?
If I have a Super GameBoy is there anyway to load gameboy roms via SD card or do I need a flash cart?
So, I didn't get an answer last time, so I'll ask once more:
For 4K tvs, should scaling settings be any different?
I do know that 4k should be good for scaling, as it's exactly 9 times the resolution.
However, I assume it's not that easy.
Any advice on settings or how they might be different?
Also, someone I used to work with told me you can enhance the audio for SNES games. How does that work?
If I have a Super GameBoy is there anyway to load gameboy roms via SD card or do I need a flash cart?
I believe the "Settings and How To" section of this OT should have what you're looking for and as far as I'm aware scanlines are still messed up for 1080p (could be wrong).
Here is maybe a more demonstrative example if Pixel Aspect Ratio (PAR) is still confusing for anyone.
Here is the Super Metroid morph ball at 1:1 square pixels. If all displays ever were 1:1 then all this stuff would be easy, but that isn't the reality of the situation.
On CRTs the scanline length meant non-square pixels although as we've seen the aspect ratio of the individual pixels differs depending on the display and source. Here are the pixels adjusted for 1.1428:1. That is NTSC PAR, what most people who grew up in the US/JPN likely saw this stuff at. Note the individual pixels are slightly wider than 1:1 (.1428 wider, to be exact) resulting in a wider screen overall.
And here is PAL at 1.3862:1. The wider shape of the pixel is much more pronounced as a result of having more vertical lines (288 vs. 240)
When we try to display this stuff on our fancy new TVs and monitors you can't just change the PAR, they are all 1:1, so all we can do is stretch to the appropriate size and then turn on interpolation to compensate for some pixels ending up fatter than others, evening them out over the entire picture. It is the best we can do.
Here is the Super Metroid morph ball at 1:1 square pixels. If all displays ever were 1:1 then all this stuff would be easy, but that isn't the reality of the situation.
On CRTs the scanline length meant non-square pixels although as we've seen the aspect ratio of the individual pixels differs depending on the display and source. Here are the pixels adjusted for 1.1428:1. That is NTSC PAR, what most people who grew up in the US/JPN likely saw this stuff at. Note the individual pixels are slightly wider than 1:1 (.1428 wider, to be exact) resulting in a wider screen overall.
And here is PAL at 1.3862:1. The wider shape of the pixel is much more pronounced as a result of having more vertical lines (288 vs. 240)
When we try to display this stuff on our fancy new TVs and monitors you can't just change the PAR, they are all 1:1, so all we can do is stretch to the appropriate size and then turn on interpolation to compensate for some pixels ending up fatter than others, evening them out over the entire picture. It is the best we can do.
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The Super NT doesn't output in 4K. The maximum output resolution is 1080p.
I honestly recommend people do it themselves. Not only is it cheaper and dead easy, but soldering is a great skill to learn. Practice on some sheet metal or junk electronics first, then maybe try the replacement on a crappy title you don't care about and isn't worth anything (tons of madden out there). No advanced equipment necessary; your basic weller and some good leaded rosin core solder is all you need.
Cool, but I wanted to know is how does that affect me. Should I use a different resolution like 720? Should I change the scaling settings?
Should I just leave default?
It doesn't affect you, since 720p and 1080p are both integer factors of 4K. Both will look fine. Irrespective of display resolution, though, there are reasons to use 720p or 1080p over each other, due to the SNES's own resolution. At 720p, an integer scale of the SNES resolution will fill more of the screen than at 1080p. It will also be a softer image than 1080p, which might be preferable (I know it is for me). Try out the existing presets on the unit, and also check out the first page of this thread for a table with some custom settings that you can try out to see what looks best to you.
If *I* had a 4K tv, I would set it to 720p, as it scales easier to 4k (and you can turn off vertical interpolation). If you're interested, here are my settings with scanlines:
Pixel width: 4:3 for 16:9
Scanlines normal, 90 depth
Gamma 1.10 (keep it stock if you're not using scanlines)
720p only makes sense currently if you want to enable scanlines. If you don't want scanlines, 1080p is a better choice.
I go back and forth. Razor sharp looks good to me, but 720p with scanlines just looks *right*. And at that end of the day, I want to have an experience that's more like an original crt.
Like with the pixel aspect debate, it's mostly down to user preference. Hell, even nintendo gives us options.
I've warmed up a lot to interpolation to soften things a bit. Other filtering I've tried was always way too strong, but the slight edge softening, particularly from couch distance, works pretty well here.
Right. I don't like the massive "bilinear interpolation" that a lot of emulators have as an option; that's far too strong. But razor sharp pixels is too much. Of course, that's why I fell in love with CRT shaders, because you can get that subtle softness that's more like a CRT much more easily.
The settings and how to doesn't mention scanlines at all, it's only listing resolutions for people who don't use scanlines. In what way are they messed up for 1080p?
I'm working on an update to the guide in the OP to set up the picture which will include scanlines. My "official stance" right now would be don't bother with scanlines at 1080p as even the best setup has trade-offs.
That said, kevtris called it out specifically and said he'd rework it, but we have no idea what that means or when at this point so I'm leaving it as a big blank currently hoping it just drops, otherwise I'll need to revisit.
There are 2 main issues with them currently, (and probably some other stuff I am forgetting, I haven't gone back to them for a few weeks now)
1. They are very thin, a single pixel tall. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing as scanlines of various thickness were a thing, although something with more customization could look so much better. Personally a 3:2 ratio for 5x scaling would be perfect, I think, but we'll see what it looks like.
2. They draw independent to the game's frame. This doesn't happen at 720p. Not a big deal, you can adjust the vertical position to line them up, except that doesn't quite work perfectly in cases like Mario Kart (discussed on the previous page) or TMNT where you may need to adjust the positioning for other reasons.
Hi,
I tested the following PAL resolutions
Code:
Internal Res 720p (3x) 1080p (4x) 1080p (5x)
Width: 355 3 * 355 = 1064 4 * 355 = 1420 5 * 355 = 1774
Height: 240 3 * 240 = 720 4 * 240 = 960 5 * 240 = 1200The picture is indeed a bit squished/stretched but not to awful. Could be like I remember it but it's been a while and memories are mixed with NTSC experiences.
5x scaling though is way to large. Bigger parts of the wodden frame of the SMW start screen are missing even when the overscan part of the screen is drawn. So for 1080p50 4x integer scaling seems the best solution if you want the whole picture.
Would love to post some pictures but imgur won't let me register at the moment.
PAL SMW Rev 1 does use the entire 240p frame, as you can see below, so I'm guessing that is what you are on. I still need to test it and take a look at it, for sure. Most likely a 4.5x scale that interpolates on both axis is going to be the best solution for anyone who wants to stick to PAL's pixel aspect ratio, and also maximize screen size. Looking forward to the pictures!
EDIT 1: Argh, I'm still not used to integrate pictures here. Sorry for that. Also the picture quality could be better. Must suffice at the moment.
EDIT 2: That did not work at all. Next try.
Now it worked. Finally some pictures on the PAL settings.
This is 720p50, width: 1064, height: 720 (3x integer scaling)
Here we have: 1080p50, width: 1420, height: 960 (4x integer scaling)
EDIT 2: That did not work at all. Next try.
Now it worked. Finally some pictures on the PAL settings.
This is 720p50, width: 1064, height: 720 (3x integer scaling)
Here we have: 1080p50, width: 1420, height: 960 (4x integer scaling)
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And here is the last and probably most interesting one:
1080p50, width: 1774, height: 1200 (5x integer scaling)
As you can see 5x integer scaling is too big for PAL games. You won't get a full picture, even when showing the overscan.
1080p50, width: 1774, height: 1200 (5x integer scaling)
As you can see 5x integer scaling is too big for PAL games. You won't get a full picture, even when showing the overscan.
That's probably the way to go. Since I personally prefer scanlines, I'm using 720p anyway at the moment for my NTSC games. Probably just do that for may PAL games as well.
I'll probably take it a step further and say people should just play PAL at NTSC PAR as I have serious doubts a single developer bothered to adjust their sprite work (many, including nintendo didn't even bother to adjust for 4:3 after all), the amount of effort is just too much. I'll keep trying things. I plan to work through the PAL exclusives tonight and see if anything jumps out at me.
It is still a curiosity of mine. I'll have PAL specific settings for reference for anyone who wants them, but my actual recommendation will probably just be to tell people to not use them unless motivated by nostalgia or something unusual is found.
And thanks Cron for keeping them updated and for the pictures. Are those off cart or from jailbreak/flashcart, btw?
My pleasure. Those pictures were off cart, one of my last remaining originals. :)