Nintendo 64 + Sony LED TV = Crap Picture

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Lethal29

65 posts

Master Geek

#116154 19-Apr-2013 16:57

Afternoon All,

I recently bought an N64 to relive my misspent youth by wasting further hours on Goldeneye, and the picture is terrible on the 40" flatscreen.

It's almost unplayable, which is quite disappointing, and making me look a mug in front of the missus when I explained what an awesome game it was back in the day.

Is there anything I can do to improve the picture? I've read a few sites which was use some kind of S-Video connection, which improves it, but I just don't know enough about it.

These are the inputs I've got to work with:

HDMI:4 (1 Side/3 Rear)Component Video (Y/PB/PR):1 (Rear)Composite Video:2 (1 Rear/1 Hybrid)USB 2.0 Ports:2 (Side)RF Connection:1 (Rear)Analog Audio Input:2 (2 Rear)PC Input:DSub 1(Side), Mini 1(Rear)Ethernet1 (Rear)
Any suggestions please?

zaptor

745 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#802593 20-Apr-2013 00:59

Buy a 21" Sony Trinitron off TradeMe. They sell for $10-$20 (people can't give them away).
SD just looks horrible on HDTV. The issue I have with SD->HD adapters is the lag they add, plus the quality is still rubbish. It's still hard to beat the image quality of a respectable CRT.

sbiddle

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Biddle Corp

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#802647 20-Apr-2013 08:51

The simple reality is there isn't anything you can do. Buy a cheap TV like the post above says.

You're feeding a low quality 256x224 anti-aliased video source (some content is up to 640x480 interlaced) into a 1920x1080 panel. It's akin to reading a newspaper with a magnifying glass and commenting that things look blocky.

richms

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#803313 21-Apr-2013 21:31

+1 on getting a CRT. Avoid the later flat screen ones when they became really cheap, because they are really crap.

Richard rich.ms

neoprint

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#803352 21-Apr-2013 22:36

Another option is use an emulator. You can run it in high resolution, with antialiasing, and a lot of games even have high resolution texture packs (Ocarina of time is a big one here) you can apply to make them look even better.

Sure, it's not the same as running it on real hardware but it's the best you're going to get on a new tv.

Link if you're interested http://www.racketboy.com/retro/nintendo/n64/enhance-n64-graphics-with-emulation-plugins-texture-packs

NZtechfreak

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#803396 22-Apr-2013 00:15

neoprint: Another option is use an emulator. You can run it in high resolution, with antialiasing, and a lot of games even have high resolution texture packs (Ocarina of time is a big one here) you can apply to make them look even better.

Sure, it's not the same as running it on real hardware but it's the best you're going to get on a new tv.

Link if you're interested http://www.racketboy.com/retro/nintendo/n64/enhance-n64-graphics-with-emulation-plugins-texture-packs

Heh, I was just going to point this out. I use N64oid and high-res texture packs on my phone for this reason.

See here at about the 27minute mark for a demo and later showing high-res Vs standard texture packs:

Twitter: @nztechfreak
Blogs: HeadphoNZ.org

macuser

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#803401 22-Apr-2013 00:44

You can get a better quality image from the console using the S-video cable (maybe ebay) and the memory expansion cards...at that point you can get up to 480i in some games.