Nintendo 64 HDMI/DVI/VGA video mod feedback

[Anonymous No.1555109]

Ok, I've been working kinda on/off with this project for the past 3 years. But starting very soon I am actually going to kick it into gear and get it finished.

What i need is feedback on the bells and whistles you'd want to see in it.

Stuff like:
1. What to do with pillarboxing
2. Whether 2xSAI is even worth bothering
3. Anybody want fake scanlines (I think I can do a better result than the Xrgb or so)

Posting some pictures of the current progress. The final mod will be much different hardware wise.

[Anonymous No.1555113]

[Anonymous No.1555117]

perfect dark set to high-res (actually 640x240 horizontally compressed)

[Anonymous No.1555118]

high-res 640x480 64drive menu

[Anonymous No.1555124]

[Anonymous No.1555126]

>go through all this effort and money
>still looks worse than $10 CRT

[Anonymous No.1555128]

[Anonymous No.1555136]

You need to get it outputting its internal rendering resolution with the minimum (i.e. zero) delay. Anything else is a waste of your time as far as /vr/ is concerned.

[Anonymous No.1555171]

>>1555109
Oh snap, Retroactive is that you? I'm really excited for the HDMI mod.

I don't know if this is true, but I've heard that this mod bypasses the N64's terrible anti-aliasing.

[Anonymous No.1555183]

>>1555126
>Not having a DVI/HDMI equipped Trinitron

laughingwhores.mp3.exe

[Anonymous No.1555189]

>>1555124
sonic blast man or bust

[Anonymous No.1555324]

>>1555171
Yeah it's me

>bypasses the N64's terrible anti-aliasing.
Sadly no. Good news is actual anti-aliasing doesn't look bad. The reason things were really blurry/muddy on some games (cough Turok) is a perfect storm of these things:
1. AA
2. Blurry/low res textures
3. Noise dithering
4. Additional de-noise VI filter

When you combine all these you get a muddy splotchy mess. Turn off the last two and you get a nice crisp image. I hacked Starfox to turn off the de-noise filter and it improved a lot.

The mod can get the best possible signal, without actually changing the game code.

>You need to get it outputting its internal rendering resolution with the minimum (i.e. zero) delay.
This would be nice, but isn't practical. It's possible for 1-2 sets of circumstances, but not for most of them. (COmbinations of video modes, timing, HDTV timings, region etc).
Fortunately the single frame buffer required to cleanly fix sync rate issues is still much, much more responsive feeling than modern composite inputs due to the insane postprocessing that most tvs do to that signal.

[Anonymous No.1555384]

>>1555324
<3 64drive

Also thanks for helping clear up these N64 misconceptions with the kids here. It's like a full time job for some people here.

Fucking I need to learn how to solder.

[Anonymous No.1555394]

>>1555324
>Fortunately the single frame buffer required to cleanly fix sync rate issues is still much, much more responsive feeling than modern composite inputs due to the insane postprocessing that most tvs do to that signal.
Unless you get it as fast as my RGB modded console over SCART to YUV I'm not interested

[KyaDash !kDashing02 No.1555397]

>>1555324
Would it be possible to get rid of the latter two for said, crisp image, but still output at it's original 15khz sync rate?

[Anonymous No.1555439]

>>1555394
If you have a sony PVM/tube tv then I don't know why you would be interested in this adapter. You're set.

But for the scores of people with flatscreen TVs this is the way to go. Any analog input on a modern digital TV will incur at least 2-3 and usually several frames delay. Digital is the only game there.

>>1555397
Yes, but thats purely software, and gets into per-game patching which is a complete nightmare, I"m not going down that rabbit hole

[Anonymous No.1555451]

>>1555109
Will there be PAL machine compatibility?

[Anonymous No.1555457]

>>1555451
Yes

[Anonymous No.1555467]

>>1555457
Thanks. I also love how with 64drive you can run in 60hz using PAL colours.

[Anonymous No.1555487]

This would be way more awesome if you had an 15kHz Analogue RGB output as an option since a lot of 64s don't have it in the first place.

[Anonymous No.1555507]

needs 1:1 native output even if it results in a noncompliant DVI signal

[Anonymous No.1555563]

>>1555126

>all that autism

[Anonymous No.1555874]

>>1555109
Keep up the excellent work.

Would scan lines have a significant impact on latency? Also, would it be a perminent setting, or something that could be togeled?

[Anonymous No.1556225]

>>1555874
Probably no impact, I think I can do it on an overlapping-scanline basis in realtime (so no extra framebuffers)

[Anonymous No.1556261]

>>1555109
is that a digital audio connector I see next to the dated dvi-d connector? also the whole thing should be a single hdmi connector. new tvs don't even include vga & dvi connectors.

[Anonymous No.1556695]

Pillar boxing - very little you can do, a few games do widescreen, maybe let people choose a picture that can take over the area instead of just having it be black?

2xSAI - Don't do it! Don't mess with it

I love scanlines but I can't imagine it being better than my mini.

[Anonymous No.1556723]

>>1556695
I could do nonlinear stretch - aka TNT "Flexview"

I am going to kick around actual phosphor emulation for more realistic scanlines - 75/25% lines just look crap and fake.

[Anonymous No.1556782]

>>1556723
What's TNT flexview?

[Anonymous No.1556970]

>>1556723
Wow I remember you from back in the day on the benheck forums. Probably like 10 years ago or something. Still a big fan of the N64 it seems.

[Anonymous No.1556972]

>>1556723
Make sure there's an easy switch for games like GoldenEye which actually support widescreen.

[Anonymous No.1556978]

>>1556723
Make sure the scanline effect alternates even/odd on the correct fields when a game runs at 480i.

[Anonymous No.1557132]

>>1555109
I like this

got some questions though. Is it going to need modification of the top RF shield

Some more pictures would be lovely

[Anonymous No.1557201]

>>1557132
Probably not, I'm trying to rework the mod to acutally fit UNDER the mainboard.

[Anonymous No.1557216]

>>1557201
Well that works too

[Anonymous No.1557605]

>>1556978
Yup, I'm already doing that by necessity for field detection (or 480i won't work at all)

[Eventsguy No.1557914]

>>1555109
So how much for this board?
How easy will it be to install?

Have a few N64s and at a venue it will be very easy to just hook one up to a flat screen, also I might have a word with RePlay events as they might be interested. Ive told them that Mario Kart looks like arse on a flat screen

[Anonymous No.1557937]

>that over the top wire management
>any purpose at all besides showing off

Is that you Jinn?

[Anonymous No.1558059]

>>1557937
Forgot to point out that right angles in wiring are a BAD IDEA because they form inductors, and can cause signal ghosting and bounce.

[Anonymous No.1558090]

>>1557937
Get the fuck back to /toy/ you little fucker

[Anonymous No.1558284]

syncdoubling would be nice from 240p 15kHz/60Hz to 240p 31kHz/120Hz would be nice so you could play on any CRT VGA monitor

[Anonymous No.1558329]

Now overclock dat cpu to 125MHz for better FPS in peedee.

[Anonymous No.1558353]

>1. What to do with pillarboxing
Works for games that can't do widescreen, and I can't see any reason to fuck up with the ratio
>2. Whether 2xSAI is even worth bothering
It's not, please god no
>3. Anybody want fake scanlines (I think I can do a better result than the Xrgb or so)
This would be a neat as an option.

Love your work.

[Anonymous No.1558372]

What does 15khz output even mean?
Yes, I'm basically asking to be spoonfed.

[Anonymous No.1558469]

>>1555384

What's difficult in soldering?
Just don't use the tip like a spoon to put the solder at the desired place with the flux already having evaporated but use the flat tip to heat your soldering point and then add your solder from the other side. Leads to the flux doing what it's there for which always makes a perfect result.

[Anonymous No.1559802]

>>1558059
Actually right angles do not affect signal integrity in that way. You may be thinking of the myth that right angle PCB traces cause signal degradation, but they do not (below a few hundred MHz). The reason is due to impedance mismatches on the corner caused by the square corner giving parasitic capacitance.

Right angle wiring doesn't affect anything until you get into the gigahertz range, after which the EM wave propagation mode is more complex (quasi-TEM)

In fact the biggest mistake I made in this wiring was that the return path loop for each signal is larger than it needs to be. But at 48.68mhz it's of no consequence.

[Anonymous No.1559810]

>>1558353
THanks for the feedback.

>>1558372
It means you could use an arcade monitor or CRT that was not a computer monitor. 15khz RGB was much more prevalent in Europe where those lucky bastards got SCART plugs on everything. Us ameriplebs only get composite video

[Andy No.1559810,1]

Hi - this is probably too late but if you see this, it would be fantastic if this would support adjustable scanlines. I've done an in depth study into N64 display characteristics:

http://s9.zetaboards.com/Nintendo_64_Forever/topic/7412752/1/

And if you don't mind me chiming in, adjustable strength scanlines would make this mod really stellar. For me, light scanlines are necessary for the N64 otherwise it liiks too blocky on a larger screen - but overly dark/heavy scanlines detract from the image and are distracting.

Great work!