N64 picture quality

[Camaro_87]

Hey so I recently picked up a n64. I used to own one years ago and loved it so I thought I'd get one for rainy days and such. Anyways I found one but when hooked up to my 42" Led TV the picture Quality just isn't the same as I remember it being. So I searched around and found that it's a common problem..... I did hear about getting an upscaler To get better picture... I found ones on eBay for about 50 bucks but would like to know from other people of its worth getting? Or if they're are any other ways to get better picture quality other then getting an 80's TV set..

Thanks

 

[Elektix]

Are you Pal or Ntsc?

 

[Camaro_87]

Ntsc

 

[Bush]

The problem here is that composite looks like ass on LCDs and that a lot of visual tricks that work on CRTs for shadows and antialiasing don't apply. Without scanlines, the low texture quality and use of dithering is really obvious. You can play around with sharpness and whatnot, but it may not do much. If you have an S-video input, that would help a ton with sharpness and color separation. As for upscaling, no practical device exists that's going to do a better job than your LCD's scaler. If you want it to look glorious again, pick up a CRT from the thrift store or CL, invest in a scan line generator, do an RGB mod, or wait for marshallh to finish his FPGA upscaler that uses HDMI.

edit: an interesting thing to note; if you have access to any newer Samsung LCDs (2012/13 or so), they actually have a brilliant composite upscaler that adds either some post-process AA or some texture filtering (possibly both) that makes GC and N64 games look like they are being rendered at the LCD's native resolution. My roommate had one and it was as if we were playing on emulators.

 

[Camaro_87]

The problem here is that composite looks like ass on LCDs and that a lot of visual tricks that work on CRTs for shadows and antialiasing don't apply. Without scanlines, the low texture quality and use of dithering is really obvious. You can play around with sharpness and whatnot, but it may not do much. If you have an S-video input, that would help a ton with sharpness and color separation. As for upscaling, no practical device exists that's going to do a better job than your LCD's scaler. If you want it to look glorious again, pick up a CRT from the thrift store or CL, invest in a scan line generator, do an RGB mod, or wait for marshallh to finish his FPGA upscaler that uses HDMI.

edit: an interesting thing to note; if you have access to any newer Samsung LCDs (2012/13 or so), they actually have a brilliant composite upscaler that adds either some post-process AA or some texture filtering (possibly both) that makes GC and N64 games look like they are being rendered at the LCD's native resolution. My roommate had one and it was as if we were playing on emulators.

The thing is I found a sweet 51" sony grand wega rear projection TV and was wondering if these rear projection TV would work with n64? I've never had a rear projection TV like this growing up so I'm not sure. I don't want to get it then find out is useless for me.

 

[Elektix]

Beaten me too it, but if you have an NTSC console, you can get S-Video.

Us Pal guys don't have that option sadly. But it should sort the picture out massively.

 

[vskid3]

The thing is I found a sweet 51" sony grand wega rear projection TV and was wondering if these rear projection TV would work with n64? I've never had a rear projection TV like this growing up so I'm not sure. I don't want to get it then find out is useless for me.

A quick search shows that the TV uses 3 LCDs that are projected on the screen. Do a search for the exact model to be sure, though. I don't have any experience with that kind of rear projection, but with it still using LCDs, I wouldn't expect it to look much better than a regular LCD. One that uses 3 CRTs would likely be better for old games, but they're beasts.

 

[Camaro_87]

The thing is I found a sweet 51" sony grand wega rear projection TV and was wondering if these rear projection TV would work with n64? I've never had a rear projection TV like this growing up so I'm not sure. I don't want to get it then find out is useless for me.

A quick search shows that the TV uses 3 LCDs that are projected on the screen. Do a search for the exact model to be sure, though. I don't have any experience with that kind of rear projection, but with it still using LCDs, I wouldn't expect it to look much better than a regular LCD. One that uses 3 CRTs would likely be better for old games, but they're beasts.

Searched Google but couldn't find anything stating that... I don't know a ton about TVs and their specs.. I just see screen size and how to use it.

 

[Bush]

Your best bet is going to be a CRT unit of some sort. http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/ntsc-nintendo-64-rgb/ this is a newer guide for RGB modding with an amplifier. That paired with a nice RGB capable CRT is going to look the best out of anything. There are some recommendations here: http://retrorgb.com/rgbmonitors.html

edit: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid= ... &_from=R40

here's an an ebay search for Sony PVM models.