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deepthaw

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Posts posted by deepthaw

  2. Posted · Edited by deepthaw

    I blame stuff like this from the original NES manual. To be fair, back then there was only one type of cable for separate audio and video that consumers were likely to use, so calling it "composite" wasn't very natural. (I don't call power cables by whatever the technical name is.) Even some modern TV manufacturers still call them "AV cables" in their user manuals (although the Vizio one I found makes sure to say "also known as composite.")

    post-64192-0-66027800-1533754981.png

  7. Posted

     

    This is completely wrong.

     

    Component video YPbPr, is not digital. It is an analog connection.

     

    To be fair: This *does* get to Iceman's point of terminology overload. Component is *usually* used to refer to YPbPr, but can *technically* refer to any kind of signal that breaks up the video over multiple signals, including some digital signals. That means you could technically refer to s-video as component (since it splits the picture into luma and chroma), but in practice nobody would actually do that.

     

    But when somebody says component, 99% of the time: they're talking about analog YPbPr component via those cables that use the same RCA connectors that composite video uses.

  8. Posted

    Component video is newer than RGB. Component carries digital signals up to Full HD 1080p. RGB is analog.

     

    I could have *sworn* component (at least the component cables I used to connect my DVD player to my CRT, and later my Xbox 360 to my HDTV) was analog and that was part of the reason for the move to HDMI - to enable HDCP and enforce digital copy protection.

     

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YPbPr

  9. Posted

     

    This is not really true, at least not on a CRT, though it depends here on personal definition of "massive". For me the difference can be, ahem, "substantial", but not as big as RF vs RGB for example. The point being, is that in the CRT "community" the received wisdom has it that using anything below S-Video is anathema, makes the games totally unplayable and will give you eye cancer or some such. This is just silly, because composite is perfectly functional, as long as you don't obsess over it and keep your nose further than few inches from the TV surface. Sure, it's good to try for the higher options but it's not always possible.

     

    For me it's always been: Composite is a massive improvement over RF. S-Video is a substantial improvement over composite. Component is a mild improvement over S-Video. RGB is a slight improvement over Component.

     

    S-Video seems to be the sweet spot of diminishing returns on improved video connectivity in the analog era. That said, I've been playing my Genesis via composite until there's an HD Retrovision restock, and I've been having plenty of fun - and it actually looks better than I remembered and it doesn't feel nearly as "urgent" to upgrade as I thought it would. (I still plan on it, though - if only to have the best quality possible when I finally get an OSSC.)

  10. Posted · Edited by deepthaw

     

    What do people consider a jack? To me a jack is a phono end. SCART to me does not have a jack it has pins in a connector. When words like jacks and RGB are just tossed around that is why people like me don't understand wth people are talking about.

     

    Plus RGB from how I understand it should not be considered a separate signol as it is multiple signals.

     

     

    No Component used Red, Green, and Blue color jacks. RGB is simply video signals devices output.

     

    Jack is used almost universally as a way to refer to the fixed, typically female physical connector into which a non-fixed, typically male plug is inserted to form a connection in electrical or electronic systems. I say "almost" because apparently you've never heard of phone jacks, ethernet jacks, power jacks or even heard of somebody offhandedly refer to a collection of sockets simply as "jacks" to save time over-explaining what they mean. The official definition can be found in (now withdrawn, but still recognized) IEEE-200-1975 among others, if you want to be pedantic - which you clearly do.

     

    https://www.cosjwt.com/jack-plug-male-female-connectors/

  11. Posted · Edited by deepthaw

    The easiest way to view it is this:

    Europe decided on SCART as a universal connector that could carry a variety of video signals. One jack to rule them all, so the speak. RGB was one of those signals. In theory, you could plug in a SCART cable and you'd get the best signal your device + TV could both handle.

     

    The US was confusing and didn't ever settle on that kind of standard, so we were stuck (largely) with composite or s-video (or RF) while those "in the know" could track down cables to get an RGB signal for those cases where they were lucky enough to have a TV/Monitor that supported it. I remember back in the 90's being aware of RGB and SCART, and it was one of those things that "lucky" Europeans got (although I suspect they'd have happily traded us SCART for their NTSC->PAL ports not being lazy and unoptimized.)

     

    I suspect the real reason component uses red, green and blue jacks is because they'd typically be placed right next to the composite jacks on a TV and yellow and white were already taken, and colors like brown or purple might be difficult to distinguish (even then, they doubled up on the "red" colored jack.) Oh, and some manufacturers called it "Colorstream" instead of component. I'm not sure why they kept the same jacks as composite, which while letting you reuse cables, could also lead to confusion.

     

    But at least we've settled on modern standards! Except for having to choose Bitstream vs PCM for your digital audio. And knowing what type of HDR your TV supports. And making sure your HDMI cable that looks physically identical to all other HDMI cables supports the latest standard so that you can actually get 4K on your 4K HDTV. (And make sure your 4K blu-ray isn't 4K upscaling, which is different from real 4K...) And make sure you're plugged into the correct HDMI ports on your HDTV because of course different ports support different refresh rates and resolutions, and have different inherent display/input lags despite all being HDMI.

     

    Ugh. Vectrex didn't have these problems.

    • Like 4

  12. Posted

     

    Well I was unaware that someone made rgb cables for all these systems. However,

     

    Are you guys going to tell me 20 years ago when you bought a genesis and such they had an RGB cable sitting on the shelf right next to these systems?

     

    To follow up more, trying to tell me systems made 20-30 years ago that shipped with R/F and composite were designed to be ran on RGB sounds like BS to me. If technology was being designed to run on RGB how come so few TV's even had it back then? Why didn't consoles ship w/RGB cables?

     

    RGB via SCART was fairly common in Europe. For unknown reasons, they didn't bother with it in the US.

     

    Even back in the 90s I vaguely knew about this ultra high-end "SCART" that the lucky Europeans got that we didn't that looked better.

  13. Posted

    The input lag on HDTVs has been steadily improving - mine is 13.5ms over one of the HDMI ports, which is slightly less than one frame. Pair that with practically lag-less upscalers like OSSC or RetroTINK2 and the need for CRTs to play classic games at their best is diminishing.

     

    There's still the body of people who demand on nothing less than RGB to a CRT (preferably PVM) for the most authentic look, but recent technology improvements have made HDTVs pretty damned good for classic gaming with original hardware. I have a Trinitron in my basement that I use for original hardware, but when I can get my hands on an OSSC I'll probably put it in storage in the garage. I'd still prefer the look of a CRT, but it's just not practical space-wise.

  14. Posted

     

    Yep, all of this is true. That's what was so glorious about MIDI tracks in games, but also why you can't just brush in broad strokes and say "MIDI suxx" like the person I referred to (yet mysteriously didn't quote, for some reason) said.

     

    "MIDI suxx"

     

    Oh?

    would have a word with you.

     

    I think way too many people just equated FM Synth == MIDI back in the day.

  15. Posted

     

    I meant exactly what I said. :twisted:

     

    IMO there is no such thing as a good console port of Doom,* although the PSX version does probably come the closest. Hell, even the PC version of Doom isn't the best version of Doom now that there are source ports, texture packs, sound packs, and mods out the absolute yin-yang to fit any style of gameplay you desire (seriously, the activity of the Doom scene is mind-blowing). Once you've played the game in GZDoom or Zandronum with something like Smooth Doom, there is just absolutely no going back to any '90s console port, or even plain, old, bare-bones, as-it-was-in-1994, vanilla PC Doom. Except maybe for a nostalgia trip.

     

    I very rarely say that about old games vs. updates/remakes, but in the case of games like Doom, Duke 3D, and other "immersive," pseudo-realistic '90s FPSes, the forms that these games have evolved to are more or less what they would have been in the first place had the tech been there at the time. John Romero himself once even said something to the effect of Brutal Doom being the game iD would have made in 1993 if they could have. So I grant Doom a rare exception to the "don't [email protected]#$ with it" rule. :-D

     

    However, I can understand how those console versions were pretty great at the time. I was there, myself. :P And yeah, PCs that could competently run the game were expensive AF (in the parlance of our times). I mean, you'd still have had to have been pretty hard up for some Doom action to suffer through the SNES version, but if you had a 32X? Jaguar? PlayStation? Those would have gotten the job done until you could get a decent PC. :-D (Sorry, 3DO owners. :_( )

     

    (*Defined as "Coming even close to being as good as the PC version.")

     

    I hadn't seen Smooth Doom before. Looks like I need to install and replay Doom for the umpteenth time.

    • Like 1

  16. Posted

    I mean...I did preface the entire paragraph with "IMO." So pop some Zyrtec. :P :-D

     

    Teasing aside, I totally respect where you're coming from. I'm generally a bit of a purist when it comes to most things classic gaming-related (ex: Genesis pads on a 2600 = blasphemy), but for me personally, Doom is one of the few things where I can't see a real reason to go back. I've probably been spoiled by mouselook, butter-smooth framerates, HD textures, particle and lighting effects, varied monster sprites and death animations, improved weapon physics, etc. etc. etc., but OTOH realism and immersion were what games like Doom were going for, and all this stuff only serves that end. I play the game with all these enhancements and think, "This is the way it was supposed to be." The OG stuff is just too clunky and clumsy for me, especially the console ports. Again, just my opinion.

     

    No accounting for taste, I guess. :-D

     

    Ordinarily, I'd be with you. Just not for Doom. :-D

     

    It's weird how much source ports and other modern improvements *haven't* ruined Doom. I always play with GZDoom and find going back to 320x200 Doom to be choppy and ugly. I think it's the strong art direction and arcade-y gameplay. 60fps (actually, whatever gazillion fps modern PCs can do) complements the very run-and-gun feel so much better than the original 35fps maximum. I don't do any filtering or so-on, I want my pixels so sharp I can cut myself! :)

  17. Posted · Edited by deepthaw

    As a part-time musician, this conversation is killing me. :lol:

     

    MIDI is just MIDI, not completed sound. There's no FM MIDI or sample MIDI. The industry settled on a MIDI standard called General MIDI that included 128 specific instruments available across 15 channels, plus one percussion channel where each percussive instrument had its own specific note that appeared in channel 10 as the 16th channel. MIDI is note data that's sent to a MIDI-capable device. The MIDI device then interprets the note data and plays music.

     

    The device might use FM synthesis or sample playback. In the 90s there were some common (but suuuuuper expensive) external MIDI devices that consumers could get their hands on. Roland had the GS series, Yamaha had their own stuff, and Gravis had the internal wavetable player in the UltraSound. Most PC gamers had Creative Sound Blaster cards in their PCs, and many of those cards used a Yamaha OPL FM synthesizer. Later in the decade, Creative released the Sound Blaster Live that had its own "sound font" technology, which was a bank of instrument samples. Windows 98 introduced a General MIDI synth baked into the OS that provided sample-based playback, and from that point forward MIDI hasn't really changed in Windows. All that is getting beyond the scope of Doom, though, unless you count one of the later Windows ports.

     

    I had a Yamaha keyboard that had MIDI in/out ports. Those ports interfaced with the 15-pin "joystick" port on my PC. I couldn't use a joystick and my MIDI controller at the same time, which was a shame. The keyboard could then play the music from Doom using the built-in sounds. It was way better than any FM synth for sounding like a real instrument, but it wasn't so great at FM sound effects, which basically don't exist in many DOS PC games, since the Sound Blaster did a great job with audio samples compared to 16-bit consoles.

     

    Developers had to be conscious of their musical compositions in MIDI because you didn't really know what the music would sound like on everybody's PC. Did you do something unique that only sounds good for MT-32 owners, or a dumbed down AdLib-friendly soundtrack?

     

    I remember finding patchsets for my Gravis Ultrasound that helped tweak the music in Doom to sound better - or at least closer to what the composer intended. I don't think people nowadays appreciate how amazing it is that developers can just toss in a high-resolution digital soundtrack and rest assured it'll play back flawlessly on every device.

  18. Posted

     

    But at the same time, it's really not a very good handheld. Its battery life is terrible, and it's huge compared to any other handheld.

     

    I prefer the 3DS for portable gaming and rarely use our Switch out of the dock, but apparently Nintendo has 50/50 usage metrics for docked vs undocked play so there's definitely a market for its portability.

  21. Posted

    Not everything deserves a physical release. This is a $10 game. Let's let big budget releases be physical discs and let download games be digital only! That's how my collection works.

     

    I wonder if Inti could swing a retro-styled bundle for a physical release? Mighty Gunvolt Burst, Bloodstained Curse of the Moon, Blaster Master Zero on one cart for $30?

    • Like 2

  24. Posted

    I'd like to build an arcade stick for my Genesis - I'd be using it for games like Revenge of Shinobi, Streets of Rage, Thunderforce IV, etc.

     

    Any recommendation on brands for the hardware? I can't think of a reason why the same type of 8-way stick I use for fighting games wouldn't work, but there may or may not be nuances out there of which I'm totally unaware.

     

    • Like 1
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