deepthaw
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Everything posted by deepthaw
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I think the SNES design might be better received if it wasn't so pastel purple. The SFC has a nice white/gray with a splash of primary colors.
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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.") -
If you're Uncle Scrooge McDuck, sure -- throwing that kind of money away is fine! Actually, he'd never throw *any* money away. You'd have to argue hard to convince him to upgrade from RF to composite...
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What does everybody feel is the best SimCity game? I was playing SimCity 4 for a while, but now I've reverted to SC2K.
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Video games have an awful lot of graveyards when you consider that when people die, their body flickers and disappears. What are they burying out there?
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Having found out much of the stuff in this house I bought last year already has z-wave support, considering upgrading to a smart home. May build my own hub from a spare Raspberry Pi.
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https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/55147/ycbcr The component people usually refer to when talking about gaming systems/home entertainment devices is analog component video. I'm starting to see why Sharp advertised those connectors on the back of my TV as "Colorstream" rather than component now.
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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.
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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
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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.)
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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/
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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.
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Finally beat that kobold cave in Pool of Radiance. Finished up the pyramid, now onto the Lizardmen...
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The want for 1080p HD (and higher).
deepthaw replied to Keatah's topic in Classic Console Discussion
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. -
The want for 1080p HD (and higher).
deepthaw replied to Keatah's topic in Classic Console Discussion
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. -
Ugh. Finally doing good in the grindfest that is the final battle of the Kobold caves in Pool of Radiance.. And the game crashes.
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Didn't realize the input lag on my 4K HDTV was so good (13.5ms). When I finally pick up an OSSC, that means I'll be doing my classic games with 1 frame of input lag, which is good enough to not make space for my Trinitron (for now.)
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"MIDI suxx" Oh? would have a word with you. I think way too many people just equated FM Synth == MIDI back in the day.
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I hadn't seen Smooth Doom before. Looks like I need to install and replay Doom for the umpteenth time.
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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!
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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.
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Dull Sunday - drank a bottle of wine in one go. Wish drinking didn't make me depressed and nostalgic. But at least I'm at the right place for nostalgia, right?
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Been hanging out on BBS's of late.
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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.
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