Reply To: OSSC + N64 = Better with Passthrough?

[nmalinoski]

It might be that the difference in video outcome between your AV Famicom/SF Jr and your N64 is that the NES/SNES hardware has sync jitter, and your TV is processing it differently to accommodate the off-spec video; where, as I understand it, the N64 doesn’t have this problem. Or not; I don’t really know. 😛

Games look better to me with the de-blur enabled on my UltraHDMI; everything looks clean and crisp. Personally, I haven’t noticed any dithering; I thought that was primarily an issue with PS1 games, but I may just simply have not played any N64 games with severe dithering.

I’m not sure anyone is building borti’s N64 Advanced RGB boards; I wasn’t able to find one when I was looking before I decided on an UltraHDMI; just Tim Worthington’s board, which I believe is also capable of de-blur using borti’s firmware, but you should verify this before purchasing.

Personally, I prefer the UltraHDMI, because it’s entirely digital video and digital audio, so no analogue noise floor buzzing when you’ve got the volume up; has no perceivable lag; and it’s my opinion that HDMI mods like these are more future-proof than RGB mods, because RGB still requires analogue AV equipment, which is getting rarer and more expensive as time goes on. As a bonus for you, the UltraHDMI won’t interfere with your existing RGB amp, so you can have both installed and just use the RGB output on CRT displays, where it’ll look much better compared to your flat-panel.

I no longer use my N64 with my OSSC, because it has an UltraHDMI. Before I installed the mod, I had it hooked up to a Kramer FC-4044 with a [crappy] S-Video cable, which got me YPbPr component output, and then that would ultimately end up going into my OSSC. My current TV doesn’t like anything more than line2x, so I would simply leave it at that, and I’d use the OSSC to add relatively faint horizontal scanlines.

Now, with the UltraHDMI, I skip the OSSC and go straight into my home theater receiver. I let it scale to 1080p, and I’ll generally leave scanlines off, because my TV has a 1366×768 panel, and downscaled 1080p with scanlines looks like garbage, and 1080p without scanlines looks better to me than 480p with. Plus, now that my N64 has HDMI, it’s plug-and-play with modern TVs; I’ve taken it to friends’ houses for multiplayer and not had to worry about bringing any of the analogue AV equipment I used to need for it.