[Calle W]

Alright, then it might be the crystal that is causing issues. Or, OoT just doesn’t like de-blur. I don’t have an NTSC copy of the game, so I can’t really try it on my own.

Below is an example using SM64 at 4x with the following settings. The console is modded with a THS7314. The is no blurriness in the center.

Video LPF: Off
Analog Sync LPF: Max
Allow TVP HPLL2x: Off
Allow Upsample2x: Off

H. samplerate: 386
H. samplerate Adj: .75 (or 3 on older firmware)
H. backporch: 35
H. synclen: 22
Sampling phase: 135 (this varies from console to console)
V. backporch: 14
V. synclen : 3

Super Mario 64, de-blur

[Calle W]

First things first, de-blurred N64 content will look the best at 1280×960 (4x mode), since the optimal sampling rate is 386.75 (386.75 * 4 = 1547). The OSSC will round to the nearest integer, so it won’t be perfect in 5x mode.

Also, by pre-deblur N64 RBG board, do you mean Tim Worthington’s board or a simple amp mod using a THS7314 chip (or similar)? If there is a Video LPF higher up in the chain, you want to disable the Video LPF on the OSSC, since it affects phase settings. A THS7314 chip will already have one. However, a THS7316 chip doesn’t have a filter and a THS7374 might have it turned off or on. If I remember correctly the Tim Worthington boards use a THS7374 with the low pass filter enabled. Make sure you only have one filter in the chain before dialing in settings. The “Auto” setting on the OSSC will never turn the filter off, so make sure it’s set to “Off” if necessary.

One thing that you can also try is to turn off “Allow TVP HPLL2x” in Sampling opt.

On: Enables 2x H-PLL, generally reducing jitter at the price of inaccurate sampling phase due to internal bug. [default]
Off: Disables 2x H-PLL, which might help with Line5x stability.

It usually doesn’t matter much, but for accurate sampling phase for the N64, I’ve found it to be necessary.

Another thing is that text has a tendency to look bad with de-blur. Especially games that render in 640×240 (GoldenEye for example, which looks terrible with de-blur). For these titles you’re better off using the generic modes. While there are optimal timings for 640×240, it just doesn’t look great. OoT should look fine for the most part though, since the text is very blocky.

Results at 5x should look a little better than in the picture you provided, but it will never be 100% perfect. 4x will be much closer to a perfect result. PAL consoles also look the best at 4x since the optimal sampling rate is very close to 397.25.

Give the settings I mentioned a try and see if results improve.

[Calle W]

Sorry for bumping this thread, but I just wanted to chime in on this. The reported refresh rate of 48.92Hz is due to the fact that the clock rates of these systems are left as NTSC. Performing a complete conversion with a swapped out crystal etc. would make a system like this run at the proper ~49.92Hz.

49.92 * 313 * 794,5 = 12.41Mhz (Standard PAL)

48.94 * 313 * 794,5 = 12.17Mhz (PAL game with NTSC clock)

Not too sure about the value of 794,5 for dots per line, but it’s probably close enough.

[Calle W]

Since there are no scheduled improvements on the OSSC wiki, I assume finer tuning of sampling rate will be put on the feature request list a long with everything else for a while. Would be a really nice feature though. I’m glad I asked about the refresh rate. =)

[Calle W]

@awe444 Wow, thank you so much. I was looking at pineight for information, but it just didn’t add up. I wanted to look up the clock generator, but the link to the datasheet on pineight is broken. Didn’t think twice to look it up elsewhere… Haha. Great work! Much appreciated! I love the N64, so this is really nice info for me. Thanks again!

@marqs That’s the exact formula I used. I ended up with the same results and it messed with my head a bit. Any small precision improvement of the samplerate would be a really nice addition. Great to know it’s possible to some extent. Also, just wanted to say that you’ve done a tremendous job with this piece of hardware so far. My best purchase in years!

[Calle W]

While we’re talking about samplerates, I was asking on shmups if anybody knows the exact refresh rate of an N64, but I didn’t get an answer. When test-recording in VirtualDub for example, the software settles at around 59.8261. When trying to calculate the refresh rate using the dot clock rate etc. I can’t really get close to this value.

The OSSC reports 59.82Hz and 263 lines per field. Would be nice to find out an exact value.

[Calle W]

Everything is working now. So nice to not have to worry about fiddling with settings anymore. Turned off video lpf for my N64 profile and set sampling phase to 202 (315 for line5x) degrees.

I also managed to take some decent enough pictures of my final results: https://imgur.com/a/PTKoC

As you can see, Mario’s nose sort of bleeds out a bit to the left, but it’s less noticeable in person. It’s basically a trade off. If I set the sampling phase one to three steps lower it’s perfect on the left but not on the right. I think I’ve found a nice middle ground now. Thanks again for taking your time to answer all my questions.

[Calle W]

Sorry I haven’t replied for a few days, easter was busy and all that. Turning off HPLL2x hass actually solved my issues for the most part.

Video lpf: 16Mhz
Sync lpf: 2.5MHz
Sampling phase: 247 degrees (some games look a bit better at 258 though). Had to adjust this from 281 due to turning HPLL2x off.

With HPLL2x turned off I can switch games without issues. I decided to do turn it off for other profiles as well. I was able to get similar results with different settings too. Video lpf off and sync lpf off gave the same results at around 33 degrees or something.

Are minimal values of sync/video lpf preferred over higher values? I’m not really seeing any differences. I guess I should be happy that everything is working now. Line5x seems to be a bit more picky with settings though. Haven’t reached as good results as I have with line4x yet, but I don’t use it that much anyway.

Tried to take some pictures but they didn’t come out all that great. Screenshots via my capture card might give an ok comparison even though there is color conversion involved. I’ll see if it’s worth the time to do so.

Thanks for the help, paulb_nl. It’s super appreciated. I’m loving the de-blur look of many games! I wonder how this stacks up against the UltraHDMI and the new N64RGB revision/firmware.

[Calle W]

I’m using the same simple RGB amp with luma sync. And yes, it’s directly connected to the OSSC. Would be nice to achieve perfect sharpness across all 240p titles. I will take some sample pictures when I get home.

Which settings are you using specifically?

[Calle W]

Basically yes. I usually look at the 120 star count for reference. The red color of the 0 “bleeds” out to the right. Today the second profile does the trick even after resetting the N64. H.samplerate is set to 387. I’ve also tried your special settings for x5, but they give me the exact same results.

I can achieve a good result without sync lpf and video lpf set to auto (which I guess would be optimal), but it’s kind of rare. This only applies to the N64 so far btw. My SNES has no issues. Perfect sharpness every time. I’m guessing my N64 is at fault here maybe.

EDIT: Switching games requires fiddling with settings. Once I get the results I want, I seem to be able to turn the console on and off without any issues (as long as it’s the same game).

[Calle W]

Sorry for bumping this old thread, but I’m experiencing some things that I would like to take a closer look at. Everytime I boot up my N64 I have to fiddle with the sampling phase. This isn’t a big deal, but sometimes I have to change sync lpf and video lpf. Today a sampling phase of 281, sync lpf at max and video lpf at 16MHz (EDTV) gave me the overall sharpest result. This regards the line4x mode.

The game I’m using for testing is Super Mario 64. If I use the same settings with Diddy Kong Racing, I rarely get good results. Diddy Kong Racing seems to always give me the best results with sync lpf a low or medium. The best way to get most satisfying results is to switch between two profiles with almost equal image quality until it produces an evenly sharp image. The left part of the image is not perfect, but it’s not that noticeable.

Profile 1: Sync lpf at max, video lpf at 16MHz (EDTV), sampling phase at 281
Profile 2: Sync lpf at medium, video lpf at 35MHz (HDTV 1), sampling phase at 45

Profile 1 works fine for SM64 after switching back and forth for a while. Profile 2 works for DKR after switching back and forth.

Would turning TVP HPLL2x off help? It says it generally reduces jitter at the cost of inaccurate sampling phase.

[Calle W]

I have this issue with 480i passthrough too. I’m using a Micomsoft SC-512N1-L/DVI, which I know marqs uses. I posted about this issue on the shmups forums as well. Haven’t tried to get it to work, since I just assumed the card doesn’t support 480i over HDMI/DVI.

EDIT: The issue is exactly the same on my old BenQ G2400WD. 480i passthrough does not seem to work at all with the BenQ RL2460HT.

[Calle W]

Tried out my BenQ RL2460HT (aka Zowie RL2460) yesterday.

x2: Yes
x3: Yes
480p x2: Yes
SNES: Yes

No issues really. The screen did go black a few times at first, but after switching to a different cable I’ve gotten zero blackouts.

[Calle W]

I’m thinking of picking this monitor up in the near future. Have you experienced any dropouts with it the last week? I’m guessing not since there hasn’t been any updates in this thread, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. The monitor is excellent for SSBM, so I’m looking forward to using it.

[Calle W]

coderkind – I just updated my OSSC with that exact card. First the OSSC said the image was invalid but it worked after about a minute or so.

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