NES RGB mod question

[Soviet Conscript]

one system mod i've been looking at for a long time now is the nes rgb mod. especially since i recently aquired a XRGB plus. after looking though there isn't much info on the web about it other then its expensive and difficult to do. my question is how expensive roughly so i know what amount to save up for? about how many nes mods are incompatable with the nes after the mod?

i figure with a rgb mode i can have 2 cables made. a 9 pin to PVM cable if i want to play on my RGB PVM and a 21 pin rgb cable for playing through my XRGB on my tv or pc monitor.

[Trebuken]

This requires a Playchoice PPU, and a bunch of labor if I recall. I abandoned this mod becasue finding the PPU was tough enough, but finding someone to perform the mode was tougher.

I think you need a specific PPU, but not sure. Presumably they are on the PCB. They do not seem to be all that expensive on ebay. I think the labor may be the expensive part of the mod...

[SnowKitty]

This requires a Playchoice PPU, and a bunch of labor if I recall. I abandoned this mod becasue finding the PPU was tough enough, but finding someone to perform the mode was tougher.

I think you need a specific PPU, but not sure. Presumably they are on the PCB. They do not seem to be all that expensive on ebay. I think the labor may be the expensive part of the mod...

also, the color pallettes will be different. some games will look weird.

[Sniderman]

warm chocolate puddin'?

(Long-time running joke here at DP)

[Blur2040]

blankblankblankblankblankblank

[rpepper9]

warm chocolate puddin'?

(Long-time running joke here at DP)

Huh? Wat-Cheu-Talkn-Bout Willis?

[PapaStu]

/me looks at title of thread

/me shimmies thread to Tech and Restoration

[mario2butts]

I haven't attempted an NES RGB mod, but I have found a way to get an NES looking better through an XRGB.

Plugging an NES (or any other system via composite) into the XRGB yields a very soft, crummy image, as I'm sure you've already discovered. However I noticed that systems connected via S-Video looked much better, not *quite* RGB quality but by a greater margin than I expected compared to composite. So as an experiment I once tried routing my NES' composite signal through my A/V Receiver (mine's a Denon 1804), which converted the signal to S-Video and output that to the XRGB. The resulting image was much sharper. Colors still didn't have the pop you get used to from systems using RGB out, but the picture was still very good.

So, if you have any equipment around that handles composite to S-Video conversion, such as an A/V Receiver or even certain A/V switches, it might be worth giving them a try. I know back in the 90's they made standalone comb filters that videophiles used to convert the composite output of Laserdisc players to a clean S-Video signal, I've been hunting for one to test my theory that such a box would do wonders for the NES. Of course I haven't found one yet...

Anyway I'm sorry that doesn't directly answer your question, but it is another route to explore.

[Bratwurst]

Really. Don't do it. Please. I hate it when people do it. It's unnecessarily destructive.

You take a perfectly good NES, remove the PPU. Take a perfectly fine Playchoice or Vs. board, destroy that by removing it's PPU. Pop the new PPU into the NES. Hack up the NES case and cram an RGB port of some sort on there. Play games with colors that are slightly off.

Why not just play it on an emulator then? I think you sort of lose the whole point of playing on original hardware when you have it hacked to bits.

Doesn't the Japanese Famicom titler already have an RGB PPU in it? Can't people just bite the bullet and hunt one of those down?

I have to agree with this assessment, it's expensive, wasteful and doesn't function perfectly. Some games don't even display their graphics properly afterwards, you're better off playing on an emulator if you're after crisp pixels.

[Ze_ro]

Doesn't the Japanese Famicom titler already have an RGB PPU in it? Can't people just bite the bullet and hunt one of those down?
Does anyone have an experience with this? Are Famicoms easy to do an RGB mod on, or will it end up with wrong colours as well?

--Zero

[ProgrammingAce]

Does anyone have an experience with this? Are Famicoms easy to do an RGB mod on, or will it end up with wrong colours as well?

--Zero

My understanding was that you needed to steal the chip out of one of the tilers or the Playchoice arcade units to get RGB out of the famicom as well. The tiler used a unique chip.

-- Zero

[Soviet Conscript]

anyone know if the S-video out of a famicom titler has screwed up colors like the rgb mod? if you mod a titler for rgb can you just switch over to s-video for the games with incompatabilities/color problems? are there any compairisons shots anywhere of titler s-vieo to rgb or composite?

[mario2butts]

Here (http://assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7546) is a good thread that answers some of your questions.