Very difficult to get hold of an ultrahdmi board (gametech are the only ones who sell individual ones) but I can install them.
I may look into becoming an installer/supplier too.
I am well aware of this. After hearing about the codes thing I think @Try4ce mentioned something on a stream or something and all my dreams were dashed. I want to get the Ultra HDMI as my beef with N64 is how everything looks like vaseline has been wiped on everything. Mario is one of the games that always looks good imo but looking at that image, it looks awesome. I could easily skip the CRT for that PQ.
I have seen some manufacturing issues with the thing and the shoulder button hits the analog stick. I think I will wait for a few runs so they can sort this out
What? How does that get past QA?
As Aeana pointed out: You never really need the L button and the analog stick at the same time, due to the design of the original controller.
Still, it should have been caught.
So here’s something that popped in my head the other day… I have a calendar on my wall here at work from Retro Gamer. They gave it away with their December issue IIRC. This month’s pic is all the cast of Smash Bros. drawn in 32-bit sprite form. It’s a fan thing, but it’s pretty nice.
Anyway, it got me thinking that N64 deprived us of a 32-bit era of Nintendo games. We never really got to see Nintendo do sprite work of that era because they shifted directly from SNES to N64 which was all polygons. That’s kinda crappy when you really think about it. Imagine the likes of Super Mario World with animation and backgrounds on par with Street Fighter III: Third Strike! sigh
That said, I do love a lot of games on N64. Nintendo simply set the bar with 3D instead of closing out the prior 2D era with a bang.
We did get some of it with the GBA/DS era sprites
If you want a CRT with deblur you can do Tim’s RGB board. I have mine installed with a switch. Usually I leave it deblur off cause most games are designed with it in mind but for Puyo Puyo Sun 64 it looks pretty good with deblur on and now I can play that with a SNES controller…
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I guess I could do that and feed it to the OSSC. I kind of like the idea of just doing the ultra hdmi and leaving my original RGB board installed. The money this thing is going to cost me for a console at I am not overly fond of is already too much. I doubt the HDMI will suddenly make me love the N64. I really loved the PS1 that era and its hard for me to go back to the N64 but I am always open to discover something or re-discover and appreciating it after the fact.
Another neat thing about the UltraHDMI are the profiles you can set. I’ve set profile 2 up for the few games that support anamorphic widescreen:
Profile 1 and 3 are standard 4:3, one with sharp and clean scanlines, and one set with hybrid scanlines.
That does kinda make me wonder…is there not an HDMI option for PS1/2 yet?
I’ve always found it interesting how the ps1/2 were absolute juggernauts yet there’s barely any hardware/software home brew for them.
Well it helps that every single PS3 can play PS1 games via hdmi.
But still…
It has 4 of my favorite games of all time. But I wouldn’t say I am in love with the whole library.
Nintendo machine without a Metroid is sad imo.
The initial stage actually has two forms of AA applied, only one of which is disabled by the AR codes. I forget the details but one is object edges and the other is inside objects…? Not sure. But anyway I don’t recommend using the codes method because they also disable someting that exposes the N64’s full-screen dithering pattern and it’s very distracting. You can see it everywhere in this picture:
The UltraHDMI’s deblur on the other hand is great. Viletim’s RGB board also has it and I can confirm it is beneficial even if you’re just playing on a CRT.
I’ve been playing around with the codes with my BVM and capture card side by side. The dithering is not noticeable on my BVM but on a flat panel without any scanlines it’s very noticeable and downright distracting.
I think MLiG touched on it in their video but it seems like it’s a nice fix for CRT users but not so much for modern displays.
I notice the dithering on my BVM. But depending on the game or what’s on screen, it’s either barely noticeable, tolerable or annoying. The dithering is less obvious on other CRTs that are less sharp or have shadow masks.
Although it’s not practical as this dithering is caused by an unsupported hack, I’d like the UltraHDMI to have something like the Super NT’s blending mode. In Photoshop, Smart and Surface Blur remove this dithering without adding any blur or compromising the image quality. You’re left with a very clean and sharp picture.
I thought about making its own thread but I think this is more of a N64 appreciation thing. Anyway, this is a pretty neat “secret” found in Breath of the Wild dlc that pays homage to Ocarina of Time.
Spoilers for OoT not so much for Breath of the Wild.
I love that Nintendo does this stuff without ever mentioning it. Recently they added a new space costume to super Mario Odyssey that comes from an old satellaview ad.
Wow, I didn’t even know that. I loved going through all the SM Odyssey costumes that many were themed after so many Famicom, Nintendo and Gameboy ads/games. Speaking of which, I am only 500 moons in. I need to fix that.