I’ve been playing a lot of old DS and Wii and this is the one thing that struck me about those days. There just so much imagination and 3DS sting on display. First feels dull in comparison.
There were lots of press interviews done at launch, so it’s out there, but sadly not in one Iwata-Asks-style page.
Looking for some advice/opinions on the choice of display for my Gamecube. I’m fortunate to have the original Nintendo component cables (luckiest retro game thing I ever stumbled into) so here are my options:
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24" Sony CRT TV via component. This is what it’s currently hooked up to, but feeling like I’m missing out on good things without 480p.
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50" Panasonic plasma via component. I’ve done this in the past and it seemed ok at the time, but input lag was a concern. Would adding an OSSC into the mix here address lag plus provide a good scanline effect?
For consoles like the PS2 the decision was much easier (stays on the CRT) but for Gamecube I’m kind of waffling back and forth.
Personally, I’d probably stay with the 24" CRT. That’s really the display of the era and probably looks the “best”. A larger CRT would be an upgrade.
I was like this too until I got my lord and savior, the PVM 20L5.
But in your circumstance, stick with the CRT. It’s better to run a game a lower native resolution and be able to play it at that resolution, than to run it at an enhanced resolution, but have to scale it up to 1080p, introducing additional saw tooth edges and such.
Every single game on the GCN was made with 480i and 4:3 as the default target resolution. The developers made the games and tested their appearances with that in mind. 480p is simply a bonus for those rarer EDTV sets at the time as well as a way to ensure forward compatibility with future displays. But I don’t think the developers would insist on play such games on a 1080p display over a CRT if given the option.
In other words, I like to stick to the equipment of the particular era whenever possible.
My favorite way to play gamecube is on my 22" VGA crt using a homemade component- VGA converter. You can buy one for dirt cheap if you want.
The games look great on my 32" Trinitron @480i but I prefer to play gamecube on my modern TV through the OSSC. The game’s look fantastic with slight scanlines ( Similar to how it looks on my VGA crt) and it’s the way we play gamecube multiplayer around here. No one want’s to huddle around a 20" screen for 4 player.
Another plus to the modern TV is alot of gamecube games can be forced into 16:9 mode ( not stretched) and some actually support it ( Fzero GX). If you’re going to consider the modern option you’ll want to have a method to run homebrew on your cube for 480P and widescreen forcing.
Thanks for the suggestions guys. The case for the CRT TV is compelling and how I was leaning, but multiplayer is something I wasn’t factoring in to the equation. Now that I think about it, we haven’t played any multiplayer games since I moved the GCN over to the smaller TV. Hmmm…
If I’m honest with myself, it’s also likely that I’m hoping there’s a case to be made for picking up an OSSC.
DO IT! The OSSC is an awesome addition to any setup assuming your TV plays friendly with it.
The TV might be a snag. I’ve read some comments that it doesn’t play so nicely with Panasonic plasmas, something about only being able to output 2x, but I’m doing some more research on that. There might be some tweaking to the config that gets around the issue.
Our Panny plasma played far nicer with my OSSC (5x on most systems I tried was no sweat) than our new Sony, tbh.
Holy crap, real hardware? That’s an incredible project.
Despite only owning a few games for this system when it was first released- I enjoyed it. Playing Gotcha Force the most part!
No chance of getting a Hori GC controller but did the next best thing and modded an SFC controller. Just need to change out the rubber membrane and then I can really start enjoying using the GBA Player!
Platinum GCN looks really cool in that photo.
Great pic! How did you do the mod ?
Likely already know, but you can do it mod-less with a Raphnet adapter.
Using an Arduino, they’re super cheap, about £1.49/$1.89. It needs a USB programmer which is about the same and your pretty much sorted.
Someone on Assembler forums posted the Arduino sketch file it’s not really a full tutorial but if you scroll down I’ve posted the pin layouts and where to solder to on the SNES controller board: link
I usually prefer adapters to a mod like this as it’s more versatile but the upside is it looks cleaner and I had a few pads lying around.
I have the GC to N64 raphnet converter and it’s awesome, should mean that I can use this pad to play Mischief Makers and Kirby64 with that.
You may already know this but the Raphnet guy actually publishes the source code for his adapters. His SNES to GC one actually runs on an Atmel168, the same that’s used on an Arduino Uno/Nano. The benefit is that instead of being written in Arduino Sketch language, they’re written in AVR assembler and have extremely low latency.
I was able to reprogram an Arduino Uno’s Atmega168 to work with this using just an Arduino board to flash it and made a DIY adapter a while back. Worked really well.