The TV I used to play SNES games on

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iNCEPTIONAL

The TV I used to play SNES games on

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

I just re-stumbled upon this YouTube video of the TV I used to play my SNES games on: https://youtu.be/ua0qPwfHvMg

That's the same model Toshiba 32" Dolby Pro Logic surround sound [it had five speakers] TV I owned, which I actually purchased for myself with money I made from a telesales job (selling kitchens over the phone), and I think it cost me £700 at the time.

It was a total blast. The picture looked great, with really nice colour quality and pixel clarity and the like, especially since I had my SNES connected up via either S-Video or 21-pin SCART at the time too (as I recall). And there was even no noticeable scanlines playing games on that TV at a normal viewing distance either. Also truly great for watching movies, with excellent base and explosion sounds and stuff going off all around you.

That's my experience of playing 16-bit games back in the day (and watching movies). What's yours?

Note: I played my SNES games on that TV for many years, and that's the most applicable experience for me regarding what it was like when I talk about how good they looked back in the day on the TV I played them on and via the connections I used here in the UK.

Note 2: Later, I had an even better [at least in terms of picture] Sony Trinitron WEGA SD CRT TV that I had all my consoles connected up to (right up until the Wii), which just looked sublime. Boy do I regret throwing that one out literally on the kerb a couple of years ago--I honestly didn't know just how good it was until reading up more on this stuff in recent times.
Last edited by iNCEPTIONAL on Thu Jun 02, 2022 6:26 am, edited 10 times in total.
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jeffythedragonslayer
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Re: The TV I used to play SNES games on

Post by jeffythedragonslayer »

I never had a SNES growing up. I played with my cousins at parties, mostly Sunset Riders, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, A Link to the Past, and Super Mario World.
iNCEPTIONAL

Re: The TV I used to play SNES games on

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

jeffythedragonslayer wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 5:06 am I never had a SNES growing up. I played with my cousins at parties, mostly Sunset Riders, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, A Link to the Past, and Super Mario World.
Well, thank God you at least got to play it. I can't imagine how much of a loss it must have been to any kid around that time who didn't get to experience either the SNES or Genesis. :-o
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Re: The TV I used to play SNES games on

Post by jeffythedragonslayer »

I used to get really upset when people would tell me I missed out on certain games or systems and sucks to me be, especially Ocarina of Time (there is a lot that A Link to The Past does better IMO). If someone thinks OOT is the best game ever that's OK but if they think OOT cannot be improved upon and that only special people who played it around 1998 get to experience the superfun because so many other games wore the novelty of 3d off, and if you played it generations later like I did in 2008 you can't possibly appreicate it the way the special people did, well I think those people are in a cult. Their gatekeeping has the paradoxical effect of making the game less fun because they made me feel terrible over somehting i can't control (the year i was born, what my friends were saying about games at the time) while having a conversation about that game. (And when egorapter made a video critical of OOT I felt so validated and not like something must be wrong with me because I wasn't enjoying OOT as much as I wanted to and was supposed to.)

The 3d thing is why I think a lot of the people I grew up with probably consider the snes too old to be interesting, but once I really got into Seiken Densetsu 3 with the Switch remake I really started to appreciate the snes a lot more. And do you know what? When I talk to people about that game, I feel like I'm in a time machine and I actually am one of those special people who was in the right place at the right time. Once I truly internalized that it's not like these games are going to disappear, but are going to be around forever, and future generations are going to get curious about what gaming was like in 1995 and play SD3, I truly felt on a spiritual level that I was part of a time vortex where I become one of those special people instead of someone trying and failing to have fun after all the cool people have long left the party. The next time I play through OOT this is the attitude I want to have.

There is no deadline. Join the 90s time vortex and enjoy the pizza party.
iNCEPTIONAL

Re: The TV I used to play SNES games on

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

jeffythedragonslayer wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 6:19 am I used to get really upset when people would tell me I missed out on certain games or systems and sucks to me be, especially Ocarina of Time (there is a lot that A Link to The Past does better IMO). If someone thinks OOT is the best game ever that's OK but if they think OOT cannot be improved upon and that only special people who played it around 1998 get to experience the superfun because so many other games wore the novelty of 3d off, and if you played it generations later like I did in 2008 you can't possibly appreicate it the way the special people did, well I think those people are in a cult. Their gatekeeping has the paradoxical effect of making the game less fun because they made me feel terrible over somehting i can't control (the year i was born, what my friends were saying about games at the time) while having a conversation about that game. (And when egorapter made a video critical of OOT I felt so validated and not like something must be wrong with me because I wasn't enjoying OOT as much as I wanted to and was supposed to.)

The 3d thing is why I think a lot of the people I grew up with probably consider the snes too old to be interesting, but once I really got into Seiken Densetsu 3 with the Switch remake I really started to appreciate the snes a lot more. And do you know what? When I talk to people about that game, I feel like I'm in a time machine and I actually am one of those special people who was in the right place at the right time. Once I truly internalized that it's not like these games are going to disappear, but are going to be around forever, and future generations are going to get curious about what gaming was like in 1995 and play SD3, I truly felt on a spiritual level that I was part of a time vortex where I become one of those special people instead of someone trying and failing to have fun after all the cool people have long left the party. The next time I play through OOT this is the attitude I want to have.

There is no deadline. Join the 90s time vortex and enjoy the pizza party.
That sounds like a nice way to experience these old consoles to me.

Personally, as a somewhat similar example, I never really played the NES back in the day, but I found recently that I really did have a lot of affection for it when I tried playing a whole load of NES games I added to my hacked SNES Classic Mini. It's honestly a great console with a whole load of brilliant games, and, despite many aspects of the games obviously looking/sounding dated, I found the overall experiences often held up exceptionally well, especially in the gameplay department. And even a lot of that simple pixel art and chip-tune music just comes across more like a timeless form of art than some outdated technical relic imo (much like classical music played on classical instruments is timeless). I mean, yeah, the crap games have just dated badly across the board because they were always bad, but the best games honestly have achieved pretty much a timeless quality to them in my experience.

I think being able to play so many of these old game via official methods on modern consoles and the like has also really been a great thing.

PS. I honestly do personally find it a bit harder to find that timeless quality in the first generation of 3D games than I do the likes of NES and SNES 2D generation of gaming though, as I think that great early 2D really does hold up better than almost all early 3D. And I grew up with the likes of PlayStation and N64, so I can even get over that due to my nostalgia and the like. But it's clear [to me at least] that they're just not quite as timeless because the very early 3D technical limitations (bad pop-in, distorted textures, blurry textures, fogging, etc) really does let them down at times. So I can totally understand someone finding it a bit harder to get into say Ocarina of Time decades after the fact. Although, a lot of those early PlayStation and N64 games can still be great fun to play, if you can get over how crappy they often look and run. lol
Last edited by iNCEPTIONAL on Tue May 31, 2022 1:17 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Nikku4211
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Re: The TV I used to play SNES games on

Post by Nikku4211 »

I used to play my RetroDuo on a Sharp CRT TV back in the early 2010s.

I've also played on various HDTVs at the time, too, not noticing various issues the HDTVs had with 240p signals as a little kid.
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iNCEPTIONAL

Re: The TV I used to play SNES games on

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

Nikku4211 wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 11:09 am I used to play my RetroDuo on a Sharp CRT TV back in the early 2010s.

I've also played on various HDTVs at the time, too, not noticing various issues the HDTVs had with 240p signals as a little kid.
Is that when you got into gaming and experienced these old consoles for the first time then?

It's still a decent enough way to play them if that's all you have access to, especially if you take enough time to really setup everything properly to get the best results.

I currently play all my SNES games on my SNES Classic Edition connected to a modern 50" 4K HDTV, and, although I know it loses something from the truly authentic experience (mostly that superior input-to-output latency time), I still have an immense amount of fun playing these awesome classics that way.

Honestly, playing on the SNES Classic Mini (which is really very close to the original experience for me personally) is one of my favourite gaming experiences of the last decade and beyond (alongside playing VR on my Oculus Rift CV1 and then Quest 2--I absolutely love VR).
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Re: The TV I used to play SNES games on

Post by jeffythedragonslayer »

iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 11:05 amAlthough, a lot of those early PlayStation and N64 games can still be great fun to play, if you can get over how crappy they often look and run. lol
Yeah, someone once mentioned to me that they take games for what they are, when they were released. I liked the way they put it. That I consider someone who has set up their time vortex. When someone in the N64 community made a comment about me being late to ask about the "every copy of mario 64 is personalized" meme, for a moment I felt like "don't break my time vortex!" but I don't know the tone they would have used had i asked in person, if it was coming from a joking place or place of "shame on you for missing out and asking such a stupid question so much later."

I think the snes community is a bit of an older and more chill crowd. I've never felt like I couldn't ask a question because the thrill around that fun event had passed.
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Re: The TV I used to play SNES games on

Post by qbradq »

I used to play on the 32" console TV in the living room when I was lucky. When I couldn't do that I had a probably 7" black-and-white TV in my bedroom that I played on.

I can relate to the "you missed the boat" feeling. I decided to give console gaming a miss during the PS2 generation. :roll:
iNCEPTIONAL

Re: The TV I used to play SNES games on

Post by iNCEPTIONAL »

qbradq wrote: Wed Jun 01, 2022 9:47 pm I used to play on the 32" console TV in the living room when I was lucky. When I couldn't do that I had a probably 7" black-and-white TV in my bedroom that I played on.

I can relate to the "you missed the boat" feeling. I decided to give console gaming a miss during the PS2 generation. :roll:
As I recall, my sequence of [home] consoles went as follows (in terms of systems I actually owned): Master System, SNES, PlayStation, N64 (first and only console I ever bought day one, and even lined up at midnight to get it), GameCube, Xbox, Wii, and SNES Classic Edition. Handhelds went GBC, GBA, DS, and I guess a little bit of iPhone 4 (mostly because I was developing some games for the App Store at the time). Haven't found the last couple of generations of consoles particularly interesting or compelling. Currently, I'm gaming mostly on VR (first Oculus Rift CV1 and then Quest 2), which I 100% recommend to anyone and everyone who hasn't tried VR yet, followed by SNES Classic Mini (totally love it, and almost feels just like gaming back on the original SNES back in the day again imo) and the PC a very distant third (and mostly for indie or retro games at that).
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Re: The TV I used to play SNES games on

Post by Pokun »

jeffythedragonslayer wrote: Mon May 30, 2022 7:56 pm
iNCEPTIONAL wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 11:05 amAlthough, a lot of those early PlayStation and N64 games can still be great fun to play, if you can get over how crappy they often look and run. lol
Yeah, someone once mentioned to me that they take games for what they are, when they were released. I liked the way they put it. That I consider someone who has set up their time vortex.
Sounds almost like me. I basically apply that rule whenever I play something that is older than myself and is therefore able to easily enjoy any good game of any generation regardless if I grew up with it or not. It helps to read about the game and how the reception was at the time, at least it should make you more interested in the game and wanting to see how the game is like to play. It might also help that I did grow up playing classics like Pong even though it's technically from before my time.

I don't need to apply that with PS1 or Nintendo 64 though, I think those consoles are practically modern anyway.
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Re: The TV I used to play SNES games on

Post by Memblers »

I started from the Colecovision (included the Atari 2600 module), Atari 7800, NES, Gameboy, SNES, then PC (386 IBM PS/1). PlayStation we used a ton of at my friend's house. I wanted an N64, I remember instead of getting one late I decided to get a Voodoo 3 card. Only weeks before 3XFX was bought out, and the official driver was never updated again. But there were good drivers made by whoever in the community, just funny timing. Didn't do anythinng with newer consoles after that. Later on, I got a lot of use out of the DS Lite though.

I found an image of our main TV we got when I was a kid. We had a black and white TV in the bedroom, and a small color TV for the living room. But I think was probably around the same time I got my NES, we got this Mitsubishi TV that I thought was great. I found an image of it:
Mitsubishi TV.jpg
Mitsubishi TV.jpg (20.3 KiB) Viewed 540 times
Below the number pad there is a door that opens up, I had a little hand-held tape recorder that I could hang there by its lanyard, then I would record audio from games I rented. Like Stider, Roger Rabbit, SimCity were some of them. Just doing what I had to do before the NSF and SPC file formats were around, haha.
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