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is this the NES palette?
Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 1:13 pm
by evildragon
I am going through some of my old files, and ran across this... Is this the NES color palette? If it is, I thought yellow wasn't possible?
Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 1:38 pm
by Bregalad
It looks like it is, and the colors are aproximata anyway. The palette may differ slightly from TV to TV, and may differ a lot from NTSC to PAL.
$28 or $27 are the closest to yellow to exist, but $28 looks like piss and $27 looks like gold, so there is no true yellow I guess.
Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 6:18 pm
by Zepper
- Personally, I don't know what is "yellow" in RGB values, if actually a triplex could be defined as "yellow".
- Back to the topic, NES palettes are so common as candies, but (sort of) everybody agrees that my rip from Rockman Complete Works is the best match. It's not officially released, but someone has hacked it and released anyways... try an easy google search.
Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 6:23 pm
by atari2600a
Yellow = #$FFFF00. I use it on my amazingly unfinished website (
http://mtac.profusehost.net/).
Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 6:41 pm
by tepples
$2D and $3D shouldn't be black unless you're on a PlayChoice. Otherwise, this palette looks OK-ish, within the admitted boundaries of Never The Same Color.
Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 7:40 pm
by tokumaru
Your palette is a bit... weird. The colors are too strong or whatever. This is much more like an actual NES, and you can see there is no real yellow in it:
Colors $37 and $38 would have to be the closest thing to yellow. In your palette, color $37 is very yellow, but I've never seen an yellow like this on the NES.
Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 7:50 pm
by evildragon
I got my palette from god knows where.. I think it is a playchoice one, from the numbers on the title of the graphic..
Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 8:25 pm
by Dwedit
That is not an accurate palette, it looks more like the Nesticle palette than anything else.
For one thing, color 01 is not dark enough.
Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 8:38 pm
by strangenesfreak
tokumaru, I think $2c and $3c in the palette you posted look like almost the same luminance ($3c looks only slightly brighter than $2c), so those definitely need to be adjusted. Is $1d supposed to be brighter than $0f or exactly the same? Most have $1d the same as $0f, others have it slightly brighter than $0f.
EDIT: Changed "your palette" to "the palette you posted", since the palette tokumaru posted isn't his. Sorry for the misconception, tokumaru.
Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 9:24 pm
by tokumaru
Hey, it's not my palette or anything! =) It's just the first one I found, which, IMO, seems much more NES-like than the one evildragon posted. But I guess neither is accurate...
Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2007 1:28 am
by Bregalad
As tepples said, the color can vary a lot of NTSC systems due to impresition of the format itself (from what I've heard, I have never seen an actual NTSC TV, nor do I know much about video encoding), and since the NES palette is generated by pure analog circuitery there is no way to know exect palette values. However, I'm pretty sure PAL and NTSC colors for the same palette value can vary a lot for the same value.
I've already wondering a lot about $1d, and I remember being told that it was almost the same as $0f, while $2d was almost the same as $00, and $3d almost the same as $10, and that $xd should be avoided anyway because if you fall the palette to black by software chances are that the color $0d will eventually be reached.
Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2007 2:13 am
by evildragon
Bregalad wrote:As tepples said, the color can vary a lot of NTSC systems due to impresition of the format itself (from what I've heard, I have never seen an actual NTSC TV, nor do I know much about video encoding), and since the NES palette is generated by pure analog circuitery there is no way to know exect palette values. However, I'm pretty sure PAL and NTSC colors for the same palette value can vary a lot for the same value.
I've already wondering a lot about $1d, and I remember being told that it was almost the same as $0f, while $2d was almost the same as $00, and $3d almost the same as $10, and that $xd should be avoided anyway because if you fall the palette to black by software chances are that the color $0d will eventually be reached.
This is my NTSC Genesis displayed on my HDTV.. (which has an NTSC decoder for obvious reasons)
http://blackevilweredragon.spymac.com/s ... 1mario.jpg
http://blackevilweredragon.spymac.com/s ... eldaii.jpg
http://blackevilweredragon.spymac.com/s ... ytoons.jpg
http://blackevilweredragon.spymac.com/s ... eforce.jpg
Some of the pics were overexposed.. I could always take them again..
Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2007 5:08 am
by strangenesfreak
Bregalad wrote:$xd should be avoided anyway because if you fall the palette to black by software chances are that the color $0d will eventually be reached.
Technically, $01-$0c oscillate between $00 and $0d, so they do access $0d temporarily. I guess when used as its own color (not for rendering other colors), the $0d voltage is long enough to cause problems in certain TVs.
Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2007 6:35 am
by atari2600a
I would take pics of my industrial composite monitor I currently have my NES hooked up to, if only I had a DVD player that supported JPEG so that I could display the SMPTE test pattern to recalibrate it...
Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2007 8:07 am
by kyuusaku
Bregalad wrote:As tepples said, the color can vary a lot of NTSC systems due to impresition of the format itself (from what I've heard, I have never seen an actual NTSC TV, nor do I know much about video encoding), and since the NES palette is generated by pure analog circuitery there is no way to know exect palette values. However, I'm pretty sure PAL and NTSC colors for the same palette value can vary a lot for the same value.
I've already wondering a lot about $1d, and I remember being told that it was almost the same as $0f, while $2d was almost the same as $00, and $3d almost the same as $10, and that $xd should be avoided anyway because if you fall the palette to black by software chances are that the color $0d will eventually be reached.
Well, there are "recommendations" that all TVs should follow, those recommendations also define appropriate voltage levels and timing which apparently have been measured from the NES. So it is possible to get a palette from a perfectly calibrated TV by using the recommendation as a TV.
