NES on LCD TV problem

oRBIT2002 · Post by **oRBIT2002** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 3:54 am

When I recently purchased my new Samsung 40" LCD FullHD TV I experienced a problem with my NES. The image is "bouncing" up and down, which looks like just a few pixels, all the time. I experience similar problems on my WII when running Virtual Console NES games. I've read something about that certain tv's can't handle such low resolution (240/256p?) and could cause wierd behaviour, which I suspect is the problem on my tv.
So, how can I fix this?

Is there some external hardware that can be bought that increases the resolution somehow?

I've also tried my old Famicom A/V with the same jumping result.

kyuusaku · Post by **kyuusaku** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 5:30 am

The only way to fix it is with a line doubler, and they're usually expensive. I would seriously consider getting another TV or continue to use the old one for progressive consoles if you still have it.

oRBIT2002 · Post by **oRBIT2002** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 8:01 am

Can't find any linedoublers at all using google.. Are these devices rare?

kyuusaku · Post by **kyuusaku** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 9:14 am

They are quite rare. They're also called scan doublers. Here's the idea: http://elm-chan.org/works/sc/report.html

It will turn 480i into 480p which the TV can't mistake for an interlaced signal.

evildragon · Post by **evildragon** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 10:31 am

Oh, I just borrowed one of those for this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06cd5y5l1Ns

In this case, it was a professional "scaler" with 240p to 540p upscaling, with only 4ms delay, and 540p turns off the scaler in my TV as it's a native scanrate, the Zapper worked.

And yea, the one I borrowed costa couple grand.

peppers · Post by **peppers** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 12:28 pm

if the onley problem with the old light guns is the video signel the console outputs why dose the Wii use something so inaccurate for there pointer controlls

evildragon · Post by **evildragon** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 12:32 pm

peppers wrote:if the onley problem with the old light guns is the video signel the console outputs why dose the Wii use something so inaccurate for there pointer controlls

Well it's not the signal.

It's the image processing that TV's introduce. My HDTV by itself, introduces a delay that is approximately 1-2 frames behind, this makes the zapper not function and miss a shot.

The professional scaler I used however only introduces a 4ms delay, and works perfectly fine, as long as the scaler is set to a native mode of the HDTV.

LCD's still failed the test, possibly from native latency. Didn't test a plasma.

peppers · Post by **peppers** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 12:37 pm

so if you have a tv with a 4ms responce time a zapper will work on its own?

evildragon · Post by **evildragon** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 12:54 pm

peppers wrote:so if you have a tv with a 4ms responce time a zapper will work on its own?

it should, yes. But I wouldn't trust an LCD.

They don't make CRT HDTV's anymore, but if you can find one that has a mode that the scaler shuts off (usually 540p and 1080i), you might get away with it.

I used the "Radiance" scaler, worth a lot of cash, and my friend wouldn't trust me alone with it..

bunnyboy · Post by **bunnyboy** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 1:37 pm

peppers wrote:if the onley problem with the old light guns is the video signel the console outputs why dose the Wii use something so inaccurate for there pointer controlls

The Wii uses absolutely nothing from the TV for its pointer. The sensor bar has 2 IR LEDs and the Wiimote has an IR camera. The LEDs appear as 2 bright dots, which it can use for horiz/vert/rotation processing.

peppers wrote: so if you have a tv with a 4ms responce time a zapper will work on its own?

The Zapper will only work on a CRT with the correct TV frequency. It should not work on computer screens, LCDs, plasmas, or projectors. You can adjust the Zapper circuit to work on different frequency CRT computer screens, but then the computer TV card may introduce too much of a delay.

blargg · Post by **blargg** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 1:40 pm

evildragon wrote:I used the "Radiance" scaler, worth a lot of cash, and my friend wouldn't trust me alone with it..

He was probably worried you'd return a well-executed photoshopped fake back to him.

evildragon · Post by **evildragon** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 1:55 pm

blargg wrote:
evildragon wrote:I used the "Radiance" scaler, worth a lot of cash, and my friend wouldn't trust me alone with it..
He was probably worried you'd return a well-executed photoshopped fake back to him.

Hey, my photoshopping from my hoaxing days wasn't well executed. It was caught after all.

But anyway, if anyone can borrow the "Lumagen Radiance" scaler, try it on your HDTV with the zapper.

540p is the same 60Hz as 240p, electrically, and as long as the TV doesn't try to process it, it should work, as in my case. I used a Prima HT2778P... (there's two versions of these.. mine doesn't use the red mouse cursor on the OSD)..

LocalH · Post by **LocalH** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 7:07 pm

LCDs et al. don't work with the Zapper because they don't have an electron beam that draws the screen, which is what the Zapper (and other lightguns) detect to tell where you're pointing it. The Wiimote works with any TV because it uses an IR-transmitting "sensor bar" (which is a misnomer because the sensor is in the Wiimote itself) to tell where you're pointing it. Theoretically, the same type of setup could be used with an LCD to have a functioning lightgun.

evildragon · Post by **evildragon** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 7:16 pm

LocalH wrote:LCDs et al. don't work with the Zapper because they don't have an electron beam that draws the screen, which is what the Zapper (and other lightguns) detect to tell where you're pointing it. The Wiimote works with any TV because it uses an IR-transmitting "sensor bar" (which is a misnomer because the sensor is in the Wiimote itself) to tell where you're pointing it. Theoretically, the same type of setup could be used with an LCD to have a functioning lightgun.

Actually, the zapper just looks for a white square. It either detects white, or not. White = hit, not = miss.

Sega however, I believed with the Enforcer, and the gun on the PlayStation that die hard uses, used the electron gun's beam as a guide.

I know that the delay in an LCD though is far too much for the zapper to detect that white square.

thing is, for my video, my HDTV is a CRT, running at I believe 59.9Hz (but could be 60Hz), and at 540p, it's no different than a regular TV running 240p. No scaler or processing at all. I just needed to use an external scaler that has a dedicated mode for 240p sources to upscale, with as little as a delay as possible.

peppers · Post by **peppers** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 7:33 pm

To get onto snes for a moment
I assume the lethal enforcer guns work with the electron detection but how bout the super scope it seems a little different is the little box with it just a IR receiver for the wireless or dose it help align the gun?

and also if the zapper just looks for white how dose it know what duck you shot when there is more than one on the screen?