Question Regarding Picture Quality [PAL & NTSC]

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Papy.G
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Re: Question Regarding Picture Quality [PAL & NTSC]

Post by Papy.G » Sat Feb 25, 2023 2:25 pm

Arnold007 wrote:
Tue Feb 21, 2023 6:18 pm
Hello GC Forever! This is my first post here.



If someone would please take their time to explain this for me.. I would be so grateful. Any tips & tricks would be helpful! Glad to finally be a part of this little community! :geek:
Hello and Welcome.

No need to hardmod a Gamecube to make it region free, you can access to SWISS via Game Save exploit, then any region GC can output any display frequency, from RF modulator to HDMI (provided you hve a DOL-001 with Digital AV), and RGB for PAL ones and S-Video for NTSC hardware.

You should force 60Hz modes on PAL games as soon as they support it natively, as most of them are just frameskipped when run in 50Hz, and can result in headaches and seasick when playing fast moving 3D games.

Why go for p instead of i is that modern displays don't consider 240/288 lines is enough to interpolate to their higher resolution, so they prefer to blend two successive frames, totalling 480/576 lines, ignoring about temporal issues such as blur it can cause. Progressive scan with double bandwith provide this high number of lines for each frame, so TVs can straight interpolate and allow more crisp picture. You can also get this higher quality picture at the expense of the framerate, with the "sf" modes in SWISS, as long as the games supports it, without the need for a Component or HDMI cable that are the only way to get real 480/576p modes.

If you have a CRT, stick to RGB-SCART cable, that's the way to go, but if you want to go digital, don't bother buying digital to analog cable (OEM Component cable), GCVideo HDMI dongles are way cheaper and are digital from end to end. If you feel like you really need component out, consider buying a Wii, which may get cheaper thant the OEM GC component cable alone. GCVideo can upscale 480i to 480p but this feature only has seldom uses.

All the bulls…t you read all around was mainly eluding what magic SWISS is capable of:

Any game can run on any region console, from either optical drive or SD card.

Any game can be forced to either 480p or 576p according to what framerate it originally supports.

Arnold007 wrote:
Wed Feb 22, 2023 5:57 pm
So basically the best thing should be to just use NTSC roms? Or am I confusing something?
Almost, if only everybody was able to read english. :roll:


You can dig this forum to get more in-depth explanation on how GC video generation works, such as internal to external video scaling and converting. We have better see Extrems using his freetime to improve SWISS than answering questions that have already been debated. :oops:

Look at what is my hardware in my signature, and watch my videos to see it in action. ;)
DMG/MultiFreq OC/EDGB/EZF Jr, AGB/SC miniSD, NTR/NeoMK3, USG/flashme V8/SC miniSD
DOL001(EUR)/RGB/GCPlug/GBP/SD2SP2, RVL 001(EUR)/RGB/CMP/WiiSD

Zelda WW with Tingle Tuner in split screen was what the GC RF modulator was made for! (Video)
Arnold007
Posts: 11
Joined: Tue Feb 21, 2023 5:49 pm

Re: Question Regarding Picture Quality [PAL & NTSC]

Post by Arnold007 » Sun Feb 26, 2023 4:01 pm

Papy.G wrote:
Sat Feb 25, 2023 2:25 pm
Arnold007 wrote:
Tue Feb 21, 2023 6:18 pm
Hello GC Forever! This is my first post here.



If someone would please take their time to explain this for me.. I would be so grateful. Any tips & tricks would be helpful! Glad to finally be a part of this little community! :geek:
Hello and Welcome.

No need to hardmod a Gamecube to make it region free, you can access to SWISS via Game Save exploit, then any region GC can output any display frequency, from RF modulator to HDMI (provided you hve a DOL-001 with Digital AV), and RGB for PAL ones and S-Video for NTSC hardware.

You should force 60Hz modes on PAL games as soon as they support it natively, as most of them are just frameskipped when run in 50Hz, and can result in headaches and seasick when playing fast moving 3D games.

Why go for p instead of i is that modern displays don't consider 240/288 lines is enough to interpolate to their higher resolution, so they prefer to blend two successive frames, totalling 480/576 lines, ignoring about temporal issues such as blur it can cause. Progressive scan with double bandwith provide this high number of lines for each frame, so TVs can straight interpolate and allow more crisp picture. You can also get this higher quality picture at the expense of the framerate, with the "sf" modes in SWISS, as long as the games supports it, without the need for a Component or HDMI cable that are the only way to get real 480/576p modes.

If you have a CRT, stick to RGB-SCART cable, that's the way to go, but if you want to go digital, don't bother buying digital to analog cable (OEM Component cable), GCVideo HDMI dongles are way cheaper and are digital from end to end. If you feel like you really need component out, consider buying a Wii, which may get cheaper thant the OEM GC component cable alone. GCVideo can upscale 480i to 480p but this feature only has seldom uses.

All the bulls…t you read all around was mainly eluding what magic SWISS is capable of:

Any game can run on any region console, from either optical drive or SD card.

Any game can be forced to either 480p or 576p according to what framerate it originally supports.

Arnold007 wrote:
Wed Feb 22, 2023 5:57 pm
So basically the best thing should be to just use NTSC roms? Or am I confusing something?
Almost, if only everybody was able to read english. :roll:


You can dig this forum to get more in-depth explanation on how GC video generation works, such as internal to external video scaling and converting. We have better see Extrems using his freetime to improve SWISS than answering questions that have already been debated. :oops:

Look at what is my hardware in my signature, and watch my videos to see it in action. ;)
I thought GC-Loader had faster load times in comparison to the save exploit SD2SP2 solution. I might use this before I get my hands on a GC-Loader. But I have heard people use it mainly for the convenience... and since the laser seems to die on lots of consoles.

This about sums it up! Thanks for making things a bit more clear! It's pretty annoying to see different answers everywhere on the internet. I hope more people finds this thread to get a better understanding. Anyway.. I have a friend who is selling me his Gamecube system so I got the original component cable in a package deal for 170 dollars (Gamecube, Component Cable, 2 Controllers, 3 memory cards & 4 games (Zelda TP, Zelda WW, Sunshine and F-Zero GX). He knows what the cable is worth but still insisted on that price. I did not feel like paying expensive import fees (Europe) for Carby or EON GCHD solution. At least not when I was offered the original cable for less than it would cost me to purchase a good HDMI solution. Also since the RetroTink 5x does not have HDMI-input.. I thought the component cable was easier to use together with that apparatus. Yea I have a couple of DOL-001 cubes now, this will be my fourth. Haven't played in awhile and now I wanted to up the quality on my experience a tiny bit.. :) I have a couple of 2010-2012 (1080p) LCDs 46" with Component input which I intend to use prior to buying a scaler. I do not have Component input on my 65" 4k OLED display.. though. But the RetroTink will help with that soon enough. Oh and I have an extra Official RGB-Scart to fool around with as well.. but sadly I do not have a CRT at the moment.

Best Regards
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