What's the deal with the Turbo/PCE video signal?

[ccovell]

My [naive] theory was that perhaps the PCE/Turbo, with its adjustable NTSC artifact reduction, confuses the video decoder in LCD TVs, or PC video inputs in your case.

The games I listed above turn off artifact reduction (VCE reg. $0400), making the image look all gross and dithered on normal TVs.  A lot of other PCE games have this artifact reduction turned on, thus beautifying the image.  It does, however mean the image shimmers a little bit... I thought that this shimmering perhaps confused the LCD TV into thinking it was interlaced, or some other screwy thing.

[nat]

Do think this might be the case in my instance?

I mean, what else would explain Air Zonk chugging at 15 FPS while Space Harrier flows smoothly? Maybe I should try some other titles aside from Air Zonk and the ones you listed.

[Black Tiger]

I could only find Out Run from that list of games and it looks like it's also choppy, but maybe not as bad as other games. Its hard to tell because there's next to no smooth scrolling like a platformer.

Chris, do you know of any other HuCard or CD games that turn off artifact reduction? Do you know for sure if the North American Bonk's Adventure has it turned off(and not just PC Genjin)?

[esteban]

My [naive] theory was that perhaps the PCE/Turbo, with its adjustable NTSC artifact reduction, confuses the video decoder in LCD TVs, or PC video inputs in your case.

The games I listed above turn off artifact reduction (VCE reg. $0400), making the image look all gross and dithered on normal TVs.  A lot of other PCE games have this artifact reduction turned on, thus beautifying the image.  It does, however mean the image shimmers a little bit... I thought that this shimmering perhaps confused the LCD TV into thinking it was interlaced, or some other screwy thing.

Intriguing! Is there a reason why some particular games turn NTSC artifact reduction off, whilst other games leave it on? This is an entirely new area to me... so I won't even try speculating

[Necromancer]

Methinks that Mr. Covell is onto something here.  Does your HDTV have 'image enhancement' for standard def content (i.e. Samsung's DNie), and is it possible to turn it off?  Maybe it's choking on scaling the image while trying to improve it.

[nodtveidt]

I got it figured out!

The reason the PCE looks weird on those newfangled tellies and other consoles look fine is because all those other consoles can barely maintain 15fps to begin with! The PCE just chugs along at 600fps! Them dang newfangled thingies can't even begin to cope with the awesome powa of da Turbo! It wasn't called TurboGrafx for nuthin ya know!!!

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Okay...I'm done now.

[Michael Helgeson]

I hooked up my Turbo to my HDTV (Sony 34XBR960) and it did not stutter.  Smooth as silk.  Unfortunately it looked like ass:



Ew.

Seen worse Joe,on the Genesis. BTW did you use Component or composite when you took your pic,tried your system out?

[Black Tiger]

Methinks that Mr. Covell is onto something here.  Does your HDTV have 'image enhancement' for standard def content (i.e. Samsung's DNie), and is it possible to turn it off?  Maybe it's choking on scaling the image while trying to improve it.

You know what, my TV does have Faroudja DCDi™ de-interlace technology.

I can't see any way to turn it off in the menus and can't find the manual.

The closest thing I could find was an "Over Scan" option, which I can switch from Normal to Full.

This is the TV-

http://www.primaamerica.com/CaLC32R25C.ASP

But aren't the NES & SNES supposed to be doing similar video tricks as the PC Engine, or is each console's a little different or something?

[Necromancer]

Make sure that there isn't anything like a 'game mode' in the menus (this should disable any image enhancement).  Usually the VGA port doesn't get the image enhancement treatment, but I can't tell you how to connect your TG16 to a VGA port. 

But aren't the NES & SNES supposed to be doing similar video tricks as the PC Engine, or is each console's a little different or something?

The NES and SNES likely have similar tricks, but I'd guess that the slight differences in resolution and video processing save them from having problems on your set.  You just found the right (wrong) combination to make the TV choke.  Any chance that you could exchange the set for a different make and model?

[Black Tiger]

Make sure that there isn't anything like a 'game mode' in the menus (this should disable any image enhancement).  Usually the VGA port doesn't get the image enhancement treatment, but I can't tell you how to connect your TG16 to a VGA port. 

But aren't the NES & SNES supposed to be doing similar video tricks as the PC Engine, or is each console's a little different or something?

The NES and SNES likely have similar tricks, but I'd guess that the slight differences in resolution and video processing save them from having problems on your set.  You just found the right (wrong) combination to make the TV choke.  Any chance that you could exchange the set for a different make and model?

Even if I can get it to work, I don't plan on playing my Duo the LCD very often. I bought it for my Xbox 360, not my Duo.  My projector's good enough for big screen Duo sessions and it doesn't have any nasty effects.

I'm mainly just curious as to what's going on. There's no game mode or anything. Its still weird that it would chug with Bonk's Adventure since it has that artifact reducing deal turned off.

[Joe Redifer]

Seen worse Joe,on the Genesis. BTW did you use Component or composite when you took your pic,tried your system out?

Well Forgotten Worlds is on o' them "higher resolution" Turbo games.  Now if I plugged in a 256-pixel wide game like maybe Bonk it would probably look a tad worse even.  I hooked it up with composite cables because I didn't feel like dragging the transcoder and other cables up to the HDTV just to check if it ran at full frame rate.  I have hooked the Genesis up in component to that TV and it looked similar (blockiness wise).

[Michael Helgeson]

As bad as the above pic looks, it still looks better then the Genesis Forgotten Worlds run on any display at any video output.

[Joe Redifer]

LOL.  But the Genesis version can scroll more than one screen at a time, so it DESTROYS the Turbo version, eh?  Also I can play with a friend.  He may turn into my enemy after I make him play that game, but yeah.

[ccovell]

Intriguing! Is there a reason why some particular games turn NTSC artifact reduction off, whilst other games leave it on? This is an entirely new area to me... so I won't even try speculating

I have no real idea why, I can only guess...  Perhaps it comes down to choice or ignorance.  Many games by Taito and NEC Avenue have this reduction turned off.  It makes a lot of those games look awful when they're standing still.  I do know that if a game scrolls constantly by 1 pixel each frame in any direction (like a slow shooter), or has lots of ordered dithering patterns (like Jim Power), it's a better idea to keep artifact reduction off.  In most other cases, artifact reduction makes the game look much better overall.

[Black Tiger]

Alright, one mystery is now solved while bringing up a new one.

I tried Rastan Saga II, Volfied and Space Harrier with my flash card and they all run smooth. I tried another game on the card and it was still choppy. So Chris's artifact reduction theory was correct.

However, as I said earlier, Bonk's Adventure was all choppy. So I loaded a Bonk's Adventure rom and a PC Genjin rom onto the card and tried them out. They both worked fine.

So finally, I tried my real actual official Bonk's Adventure HuCard again.... and it's still choppy. Plus, when I tried my real actual Out Run HuCard, it also looked choppy(but I couldn't be completely sure).

So either the flash card combined with artifact reduction turned off somehow lets my TV run the games fine, or there are multiple versions of Bonk's Adventure out there, some of which got the artifact reduction turned back on.