So, I recently bought a GameCube off of Craigslist for $10 USD, a great deal, and have been having some fun with it, though it is a latter model when Nintendo ditched their digital component-out mode and opted to cheapen the price of the console by only offering the standard analogue A/V-out that they had been using ever since the Super Nintendo.
Lucky me, I had on hand some high-quality universal S-Video cables for the 6th-gen machines, and I must say Twilight Princess and Wind Waker look fantastic through it. My TV is a Samsung LCD, that luckily enough has programming that enhances the 480i signal from S-Video using the last interlaced frame as a reference. This makes the output closer to 480 progressive than 480 interlaced. Also, the colors look gorgeous, because as a fluke of the S-Video's analogue, the color richness tends to be higher than component cables. Especially for cell-shaded games like Wind Waker, which already rely heavily on rich color schemes.
This is all very good, because I just cannot get over how terrible older games and their consoles look over composite RCA cables through non-CRT monitors sometimes, especially the 5th-gen N64 and PSone, because the noise to signal ratio is so high. Oddly, the SNES and Genesis / Mega Drive look alright, if for no other reason than they rarely tried to have fully rendered graphics and just used sprites instead.
The GameCube might even look superior to my composite-rendered PS2, if only because most of the PS2 games I still play -like Silent Hill 2- do not support progressive-scan, and thus are subject to my TV's 480i - 480p up-res anyway. And because the colors -while sharper- are more faded through the digital component.
So, escapists, share your retro console gaming A/V setup here! Do you use composite / S-Video when you can? or can you tolerate the composite cables? do you have a CRT TV that you use especially for the older consoles for that retro feel? What kind of sound setup do you use?
Lucky me, I had on hand some high-quality universal S-Video cables for the 6th-gen machines, and I must say Twilight Princess and Wind Waker look fantastic through it. My TV is a Samsung LCD, that luckily enough has programming that enhances the 480i signal from S-Video using the last interlaced frame as a reference. This makes the output closer to 480 progressive than 480 interlaced. Also, the colors look gorgeous, because as a fluke of the S-Video's analogue, the color richness tends to be higher than component cables. Especially for cell-shaded games like Wind Waker, which already rely heavily on rich color schemes.
This is all very good, because I just cannot get over how terrible older games and their consoles look over composite RCA cables through non-CRT monitors sometimes, especially the 5th-gen N64 and PSone, because the noise to signal ratio is so high. Oddly, the SNES and Genesis / Mega Drive look alright, if for no other reason than they rarely tried to have fully rendered graphics and just used sprites instead.
The GameCube might even look superior to my composite-rendered PS2, if only because most of the PS2 games I still play -like Silent Hill 2- do not support progressive-scan, and thus are subject to my TV's 480i - 480p up-res anyway. And because the colors -while sharper- are more faded through the digital component.
So, escapists, share your retro console gaming A/V setup here! Do you use composite / S-Video when you can? or can you tolerate the composite cables? do you have a CRT TV that you use especially for the older consoles for that retro feel? What kind of sound setup do you use?
I remember he even bought a Japanese copy of Gran Turismo for PS1 despite the fact that he: 1.) Doesn't like driving games and 2.) Doesn't speak/read Japanese.