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N64 Retro Gaming Advice

Calimori

Calimori

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Mar 15, 2012
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Luton, UK
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Calimori
I dusted the old N64 off to play Diddy Kart Racing with the kid and the picture quality was terrible. Leading me to think the s-video adapter from back in the day was broke OR the TV can’t actually properly render the picture and it tearing it.
I found the RF connector and that is much better as the TV but that hasn’t ruled out the TV or the a-video adapter being the issues.

I went looking at options and it would appear there are a lot of opinions.
There are RetroScalers2x on eBay for £64 which I am happy to go that route.
Or have people gone the full RGB option?

Requirements:
  1. I would like HDMI so it can go via the AV amp for the kid to easily use.
  2. If there is upscaling that makes it look better, but doesn’t introduce lag, then I am interested but it doesn’t need to look like our gaming rig can produce.
  3. I don’t mind soldering and building up something but time is always limited for these projects
  4. But this is about playing the old console, not building an emulator. Which is a future project

What have people found works well?
 
I've got my N64 into my AV receiver and then out into a 4K TV.
It's the most difficult console I have in terms of doing this with decent results though - the rest all output RGB over scart and go into my scaler, the N64 (or the PAL N64) doesn't so need additional conversion from SVideo to component before going into the GBS-C.

I'm a cheapskate, but not very proficient with a soldering iron - so I went the prebuild GBS-C route, the RetroTink2X was my preference but they've been out of stock for years.

YMMV and you might not think it's worth spending twice what an n64 is worth to get it on your TV, but this is what I used:

N64 PAL S-Video cable, comes pre-modded to solve the over-bright issue most come with.

Consolegoods.co.uk :: Nintendo 64 :: SNES :: Sega Saturn :: Neo Geo :: Dreamcast :: Mega Drive :: NES :: Super Famicom :: modified consoles :: controllers :: scart cables

Consolegoods UK buy, sell, for sale, mod, chip, modchip, modified, 50/60hz, rgb, saturn, snes, controller, super famicom, n64 passport, action replay 4m plus, wild card, game doctor, import
www.consolegoods.co.uk
(Slightly old-school site, and I think you order by emailing the guy - I've done this a number of times, but it's been a while)

GBS-C Scaler
You can build these yourself if you want - the GBS-C is certainly do-able for around £30, but I didn't have the time or talent so I just bought the above.

Component Converter


N64 goes into the component converter via the S-Video, that output goes into the GBS-C, which goes into your amp via HDMI.
You can also add scanlines etc.
 
Thanks for the detail and links.
I am torn as I hope I can go the better s-video cable and into a component converter to get the HDMI out.
Or mod the device with the RGB option or try and source the Ultra HDMI one??
A nice side project to research.
 
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