The nice effect of chroma in composite colors vs. RGB

Discussion about displays and related hardware including MiSTer filters and video settings.
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Newsdee
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The nice effect of chroma in composite colors vs. RGB

Unread post by Newsdee »

I've been playing the PC Engine library on real hardware,
and I was surprised at how good the composite output looked on one of my PVMs!
Older games have more vibrant colors and anime-style games look more like something on TV.

At first I assumed it was just the composite palette... but I was wrong.
Comparing MiSTer RGB output on the same PVM with the correct palette still had striking differences.

That led me into a rabbit hole to try to understand why.
Luckily I have two two PVMs (one is a higher end model than the other) so played with a few settings.

This is what I've found:

  • Use the D56 color temperature setting (5600K) as it is much warmer

  • Increase the chroma (to 33 on a 142NE, more on a 14M2MDJ)

  • Increase contrast depending on game

This works nicely with the PC Engine; for the NES it depends on the game (some become too garish)

Sadly there is no similar setting in MiSTer's upscaled modes in HDMI.
Closest I could was to use pure Gamma (115 on the PCE, 200 on Apple II core) but that doesn't really capture the same vibrant colors.

If anybody has a MiSTer composite adapter,
would you mind trying these settings and let me know if you get similar results?

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