behold the legendary rgb nes!

[Drakon]

so it's a fairly well known fact that the playchoice arcade board is just a nes with 10 slots that don't take nes games.



So what's the point of owning one of these things?  Well.... there's one good thing about this board....it's gives out beautiful rgb video!  All of this from the help of one tiny ppu chip.



Then there's the famous nes system



it's like a famicom but with a bigger cartridge slot a lockout chip a useless cartridge connector and a case that looks like....a brick.  This system has an awesome library of games and they're really cheap (unlike the limited/expensive game library for the playchoice arcade system)

Now the downside to the nes (as well as the famicom) is that you can only get composite video which doesn't really float most peoples boats

The solution?  Fuuuuuuuuuuushioooooooooooooooon HA!



The cart connector was barely working when I got it so I cut it into pieces and used the good side from it





so right now you might be asking yourself "what's the difference in picture qualifty?"

basically you go from something that looks like this (from composite)



to this (s-video)



This's probably the best use of two old pieces of hardware that I can think of  

[NintendoKing]

Brilliant, that picture quality is superb also you can convert the Playchoice slots for NES cart function.

[linkzpikachu]

Honestly i like the way the composite looks mainly because of the vibrant colors but thats just me....

[cubelmariomadness]

Honestly i like the way the composite looks mainly because of the vibrant colors but thats just me....

That's just me too.

[chazbc24]

beautiful. can you post more s vid pics?

[linkzpikachu]

ya can you get more/better comparison pictures because the composite still looks better to me

[Drakon]

Honestly i like the way the composite looks mainly because of the vibrant colors but thats just me....

yes the colours are more vibrant on the composite because instead of amping the rgb I just amped the s-video brightness wire (needs just 1 amp instead of 3).  On my tv the colours look perfect.  Also I might have just had my capture card colour saturation turned down when I took those screenshots    And you know on your tv you can change the colour strength.  The s-video colour strength of my nes actually matches the strength of my computer/supergun/other systems hooked into my tv so that's why I left it a bit weaker

Brilliant, that picture quality is superb also you can convert the Playchoice slots for NES cart function.

that's probably more difficult than doing this mod.  Also you'd have to build a supergun, and a playchoice to supergun adapter which probably requires a colour inverter.  And if you wanted to play the games on a nes pad you'd have to convert the controller.  Basically....the playchoice is sort of a lost cause

beautiful. can you post more s vid pics?

just kidding  



Ignore some of the garbled graphics near the top of my metal gear screenshots that's just the fact that my capture card picks up a graphic range that's larger than what displays on a tv

[petik1]

hamana hamana hamana

Although the developers planned for the NES to give out it's usual composite, so as you can see in your mega man screenshot, the effect they were aiming for doesn't look right.

EDIT: wait, is that second to last mega man screenshot the normal output? Or RGB?

[cubelmariomadness]

He said just kidding.

[petik1]

Yeah, but I didn't catch what about.

Now the question is, is it worth taking the playchoice's PPU out for a clearer picture

[cubelmariomadness]

That's exactly what I thought. There are few Play Choices out there, and like you said,
is it really necessary to dismantle one to make a nes display clearer picture?

[Drakon]

the second last picture is the regular nes hence me kidding it being a s-video picture.  Again it's for the sake of comparison.  And you don't "dismantle" the playchoice you just take one chip out of a socket nothing gets damaged or even desoldered.  The playchoice has a very limited library of games and they're much more expensive than the nes versions which are 100% the same.  And to play a playchoice on anything that's not a playchoice cabinet you need either a jamma cab or a jamma supergun and then you have to build a playchoice to jamma adapter which I believe requires a colour inverter.  Basically it just makes more sense using the playchoice ppu in a nes this way you can play about 98% of the nes/famicom collection in beautiful quality.  And the unplayable games are not popular titles.

[petik1]

Ok, makes more sense now. If you desoldered it, then I'd really think it wouldn't be worth it. Still, now you have a different (I can't quite say better due to the "muted" colors) output, and a whole playchoice board that won't work. Still a cool idea though!

[shoggoth80]

I find the RGB output rather crisp. I like it. Was there any way to perform this NES modification without taking apart the Player Choice 10 board?

[Drakon]

I find the RGB output rather crisp. I like it. Was there any way to perform this NES modification without taking apart the Player Choice 10 board?

the rgb chip comes from the playchoice board.  The regular nes ppu only outputs composite video.  Some clone nes's have s-video output but it's not nintendo hardware so it won't run the same.  Unfortunately the only nintendo ppus that output nes/famicom picture that's better than composite is from the playchoice boards or a couple of vs system games.  Luckily turning your nes into a playchoice is the best use of a playchoice board.

Once again the colours aren't washed out if you amp the rgb in fact amping rgb makes the colours too strong.  And you can also turn the colour on your tv up.

So tell me what would you use a playchoice board for?  Playing playchoice games?  Which are 100% the same as the nes versions and cost way more and it doesn't have even half of the games that you can get for the nes or famicom.  Basically sticking the playchoice ppu into your nes or famicom turns that system into a playchoice that plays regular nes cartridges.  The playchoice board still works and you can take the rgb ppu out of my nes ppu socket and stick it back into the playchoice socket if you really want to use the playchoice still.  That's why when making a rgb nes it's best to build a socket for the ppu.  The socket cost me 45 cents and the breadboard that I mounted the socket on cost 60 cents.