Genesis RGB vs. Composite

[chuckster]

I recently took my Model 2 Genesis from composite to RGB on my PVM, by way of the UK cables promoted on RetroRGB. I played through Sonic 2 and WOW it was sharp! The more I played though, the less I liked it. I never thought much of the AV input until I saw the difference. For me, the RGB reminded me too much of playing an emulator on LCD.

This is an old question I know, but I thought I'd ask specifically; for those who have tried both, does anyone else here prefer composite over RGB for the Genesis in particular? The programming tricks to make for translucent effects and color blends suffer through RGB (not sure about S-Video), and I just feel like it's too sterile while the extra sharpness points out the flaws of the graphics more than helps them look their best.

Don't get me wrong, I don't buy into the argument of "Composite is how it was meant to be played." I'm sure it was considered that (in the US at least) games would be played through composite on low-mid range sets, but I doubt that a very Japanese company like Sega considered that as much as most think, and developers in Japan must have known their games would also be played through RGB by a not-inconsiderable portion of European and Japanese sets. There were tricks used by some to make composite a little more palatable, sure, but developers were trying to make games look as good as possible. If they felt a trick like these would decrease the quality of the RGB picture, they wouldn't have done it.

So I'm not really talking about an "intended vision" or anything more esoteric like that. I just think the games (at least Sonic 1-3, Lion King, Comix Zone, and SoR 1 & 2) look better through composite, more natural and professional with colors and blending of layers. Who agrees and who prefers RGB?

[TSTR]

The Genesis uses a lot of dithering and transparency effects that lower quality video blurs into a nice picture. Of course, composite on the Genesis comes with its own problems, like jailbars and rainbow banding. I would think s-video would be a good compromise.

[Kidpanda]

For Genesis/MD and Master System games, I'll accept nothing less than RGB now, Composite is known to be very poor for these Sega systems. Other systems, PCE, SFC, even PS1 I'm ok with composite. But that's just my opinion.

[Ziggy]

Those tricks don't work with S-Video either.

Me, personally, I'd rather get the better video quality. Composite from the Genesis is just the worst.

[ElkinFencer10]

I run my Genesis through composite, but I'm going to buy some of HD Retrovision's component cables as soon as they're on market. I was going to get S-video, but I don't play my Genesis all that frequently, so I'm just going to deal with the shitty composite until those cords come out.

[Ziggy]

If you must use composite, I've heard that the 32X improves the video significantly.

[Thierry Henry]

I run my Genesis through composite, but I'm going to buy some of HD Retrovision's component cables as soon as they're on market.

I had totally forgotten about those. Do we have an ETA yet?

[TSTR]

If you must use composite, I've heard that the 32X improves the video significantly.

+1 truth

[chuckster]

If you must use composite, I've heard that the 32X improves the video significantly.

Hmm, I'll have to try that! I know switching from a cheapo knockoff AV cable from Amazon to a DIY shielded version improved my results. With the Amazon cable, there was "garbage" around most sprites, it looked like garbled pixels. Even the original AV cables did much better.

It seems like the PQ overall trumps the lack of dithering effects for most. I suspected this would be the case with the Genesis, since the Composite signal is much derided (though I recommend trying nice cables). I don't notice as much of a jump myself on the SNES, I always thought the Nintendo systems did really well with it.

I run my Genesis through composite, but I'm going to buy some of HD Retrovision's component cables as soon as they're on market. I was going to get S-video, but I don't play my Genesis all that frequently, so I'm just going to deal with the shitty composite until those cords come out.

That's a pretty great idea, I had forgotten about those too!

[ElkinFencer10]

Last I heard, they were finishing up with the quality assurance before full manufacturing started, and obviously, Kickstarter backers will get theirs first. I haven't seen a solid ETA for market availability, but my personal guess is early 2017.

Also, yeah, it's more noticeable in some games than in others, but the 32x definitely does clean up the Genesis's garbage video output (seriously, that thing is on par with the PS2 for just generally shitty video quality).