Wanting Better N64 Video: No S-Video Port

[emwearz]

They are labeled as anamorphic widescreen, however they look stretched when on my 16:9 screen on full scale.

[AppleQueso]

They are labeled as anamorphic widescreen, however they look stretched when on my 16:9 screen on full scale.

Hm. Didn't look stretched to me. They certainly don't look normal on a 4:3 screen in that mode... Are you sure you enabled the mode?

EDIT: you changed your post!

[emwearz]

They are labeled as anamorphic widescreen, however they look stretched when on my 16:9 screen on full scale.

Hm. Didn't look stretched to me. They certainly don't look normal on a 4:3 screen in that mode... Are you sure you enabled the mode?

EDIT: you changed your post!

I changed it because I put the game in to see.

[Jamisonia]

Whats great are the few 16:9 games prior to this gen. DK64, GoldenEye, NiGHTS ftw!

But are they TURE 16:9? Or just letterbox? I just got Mickey's Speedway USA and it has a "widescreen" mode. When selected, it'll just give me a 16:9 image that's letterboxed for a 4:3 display (putting my TV back in 16:9 mode will just stretch it). In order to fill up the screen, I have to zoom, which makes it look like shit. IIRC, games such as Goldeneye did the same thing, letterboxed widescreen.

DK64, NiGHTS, and Banjo-Tooie are in anamorphic WS

[theclaw]

By definition the modes commonly named 240p, 480i, or 480p are not widescreen.
Exceptionally few console games of note before the Xbox both output and render square-pixel 16:9.

[Jamisonia]

By definition the modes commonly named 240p, 480i, or 480p are not widescreen.
Exceptionally few console games of note before the Xbox both output and render square-pixel 16:9.

Well what I know is if you turn on 16:9 mode on these N64 games it does not letterbox. It squishes the picture. If you turn on 16:9 mode on your TV it will stretch the picture back out to the correct proportions. They used this same technique for Squeeze LD which is 480i content, and for all anamorphic DVDs, which is 480i content.

I've checked this out using my Wega's 16:9 mod on DK64, NiGHTS, and Perfect Dark. All three 3 games show more content to the left and right when played in their 16:9 modes. Unfortunately the difference isn't immediately noticeable, as the menus are not changed at all (so they appear stretched). However the game itself is not stretched, its displaying more content. This makes these games more fun to play as a wide field of vision helps out.

[pierrot]

Rayman 2 (at least in the DC version) and Panzer Dragoon Zwei also have anamorphic widescreen options.

[engl0038]

AVIOD the Consolegoods "brand"

What's the reason for this? Are the consolegoods S-Video cables no good? I ask because I just bought one and it seems like I'm still seeing dot crawl when hooked up to my CRT.

[bmoc]

AVIOD the Consolegoods "brand"

What's the reason for this? Are the consolegoods S-Video cables no good? I ask because I just bought one and it seems like I'm still seeing dot crawl when hooked up to my CRT.

I just read this thread because of your post. I don't know dtrack's reason for avoiding Consolegoods but I will chime in about s-video/composite combo cables.

If what you have is a s-video/composite combo cable then try plugging the composite video cable into your TV in addition to the s-video. I purchased a s-video/composite combo cable from the Racketboy store a few years ago and doing that removed the checkerboard pattern that I was getting. The picture was an improvement over composite so I was happy.

[engl0038]

If what you have is a s-video/composite combo cable then try plugging the composite video cable into your TV in addition to the s-video. I purchased a s-video/composite combo cable from the Racketboy store a few years ago and doing that removed the checkerboard pattern that I was getting. The picture was an improvement over composite so I was happy.

Thanks for the reply. My cable doesn't have a composite plug so I can't try that out.

I did figure out the problem with my cable, though. It doesn't have dot crawl, it has interference in the form of scrolling diagonal lines which, on edges where colours meet, gives a dot crawl-like appearance. Having looked more closely I can also see this pattern in some solid blocks of colour. Is this the problem that other people have experienced with consolegoods cables?