The "harsher" sound on snes mini is due to it outputting a better sample rate. Snes mini outputs at 48khz while the real snes outputs at 32khz. You're hearing harsher frequencies the snes literally couldn't output before.
@@Poever That's like asking for the max output resolution to match the original hardware. I'd personally rather have an option to switch between audio modes, but audio never gets any love
This is how a console review should be made! A rare channel with a truly in-depth approach to its content. Quality + Quantity = DF. Keep it coming, guys!
I'd say it's more like S-Video given that it doesn't mimic dot crawl artifacts, but I agree. I think the lack of sharpness was deliberate, meant to recall the comparatively softer image on consumer sets. The pure black, razor sharp scanlines on PVMs aren't what most owners saw back in the day, but consumer TVs *were* beginning to offer S-Video inputs, allowing for a better picture by upgrading just the video cable for a relatively modest price. It also helps accentuates the improvement in consumer TV quality compared to the NES era, since the NES Classic's filter mimicked RF or composite, leading to an even softer presentation. EDIT: Some new info changes the equation a bit. I wasn't scrutinizing it closely so far but yes, the filter in here is a little too basic for what it could be. For an example of how it could look, check out the "CRT Soft" option in Sonic Mania. It's intentionally not razor sharp but still has a bit of "grain" to it that the SNES Classic doesn't have, since it uses the HD output resolution to mimic the gaps between the phosphor stripes/dots (aperture grille/shadow mask) of a real CRT.
The CRT filter of the SNES is perfect: just a bit of softness and scanlines, it yields the maximum quality possible. I wouldn't want all the flaws of the times reproduced. Especially because softness (low resolution) and scanlines were not really flaws, but just how displays were back then, and all games were developed keeping this into account, that's why they look ugly without scanlines.
@rvbrexer The SNES mini's CRT filter is really not perfect or accurate. It's just blurry with a cheap scanline effect vs. a real CRT's (or a good CRT filter's) analog softness, phosphor glow and variable line width. It's a very pleasant and warm "organic" picture quality that's hard to describe until you see it side by side. Very few CRT filters pull it off successfully and others fall short although they do an admirable effort. the SNES Mini's is in the kind-of-terrible category.
by far this is the best series on this channel, such an amazing work! i love all your videos but the dedication and passion of this series make it to be possibly the best gaming content in youtube right now. keep it up and stay retro. :)
I personally believe Digital Foundry's DF Retro series is the highest quality and most in depth content on youtube. All of Digital Foundry's content is of an extremely high quality. I have always admired how well written it all is, these guys have obviously done their homework because their content is very professional.
The SMW feather sound cutoff happens on original hardware, and I can remember it specifically happening when hitting the block you showed, multiple times when I played in the past.
@@KunoMochi I thought this was a given in all the old consoles? They only had so many audio channels and when more sounds were playing than there were channels to output them then some sounds would get cut off. It's amusing how we learned to forget this after so many years of not playing them. Or I guess I should say it's amusing that we learned to ignore it back then
It depends on the console apparently. I have three (sfamicom and the big and small snes), the noice disappears on the snes jr and sfamicom, but stays 100% of the time on the big snes. I first noticed this phenomena of disappearing sounds on rockman 7.
@@Armataan don't think so. The game (software) I used to compare was the exact same cart (USA). I also noticed that starfox runs slower on the SNES Jr. compared to the sfamicom and SNES fat. So it is a hardware thing (I assume it has to do with the Jr. Being a cheaper to produce revision).
A sony PVM is NOT in any way shape or form represetative of what gamers would have actually seen in their home while playing on a CRT TV back in the 90s. As much as the PVMs are touted as the ultimate retro gaming tvs due to their superior picture quality, in reality they are highly specialized studio eqipment that the average consumer would not have had acceess to. The average home CRT tended to have much more color bleed, bridging the scanlines. So much so that on some CRTs the scanlines were barely visible. That's why retro gamings obsession with 'clean' scanlines is a bit of a fallacy imo. Yes, the games were designed with scanlines in mind, relying on them to strech and soften the picure as well as add color depth and act as a sort of narural AA by letting your brain and the light bleed fill in the blanks, those blanks weren't the clean black bars of sony PVMs though, but something much less pronounced. While I agree that the CRT filter on the SNES mini isn't the best, to demand it to look like a Sony PVM and present that as the only valid CRT experience, is just false. These filters are trying to emulate the look that people at home would actually have had, not professional studio equipment that most would never have seen. Having the option to have a filter modeled on a PVM as well as one that is closer to the actual home experience like Sonic Mania is the ideal solution here imo.
Apollo Justice Honestly, it is true that developers never expected people to play games on a professional CRT, and likely expected people to play on a crappy consumer CRT over Composite, which means that you could argue that the best way of playing these old games is on a crappy TV over composite video. However, I personally believe that these days it’s best to play retro games in the highest-quality way, which for me at least is RGB SCART on a good-quality CRT, ideally at least a Trinitron. Using my newly-acquired Sony KV-21X5U Trinitron, retro games look even more beautiful than on my old shadow mask TV, it blows it out of the water. Although my Trinitron is mindblowing to me, a PVM or BVM would look even better, which I image would be the most incredible thing ever. I someday want to buy a PVM or BVM, rather than using a Trinitron like I am now. Although a PVM might not be the intended method for playing games, it’s how I want to do it. That’s what retro means to me, playing an old game in the best way possible. Also, I’ve never noticed scanlines on any CRT. Sure, in the case of my old Matsui TVR-185 Portable, the old shadow masker I mentioned earlier, there was a lot of colour bleed and the screen was tiny. But my current TV is a stunningly high-quality Trinitron which I also mentioned above, and it has a larger screen and I can’t see anywhere near as much colour bleed, switching between my old CRT and my current one is like switching between SD and HD, it’s amazing, but I still don’t see any scanlines. I personally think these CRT filters should try to mimic the experience of using a good-quality Trinitron, it’s not reducing the quality of the video to match how a consumer would’ve hooked up their console using composite to a crap CRT, but it’s also not making the video look like it’s running on a PVM. It should look better than it used to, but not as perfect as it could be. A better option would be to add an option for the quality you want, maybe a slider that ranges from Cheap-Composite to PVM-RGB, I’d keep it at Trinitron-RGB myself.
@@justanotheryoutubechannel you're missing the point entirely. sure you want to use a trinitron and whatever else is trendy and all the retro gaming people have hyped up. it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. and that's all well and good. but the point that the person you replied to made and which you completely ignored, is that the game developers DID NOT PROGRAM THESE GAMES WITH A TRINITRON IN MIND. the df retro show is cool and the guy who does them is legit, but even he keeps talking about playing the games on original hardware like was intended, while talking about trinitrons. which were not how it was intended. just like Apollo Justice said, you could not see distinct black lines in between pretty much any tv that you would find in any household back in the day. i was there. i grew up in the 80s. i do not remember any tv having that. so when the developers of these games were tweaking the graphics of the games, they were almost surely doing it knowing that the final presentation that everyone is going to see it on, will be the average household tv, which did not have distinct scanlines. therefore, they tweaked the games to look best on tvs with a more blurry fuzzy scanline look, just like the one the snes filter has. everything you said about how you want to do it just shows you're kind of an idiot. points: a) average people did not have these sony monitors, or really, nobody did, through the 80s and most of the 90s, they simply did not exist. so games did not get played on monitors looking like that. b) games had their graphics tweaked to look best on monitors with blurred scanlines, not distinct ones. c) therefore any non idiot would have to acknowledge that the best way to recreate an actually AUTHENTIC retro look, would be NOT using one of those fancy sony monitors that didn't even exist in the era. and lastly d) if you want to use one of those monitors anyway, fine, but don't talk about it being the authentic look of the time, because it wasn't and you'd be an idiot for saying that. also, don't make a video complaining about how nintendo didn't put a filter simulating the sony monitors, which.. why would they? and complain about how they did make a filter that emulates the actual kind of tv look that everyone actually had access to instead. because that's exactly what they should've done. and i'm glad they did. it just looks better than those blatant scanlines anyway. i never saw games look like that as a kid! you can 'want' them all you want but it has nothing to do with actual retro authenticity.
Was about to say the same I really like the CRT filter on the Mini consoles and I can also compare it directly to the CRT TV I have and I can say it looks good. For me it depends on how a game looks best for example composite looks great on a CRT for Megadrive, Snes, Sega Saturn and PS1 many of the games use dithering to show transparencies or appearance of more colours. Everyone has their opinion on how they want their games to look but I personally wish them to look as I remember them. Clarity did make a difference on PS2 and upwards using RGB Scart though
@@justanotheryoutubechannel all of Europe and most in Japan had RGB, scanlines were easy to see with RGB on any crt. Stop looking at everything from an american point of view. You had composite and it sucked. I grew up in amiga and all those games were made with RGB in mind
@@GenOner Not all games run properly when hacked in. Sunset Riders has visual glitches (invisible logs you're meant to jump over). No idea if Chrono Trigger is OK or not.
@@DSDMovies There is a patch for sunset riders. Google DarkAkuma's "sfrom tool" and Robin64 "sfrom tool patch pack" and install them. Chrono Trigger seems to work fine, has only a minor sound problem when switching to the map, nothing special. Hope this helps.
I just think it's weird to compare the CRT Filter with a PVM. I mean... I've never seen any consumer CRT with thick scanlines, they were always very faint or invisible and in that regard, the CRT Filter does a decent job (at least at emulating Composite).
The SNES got me into gaming 😊 Xmas 1992 Street fighter 2 the world warrior's one of my fondest memories in gaming. I clocked that game (finished) so many times I knew all the variations in the ending, including the one with different music & with poster without poster variation 😁 I used buy all the magazines (SNES Force, Super Play & Official Nintendo Magazine) I knew every detail of gaming information there was to know 😂 this was before the age of the internet. Gaming was so much fun back then, I loved all the TV shows too like Bad Influence, Games Master & the other one on BBC 1, when the PlayStation & Sega Saturn came out in 1995, can't recall the name was on CBBC. Who remembers Digitiser Teletext on Channel 4? 😁 Lol the 90's internet, I used even check out the top sellers chart on it every week back then. The Super Nintendo to this day is my favourite games console & Super Metroid is my favourite game of all time. Super Mario World is the finest Mario game ever but not only that, it's probably the pinnacle of 2D platformer to this day, its mechanics it's game design has yet to be matched or surpassed, I doubt even Miyamoto himself can top it 😂 The SNES gave birth to so many great games, it's list is legendary! From Yoshi to Killer Instinct 😊.
Just so you know, the sound 'glitches' you highlight are also present in the original Super Mario World. Played this game to death since I was little and they're present in other levels at other times.
Haha Plok that game was so daft & funny. It reminds me of the summer every time I think of it, because my mate got his SNES with that game back then. I remember all the gaming sessions at his house 😊
I just watched a 30 minute video comparing the two systems and I barely even noticed a difference at all. I’m thinking this channel is for gamers WAY above my skill set. Either way, I love my SNES Mini! Honestly, just being able to reply FF3 while in a hostal room and not on a tablet is great!
The CRT filter looks good on my TV from back on the couch. I'd say the softer image is probably closer to what a consumer level TV might have looked like. Anyway, I don't mind it.
I like the CRT filter on the SNES Mini. Without it, the image looks too pixelated which just doesnt look right for the SNES. I was comparing it side by side with my Sony CRT TV from 2004. With the Mini's CRT filter turned on, it looked much closer to the original hardware than 4:3 mode.
The crt filter looks nice but the upscale is vastly better obviously when you want improved tech and visually and not incredibly obsessed with old 90s images. Don’t get me wrong, their both very nice and look very good but one is clearly visually better. So this “without it the image looks too pixelated” is completely false as the clean new hardcore and tv look for it all makes everything look better than ever, and it DOES Look right for the snes entirely. No idea on why you’re saying that as I think your just nostalgic biased there to say that.
Great video. My only complaint is that the real CRT vs CRT filter comparison should have used offscreen capture for both and it should've used a consumer set with RGB or a low end/90s PVM with lower TVL, LESS defined scanlines and softer focus. A high end BVM made in the early-mid 2000s doesn't represent the CRTs any of us had in the early 90s with 16-bit consoles or even well into the N64 era or the following decade with Gamecube. For the consumer set, Euro models have RGB or a US TV can be RGB modded (see RetroRGB channel). Besides old PVMs, there are also JVC pro CRTs with PQ characteristics that more closely match a consumer television.
i totaly agree on that. I still have my Euro RGB snes and my small CRT from the 90's. And it look closer to the snes classic CRT filter than DF setup with the PVM.
SuperDanHimself To be clear I don't think the SNES Mini's CRT filter looks good either. It has the same problem of some Retroarch filters and the crappy filters found in stuff like Rare Replay: a dull and unappealing blur applied across the screen + artificial-looking scanlines with a uniform width unlike real CRTs. The emulation of CRT softness, subtle bloom, phosphor dropoff and mask/grille effect is missing from almost all of them. A version of CRT Royale (Korozumi?) has a great CRT effect but the bloom is badly exaggerated on 4K displays and needs tweaking. My other gripe with CRT filters is when they seemingly attempt to emulate bad or worn-out tubes. Terribly out of focus, bad convergence, poor signal... why?! They should arrive to emulate a pristine tube, and that doesn't mean it's gotta be the look of a BVM, which frankly is NOT the best for 240p retro gaming. I can tell you that as an owner of a 20F1U with low hours and a perfect display with no defects.
I agree. I got my Snes mini today, I'd heard the CRT filter wasn't great - but I tried it anyway. BAM! I was back in my bedroom aged 14 playing at midnight on a hand-me-down ancient 21inch CRT. The soft visuals really work well and are highly evocative of the kind of experiences with SNES that we remember so fondly. This thing isn't aimed at purists - It's aimed at slighlly more casual people like me. And IMO they nailed it.
Completely ridiculous to compare the CRT filter against a several thousand dollar, high TVL professional monitor that no consumer would have owned when the SNES was out, and then say it's "inaccurate". It looks close to what you'd get on an average CRT, and that should have been obvious.
I like the level of details in the video, but they have to consider that you can get a Snes Mini for about 80 Dollars with two pads in your local store. To compare it with much more expensive solutions is just not fair. And you are right! No one had a professional Sony BVM broadcast monitor @ home. They cost thousands of dollars in the 90th... Super NT is on another level... for sure... but what the french team did with the "Canoe" emulator ist just awesome for a casual system based on emulation. The inputlag, compared to the real SNES hardware, is less tha two frames! Which is state of the art for emulation(Original SNES 70 ms vs Mini 95 ms) Nintendo did a great jop with this nice little retro system!
bobrocks95 I’m somewhere in the middle. I agree that the CRT filter shouldn’t try to match that of a BVM on RGB, but I disagree that they should try to show how Composite video looks on an average CRT. I think it should look like how a SNES would look like on a Trinitron like my Sony KV-21X5U using RGB. It’s an improvement over how it was, but not as good as the best possible monitors to maintain that nostalgia factor.
21 Games in this. Contra III: Alien Wars Donkey Kong Country Final Fantasy VI F-Zero Kirby Super Star A Link to the Past Mega Man X Secret of Mana Star Fox Star Fox 2 Super Ghouls n Ghosts Super Mario Kart Super Mario RPG: Legend if the Seven Stars Super Mario World Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island Super Metroid Now if you're in the West like most of us here, we have gotten: Earthbound Kirby's Dream Course Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting Super Castlevania IV Super Punch-Out As for Japan instead they get: Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem The Legend of the Mystical Ninja Panel de Pon Super Soccer Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers
Mid by Northwest to be fair, that’s kind of an issue with filming - i had to lower exposure on the camera to prevent blurring so the end result is a darker image. It’s much more vibrant when viewed normally. Also, the 1-chip systems are usually too bright and this one is modded to bring it down to normal levels which, in turn, makes it slightly less vibrant.
Another great episode! It answered all of the questions I had about the device, including how it fairs as an alternative to using a real SNES and a premium upscaler. That video noise on the SNES Mini IS really weird, though.
Best thing on this channel. Retro is big now because there is a huge crowd that either wants to relive the 90s golden age of gaming, or young players who actually want a challenge and experience great classics.
Thank you John (DF), I never played some of the games in the included 20+ classics. This served as a look back/analysis and comparison, it may have some minor spoilers but it does not matter when I eventually get to those points because the 90's era gaming where 90% 60FPS locked (more on gameplay and twitch reactions). I'll start with Megaman on this incredible mini console.
@DigitalFoundry SNES is the only Nintendo system I used to have. I'm impressed with little details like including some anti-seizure methods which means they're following up to safety codes of modern times. You know, just in case they get sued. I think the only games this is missing is Mega Man X2, Mega Man X3, Donkey Kong Country 2, and Donkey Kong Country 3.
Super Mario World - Early Morning Game Donkey Kong Country - Morning Game Super Metroid - Afternoon Game Castlevania - Evening Game Contra Alien Wars - Till Midnight And the whole day is sorted...
The video noise is really very minor compared to the issues we had to endure in the pal europe model in the day. Framerate cropping such as huge black bars on the bottom and top of the screen. Europe was really neglected back in the day. Thats why i dont use my original snes anymore. To have all these games in ntsc is such a blessing 4 us. You americans will never understand how poorly treated we were
I consider both the Sega Genesis & the SNES as some of the best systems of the 90s. I would also include the Neo Geo AES & the TurboGrafx/PC Engine as honorable mentions. As for my favorite failed console of the decade, the Atari Jaguar is by far my favorite =-D
Starfox 2 is so impressive. I was blown away by my 1st playthrough. Hell, it still amazes me. It is mind boggling that it could be played on an actual snes if someone was able to make a cart for it.
Hang on a minute, I swear I heard the bad-creepypasta meme laugh during the FF3 segment! *EDIT:* Turns out, the creepypasta laugh I was talking about was actually Kefka’s laugh from FF3, and that’s why I recognised it. I has no clue it came from Final Fantasy! Of course, when I made this comment 7 months ago, I’d never played a Final Fantasy game, but now I’ve actually played FF3 and it is by far the best of all the Final Fantasy games I’ve played. *EDIT EDIT:* I meant FF6 not FF3 omg I’m an idiot
i am a 100% sure that the european CRT TVs we had here is germany didnt have scanlines like that. if you look closely you can see the pixels but it doesent have these scanlines - neither with 50hz nor with 60hz content (pal TVs could actually display NTSC signals perfectly fine)
Guys we was legends at this time , when we have Super Nintendo .... kids from today can't never understand what kind of beautiful feeling we have before ..
Now a while ago I played the Final Beta of Star Fox 2 on SNES9x using my PC. And I didn’t think the framerate was that bad until I watched the RU-vid videos I filmed of it. (you can find them on my RU-vid channel.) Except, for during the walker sections, e.g. bases and some late game battleships. Back in 1990’s, when most if not all 3D games were low-res, and I was still used to Starwing, I doubt I would’ve noticed at all.
I had the original SNES which is still boxed away in the garage, I bought this over the weekend and hooked it up to the HDTV in HDMI was great brought some nostalgia back from the nineties.
It's a testament to how great the SNES was that when my Mum bought me one for Christmas in about 93 the 3 other games she got me (Super Probotector, F-Zero and Super R Type) were, along with Super Mario World that came with it phenomenal games too and kept me occupied for quite a while.
My father brought home a SNES unexpectedly form Germany, when he was working there. I was about 9 years old at that time, and it came with Super R-Type and Super Mario All-Stars (the older version, with The Lost Levels instead of Super Mario World). I was instanly hooked and it blew my friends' yellow cartridge NES clone out of the water in every way, he noticed that too. I did not even know what 16-bit graphics and sound was at that time.
I have an SNES mini but its a collectors item for me, maybe some day I'll play it. I own an SD2SNES flash cart and play games on an SNES (slim) on my CRT-TV or Analogue Super NT on my HDTV. The SNES/SFC is my favorite games console of all time. I grew up with the system so i have a lot of nostalgia for it. Outstanding video.
I disagree. That filter looks softer and has much worse scanlines than my consumer Trinitron. For me, the scanlines blend in with most colours, but in certain shades they are really visible and I love them.
This must be the most accurate and nerdiest review of a gimmick/collectors item and I love it, keep going DF guy! I just picked one up, why? Great emulation, HDMI, two good controllers with WiiMote connectivity and of course, 21 games that are actually great.
I have to disagree on the CRT filter; PVMs inherently have *much* sharper and more defined scanlines than most consumer-grade TVs, which tend to have a lot of phosphor glow and bleed past the mask. It seems like Nintendo were aiming to replicate the softer look that consumer-end hardware delivered, and footage from a consumer SCART RGB CRT would be needed to make a more even comparison.
Another great episode. I loved that last shot in the (cg?) room with the snes footage on the wall! Thanks for the info on the audio lag and video scaling/noise! That's the info I was looking for in making my decision!
Man, such a fantastic episode. I really enjoy how you go all-out and deviate a bit with semi-related topics (like using the real hardware with the OSSC, or focusing on the music). Great stuff. :)
I'd love to see classic games remade using a modern engine such as Unreal Engine 4, but staying completely true to the original game design (2D remains 2D for example) and running at 4K 60 fps. In the same way that games like Fez are an homage to 16 bit era games but in 1080p, I'd love to see classic 16 bit and 32 bit games remade for the 4K generation, as well as indie games being able to run in native 4K.
The 4:3 vs 8:7 (pixel perfect) debate is an interesting one. While the internal resolution of the SNES is 8:7, displays were of course 4:3, but some devs took this into account and some didn't. Chrono Trigger for instance should never be played in 8:7 since the developers designed the game to stretch proportionally from the internal 8:7 resolution to 4:3. So the correct answer to 4:3 vs 8:7 is that it depends on the game and whether or not it was taken into account, but unfortunately there's not a list anywhere.
It does NOT have problems with 60hz modded PAL consoles. Tested a modded PAL Saturn and SNES. Most consoles run out of the box at 2x (480p) with OSSC. You got to tweak a bit with the sync options to get higher output resolutions though.
Thanks! My new HDMI model is already on pre-order. Hope everything works out, since one of the main reasons I'm using scalers/converters is recording gameplay....
enzo molinari Because there were newer and exciting pieces of hardware out. You could see the grand differences between generations. Now...not so much.
To have space for all the mini consoles to come. Saturn Mini, S/NES mini, PSX mini...can't wait to see the GameCube mini. That thing was already tiny. If they shrink it even further down, maybe I can hang it on the back mirror in My car. Should look rad...
I have always found it interesting how we move our goal posts over time. Xbox 360 emulation on xbox one has John praising the locked 60fps in games that used to bounce around in the 40s-50s. (or locked 30s compared to 20s-30s like in The Darkness 1 and 2), SNES emulation on the SNES Classic Mini, and he points out the 'flaw' of play remaining fluid and consistent through areas where the real hardware used to slow down because of hardware limitations. I am not saying this is bad, or that he is wrong on either area, but it I think it shows a fundamental issue that we seldom bring up. When does the emulator running the game more smoothly than it ran on native hardware count as a travesty of ruined experience, and when is it a great improvement on a flawed but good game? Is it just about age? Is it about nostalgia factor (eg, regardless of age, if the game has strong nostalgia tied to it you have to deliver the flaws as part of that experience?)
Speaking of audio you should have mentioned Doom for snes. I know it is not an original game for snes but it should have been mentioned as an “honorable mention” maybe considering doom music sounded better on snes than any port even better than pc original’s... and one other great game and that had really cool music was Top Gear. The three games really catch with their sound! You should check them. Awesome episode. You guys really understand what you talk about! Keep it up!
Paperclown exactly. And it can do 240P RGB and 720p through component for a HD solution. Best console to mod. Yeah Unfortunately most people go with an original Xbox, but they only output minimum 480i :/
I have a friend who loves Plok - Beach. He always plays that song at least once if we are drinking.This has been going on for years now. My group have buddies has probably heard the Plok OST while shit-faced more than any other group of buddies on Earth.I'm still mildly drunk sitting on my toilet taking a shit the morning after one of these nights writing this on my phone.
The Super Mario World sound you mentioned on the video is a result of grabbing the feather and hitting Mario's head in the ceiling. In the second part Mario's head wasn't hit, so it sounded normal.