NES Overclocking Guide has Moved

SgtBowhack · Post by **SgtBowhack** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 7:59 am

Fair enough. I've bought plenty of crappy electronics during my lifetime, and I don't hesitate to dump on them when I have a chance. But the fact remains that the NOAC is good enough for a lot of people, and so it's the really the same sort of complaint against that as some people may have against your overclocking method. It's simply a matter of accurate reproduction, and everything but using a real NES (at stock speed) is gonna have some sort of repercussions. It's finding the ones that you personally can deal with that's important, really.

For me, an NOAC is OK, because it runs the carts I have, with reasonable accuracy (in my experience), and doesn't piss me off by having my screen blink during the first 10 attempts to get the game working. For you, an overclocked NES is OK, because it removes lag in games.
For the record:
- Emulators are not cycle-accurate (and the ones that are are terribly slow, and probably have crappy mapper support). They're vague representations of the original consoles.
- NOACs vary in quality greatly. Yes, I am sure some really suck. If you don't want to roll the dice, buy an NES or AV Famicom. And overclock it if you choose.
And that's all I have to say about that.

Alchemist · Post by **Alchemist** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 8:30 am

nos_slived wrote:Thats the point here. Almost every game from the NES can be bought for many other systems. If you want speed, (go find the dealer at the corner of the street) no, you get a later system.

You don't know crap about the NES's back catalogue, obviously.

SgtBowhack wrote:Look, the fact of the matter is, some people want to play NES games the way they were made to be played. Simple as that. And if they were able to overclock the system in software, then that would still be the way it was meant to be played, because it would mean that the programmers worked with the system as overclocked. So your point is completely moot.

My point is not moot, your interpretation of it is flawed. My point is that the developers would have liked to remove the lag, but were prohibitted by insufficiently powerful hardware/lack of development time to speed up the code. Overclocking would allow me to address this shortcoming and play the game as the developer would have wanted it.

I just don't get this nostalgia for negative experiences, it's completely illogical. It's like saying that you'd rather watch a film on VHS on a b&w 14" TV than watch it on HD-DVD with a 48" HD-TV widescreen.

Epicenter · Post by **Epicenter** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 3:30 pm

Alchemist wrote:I just don't get this nostalgia for negative experiences, it's completely illogical. It's like saying that you'd rather watch a film on VHS on a b&w 14" TV than watch it on HD-DVD with a 48" HD-TV widescreen.

Indeed. And let me say, if you're an NES Fan, you haven't truly lived until you've played Kirby, Mega Man 3, Mario 3 and (arguably, I'm not wild about it) Zelda lag free.

SgtBowhack · Post by **SgtBowhack** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 6:23 pm

My point is not moot, your interpretation of it is flawed. My point is that the developers would have liked to remove the lag, but were prohibitted by insufficiently powerful hardware/lack of development time to speed up the code. Overclocking would allow me to address this shortcoming and play the game as the developer would have wanted it.

The fact remains that sufficient hardware upgradeability existed in the cartridges that if such lag was seen as a problem, it would have likely been removed (in later titles, at least). If there was a lack of development time, then the developer didn't care enough to make a quality title that meets their own goals.
I'm not saying that overclocking won't sometimes improve the gaming experience, but it has its own set of problems, as addressed.

MM007 · Post by **MM007** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 6:33 pm

Epicenter, is there a way to perhaps increase the CPU speed without increasing sound pitch? I mean, I have several NESes, and I have no problem with overclocking my NES, removing all the sound audio-related leads from that chip, and making a small second board with another NES CPU, use the normal speed clock, and connect the needed leads to that. Do you know which leads I'd need to sever and transfer to a secondary NES CPU, as well as where to hook power and GND to the chip?

If it is possible, I'd like to try it. The leads for audio and everything else would need to be completely different though (data for the audio and anything else couldn't travel to the same pins of the CPU.)

...Also, since removing all the audio computations would put less work on the main CPU, would it then be possible to squeeze a few hundred more KHz out of the CPU than with the conventional overclocking without hitting snags??

Also, if the above isn't possible, is there a circuit to reduce the pitch back down to normal?

Post by **gannon** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 6:38 pm

mm007, yeah, that'll work. A guide for it was posting before on these boards.

nos_slived · Post by **nos_slived** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 7:58 pm

Alchemist wrote:
nos_slived wrote:Thats the point here. Almost every game from the NES can be bought for many other systems. If you want speed, (go find the dealer at the corner of the street) no, you get a later system.
You don't know excrement about the NES's back catalogue, obviously.

Yea, and you can go eat your own excrement, obviously. Though they may not be seen often, you can buy almost every game ever made on any system, for every system. There are still companies that take games made for XBOX and PS2, and edit them, convert them, and make carts for N64, and YES NES. So you know what Alchemist, why don't you shut up, stop telling me what I do and don't know, and shove that little black magicians wand where the sun don't shine.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 8:15 pm

Where could I get those n64 carts with new games on them?

nos_slived · Post by **nos_slived** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 8:23 pm

A few months ago I saw some at EB Games, but they haven't had any lately. Never thought to ask the manager why?

MM007 · Post by **MM007** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 8:34 pm

gannon wrote:mm007, yeah, that'll work. A guide for it was posting before on these boards.

There is? Where is it?

goodie · Post by **goodie** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 8:56 pm

nos_slived wrote:Though they may not be seen often, you can buy almost every game ever made on any system, for every system. There are still companies that take games made for XBOX and PS2, and edit them, convert them, and make carts for N64, and YES NES.

Links and/or Pictures?

nos_slived · Post by **nos_slived** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 10:54 pm

Like I said, I haven't seen them in a few months. I think they had even been on the EB Games site for a while, but when I checked earlier, they weren't there either.

SgtBowhack · Post by **SgtBowhack** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 11:24 pm

nos_slived: That sounds like urban legend material to me...
I know pirates port games to the NES all the time, and some of them are actually pretty decent, but ...
To the point: what you just said doesn't support your argument at all. I agree that a large number of NES games have been ported to other consoles, but why would PlayStation 2 games being ported to NES have anything to do with lag on the NES? The fact is, Alchemist is right. There are still hundreds of NES games that have never been ported to anything else. Especially if you dig into the Famicom games. There are tons of games that have been ported (almost all of the "classics") but tell me, where else can you play StarTropics?
For every game that has been ported there's probably 5 that haven't

It's a fact of life. When you find proof of these carts' existence, please do post again. I'd blow hundreds of bucks on them.

nos_slived · Post by **nos_slived** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 11:42 pm

I was simply stating the fact that no matter what system they are made for, they end up on many other systems, and yes, they do port some PS2 games to NES and N64, I know, because I saw it with my own freakin eyes! You'd be supprised to know how many of those NES games actually have been ported to other systems, and if it isn't on a standard video gaming system, you can usually find a ROM for them. I never actually never said "video game system", only "system", and last time I checked, a computer running an emulator is a "system".

SgtBowhack · Post by **SgtBowhack** » Wed Apr 27, 2005 12:25 am

I'm still skeptical because:
a) No game titles have yet been mentioned.
b) I can take RC Pro-Am for NES and relabel it as Gran Turismo 4.

As far as the emulator thing goes, it was said ages ago that emulators could work, but the emulators only solve part of the problem. You're at the mercy of emulators supporting the ROM's mapper, as well as the system's architecture itself.
But running an emulated title is not a port, and depending on the system, you may or may not get more lag than the NES itself so graciously provided.