NES hacks only available in 60Hz

[APL3]

Hello everyone !

I discovered the fascinating world of romhacks and got so intrigued by Impala's Amida's curse that I got myself an hongbaiji linker.

Alas, it didn't turn out to be as smooth as I had hoped. Even though Impala is Dutch, seems like he only made the patch for the NTSC U version. And NTSC U Zelda 2 is not one of these game that runs fine on 50Hz.



(it's not an issue with Amida's Curse per se, that's the same kind of glitches that Zelda 2 NTSC U would display on a PAL E hongbaiji)

Is there any trick to run Amida's Curse (and by extension, these romhack that require a rom that doesn't play well in 50hz) on a Euro hongbaiji ?

I mean, other than 60hz modding the hongbaiji itself, which seem to be both risky and complicated.

[FAST6191]

Never heard of hongbaiji, nor do I often hear the term linker these days (don't think I have heard that since the GBA really), but I have not been paying much attention on that front.

You probably will want to see about getting 60Hz going on -- most PAL CRTs still running will do 60Hz quite happily and most PAL versions of NES games are written off as inferior junk (and slowdowns and borders were common) with very few exceptions. Converting games to PAL speeds and resolutions is very very hard to do well (hence why even the commercial stuff often failed to do it properly) and for the purposes of hacks then porting between regions is not so very far off making a new one a lot of the time. Keep the PAL NES in reserve as there are exceptions (properly done ports, native PAL developed games that got poor NTSC conversions and such like) and maybe you got used to the speeds and sounds of such a thing but most work now and going forward is going to be for NTSC stuff.

[APL3]

Thanks for your answer. Hongbaiji is how we call what Americans refer to as the NES I think, or just the "Nintendo" (as opposed at the time to the "super" Nintendo).

Someone lent me an NTSC NES today, works great but yeah, black and white... An RGB mod could fix that but it's neither easy nor cheap.

Edit: according to Wikipedia hongbaiji refers to the top loader Famicom specifically.

[JP32]

Sounds like your tv doesn't support NTSC composite, hence why its in b&w, using RGB cables fixes that(assuming your tv has rgb scart input).

Easiest fix is the upcoming krizz's RGB blaster(price, availability and front-loader/72pin version support is unknown).
Then theres my workaround, Koryuu Transcoder + COMP2RGB, this first converts the nes ntsc composite to component, and then component to RGB scart, this works, no input delay and picture quality doesn't suffer, but its also expensive(about 157€), but cheaper than rgb modded off ebay. Its also huge mess of wires too.

Alternative is to just buy/find tv that supports ntsc composite(that I ended up doing as I got tired of starting tiny 13" tv anyway), and its gamble as theres no way to tell unless you try it, or emulate via wii or something.

You could also try patching the hack to the european rom, but its very unlikely to work, but worth a shot.

[APL3]

Even for very simple hacks (like Duck Tales' 1 Pogo stick fix) it doesn't seem to work. I could try and adapt it though, I used to be proficient in 6502 ASM... long time ago.

edit: your solution seem easier than a RGB mod (no removing the PPU, no soldering) but you'll end up at best with the quality of composite video. If I'm gonna spend that much money on the system, I'd want a clean RGB output. Something like https://8bitmods.com/nesrgb-by-tim-worthington/ it out of stock everywhere, if I end up buying this NTSC system though it's probably the route I'll pick.

Or yeah, a new TV. But most people who sells second hand CRT nowdays have no idea what they are selling. Try asking for a model number ! All I got was the commercial name of the model (it's a "black matrix") or once someone just gave me the input voltage... Not easy to know in advance if what you're buying gonna support NTSC or not, I consider myself lucky mine support 60hz.

[JP32]

Yeah while I was looking for bigger crt tv I ended up with one that only supported PAL and 50hz(wouldn't sync on 60hz at all, fuck you Salora!), shame as it was quite well set otherwise. Luckily I was able to sell it so I broke even on that, and then later I found nice 25" sony trinitron that supports everything.