The Famicom Sprite Flicker Fix / RGB2C02N Mod

if you enjoy the famicom I'm sure you noticed that during gameplay Sprites tend to flicker when there's a lot happening on the screen at once it could often times be very distracting not to mention difficult to tell what the heck is going on this has to do with the limitations of the famicom snes's PPU or picture Processing Unit only allowing eight Sprites On Any Given line at a time so when there are more than eight Sprites on a line things begin to flicker here are just some examples to jog your [Music] memory in order to work around the limitation game developers had to add in this flicker so when it was necessary to have more than eight Sprites on a given line Sprites would take turns alternating thus causing this flicker these are just the facts we have to live with as a famicom / NES lover until now that's right there is now a mod available that will stop the flicker of Sprites past the famicom limits and up it to a whopping 15 Sprites per line behold the RGB 22n by NX Labs don't you just love the way it rolls off the tongue so effortlessly in today's video I will be installing the RGB 22n on this AV famcom I've done a few RGB mods on the new famicom before but this will be the first time for me to check out this RGB 22n it's got me really excited so without further Ado let's get scruffy [Music] looking the RGB 22n has a couple of interesting prospects going for it first it adds RGB giving you glorious crisp RGB output second it has what is referred to as SPX mode which can run the PPU at the normal 15 khz or be switched into high gear and run at 31 khz reducing the flicker one other good point about this is that there is a few color palettes that you can choose from that are programmable the current confirmed supported consoles are the red and white famicom versions hvc cpu7 and hvc CPU gpm1 the new famicom HV CN cp1 and HV CN pp2 or the twin famicom a 500b or the A 5005b and of course the NES topl loader NESN cpu1 I've chosen to mod a new or AV famicom with the RGB 2c2 because it seems to be the easiest to mod and the most straightforward so let's get scruffy looking so we're just going to turn this one over and there are four screws to take out okay so we have the top off and we can kind of examine what's going on on the inside here today we're going to take off the PPU the picture processing unit and we're going to add our RGB so let's jump into that so we're just going to start taking off these screws [Music] the s74 ls 373 n is suggested to be replaced with this s77 forhc 373 n especially if you have a twin famicom this is not a twin famicom but I don't know we'll replace it and see what happens I guess just want to show you my desoldering gun which is absolutely necessary if you're going to be doing any kind of RGB mod where you've got to desolder 40 pin IC chips this is a Goot tp100 I highly suggest it I've been using it for a good six years or more ever since I got into this Hobby and it's been serving me really well so if you want one I do earn from Amazon so you'll be helping me out if you choose one from my description down below if you need one please by all means and you want to help out the channel uh click on my Amazon link and buy one from there um it's a really good dis soering gun I really do enjoy it I hope it serves you well too as we get the gun nice and warmed up comes with one of these here always check to see if the tip is clogged or not uh okay it is nice and clear that's a good sign uh we're removing the PPU here the top one we're going to hope it goes smoothly here [Music] we have the PPU mostly disordered now we switch our attention to the LS [Music] 373m capacitor 5 needs to be laid down to make room for the RGB 2C 20 board often times when removing the PPU or any IC chip you get stubborn pins so I like to test with tweezers and go over them again with the desoldering gun until they come free you can also add solder to the joints again if necessary [Music] Wonder [Music] okay we just got to move this guy out we've got to lay him down on the board [Music] the mod instructions call for cutting the video Trace but I don't like to cut traces if I can help it so I just chose to remove one leg of this resistor which will basically do the same thing and give us the same results we need to ATT match the dip socket here match the dip socket with the screen print on the [Music] board [Music] the short end of the header gets soldered into the RGB 2c2 and the second socket goes over the top I suggest adding the socket before soldering the headers to the board [Music] once things are soldered we can line up the pins carefully and attach attach the RGB 2c2 to the main board this is the controller board for the player One controller that enables in-game switching of the SPX mode and color palettes it requires some fine soldering and you need to get the components in the right place so I highly suggest a multimeter and a magnifying device of some kind [Music] Wonder [Music] so there's this really tiny diode here and there is a polarity to it and I had to remove it and put it back in so in order to test the polarity you have to stick your multimeter to diode mode if you have a diode mode this one here and then the negative lead and the positive if they're on the right side they should show a voltage and since it doesn't show a voltage it means these are not on the right side so this is not the negative side and this is not the positive so we got to switch those around so this is the negative side here and this is the positive side and we know that because now it's showing a voltage of3 is per instructions this should be the negative side there's just no way to tell the negative side without testing it like this just no way unless you have a microscope and you can see stuff but I could not see it at all even if I took a picture and zoomed in couldn't tell the resistors are also two different values so the resistor 2 this resistor should be 1 kilm and that was resistor 2 and and then resistor 1 should be 10 kohms and I also had to switch these out there it is it's 10 this is the capacitor anyways here's another diode all right that's cool so we've tested all the resistors are in the right place the diodes are in the right spot this diode has three connections so it can only go one way um and this doesn't have a polarity I don't think this capacitor but we look good now we can install our at tiny to control the board [Music] one [Music] Wonder this is the eom that has a couple of RGB palletes loaded onto it and can be programmed with custom Petes of your [Music] liking [Music] here I have incorrectly wired up the multi out I mistakenly tried to wire it up like I do for the Tim Worthington RGB board the way you wire this is a little different the RGB 2 c2n requires only five wires r g b sink and ground and that's it here is the corrected way to wire to the multi out [Music] in order to get this connected to here it's suggested to get one of these L Clips here so that you can remove it and put it back in this is actually a five pin header so I snipped off one Edge so that it would fit four and it will just go in like this and then we'll be able to connect connect them here like this or if you want to put another connector on here you can remove it uh so I think that's what I'm going to [Music] do note I also CLI the protruding bottom row of three pins on the straight side and the L-shaped side they're in the way and unnecessary the mode side is the only one we need both pins [Music] intact [Music] creep wiring the player One controller board to the motherboard I added connections to make this removable but there is a clock latch data 5 Vols ground and an extension pin 13 that I wired like so I've even gone ahead and added some connectors so that we can remove this board here if we'd ever choose to so these are for the color palettes and this is for controlling the Spex function of the controller 15 MHz to 31 MHz so apparently you can change your color palettes using this uh reprogramming it and so forth it has four color palettes on it already I've also added a little uh a jumper here for uh LED so I will show you that in a [Music] minute this goes to the LED right here I've just taped up for the moment there is the red light that will shine through so you can [Music] see [Music] so we should be able to hold down select a and the down Direction on the d-pad to turn on the SPX mode giving us a PPU speed of 31 khz and getting rid of the Flicker and look at that she works like a charm Additionally the color palets can be changed by holding select B and up on the d-pad there are four including black and white as I mentioned before you can also add your own to the eom I think picked up this mod from kadano Ken at akihabara's Radio department store they sell out pretty quickly but he does get in new shipments about once a month it's going for about 177,000 Yen or about $120 the pros include crispy RGB output almost doubling your Sprite performance three selectable color palettes in-game controller switching functions for SPX mode and color pallettes programmable color palettes so you can choose your favorite color palettes if you wish to do so the cons there's there's no s video composite or ypbpr only pure RGB only supported by ntsc and no plans for pal support Advanced soldering skills are necessary compatibility has not yet been confirmed on North American toaster NES there's no English support for this mod either when using this on an LCD display I tended to get a kind of warped or strange artifacts at the bottom and top of the screen overall I believe that this is a great mod that adds great new performance improvements on the famicom and it really enhances the gameplay not to mention beautiful RGB pixels what do you all think is this a mod you'd be interested in picking up do you own one or have any questions about it let me know about it down in the comments if you like the video and you want to help out the channel you can become a channel member and get behind the scenes looks at future videos among other perks I also earn from qualifying purchases on Amazon so if you happen to buy one of the tools I use from this link in the description below you'll also be helping out the channel otherwise please like And subscribe for future Retro Game modding and hunting videos from here in Japan big shout out and thanks to the current members for your continued support it is much appreciated thanks everyone hope you all are staying safe but remember stay scruffy looking who's scruffy [Music] looking [Music] C oh

Channel: Scruffy Lookin RGB

Views: 5,809

Keywords: retro games, famicom mods, retro game modding, The Famicom Sprite Flicker Fix / RGB2C02N Mod, 500 yen Famcom Challenge, Famicom Sprite Flicker, nes, Sprite flicker fix, RGB2C02N, Famicom RGB mod, AV Famicom, retro video games, Bakutendo, NX Labs, famicom, toploader, sharp twin famicom, RGB Famicom, Gameboy advance, nintendo, JunkConsoles, Game Junk, family computer, nosalgia, retro game mods, ファミコン, レトロゲーム, AVファミコン, RGBファミコン, ファミコン改造

Id: Kw1bP3eQU5Y

Length: 22min 59sec (1379 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 07 2024