Nintendo 64 RGB ColorBooster*UPDATE*

[waltarzar]

Click here to view Nintendo 64 RGB ColorBooster instructions...

Note that the polarity of the capacitors has changed...
now it is the opposite polarity as compared to my former
schematic on the old forum.

[CC_Devil]

hi waltarzar,

can you tell me why you changed the polarity of the capacitors ?
I have them wired the old way and it works great...
(unless I miswired them which would be lucky   )
Is there some sort of risk running them like this ?

Thanks,

CC

[waltarzar]

Because some experts on a German-language board told me so  
Maniac Board (German)

They say that the capacitors could be destroyed when wired the wrong way.

Nothing like that has happened with my cable so far but I will wire them
correctly some time.

Regards, Jan

[benzaldehyde]

Hi,

    The amp works well, but I still am having a bit of a problem. The amplified signals seem very sensitive to EM interference. Further, horizontal bars (like the life bar in Majora's Mask) seem to ghost across the screen. I am using an unshielded cable but the amp is in a shielded case. Could the ghosting be a shielding problem? That's what I'm wanting to think, but I don't have too much free time nowdays to experiment. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Vertigo]

See, now here's a strange thing. The mod in my N64 is just the 3 wires and a standard UK SNES RGB SCART cable, and it gives me an absolutely stunning picture, crystal clear, lovely colours, maybe a tiny touch bright, but not as bright as the output from a CPS2, and I'm happy with it. So where's everyone else going wrong?

[benzaldehyde]

You are very lucky, Vertigo!    Where did you solder the three wires from? I pick mine from the graphics chip. I've tried other places, but often the picture is too washed out or too susceptible to EM interference. I once found that altering the resistance a certain circuit on the N64 mainboard amplified the RGB signal, but I was afraid of damaging the video chip. However, that may be my next attempt!

[dmkf]

Hey, thank you much for this great scheme! I got this color booster to work either!
But i also had problems with colors fading and figured out that it can be fixed by removing capacistors from SCART connector (i just have moved them into booster scheme instead 100mF ones).
I also found out that capacity range of capacistors might be different (i tried with 47, 100 and 220mF) and it does'nt affect picture quality much.
- this is my two cents.

[Vertigo]

You are very lucky, Vertigo!    Where did you solder the three wires from? I pick mine from the graphics chip. I've tried other places, but often the picture is too washed out or too susceptible to EM interference. I once found that altering the resistance a certain circuit on the N64 mainboard amplified the RGB signal, but I was afraid of damaging the video chip. However, that may be my next attempt!

I can't really remember, and I can't check as it's in England and I'm in Australia, can't exactly just hop on the bus If I remember in February I'll let you know though.

[gIzzE]

When we used to mod the N64 back in the day, we used to take the rgb off the points R8, R9 and R10 on the board (r, g and B) and then link the point labeled C140 (I think, this was 5 years ago) to the top of the resitor R10.
This would give a very vibrant image, no amplifier needed at all.

[Guest]

oops a b followed by a ) obviously gives a B)

but sure you realised my previous post was meant to say r g b    <_<  

[Shadow_Zero]

When we used to mod the N64 back in the day, we used to take the rgb off the points R8, R9 and R10 on the board (r, g and B) and then link the point labeled C140 (I think, this was 5 years ago) to the top of the resitor R10.
This would give a very vibrant image, no amplifier needed at all.

Hey gIzzE, are you also from NTSC-UK?  

I was wondering if anyone figured out why gIzzE's mod gives a good RGB output while others are too dark.
Is there any more info on that?

Could the capacitor value of the RGB cable have anything to do with that? Like with the PAL SNES, if you use a Gamecube RGB cable the image will turn black. Chop out the capacitors and the image will be good (well, too bright actually, but that's an other discussion).
I've seen Nintendo RGB cables with various uF's; I recall 220 and 100.

I'm not really into this technical stuff (well, I'd like to, but it's kinda too technical for me), but a friend of mine has a US N64 and I can buy it from him, so I'd like the RGB mod then of course  

@Vertigo: As far as I know we didn't have any RGB cables for the SNES in Europe, only for the NTSC consoles (I could be wrong though, but then they'd be very rare!).

Hope you don't mind bringing some life in this old, but interesting, topic   B)  

[Anderson21]

i used to do rgb conversions on NTSC N64's. If anyone is interested i could try and find my info. As far as i can recall it gave a nice bright picture, though i have experienced some  tv's can give differing results. Let me know if you want my info.

[Guest]

Bring it on I'd say!  
What method did you use?

[billy_dimashq]

someone on my forum does the same mod - lifting the rgb pins from the board and wiring them as usual, no booster required.

you lose regular composite functionality if you do it like this, i've tried it and you get a black screen with sound (the scart lead was composite-only) so you'd have to decide. alternatively, get a 3-pole switch and then you can choose whether to output proper rgb or composite...

[Darklegion]

You could try wiring your rgb and sync lines to ground via a 75 ohm resistor and then run it through a 0.1 uf ceramic capacitor,I don't know how well this would work but this is what is used in televisions and other video equipment to clean up the signal including interference I believe.I would try it myself but I don't have a N64 to try it with,its worht a shot though.Also make sure all of your shields are wired to ground,If you have one missing at any stage,say if you built a custom adapter and one of the plugs was not wired to ground it could probably afffect things.

[Dr.Wily]

Where I can take the +5 V signal on N64 ?

[NFG]

As far as I know the N64 has only 12v and 3.3v.

[Dr.Wily]

Yes but, how to take a +5 V signal for this RGB mod ? This mod need a 5 V signal to work.

[Moosmann]

You can get 5V from the Multi AV-Port. All Pins are labled on the PCB like V, Y, C G, +5V and so on...

Bye Markus

[thermodan]

Vertigo, Shadow_Zero, et al:

I've done the standard 3 wire RGB mod to a US N64 too, as described at gamesx.com here, and it works fine - if using a scart cable that does not use capacitors (the cable I have is a grey Nintendo branded one, which I assume is a rare snes rgb scart cable). If you use the black coloured, official gamecube, rgb scart cable (which uses capacitors) the image seems to be overly 'green'. Anyone know why ?

For the record, I used insulated solid copper wires instead of the multi-stranded copper variety. I don't see why this would make the mod work properly though....

[Shadow_Zero]

When we used to mod the N64 back in the day, we used to take the rgb off the points R8, R9 and R10 on the board (r, g and B) and then link the point labeled C140 (I think, this was 5 years ago) to the top of the resitor R10.
This would give a very vibrant image, no amplifier needed at all.

So what actually is the difference between this method (method 2 according to mmmonkey) en the other method (method 1)?

Method 1 uses pin 17, 19 and 21 and will have a dark image without the pins lifted and with the pins lifted the image is better, but maybe too bright and/or sensitive to interference...?

Reading all that, method 2 is the safe/easy way to go?
(I think some call it quick & dirty, not? Why's that anyways?   )

EDIT:
Hmmmz, re-reading the mmmonkey info I guess method 2 produces a dark image as well and has an other work around for it, which can cause interference. So I guess the safest bet is the boosted rgb cable.
But what work-around is mmmonkey using for method 2???

[RGB32E]

Click here to view Nintendo 64 RGB ColorBooster instructions...

Note that the polarity of the capacitors has changed...
now it is the opposite polarity as compared to my former
schematic on the old forum.

HMMMM.... well I guess thats why the color booster I created (based off of the schematic) doesn't work!!!  I've never oriented polarized caps that way when building cables.

[Aeon]

Just wanted to give you my findings on the N64 RGB mod,

I've modded untold of these machines, first using the method of taking the RGB off the [R] points on the underside of the board + the link between the two nearby points to boost the signal.

This was fine but there was visible background noise, noticing that the points I was taking the RGB off had a 100ohm resistence applied - I instead took the RGB directly off the video chip.

Lifting the pins off the board is the answer - lift the pins, solder your wires on and connect to the AV port as normal - then remove the caps from your RGB cable and you'll have a clean, bright image without any need of amplification at all.  

[Shadow_Zero]

I don't understand something. I bought a rgb modded N64. It could be my imagination, but in the beginning it looked very good, though a bit dark, but at some point all this interference started showing up. I don't have this interference on my other 2 tv's, so does anyone have an explenation for this?
If it's the method 1 mod (http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/console/nintendo/ntsc_nintendo_64_rgb.htm), can it differ per tv if there will be interference or not?

[Shadow_Zero]

Ok, gotta specify this. I discovered NTSC games look fine on the particular tv and the PAL games got the interference (using a Passport III converter). But on my other 2 tv's PAL looks fine...
Anyone on that?
Cheers!