N64 video output on various revisions.

[JimboMahoney]

Hi there,

I did a google on this topic and found a thread on here relating to the N64 not doing RGB, but what about Svideo? (The thread said yes, but...)

The reason I ask:

I have an original (black) N64 and I can get S Video out of it. I also just bought a blue (clear) N64 because I plan to do the overclock (the coloured consoles have revised motherboards rumored to work better). BUT it only seems to do composite.

Is it broken, or did Nintendo also remove Svideo?

Thanks a lot!

[gIzzE]

They removed the S on the coloured machines.

[JimboMahoney]

Dammit!

Thanks for confirming that.

Any way to mod it to get it back?

[charlesr]

Is it an ntsc (Japan/USA) N64? Some of those can be modded to do RGB. Also, no point in overclocking a PAL machine. Just checking.

And welcome to ntsc-uk. Let us know how the overclocking goes. Take photos!

[smouty]

Why not put the decent board in the case you like the best

[JimboMahoney]

It's a PAL N64.

Why no point in overclocking it? I've noticed slowdown in some games...

Smouty - good idea, but I'll see if I can overclock an original one - that way I get S video AND a black case!

[charlesr]

Most PAL N64 games are unoptimised and run slowly by default. Just by buying the ntsc equivalent, the games run 16.6% faster, i.e. at the speed god and the developers intended and don't have the huge black borders top and bottom. Thus the raison d'etre for our website www.ntsc-uk.com
Some NTSC ones can be RGB modded as well. They can all play Japan or USA games with an excessively easy mod, so you can play sin&punishment and stuff.
For example someone sold one a few days ago on this forum for ?28. You can use your UK power supply, so no need for a stepdown.
I sold all my PAL N64 games and replaced them with NTSC versions and its easy to spot the difference. Fast games like 1080 and waverace are much more playable.
I believe you can overclock the NTSC coloured N64s but you can't rgb mod those for sure. Only earlier ones.

[JimboMahoney]

Yeh, I agree and I know about the 50/60 NTSC PAL thing.

That's why I modded my UK PAL SNES with a 50/60 switch, so it plays 90% of UK games at 60 Hz (PAL-60).

Shame I can't do that with the PAL N64. I want to overclock it because of the frame rate losses in 'detailed' areas, and also for the hell of it!

Re: S-Video - to add to the mix, I tried S-Video on my friend's green N64 and it works. It doesn't work on my blue two-tone (upper half clear blue, lower half clear white), only composite.

[JimboMahoney]

Well, I modded my N64 last night, allowing for 4 clock speeds:

65 Mhz (underclock)
97 Mhz (normal)
130 Mhz (33%)
195 Mhz (100%)

Needless to say, 195 Mhz doesn't work

Goldeneye shows the most improvement, running smoother AND faster

Other games don't really seem different, but then the overclock should only remove slowdown, so you won't really notice.

I'll try overclocking a black one too, since that has S-Video, but they aren't meant to be as happy...