Framemeister Review

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Herschie
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Framemeister Review

Postby Herschie » February 11th, 2018, 10:38 pm

My Video Game Room (VGR) is complete. I have two comfortable chairs, surround-sound, a 4K Samsung, with another HD Samsung next to it so that I can watch sports as I play. Every system I could possibly want. Flash carts for the NES, SNES, with one for the N64 coming either Monday or Tuesday.

You, know it's ironic that I spend $500 to get a modern 4K TV, then I spend $350 to make it look like an old CRT. But you know what? It's worth it. As much as I love me a good CRT, I don't have room for two VGRs. And some games, such as Ocarina of Time and Metroid Prime really benefit from the surround sound. I like to have all my games in one place. So the next best thing I could do is the Framemeister.

The unfortunate truth is that you can't take a 240p signal, and magically make it 1080p. That's not to say that the Framemeister can't do a lot to vastly improve the picture over just a normal input into a flatscreen. These older systems were designed for older TVs, and those older CRTs had something called scanlines. The Framemeister can simulate those, and believe it or not, it makes the picture much better. You see it, and remember that this is exactly how it looked when were were kids:

Image

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Those pictures don't really do it justice, it looks far better. Also, you can adjust the overscan level so that the pixels line up better. 480x2 is 960, and 960/1080=90.7. So I have the overscan set at 90%, and even though the picture is a little smaller, the games look a lot better, since 480 is not a factor of 1080, and thus that contributes to why older games look like crap on an HD TV.

How does the N64 look? A lot better. As in it's not this fuzzy pixelated mess that you see without the Framemeister:

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The games look a lot better, even without the scanlines. So if you don't like them, don't think you have to use them. But I like that good old-fashioned TV look, and the Framemeister delivers on that.

Overall, nothing beats a good old-fashioned CRT. But I've had all sorts of problems with buying them used that ranged from the sheer weight (I swore the whole thing was made out of a solid block of lead!), to the TV smelling like curry when it was on for awhile, and the heat would bring out that smell. Let me tell you, the Framemeister makes your older games a lot better, and it doesn't weigh much, nor does it smell like curry.

I think I'm going to get my money's worth out of this thing!

bluenote
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Re: Framemeister Review

Postby bluenote » February 12th, 2018, 12:54 pm

I like your review!

I have a Framemeister, and I love it! I don't have room nor the desire to have 2 tv's in my basement. Plus, I love using a large HDTV for all my needs.

I know the Framemeister is expensive, by my thought is that if I'm going to spend all this money on games and systems, why play them on a tv that makes them look crappy?

I love the overscan feature, where you can remove the ugly side bars on a lot of NES and SMS games (most notably Super Mario 3)

Love this device.

Herschie
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Joined: April 7th, 2015, 11:44 pm

Re: Framemeister Review

Postby Herschie » February 12th, 2018, 3:15 pm

bluenote wrote:
I love the overscan feature, where you can remove the ugly side bars on a lot of NES and SMS games (most notably Super Mario 3)

Love this device.



Glad you do. Which settings do you use?

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Retro STrife
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Re: Framemeister Review

Postby Retro STrife » February 12th, 2018, 6:56 pm

Thanks for sharing this. Good to hear that it's worthy of the hype, and not just an overpriced gimmick. Seems like a very cool device, and something I'd like to keep in mind down the road.

At the moment, I'm fortunate that I've got a working CRT HDTV as my TV in my gameroom. It's CRT, but it's widescreen and 720p, and even has an HDMI hookup. Meaning that both my NES and my PS3 look pretty good on it.

It's not all good though... First, it's rather unimpressive looking. Today's 50" flat screens makes an impression.. meanwhile, a 25" CRT may be good for retro gaming, but it looks a bit old and shameful when surrounded by an otherwise nice gaming setup. (I picture that, to the casual observer, they wonder why I've invested a lot of effort into a gameroom and then used an old hunk of junk as the focal point for gaming.) Another thing.. For newer consoles (last gen and this gen), I'd definitely prefer a nice big modern HDTV. My current consoles (like PS4) stay in my living room on the big screen, but they "retire" to the gameroom as a new generation comes along. I wonder if I'll eventually have to upgrade the gameroom TV when I move my PS4 or PS5 in there. I certainly will when the CRT dies, as finding another one will be tough... Another negative: as far as I can tell, light gun games don't work on CRT HDTVs either, which I was very disappointed to discover.

I guess my point is that there's no perfect solution.. even CRT TVs have short comings. It's a balancing act and sounds like the Framemeister provides a good solution for people who use a modern TV to play classic consoles.

bluenote
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Re: Framemeister Review

Postby bluenote » February 13th, 2018, 9:35 am

Herschie wrote:
bluenote wrote:
I love the overscan feature, where you can remove the ugly side bars on a lot of NES and SMS games (most notably Super Mario 3)

Love this device.



Glad you do. Which settings do you use?


I use the setting from this website:

http://www.firebrandx.com/framemeisterprofiles.html

There's profiles for almost every console, including Atari 2600. He even has a specific setting for the NES to eliminate the overscan for those games affected by it. Basically, you upload the profiles you want and save the profiles you want to your microSD card on your framemeister and load them whenever you use that specific console. They work great!

Breaker
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Re: Framemeister Review

Postby Breaker » February 13th, 2018, 10:54 pm

So help a fella out that knows nothing about upscaling... does this thing remove the lag? Or is it visual improvement only?

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pacman000
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Re: Framemeister Review

Postby pacman000 » February 14th, 2018, 8:55 am

Retro STrife wrote: (I picture that, to the casual observer, they wonder why I've invested a lot of effort into a gameroom and then used an old hunk of junk as the focal point for gaming.)


Buy an old-enough hunk of junk & it'll cease to look out of place:

http://antiqueradios.com/forums/viewtop ... 3&t=213860
http://www.antiqueradios.com/forums/vie ... p?t=117925
https://www.rcvintage.com/?name=SONY-CO ... 1030332753

;)

Herschie
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Re: Framemeister Review

Postby Herschie » February 14th, 2018, 9:13 am



Wow, the only system I can see using that for is the original Oddysey!

Breaker wrote:So help a fella out that knows nothing about upscaling... does this thing remove the lag? Or is it visual improvement only?


Visual improvement. The lag takes place at the TV, and the Framemeister cannot magically fix that. But it doesn't noticeably add any either. Try using "game mode" if you haven't already.

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pacman000
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Re: Framemeister Review

Postby pacman000 » February 14th, 2018, 4:11 pm

Herschie wrote:


Wow, the only system I can see using that for is the original Oddysey!

Old games = Old TVs

;)

Herschie
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Joined: April 7th, 2015, 11:44 pm

Re: Framemeister Review

Postby Herschie » March 9th, 2018, 10:27 am

bluenote wrote:I use the setting from this website:

http://www.firebrandx.com/framemeisterprofiles.html

There's profiles for almost every console, including Atari 2600. He even has a specific setting for the NES to eliminate the overscan for those games affected by it. Basically, you upload the profiles you want and save the profiles you want to your microSD card on your framemeister and load them whenever you use that specific console. They work great!


Yeah, I use those too, and many of them are useless. They're completely zoomed-in. I noticed the one for the Gamecube was ideal, but I wouldn't mind if I can make it look even better. Is there something I'm doing wrong?


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