This looks absolutely nothing like Super Metroid looks at D93 in HDR on my display.
sRGB pictures can’t capture it, the colors are out of range, so it comes out looking undersaturated in comparison to reality, but this is at least closer:
Part of the issue here in general is that SDR/sRGB/non-WCG images viewed at D65 are fundamentally incapable of actually showing what D93 NTSC-J gamut actually looks like. It is simply out of range.
I have played the original game on Trinitron CRTs etc and i know it looks way more blue-ish than srgb green already even at 6500k. PC monitors cannot reproduce the colors exactly or shift towards green, iirc PC gamut is closer to CRT gamut on greens only so they appear way stronger while red and blue are pale.
You would need the real SNES and a CRT to make a clue, it could look like this and that on various LCD displays via emulation. Even my 2 laptops, i7 and ryzen don’t look the same on LCD lol. The cheap Ryzen colors looks washed out and different tint.
How about this
Modern displays with sufficient HDR/WCG support can properly display all of the CRT gamuts relevant for games using my Megatron testing fork included in AzMods (most recent version here.) (The included Presets are optimized for 800 nit LG OLEDs, as that is what i have.)
I have made some studies before about these games. Those Japanese games were mega-productions with a director and many coders/artists, not some bedroom coder Amiga games. The director wants to provoke feelings with music (notice the intense intro music that provokes anxiousness), colors etc. That teal is simply out of place. E.g. red provokes/triggers the feeling of danger.
This is elite stuff right there, these producers were the G.O.A.T. of their era and take into account this is a major franchise of the giant called Nintendo. Nothing was done with “that will do, let’s call it a day” mentality. They probably game-tested and reviewed everything a trillion times
This can be an issue, there are comparisons in xy plane, which shows sRGB is unable to cover all “retro” hue situations:
Note: viewing the xy plane itself is also tricky, since “your” display can’t reproduce it properly, lol.
All this thread reminds me something like, you drive your car and you understand something is wrong with it, you call your engineer and he says stop right there and bring it for repair, while another guy drinks a beer to a bar next to you and he say oh come on fella i think it’s fine, drive another 150 miles full speed and everything is gonna be just fine lmao
sRGB, do the colors make any sense here? i mean look at the water
sRGB–>gamma correct 2.4/2.2–>NTSC 1953–>9300K–>boost saturation 25%
Eh, I still don’t know man. They both seem fine, the water in the first shot doesn’t register as being obviously wrong to me.
I think we’re going to be hard-pressed to find examples of things that look seriously wrong at 6500k - Nintendo, being the meticulous testers they were, would have also tested their games on American televisions to see if they looked acceptable, because that’s where over half of their customers live.
I’ll also go back to the fact that we’re (probably) viewing this on an LCD, which is a 6500k display with a backlight bias. We can calibrate around this bias, but it will look weird and wrong. LCDs can’t display a cool color temp properly (unless designed to do so).
6500k is perfectly fine, it’s the gamut that can’t reproduce colors as the original. I wouldn’t mind if it’s a bit warmer but having the right tint. There are massive color differences if you run (emulate) a game on a PC+LCD vs original hardware+CRT. Almost always green needs to be put down like 20-25% on PC side to correct colors a bit (as a quick dirty fix). I have made many many tests on the matter having both combos side by side when i was writing some color shaders.
If you do the same on android you’ll ruin colors completely, the colors there are almost (some old phones maybe not) always closer to the original. Right now i am looking the first screen on my phone and looks fine.
…sRGB images displayed on my phone (an iPhone 12) look identical to sRGB images displayed on my monitor (an lg c1 in SDR at 2.2 gamma).
I’m not belittling anyone for not having a top tier display, but at some point you do need to recognize that your hardware is significantly skewing your end result, and that prevents you being able to meaningfully discuss hardware-agnostic best practices along these general lines.
Like, if your display has a notable green cast, that is going to have at least as much an effect as changing the color temperature, and your results likely won’t be applicable for anyone else, even if they have the same display.
Yep, tho it also should be noted that NTSC triangle is NTSC 1953, and CRTs made after the 1950s used different gamuts.
For example:
Conrac-RCA 1968/Rec. 601-525/SMPTE-C/NTSC-U in white, PAL/EBU/Rec. 601-625 in black.
Only they don’t look the same on Android and PC is not a cheap device if you thought so it’s 1500 € gaming laptop.
Perhaps reconsider because that’s an old 6 years old iPhone and a cheap Korean LCD you got there. I bet my old Mi 10T Pro beats the crap out of that iPhone lol, it even runs Nintendo Switch like you actually have the switch. That’s a 144hz free sync display right there on that little thing you better bet it can reproduce colors well.
When are you going to give us your insight and perhaps your valuable research on this instead of just stating that’s an HDR right there, quoting triangles etc etc
Gently: I think you are confused as to what an LG C1 is. It is an OLED with 96%ish P3 coverage and approx 800 nits brightness in HDR. Hardly top of the line anymore, but certainly not a “cheap Korean LCD”.
That would be a screencap of a Youtube shorts upload/clip of a recording of an Orion CRT taken with unknown camera settings in unknown lighting conditions with unknown display settings and no details regarding the output/input from the SNES.
Based on the look of it, i agree that it most likely has D93 white point, but beyond that? The circumstances make it downright impossible to draw any conclusions as far as the actual colors go. (Orion CRTs also aren’t bad by any means, but i wouldn’t exactly call them reference displays by any metric.)
This is the real color there, gray blue only slightly shift to green. Youtube camera can’t alter color tint and it’s not about D93, even on 6500k it would still look gray blue. It’s the PC gamut.
The vast majority of users will still use PC sRGB monitors, so they will still experience that and to be honest i wouldn’t fancy playing my games on a 60" screen just because it offers extra light to emulate masks. For the simple reason i still have my 20" CRT so anytime i want i get the real deal without having to emulate anything. No crap scrolling and no need to re-invent the wheel (didn’t mention spending 2000$ to emulate what costs 40$ then probably, and happily, play 8 metres away, i mean do gamepads with 8 metres cable even exist? Or add a BT and put some extra lag right there, then enable hacks to reduce lag, let alone dragging my desktop PC near that with a spaghetti of cables. A total mess).
Ah so it’s become a real hardware vs emulation debate, now. This thread is cursed, lol
I really don’t want to throw any more fuel in the fire here but man, look at the colour of the Super NES here. It’s obviously skewed by lighting, camera settings and who knows what else. The same alterations to the colour are going to affect the colours on the CRT right beneath it in the same photo. So let’s all agree to disagree for now because we all have had great respect and cameraderie here among each other.
It’s not worth it. The community needs people like us to work together for the greater good.
So I’m not trying to discredit your knowledge and opinions here but some of the examples you posted to support your positions just didn’t come across the way you probably intended from the viewer’s perspective.
So I think what we all need to do is go back to the drawing board and delve a little deeper into the topic and reserve judgement and conclusions for a later time when all the gathered evedence can be analyzed and found to be irrefutable.
I remember reading lots of game magazines back in the day - Nintendo Power, E.G.M., Gamepro, it would be cool to get some of those to get some more reference material with which to compare.
I’m talking both physical as well as digital because we all know what happens when we look at these on our crappy LCDs which all suffer from vastly differing calibration and characteristics.
Yeah, not something i’m interested in participating in here tbh.
Insofar as those were even photos of CRTs, they leave us with all the same problems as modern images: unknown camera settings in unknown lighting conditions with unknown displays with unknown settings etc.
But at least we can start somewhere and as time continues on we might eventully get things closer to how they used be.
I’ve played these games all my life and definitely trust my memory and feelings if I something looks off to get things to the point they are now.
I have a very high tolerance for those types of errors and inaccuracies though.
Maybe I’m just practical and just try to enjoy the journey just as much as the destination.
It certainly is, but not any more than this very discussion. See, it’s entirely subjectivity at stake here. If I open a thread saying “red is prettier than blue”, the blue gang won’t stand still, and the red crowd shouldn’t be astounded.
Please, I don’t mean any offense to your person, as I get your intentions and actually believe in the same thing as you: there’s nothing set in stone, you can play however you feel fit. Developers and hardware used varied all the time, nobody was developing games exactly the same. You can even choose unrealistic visuals if you will (think edge-smoothing shaders). But you can’t rationalize that; and, even if unintentionally, your thread tried to do that, when it’s all a matter of taste or convenience.
Perhaps, if this thread started as just as an appreciation post for standards that not necessarily adhered to the norm, people would be more forgiven and just talk about what they think it looked good; no right or wrong, no 6500k or 9300k, no composite or rgb, no crt or lcd, no console or emulation… just a friendly talk about things one personally likes.
Nonetheless, is pretty lame to dictate how anyone should enjoy their personal hobby (not directing this commentary to anyone here). This happens all around the internet, it would be wiser to leave that behavior outside this forum.
OP could have been tweaked a bit, I’ll admit, however, I will point out that the word “correct” appears in quotes twice 
It hasn’t been a completely fruitless discussion, I’ve learned a few things along the way.
This whole thread is like a talk between teenagers in some beach bar after drinking half a dozen of beers, like “my screen is so good, it can do what yours can’t”, “this 50 years old magazine copy of photo is a proof”, “your photo won’t because camera will alter colors”, “you got no good gear man, get a life and buy some good one”. It’s rolling between being hilarious and probably some steps away from being locked.
