Famicom color palette
Unlike consoles like the SNES, which natively generate the image in pure RGB, the Famicom normally generates and outputs an encoded NTSC video signal, which must then be decoded by the TV's built-in NTSC decoder. This means the resulting color palette often varies depending on the display's decoder. This is why NES games appear to have different colors on different TV sets.
NES emulators are similarly afflicted by this issue, as they each have their own algorithms for generating the NES color palette, meaning they all have slightly to wildly varying palettes. As such, there isn't really a "true" NES color palette, and which emulator has the "best" palette often comes down to preference, or whichever looks closest to how the real console looks on a user's own particular TV. FCEU based emulators come with a load of different preset palettes based on different people's perceptions of the NES colors, while emulators such as Nestopia have the ability for the user to edit the color palette to their liking, including the use of custom palettes that define the NES palette in any way the user wishes, such as this palette used in Mega Man 9.
Some arcade machines based on the NES hardware, such as the PlayChoice-10 and the Versus series of cabinets, did generate a native RGB signal, however. The colors on these cabinets tend to be very vibrant and saturated, giving games a very distinct look compared to how they would look on the real console. Nestopia gives the user the choice to use the RGB palette featured in these cabinets, though it is not usually considered to be the definitive or "real" NES palette.
The libretro port of Nestopia has the option to output the raw chroma, level, and emphasis from the PPU through the RGB color channels. This by itself produces an image with completely bizarre colors, but this can be decoded by shaders to generate actual colors, the main example being GTU-Famicom.
Chart
- Main article: Famicom Color Palette
| Palette Type | Nestopia decoder preset | Description |
|---|---|---|
| YUV | 15° Canonical | Based of the standard method of NTSC decoding. |
| RGB | RGB | PlayChoice-10 PPU palette. |
| YUV (Sony CXA2025AS) | Consumer | Based on an NTSC decoder found in Sony TVs. |
| YUV with yellow boost | Alternative | Based on decoders in certain NTSC-J TVs.[1] |
| Raw Luma and Chroma | Raw* | The raw chroma, level, and emphasis output of the NES PPU represented in RGB color channels[2] |
| FirebrandX's palettes | N/A | There are two different palettes. One is labeled unsaturated, and it was created using direct NES composite capture through an XRGB Mini. The saturated palette is a modified version of the YUV (canonical) palette that fixes some shades of green and cyan. Some consider these to be the most accurate palettes when compared to original hardware. [3] |
*Only available as an option on the libretro port of Nestopia.
