Super happy you made this video because honestly I couldn't see the differences at all or understand them. I always asked myself does it really matter? But I can see how that matters and how it can be a difference especially in a game like super Mario where sometimes the jump and the enemies moving makes a difference. Glad you're able to get the games in 60 hz😁 also it's incredible how different the color can look🤯
In France, i grew up without knowing anything about 50/60hz. And trust me, like millions of other kids around the world, i got amazing moments with my Super Nintendo ! In the past, we had import stores but only few of us were interessed about that and could know the differences between PAL and NTSC. I’m 39 yo today, i’m well equiped in my gaming room and now that i have tasted NTSC games… most of the time i must admit it’s quite uncomfortable to come back on PAL games. Like it was said in an other comment « it’s like someone smacked the game with a hammer », that’s true ! 😅 (PS : i hope my english is OK !!)
Great video! Very interesting to see the differences between the NTSC & PAL. I was the same believing it was purely aesthetic. Would be interesting to see if playing NTSC when you're used to PAL would make it feel like it's sped up at all.
I was used to PAL all my childhood and just today found out that all my roms are PAL. I tried NTSC. Dude, the theme of Sonic is meant to be so fast? More Like wtf. N64s WWF No Mercy playing at fluid 60fps and so fast? Mind blown.
One of the craziest NTSC to PAL comparisons is Probotector (PAL Contra) to Contra on NES. You can tell straight away with the music, and very much feels liks you're wearing the weight vest while playing Probotector. Excellent video my dude!
The first time I saw the PAL games with the biggest difference (Mario world, Sonic, etc), I always felt like someone smacked it with a hammer first and turned it on.
That's exactly what they did! Instead of optimizing games for 50hz they just slowed down the frame rates of the original NTSC version and put it on a PAL cartridge. Effectively giving you up to a 12% slower game. There is no real difference in quality between NTSC & PAL, it's basically gaming companies of the time taking the cheaper option of slowing down the frame rate rather than optimizing the games for different frame rates.
@@lukassteinbrink322false, almost all PAL games didn't properly took advantage of the higher vertical resolution and just used black bars on top and on the bottom so the image actually looks more squashed and washed our. Theoretically PAL has advantages but devs didn't bother to bring them all out since it wasn't worth it, saying it has a higher resolution is just delusion since it was unfortunately never really used
Very interesting, never knew that! It's cool seeing stuff like this now because as a kid, I'd just be happy playing a game and not even noticing any differences like that haha.
@@ErekLaddIt might be because your PAL console is a different revision from your NTSC one. The PAL SNES seems sharper overall, maybe it's a 1CHIP-01 without the brightness fix (1CHIP-01 tends to be too bright in their default configuration compared to earlier consoles) compared to your 2chip NTSC console.
This was actually really cool to see you wouldn't think it makes that big of a difference but it totally does. You were also correct both sounds at the same time was not great, but I didn't think the sound would be affected too!
This was great, all this time i thought 50hz was just the screen and not the electricity frequency. I grew up in Greece and all my TVs since 1993 always had 60hz on so i was super confused when i was looking 50hz on the stickers here in australia (that i moved 2 years ago) Thank you so much, now i understand and bought a compatible with NTSC CRT.
its not just games. NTSC is the standard used in most North American and some South American countries. It uses 525i, but only 480i are visible. it uses 29.97 fps, and since its in interlaced, it comes out to be around 60fps for 1 complete frame. PAL is the standard in most Europe and Asian countries, with some in South America, and Oceania. It uses 625i, but only 576i are shown. like NTSC, its interlaced at 25fps. for 1 complete frame, its 50fps. Interlacing is a type of video processing where only the odd and even lines are shown at once, compared to progressive, which shows the entire frame at once. This is also for analog broadcasting (I don't know much about digital.) as these were the standards used in analog countries. The colors look different because they use a different color encoding system. In the PAL system, color information is transmitted by modulating the phase of the chrominance subcarrier relative to the luminance signal. The chrominance subcarrier is a high-frequency signal that carries the color information. The phase of the chrominance subcarrier is modulated by the color difference signals R-Y and B-Y, which represent the difference between the red, blue, and green primary colors. In the NTSC system, color information is transmitted by modulating the amplitude and phase of the chrominance subcarrier relative to the luminance signal. The chrominance subcarrier is modulated by the color difference signals I and Q, which represent the difference between the primary colors.
So in Asia it's only 4 countries who go with 60 hertz and it's Saudi Arabia (my country), Japan, South Korea and Philopenas! didn't know that we four countries use different voltage than the rest of the whole continent! but it makes sense seeing that a lot of western people mainly from USA and Canada live/work in here and a lot of models we build/devolve on are an American models so it shows how we inherit the good and the bad from the US including relying on cars and not having too much transport systems etc.
Publishers that did not care would literally just slow the game down by 10 fps, 16%. It is horrible. But it was possible to actually reprogram the game timing so it playhs the same speed, or in other words, very close. Like recording a video with 50 or 60 hz in real life, u cant tell by watching, they are both the same speed, 1 sec = 1 second. The best example of lazy and cheap pal transfer I konw if is Sonic the hedgehog 1. Chekck it out, it is unplayable, the slow sound and slo motion wil driv eu nuts
I think you forgot to mention that with NTSC version you are in full screen, with PAL you get the two horizontal black lines up and down, something you don't show weirdly in the examples
When we got our PS1, we were at the age on which piracy slowly starts to gain momentum. Our PS1 and PS2 that we bought were already "modified" in which it is capable of playing pirated copied games. That being said though when we were young we had a bizarre experience when we bought some games as when it boots up the TV screen would get messed up and scroll down repeatedly while we were glimpsing a text prompt, when we managed to blind guess it, the screen went back to normal and the game started. Looking back, I realize the phenomena happened because: 1. my game is a pirated 2. my game is PAL version 3. combination of both but my guess is our TV is NTSC so maybe PAL games will have the same experience?
@@ryan89554it is. It’s not too bad for the 6th gen, but there are still problems. Ps1 had basically no difference cuz most companies actually did optimize their games for the PAL ps1 (crash bandicoot, Spyro, gran turismo, etc)
Imagine back in the day if you had a cousin that came to visit you in USA and you two were both fans of Super Mario World. Only for the Australian cousin to be completely mind-blown at the drastic difference of NTSC
PAL picture quality should be better. PAL + RGB scart cable = fantastic color. About the game speed, it really depended on how video games companies optimized their products. Some of them were running at the 'right speed' even in their PAL version. Especially if these games were developed in Europe (ie Rare games)
Let me give you another example. Let us take SOnic 1 again. Since they never fixed the framerate for pal, they slowed it down, if I take a PA sonic 1 and play on ntsc, it plays ful normal ntsc speed normally.
Don't use your capture card's default picture settings specially cheap ones that washed out background in the pal capture is due to clipping, its ADCs can't handle high brightess just turn your brightness down a little, i'm sure it doesn't look like that on a real tv the ntsc capture also had some clipping on the clouds.
Late comment but great video, as a pal user we really did get royally done over for games in the 80s and 90s, we didn’t even get any FF games (mystic quest doesn’t really count as a mainline FF) until FF7 on the PS1! But going back to differences the pal version does have a better picture quality but to sacrifice the game performance and slowdown it’s not worth it
while we didn't get many of the RPG's on NES/SNES and it was a mess in Europe* we did though get far more Sega titles, even all the mainline Phantasy Star games.... and like 4 times more Master System releases than even USA. *(not to add in Scandinavia where even to this day Bergsala is controlling all retail of Nintendo, a company that mostly only cared about Sweden while giving the neighbours the bad end of the stick) are to be said that not all games are slowed down, only on the games where the developer got lazy. early Nintendo games have bad optimisation but later PAL games are running identical to NTSC version. Capcom didn't care about opti until after 1995, and Namco and Hudson gave a big "MEH..." about it trough all of the 8 and 16bit era
Pal is 50fps at 625 TVL(Higher resolution+fit more graphics on screen), NTSC is 60fps but only 525 TVL, the difference in brightness and contrast can be due to failing vs working electrolytic capacitors in the video out circuit of each unit.
In Europe and unless I come across one of the rare CRTs that can do either 50 or 60hz I'm sticking with the Retrotink for NTSC 60hz consoles I have. PAL is... just not good.
It’s interesting because most games weren’t heavily redesigned for the PAL version and as a result usually just play slower than the NTSC version. There are some games like NES Tetris which are rebalanced for the PAL version and end up almost feeling like a completely different game, which is really cool!
@@ErekLadd I just bought a DKC ntsc console and after vat, shipping, duties it worked $800 so about £650 UK and I’m expecting more import tax crap when it gets here - it is a nice set, but the amount I’ve spent means I can’t sell it on it I’ll lose money so looks like I’m keeping it - it’s like all these guys that buy earthbound etc. they pay so much for them, then the prices drop and they can’t afford to sell at market value type thing - thankfully my games are mostly the good ones and I haven’t just gone for the expensive ones - they seem to have dropped a bit so might be the time to pick up and there are a few I want
Alot of people that half undertsaand this issue wil often say, "Pal games play way slower because 10 fps slower" But this is not a flat out true statement, it depends if the devs reprogramed the game timing or not.
@@ErekLadd Imagine plaing Pal sonic 1, and now imagine the labyrynth zone, how slow that water must be underwater, even worse than our version. Slowly the countdown drown timer too. Gotta be horrible
This is not insignificant for games not retimed for pal. Go ahead fire up emulator using a pal system, emulated and play sonic 1 and see how crazy slow it is!
I live in the US. I have a Mega Engine from PCE Works that plays Sega/Mega CD games and Turbo CD/PC Engine CD games from all regions. The Mega Engine came with a reprint of Keio Flying Squadron (Japanese version), but I also imported a PAL version of the game to have in English (because I am not paying $2500 for the North American copy). The Japanese version plays faster and smoother than the PAL copy. The PAL copy plays fine, but it's just a little slower and a bit more sluggish. It's certainly not unplayable, but it is different. I can see that if you were really good at the game and switched versions, it would throw your timing off and you would have to relearn it. I suppose that it's just a matter of what you are used to. People used to playing the PAL version might think that the NTSC version is a bit fast and loose.
I never know the difference between PAL and NTSC until the Dreamcast where most games had a 60hz mode and I learned about it. Then when I moved to Canada from Europe for a year I learned that American TVs don’t have SCART and can’t handle PAL signals while European TVs had no issues with NTSC if they were from the 90s or newer. I did have an old TV from the 80s that could not play NTSC games before I upgraded in 1998 to play American PS1 games. I did play NTSC games on PS1 but never realised they ran at a different speed.
Also Australian PAL-B only TVs, Singaporean PAL-B/G, D/K TVs, South American PAL-M/NTSC/PAL-N TVs and Multisystem NTSC-M, PAL-B/G,I,D/K, SECAM-B/G/D/K TV sets don’t have SCART.
Very interesting, i always thought it was just a codec or something. Living in a PAL region i now feel i've been deprived of 10hz.. Competitive players from PAL regions must run into some issues due to his?
Interesting, I would definitely categorize the colors of SMW on my SNES as the left image. I have never seen SMW running on a PAL SNES look as janky as the capture on the right. That color thing really weirds me out, I mean, PAL is known for having better colors.
The first thing is that it sucks for me to be an European because we always get the shit stick ending when it comes to video games. The second thing is that it sucks even harder than I am already to deep into collecting PAL-games from my region (PAL also had a bunch of region codes for specific countries). I already have to many rare games to afford buying them again in NTSC-format. The third thing is that it's pretty much pointless since NTSC is way harder to find in my location without being severely overpriced. Many games where Japan and/or American exclusive as well and forces me to find them overpriced in weird places. On top of that, finding an NTSC console is a god damn Indiana Jones mission. They disappear faster than they appear on buying sites. But after all, I grew up with the PAL and didn't knew anything else. So playing them again doesn't really affect me to much. There is no problem in them whatsoever and they all run well (unless you compare). So for anyone in the same situation as me, continue your collecting and be happy. The games are still insanely awesome and have that high nostalgic value to all of us who played games back in the 80's and 90's. You can mess around with color and other settings on your CRT to get beautiful-looking games.
Do you know if i can play both ntsc game and pal game on the same PlayStation console? I’m trying to figure out why my new ps1 games aren’t working on a PlayStation 2 slim and the console can already play one of my ps1 games
they're region locked so they won't work unless the console is modchipped & you use ypbpr component to a retrotink (also if you're only using a retrotink 2x pro then you must also have a modern hdmi display that can accept both formats)
You can't. The PS1 and PS2 (and all their games) are region-locked. I ran into the same issue years ago when I bought a bunch of Nintendo 64 games off eBay, I'm in a PAL region but the games were NTSC so didn't work at all. The seller didn't make that clear. Tip: If you're buying games from eBay or some other such marketplace, look at the age rating on the case/cartridge. North American (NTSC) games have ESRB ratings like 'M', 'T', etc. British/European (PAL) games have BBFC and PEGI ratings like 15, 16, 18, etc.
the color and brightness differences might just be from the different chip revisions. North American super nintendos vary in color and brightness based on the chip revisions alone.
excuse me sir, i just unlocked my PS2's region with the Mechapwn exploit. but i have a question so i found some games that are pal only. some have options for 60hz to run at the same speed of a NTSC-U.... But some games only support 50Hz. i was trying to figure out if it will be much of a difference.. I dont know if region unlocking will affect the performance or if it will be fine
Nope, most games and TVs are designed to run at 60hz now so I wouldn’t worry! If you have an older console but newer TV it’ll detect how to properly display.
From what I've read, a game created with PAL in mind will play exactly like a game created with NTSC in mind. GTA on PS1 is a prime example, same game, compiled in two different versions. They are the same speed (play wise) even though the PAL version is 25fps while NTSC is 30fps, there will be no delay in cutscenes, music, actions. If starting a race, they will end up at the finish at the exact same time according to your stopwatch. Another good example would be an "optimized conversion", like Crash Bandicoot, where the delay is a hair and not really noticeable at all, in fact, feels like a superior version because because timing is tighter, resulting in a slightly faster jump. Then of course, there are examples like Mario World here where absolutely nothing was taken into consideration, just dump and sell. Kids won't mind, they said, they just want to play the game.
Your pal snes probably a 1-chip version, they have sharper, but brighter image. there are mods to fix the brightness issue. You should check the SuperCic mod, too.
There is a difference between PAL and NTSC colour, but are you using the same composite or s-video cable for both? The SNES is almost unique in that it requires PAL or NTSC cables, and using the incorrect ones will make the picture too bright or too dark. So that could be what's going on here. The same is true for N64 and GameCube, though in the latter case the PAL version requires different composite and RF cables to the PAL SNES and N64. The Sega Saturn also has this but at least it's only for RGB output. The other consoles are thankfully region-free in regard to cables. Anyway, despite being from Europe this is why pretty much my entire console game collection pre-Xbox 360 is NTSC. I have no interest in dealing with 1/6th slower gameplay (and music in some cases) and borders top and bottom of the screen. Importing is more expensive, but it's absolutely worth it. The only exceptions are a tiny few for nostalgia reasons (though I also have the NTSC versions of thos games), some games that are completely unoptimised and as a result play fine in a region-free NTSC system (home computers, Sega Master System and Mega Drive/Genesis), games that support 480i and 480p like their NTSC counterparts (most Dreamcast and Wii games) and the rare PAL game that's better than the NTSC version.
Gameboy games are neither PAL or NTSC as those are TV standards. Not sure about the original Gameboy, but the GBA for example refreshes its screen at 59,73 Hz. Using the Gameboy player for my PAL Gamecube, I can select if I want it to output a 50 or 60 Hz signal. When I select 50 Hz, it stutters badly, as it plays the game at the right speed (The Gameboy player for the Cube uses actual GBA hardware) and thus has to drop about 10 frames each second. If I set it to 60 Hz, it plays almost perfectly as it only has to drop a frame every few seconds as 59,73 Hz is pretty close to 60 Hz. Not sure about Gameboy player in the US, either it also lets you choose between 50 and 60 Hz, or it's fixed at 60 Hz.
I witnessed the horror of PAL when I was still in North America in the 90s. Some Commodore Amiga games and demos were PAL versions. They ran too fast or had severe glitches if run in NTSC mode. Had to use a boot disk to switch to PAL, which the 1084 RGB monitor could use but you then had to reach around the back and shrink the vertical size. Worst thing about PAL is the flickering CRT. I mean, 60Hz isn't perfect, but it's far less annoying. When I finally got a PC I saw the benefit of 72Hz.
What kind of PlayStation 3 Slim should I buy to play PS1 games as backwards compatible and PlayStation 3 games on the PS3 Slim and in the middle East? Should I buy PAL, NTSC or Japan region console? And dose all region CD games work at any region console or they are region lock. Thank you and best regards.
And then there is also the video formats... NTSC had a lower "resolution" than PAL, but a higher refresh rate. So glad technology moved past this quirk in history and that CRTs are gone.
It’s painful to play pal games on modern TVs now, with the black bars on top and bottom. Yikes. I love the CRT days but like you said, Im glad things have advanced for games and TVs these days!
Ngl, Nintendo consoles are super pain in the ass. To play a US region games, you need to have US region console. Unless, you have a modded adapter to bypass it. If you have a PAL games, you can't play it on NSTC console. Nintendo games are super expensive.
The Nintendo Switch isn't region locked. If you mean past consoles, Sony (PS1 and PS2) and Microsoft (original Xbox and Xbox 360) consoles were region-locked too.
If it was programmed correctly and not lazy PAL games run also at the correct speed. Look at the PS1 Tomb Raider for NTSC or PAL both run at the same speed.
Tv systems have nothing to do with electricity in terms of gameplay. Australians and Europeans got round the TV system problem by just importing ntsc games from usa or Japan. The reason why ntsc and pal exist is because back in 1990 the connector that was everyones tv was the rf antenna connector. This is a broadcast connector over the air and in usa it's 60hz ntsc and other places 50hz pal. In 1990 a Sony trinitron would play everything but unfortunately most didn't have rgb scart, s video, or composite inputs. If everyone had a trinitron we would have gotten ntsc code and machines. Also your wrong about pal territories not knowing about ntsc being faster. We had arcades that ran at 60hz and we also had import shops and magazines reviewing Japanese launch software. There was a massive import scene starting with the PC engine, megadrive and super famicom. As soon as tvs supported ntsc we were there. All my crew are ntsc gamers, or were until xbox 360. When hdmi came out that was the end of it as all tvs had a universal connector and 60hz HD. Only American tvs refuse to put 50hz on HD 4k tvs, but elsewhere it's 50hz 60hz. I hope you learnt something. Try a 60fps game dropping to 50fps. Like tekken ps1 and you'll see a massive difference. Any sprite based games are shorter in height and have top and bottom borders as devs never used the extra 100 lines of pal resolution. This was fixed in 3d with geometry. With 2d it's pixel height of 8 lines cannot be adjusted. Also pc gamers never experienced any setbacks of pal at all.
This is strange! usually it's a common understanding that PAL has better quality and color depth than NTSC but slower frames! but in this case it's the other way around I wonder why is that! could it be the game itself or the way it's been recorded!? this is the first time I see NTSC being superior to PAL when it comes to quality of the footage.
PAL usually have better color as the only advantage between the two. I don't understand how your capture of PAL is this bright, because that is not the norm.
This subject was a massive topic in the 90s. Only UK ran at 50hz. USA had NTSC 60hz, Japan had PAL 60hz. JP and US carts work on both machines too.The 60hz ran faster with no borders. 60hz TVs were uncommon but widely available, and we had to use convertors, action replay carts and PAL boosters to play imports but US and JP were always seen as superior.
@@FrancisLitanofficialJAPINOY forgive me, I should have said the JPN super famicom had a pal switch box that ran on our TVs in UK. Everything about the SFC was more compatible with UK like AC PSU. US SNES would not work with the switch box making them difficult to run unless you have scart. We also had to modify Megadrive and Jaguar PSU to use US hardware safely. Most UK TVs are still 50hz to this day.
That overly bright PAL picture is due to your equipment and/or cables. It should be exactly the same brightness if set correctly. Still PAL has better colors due to higher bandwidth and I'd say PAL AV is just a bit worse than NTSC s-video quality.
I made this stupid mistake at one point with my fat PS2. I really wanted to play the AOE3 on it but it was only released for Europe. So I got a mod kit just so i could play it and it actually damaged the disc drive because it adds a way to change the disk without opening the tray. However it doesn't stop the disk from spinning like the normal tray does and after doing that a few times it was never able to read another disk. All to play a crappy PAL game. It played like crap anyway and it really wasn't worth it. If only someone had told me PAL games are just worse in every way. I learned the hard way.
Sony trinitrons in PAL regions are well.. crap compared to US models, that's just my personal observation and experience, but I think LG flatrons and Philips are the best CRTs, certainly much better than sony that we got in here. Australian models could be different than European though. European CRTs from any brand play well with NTSC.
Super happy you made this video because honestly I couldn't see the differences at all or understand them. I always asked myself does it really matter? But I can see how that matters and how it can be a difference especially in a game like super Mario where sometimes the jump and the enemies moving makes a difference. Glad you're able to get the games in 60 hz😁 also it's incredible how different the color can look🤯
In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t really matter, though I’d recommend checking out sonic the hedgehog pal vs ntsc - it’s awful!!
In France, i grew up without knowing anything about 50/60hz. And trust me, like millions of other kids around the world, i got amazing moments with my Super Nintendo ! In the past, we had import stores but only few of us were interessed about that and could know the differences between PAL and NTSC. I’m 39 yo today, i’m well equiped in my gaming room and now that i have tasted NTSC games… most of the time i must admit it’s quite uncomfortable to come back on PAL games. Like it was said in an other comment « it’s like someone smacked the game with a hammer », that’s true ! 😅
(PS : i hope my english is OK !!)
Great video! Very interesting to see the differences between the NTSC & PAL. I was the same believing it was purely aesthetic. Would be interesting to see if playing NTSC when you're used to PAL would make it feel like it's sped up at all.
You’ll have to try when you come to the states soon and compare!
I was used to PAL all my childhood and just today found out that all my roms are PAL. I tried NTSC. Dude, the theme of Sonic is meant to be so fast? More Like wtf. N64s WWF No Mercy playing at fluid 60fps and so fast? Mind blown.
Fantastic video mate! Interesting to hear about the technical aspects and the differences between the two.
There more you know!
One of the craziest NTSC to PAL comparisons is Probotector (PAL Contra) to Contra on NES. You can tell straight away with the music, and very much feels liks you're wearing the weight vest while playing Probotector. Excellent video my dude!
Absolutely so true with the music! Thanks for watching dude!
I love the game tech talks. I can’t get enough 💚
Me too!!
There was hardly any "tech" in this talk, the guy is still clueless about the fact that PAL had higher resolution compared to NTSC
The first time I saw the PAL games with the biggest difference (Mario world, Sonic, etc), I always felt like someone smacked it with a hammer first and turned it on.
Right? That’s probably the best way to describe it 😂
That's exactly what they did!
Instead of optimizing games for 50hz they just slowed down the frame rates of the original NTSC version and put it on a PAL cartridge. Effectively giving you up to a 12% slower game.
There is no real difference in quality between NTSC & PAL, it's basically gaming companies of the time taking the cheaper option of slowing down the frame rate rather than optimizing the games for different frame rates.
@@jahfehkah PAL has higher resolution and has better colors so there are differences
@@lukassteinbrink322false, almost all PAL games didn't properly took advantage of the higher vertical resolution and just used black bars on top and on the bottom so the image actually looks more squashed and washed our. Theoretically PAL has advantages but devs didn't bother to bring them all out since it wasn't worth it, saying it has a higher resolution is just delusion since it was unfortunately never really used
@@jahfehkah 16⅔% slower*
Very interesting, never knew that! It's cool seeing stuff like this now because as a kid, I'd just be happy playing a game and not even noticing any differences like that haha.
Preety cool video! I would have never known the difference betwen the two, I guess you learn something new every day!
The thing I'm really surprised with the most is the colour difference. I knew there was a slight difference in speed. Very interesting!
Also
YASSSSSS
Yeah me too actually! Only when you compare them side by side it’s super noticeable.
@@ErekLaddIt might be because your PAL console is a different revision from your NTSC one. The PAL SNES seems sharper overall, maybe it's a 1CHIP-01 without the brightness fix (1CHIP-01 tends to be too bright in their default configuration compared to earlier consoles) compared to your 2chip NTSC console.
This was actually really cool to see you wouldn't think it makes that big of a difference but it totally does. You were also correct both sounds at the same time was not great, but I didn't think the sound would be affected too!
This was great, all this time i thought 50hz was just the screen and not the electricity frequency.
I grew up in Greece and all my TVs since 1993 always had 60hz on so i was super confused when i was looking 50hz on the stickers here in australia (that i moved 2 years ago)
Thank you so much, now i understand and bought a compatible with NTSC CRT.
Interesting. Thanks for the info.
Thanks for tuning in!
Some great info here 👍🏽 thanks for sharing.
So interesting to learn thanks for the info!
Thanks for tuning in!
its not just games.
NTSC is the standard used in most North American and some South American countries. It uses 525i, but only 480i are visible. it uses 29.97 fps, and since its in interlaced, it comes out to be around 60fps for 1 complete frame.
PAL is the standard in most Europe and Asian countries, with some in South America, and Oceania. It uses 625i, but only 576i are shown. like NTSC, its interlaced at 25fps. for 1 complete frame, its 50fps.
Interlacing is a type of video processing where only the odd and even lines are shown at once, compared to progressive, which shows the entire frame at once.
This is also for analog broadcasting (I don't know much about digital.) as these were the standards used in analog countries.
The colors look different because they use a different color encoding system. In the PAL system, color information is transmitted by modulating the phase of the chrominance subcarrier relative to the luminance signal. The chrominance subcarrier is a high-frequency signal that carries the color information. The phase of the chrominance subcarrier is modulated by the color difference signals R-Y and B-Y, which represent the difference between the red, blue, and green primary colors. In the NTSC system, color information is transmitted by modulating the amplitude and phase of the chrominance subcarrier relative to the luminance signal. The chrominance subcarrier is modulated by the color difference signals I and Q, which represent the difference between the primary colors.
NTSC is also used in Japan, South Korea, Myanmar, Taiwan, Philippines and parts of Oceania and Caribbean.
So in Asia it's only 4 countries who go with 60 hertz and it's Saudi Arabia (my country), Japan, South Korea and Philopenas! didn't know that we four countries use
different voltage than the rest of the whole continent! but it makes sense seeing that a lot of western people mainly from USA and Canada live/work in here
and a lot of models we build/devolve on are an American models so it shows how we inherit the good and the bad from the US including relying on cars and not having too much transport systems etc.
Publishers that did not care would literally just slow the game down by 10 fps, 16%. It is horrible. But it was possible to actually reprogram the game timing so it playhs the same speed, or in other words, very close. Like recording a video with 50 or 60 hz in real life, u cant tell by watching, they are both the same speed, 1 sec = 1 second. The best example of lazy and cheap pal transfer I konw if is Sonic the hedgehog 1. Chekck it out, it is unplayable, the slow sound and slo motion wil driv eu nuts
Thank you for explaining this
I think you forgot to mention that with NTSC version you are in full screen, with PAL you get the two horizontal black lines up and down, something you don't show weirdly in the examples
When we got our PS1, we were at the age on which piracy slowly starts to gain momentum. Our PS1 and PS2 that we bought were already "modified" in which it is capable of playing pirated copied games. That being said though when we were young we had a bizarre experience when we bought some games as when it boots up the TV screen would get messed up and scroll down repeatedly while we were glimpsing a text prompt, when we managed to blind guess it, the screen went back to normal and the game started. Looking back, I realize the phenomena happened because:
1. my game is a pirated
2. my game is PAL version
3. combination of both
but my guess is our TV is NTSC so maybe PAL games will have the same experience?
As an Australian, I was really shocked to see that the American NTSC SNES exists - I really like PAL the best. ^^
Well, you got catered specifically for the PAL region, hence the reason why.
pal is so bad and slow
@@ryan89554it is. It’s not too bad for the 6th gen, but there are still problems. Ps1 had basically no difference cuz most companies actually did optimize their games for the PAL ps1 (crash bandicoot, Spyro, gran turismo, etc)
Imagine back in the day if you had a cousin that came to visit you in USA and you two were both fans of Super Mario World. Only for the Australian cousin to be completely mind-blown at the drastic difference of NTSC
Great video!! so helpful! :)
PAL picture quality should be better. PAL + RGB scart cable = fantastic color.
About the game speed, it really depended on how video games companies optimized their products. Some of them were running at the 'right speed' even in their PAL version. Especially if these games were developed in Europe (ie Rare games)
Let me give you another example. Let us take SOnic 1 again. Since they never fixed the framerate for pal, they slowed it down, if I take a PA sonic 1 and play on ntsc, it plays ful normal ntsc speed normally.
Don't use your capture card's default picture settings specially cheap ones that washed out background in the pal capture is due to clipping, its ADCs can't handle high brightess just turn your brightness down a little, i'm sure it doesn't look like that on a real tv the ntsc capture also had some clipping on the clouds.
Late comment but great video, as a pal user we really did get royally done over for games in the 80s and 90s, we didn’t even get any FF games (mystic quest doesn’t really count as a mainline FF) until FF7 on the PS1! But going back to differences the pal version does have a better picture quality but to sacrifice the game performance and slowdown it’s not worth it
while we didn't get many of the RPG's on NES/SNES and it was a mess in Europe* we did though get far more Sega titles, even all the mainline Phantasy Star games.... and like 4 times more Master System releases than even USA.
*(not to add in Scandinavia where even to this day Bergsala is controlling all retail of Nintendo, a company that mostly only cared about Sweden while giving the neighbours the bad end of the stick)
are to be said that not all games are slowed down, only on the games where the developer got lazy.
early Nintendo games have bad optimisation but later PAL games are running identical to NTSC version.
Capcom didn't care about opti until after 1995, and Namco and Hudson gave a big "MEH..." about it trough all of the 8 and 16bit era
Does the cartridge adapter with the second cartridge slot get rid of the black bars which I usually have with playing snes Pal games
Thank god those days are behind us!
Pal is 50fps at 625 TVL(Higher resolution+fit more graphics on screen), NTSC is 60fps but only 525 TVL, the difference in brightness and contrast can be due to failing vs working electrolytic capacitors in the video out circuit of each unit.
The european SNES Mini uses NTSC games
One of the craziest differences in PAL and NTSC verisons is Super Mario World's "Athletic Theme".
In Europe and unless I come across one of the rare CRTs that can do either 50 or 60hz I'm sticking with the Retrotink for NTSC 60hz consoles I have. PAL is... just not good.
It’s interesting because most games weren’t heavily redesigned for the PAL version and as a result usually just play slower than the NTSC version.
There are some games like NES Tetris which are rebalanced for the PAL version and end up almost feeling like a completely different game, which is really cool!
subbed. great vid
Street fighter world warrior is painfully slow in PAL - I’m in the UK, but collect US NTSC and it gets expensive with taxes
I know that feeling all too well! Importing NTSC into Australia is very expensive.
@@ErekLadd I just bought a DKC ntsc console and after vat, shipping, duties it worked $800 so about £650 UK and I’m expecting more import tax crap when it gets here - it is a nice set, but the amount I’ve spent means I can’t sell it on it I’ll lose money so looks like I’m keeping it - it’s like all these guys that buy earthbound etc. they pay so much for them, then the prices drop and they can’t afford to sell at market value type thing - thankfully my games are mostly the good ones and I haven’t just gone for the expensive ones - they seem to have dropped a bit so might be the time to pick up and there are a few I want
Alot of people that half undertsaand this issue wil often say, "Pal games play way slower because 10 fps slower" But this is not a flat out true statement, it depends if the devs reprogramed the game timing or not.
Exactly. There are some PAL games that are optimised to run properly rather than being lazy ports!
@@ErekLadd Imagine plaing Pal sonic 1, and now imagine the labyrynth zone, how slow that water must be underwater, even worse than our version. Slowly the countdown drown timer too. Gotta be horrible
This is not insignificant for games not retimed for pal. Go ahead fire up emulator using a pal system, emulated and play sonic 1 and see how crazy slow it is!
the brightness differences could be bad capacitors, one of my two pal snes has this issue
I live in the US. I have a Mega Engine from PCE Works that plays Sega/Mega CD games and Turbo CD/PC Engine CD games from all regions.
The Mega Engine came with a reprint of Keio Flying Squadron (Japanese version), but I also imported a PAL version of the game to have in English (because I am not paying $2500 for the North American copy). The Japanese version plays faster and smoother than the PAL copy. The PAL copy plays fine, but it's just a little slower and a bit more sluggish. It's certainly not unplayable, but it is different. I can see that if you were really good at the game and switched versions, it would throw your timing off and you would have to relearn it. I suppose that it's just a matter of what you are used to. People used to playing the PAL version might think that the NTSC version is a bit fast and loose.
I never know the difference between PAL and NTSC until the Dreamcast where most games had a 60hz mode and I learned about it. Then when I moved to Canada from Europe for a year I learned that American TVs don’t have SCART and can’t handle PAL signals while European TVs had no issues with NTSC if they were from the 90s or newer. I did have an old TV from the 80s that could not play NTSC games before I upgraded in 1998 to play American PS1 games. I did play NTSC games on PS1 but never realised they ran at a different speed.
Also Australian PAL-B only TVs, Singaporean PAL-B/G, D/K TVs, South American PAL-M/NTSC/PAL-N TVs and Multisystem NTSC-M, PAL-B/G,I,D/K, SECAM-B/G/D/K TV sets don’t have SCART.
Very interesting, i always thought it was just a codec or something. Living in a PAL region i now feel i've been deprived of 10hz..
Competitive players from PAL regions must run into some issues due to his?
Interesting, I would definitely categorize the colors of SMW on my SNES as the left image. I have never seen SMW running on a PAL SNES look as janky as the capture on the right. That color thing really weirds me out, I mean, PAL is known for having better colors.
Pal doesn't fill the whole screen when you play games but NTSC seems to fill the whole screen
Chile and the rest of South America is 60hz. Bad Map on 4:36
The first thing is that it sucks for me to be an European because we always get the shit stick ending when it comes to video games. The second thing is that it sucks even harder than I am already to deep into collecting PAL-games from my region (PAL also had a bunch of region codes for specific countries). I already have to many rare games to afford buying them again in NTSC-format. The third thing is that it's pretty much pointless since NTSC is way harder to find in my location without being severely overpriced. Many games where Japan and/or American exclusive as well and forces me to find them overpriced in weird places. On top of that, finding an NTSC console is a god damn Indiana Jones mission. They disappear faster than they appear on buying sites.
But after all, I grew up with the PAL and didn't knew anything else. So playing them again doesn't really affect me to much. There is no problem in them whatsoever and they all run well (unless you compare). So for anyone in the same situation as me, continue your collecting and be happy. The games are still insanely awesome and have that high nostalgic value to all of us who played games back in the 80's and 90's. You can mess around with color and other settings on your CRT to get beautiful-looking games.
Short explanation: It means one is slow and one is fast, they both have their pros and cons
Long Explanation: Watch The Video
Do you know if i can play both ntsc game and pal game on the same PlayStation console? I’m trying to figure out why my new ps1 games aren’t working on a PlayStation 2 slim and the console can already play one of my ps1 games
they're region locked so they won't work unless the console is modchipped & you use ypbpr component to a retrotink (also if you're only using a retrotink 2x pro then you must also have a modern hdmi display that can accept both formats)
You can't. The PS1 and PS2 (and all their games) are region-locked.
I ran into the same issue years ago when I bought a bunch of Nintendo 64 games off eBay, I'm in a PAL region but the games were NTSC so didn't work at all. The seller didn't make that clear.
Tip: If you're buying games from eBay or some other such marketplace, look at the age rating on the case/cartridge.
North American (NTSC) games have ESRB ratings like 'M', 'T', etc.
British/European (PAL) games have BBFC and PEGI ratings like 15, 16, 18, etc.
Just on looks alone i think the PAL version looks better
the color and brightness differences might just be from the different chip revisions. North American super nintendos vary in color and brightness based on the chip revisions alone.
excuse me sir, i just unlocked my PS2's region with the Mechapwn exploit. but i have a question
so i found some games that are pal only. some have options for 60hz to run at the same speed of a NTSC-U....
But some games only support 50Hz. i was trying to figure out if it will be much of a difference..
I dont know if region unlocking will affect the performance or if it will be fine
Does the Cartridge play Super Famicom Cartridge on it too?
Feel sorry for the US customers
PAL Snes looks ALOT better❤
Is there anymore modern day difference these days with NTSC vs PAL for say Nintendo switch games playing on HD TVs instead of CRTs?
Nope, most games and TVs are designed to run at 60hz now so I wouldn’t worry! If you have an older console but newer TV it’ll detect how to properly display.
To be honest I find the Japanese Super famicom cartridges to be cheaper for most cartridges so I'd say collect those
From what I've read, a game created with PAL in mind will play exactly like a game created with NTSC in mind. GTA on PS1 is a prime example, same game, compiled in two different versions. They are the same speed (play wise) even though the PAL version is 25fps while NTSC is 30fps, there will be no delay in cutscenes, music, actions. If starting a race, they will end up at the finish at the exact same time according to your stopwatch. Another good example would be an "optimized conversion", like Crash Bandicoot, where the delay is a hair and not really noticeable at all, in fact, feels like a superior version because because timing is tighter, resulting in a slightly faster jump. Then of course, there are examples like Mario World here where absolutely nothing was taken into consideration, just dump and sell. Kids won't mind, they said, they just want to play the game.
Tbf, 20-30 years ago, it's not like most people knew any different.
Your pal snes probably a 1-chip version, they have sharper, but brighter image. there are mods to fix the brightness issue. You should check the SuperCic mod, too.
There is a difference between PAL and NTSC colour, but are you using the same composite or s-video cable for both? The SNES is almost unique in that it requires PAL or NTSC cables, and using the incorrect ones will make the picture too bright or too dark. So that could be what's going on here. The same is true for N64 and GameCube, though in the latter case the PAL version requires different composite and RF cables to the PAL SNES and N64. The Sega Saturn also has this but at least it's only for RGB output. The other consoles are thankfully region-free in regard to cables.
Anyway, despite being from Europe this is why pretty much my entire console game collection pre-Xbox 360 is NTSC. I have no interest in dealing with 1/6th slower gameplay (and music in some cases) and borders top and bottom of the screen. Importing is more expensive, but it's absolutely worth it. The only exceptions are a tiny few for nostalgia reasons (though I also have the NTSC versions of thos games), some games that are completely unoptimised and as a result play fine in a region-free NTSC system (home computers, Sega Master System and Mega Drive/Genesis), games that support 480i and 480p like their NTSC counterparts (most Dreamcast and Wii games) and the rare PAL game that's better than the NTSC version.
If I play a pal gameboy game on an American gameboy player will it be 50 or 60 hz
Gameboy games are neither PAL or NTSC as those are TV standards. Not sure about the original Gameboy, but the GBA for example refreshes its screen at 59,73 Hz. Using the Gameboy player for my PAL Gamecube, I can select if I want it to output a 50 or 60 Hz signal. When I select 50 Hz, it stutters badly, as it plays the game at the right speed (The Gameboy player for the Cube uses actual GBA hardware) and thus has to drop about 10 frames each second. If I set it to 60 Hz, it plays almost perfectly as it only has to drop a frame every few seconds as 59,73 Hz is pretty close to 60 Hz.
Not sure about Gameboy player in the US, either it also lets you choose between 50 and 60 Hz, or it's fixed at 60 Hz.
I witnessed the horror of PAL when I was still in North America in the 90s. Some Commodore Amiga games and demos were PAL versions. They ran too fast or had severe glitches if run in NTSC mode. Had to use a boot disk to switch to PAL, which the 1084 RGB monitor could use but you then had to reach around the back and shrink the vertical size. Worst thing about PAL is the flickering CRT. I mean, 60Hz isn't perfect, but it's far less annoying. When I finally got a PC I saw the benefit of 72Hz.
We Europeans were fucked in the golden days of gaming. Going back to PAL games now feels like its in slowmotion.
Totally agree. Coming from NTSC to PAL the difference is crazy.
What kind of PlayStation 3 Slim should I buy to play PS1 games as backwards compatible and PlayStation 3 games on the PS3 Slim and in the middle East? Should I buy PAL, NTSC or Japan region console? And dose all region CD games work at any region console or they are region lock. Thank you and best regards.
I don't think the PS3 is region locked at all.
@@BlossomField91For PS1 and PS2 CD games as backwards compatible unfortunately it's region lock, and for PS3 CD games I think it's region free.
And then there is also the video formats... NTSC had a lower "resolution" than PAL, but a higher refresh rate. So glad technology moved past this quirk in history and that CRTs are gone.
It’s painful to play pal games on modern TVs now, with the black bars on top and bottom. Yikes. I love the CRT days but like you said, Im glad things have advanced for games and TVs these days!
Ngl, Nintendo consoles are super pain in the ass. To play a US region games, you need to have US region console. Unless, you have a modded adapter to bypass it. If you have a PAL games, you can't play it on NSTC console. Nintendo games are super expensive.
The Nintendo Switch isn't region locked. If you mean past consoles, Sony (PS1 and PS2) and Microsoft (original Xbox and Xbox 360) consoles were region-locked too.
I think Mario is the same speed and everything else is slower
means that one looks better, and another one plays at the "right speed"
If it was programmed correctly and not lazy PAL games run also at the correct speed. Look at the PS1 Tomb Raider for NTSC or PAL both run at the same speed.
@@lukassteinbrink322 *in the mid 90s when that stuff was normalized
Tv systems have nothing to do with electricity in terms of gameplay. Australians and Europeans got round the TV system problem by just importing ntsc games from usa or Japan. The reason why ntsc and pal exist is because back in 1990 the connector that was everyones tv was the rf antenna connector. This is a broadcast connector over the air and in usa it's 60hz ntsc and other places 50hz pal. In 1990 a Sony trinitron would play everything but unfortunately most didn't have rgb scart, s video, or composite inputs. If everyone had a trinitron we would have gotten ntsc code and machines. Also your wrong about pal territories not knowing about ntsc being faster. We had arcades that ran at 60hz and we also had import shops and magazines reviewing Japanese launch software. There was a massive import scene starting with the PC engine, megadrive and super famicom. As soon as tvs supported ntsc we were there. All my crew are ntsc gamers, or were until xbox 360. When hdmi came out that was the end of it as all tvs had a universal connector and 60hz HD. Only American tvs refuse to put 50hz on HD 4k tvs, but elsewhere it's 50hz 60hz. I hope you learnt something. Try a 60fps game dropping to 50fps. Like tekken ps1 and you'll see a massive difference. Any sprite based games are shorter in height and have top and bottom borders as devs never used the extra 100 lines of pal resolution. This was fixed in 3d with geometry. With 2d it's pixel height of 8 lines cannot be adjusted. Also pc gamers never experienced any setbacks of pal at all.
This is strange! usually it's a common understanding that PAL has better quality and color depth than NTSC but slower frames! but in this case it's the other way around
I wonder why is that! could it be the game itself or the way it's been recorded!? this is the first time I see NTSC being superior to PAL when it comes to quality of the footage.
PAL usually have better color as the only advantage between the two. I don't understand how your capture of PAL is this bright, because that is not the norm.
Pal is better picture quality actually
jaja ihr Jungspechte so haben wir früher gezockt😌 meistens ntsc importiert wegen uncut usw😬
ting tang walla walla bing bang
Go get a copy of Elite for the nes and try and play it on an ntsc nes lol
This subject was a massive topic in the 90s. Only UK ran at 50hz. USA had NTSC 60hz, Japan had PAL 60hz. JP and US carts work on both machines too.The 60hz ran faster with no borders. 60hz TVs were uncommon but widely available, and we had to use convertors, action replay carts and PAL boosters to play imports but US and JP were always seen as superior.
Japan doesn’t use PAL
@@FrancisLitanofficialJAPINOY forgive me, I should have said the JPN super famicom had a pal switch box that ran on our TVs in UK. Everything about the SFC was more compatible with UK like AC PSU. US SNES would not work with the switch box making them difficult to run unless you have scart. We also had to modify Megadrive and Jaguar PSU to use US hardware safely. Most UK TVs are still 50hz to this day.
More rich?
More fast?
🧐
It's slower because the NTSC standard is 29.97 frames per second whereas PAL is only 25 frames per second....
That overly bright PAL picture is due to your equipment and/or cables. It should be exactly the same brightness if set correctly. Still PAL has better colors due to higher bandwidth and I'd say PAL AV is just a bit worse than NTSC s-video quality.
pal is too slow and japan is ntsc too
I made this stupid mistake at one point with my fat PS2. I really wanted to play the AOE3 on it but it was only released for Europe. So I got a mod kit just so i could play it and it actually damaged the disc drive because it adds a way to change the disk without opening the tray. However it doesn't stop the disk from spinning like the normal tray does and after doing that a few times it was never able to read another disk. All to play a crappy PAL game. It played like crap anyway and it really wasn't worth it. If only someone had told me PAL games are just worse in every way. I learned the hard way.
Sony trinitrons in PAL regions are well.. crap compared to US models, that's just my personal observation and experience, but I think LG flatrons and Philips are the best CRTs, certainly much better than sony that we got in here. Australian models could be different than European though. European CRTs from any brand play well with NTSC.
Sony Trinitron sold in the Middle East has PAL and NTSC knob switch also on analog RF and video input, system M (NTSC), system B/G,I, D/K (PAL)
*PAL is slow and in wide-screen I stick to NTSC and full screen any day* 💡