Gadgetory

- The Nintendo Switch is an awesome system. It has a great library of games that is still growing, but when it comes to kinda looking at the past and bringing back some great classics, there's still a few things missing, and something a lot of people have commented on is the lack of a proper virtual console. Sure, we have a NES games to the online app right now, but that's it. There's no SNES, there's no N64, and one that people have been really clamoring the most about, no GameCube. I think a big reason why a lot of people miss the GameCube is it's at this very awkward midpoint in gaming history, where the NES and SNES are old enough systems that we've seen lots of re-releases, plenty of people have emulated things, there's the classic editions, virtual consoles on other systems, lots of ways to play a lot of those classics, whereas, with more recent systems like the Wii and Wii U, well there's at least kind of convenient ways to play those on modern TVs. A Wii will play both those systems. But the GameCube is just in this kind of middle point, where there's not really a convenient way to play it currently. Or is there? This is the EON GCHD, and the short version of what it does is that it's a very simple, plug-and-play adapter that you put in the back of a GameCube. It gives you an HDMI-Out. You can plug it into a modern TV and get a nice, clean looking signal from the GameCube as well as having zero input lag. Now part of the way this is able to do this is it makes use of the original GameCube's digital AV-Out port, and this is not a port that is present on all the GameCube's. In fact, this is something that was kind of experimented with from Nintendo. When they first launched the GameCube, it had the ability to support special component cables that would give you a 480p signal. Thing is, not a lot of people were really making use of those yet, so they were available exclusively on Nintendo's online store, they didn't sell very much, and Nintendo decided, well no one's using this, why are we spending money on it? So they discontinued those cables, and new models of the GameCube starting in 2004 dropped the port entirely. And the reason why this is important is if you use an old-school GameCube that doesn't have the digital-out and instead you just use the AV cables with a modern TV, you're not gonna have a good time. As it's trying to actively convert that analog to digital signal, you're gonna see a lot of input lag, and the game's just gonna look like a blurry mess, whereas if you did have an older GameCube and access to the very, very expensive and hard to now find component cables, you could hook it up and have a much cleaner image. So, the result with this guy here is to make use of that same signal and give you a way to use an HDMI cable instead of component, and give you that really nice, clean visual on modern TVs. Anyways, enough with the history lesson, let's actually plug this into my GameCube and try it out. (slow upbeat music) So, we've hooked the GameCube up and of course the first game we need to test is the classic Super Smash Brothers. Now something a that not a lot of people know about GameCube games is that, again, the GameCube did initially support that digital AV-Out, and supported 480p. So for some games that support it, like Smash Brothers, as it's starting up, hit and hold the B button, and that'll activate progressive scan mode, which is gonna help result in that cleaner picture. If you don't use that, you're gonna end up with something that looks almost like the screen is constantly slightly vibrating. It's just a little fuzzier and not quite as clean looking, so you want that progressive mode on whenever it's an option, and it's worth noting too that for those games that don't support that, the GCHD does also have a line-doubler mode that automatically activates, and that helps clean up that image as well since it doesn't have the normal 480p option. So you can see right away on the screen just how clean it looks. This is a 480p signal. It's not being up-scaled to 1080 or anything like that. It's using the TVs own built-in up-scaling to fill the image, but it looks super clean. You can make out little pixely bits here and there, but that's really not that bad. Another thing I wanna emphasize about the experience with this adapter is that there really is zero input lag, at least from the GameCube to the TV. Depending on the TV you're using, you might need to turn off a bunch of settings and annoying features that you don't actually need, especially when you're playing on a GameCube, but as long as all that stuff is set up correctly, you're gonna have a very, very smooth experience. It'll be just like playing on a CRT back in the day. No Pikachu, no. That's enough Smash. Let's try one other game. I'm gonna switch over to a very colorful, fun classic, especially 'cause I'm in a Capcom mood, Viewtiful Joe. Something that can be really funny with the experience of using something like this too if you haven't really messed with playing older systems on new TVs is you really start to notice when certain scenes or things in the games are pre-rendered, versus something that the game is actively rendering out, because you'll end up with the things like cut-scenes that are very blurry and kinda messy to look at, but then it cuts to gameplay that is noticeably way cleaner and smooth looking because it's actually being displayed properly and it's not just a recording that's stuck at its resolution. I can't emphasize enough how cool it is to be able to take a classic system like the GameCube and make it work with a modern television. This is something that I am personally really big on. I mean I've talked before a lot about like the analog systems which allow you to play NES, SNES and soon Genesis games in HD and modern TVs, and so being able to take the actual classic GameCube itself and just add a simple adapter is so cool. It's really cool how certain games age beautifully for the situation. Like anything that's more cartoony, like Viewtiful Joe, or even Legend of Zelda, Windwaker, it's an experience that, because the visuals rely a lot on just colorful looks and not any kind of insane realistic detail, it looks great on this up-scaled image. Like it just looks like something that would have been released today even. Now if you're playing anything that's more realistic, like some of the Resident Evil games, you're gonna notice it more that it's definitely more outdated graphics, but anything cartoony is awesome looking. Fun fact, there are a very small handful of games that will actually look worse on a modern TV than on a CRT, which no fault being to the GCHD. It's actually because, when these games were being made, the developers would cut certain corners because, well hey, we're assuming it's gonna be on a CRT, no one's gonna be able to see this 'cause it'll get blurred out a little bit, but when you see it cleaned up on a modern TV, you start to notice this stuff. A really good example of this is the original Resident Evil remake where they made heavy use of dithering, especially for the outside parts, which basically what that does is it reduces the demand on the system in exchange for making a better looking kinda color shading, but when you're on a nice, cleaned up TV, it's not blurred out and you just see all these very hard lines and all the coloring looks very awkward. The more you know. It's worth noting that this is the mark two of the GCHD, so there are some new features on this that were not featured on the previous model that was released. One of the biggest additions is that along with the HDMI-Out, you also now have a component out that's based on the Wii component cables. So if you'd rather use those or works out better for connecting your TV, that is an option you have as well. You can even plug in both at the same time to split the signal between two TVs simultaneously. It also now has an audio jack on top of that, so if you wanna split the audio signal from the video, that's an option that you have. While you can treat this like a simple plug-and-play device, and it's gonna work great, there are also some additional settings you can access in a slightly inconvenient way. So on the back of here is actually a little IR blaster, so if you use a universal remote, or the Wii U game pad in TV mode, you can access a special settings menu to adjust some of the properties of this device, and there's basically three reasons why you might wanna be able to access these settings. First off, you could be very particular about how you want your games to look. So within these settings, you can do things like adjust the saturation, the brightness, and if you're using component cables, you can even mess with the type of signal that's it's pushing, which should have slight differences. Reason number two, some games might freak out a little bit with certain TV combinations, especially with some of the settings that are automatically engaged, so you can access those to turn those off in case you run into those problems. Now I haven't had any personally in my experience, but they do have recommendations for some situations, like turning off the line-doubler, or turning off DVI mode. And third, the simplest thing that you can do with it that honestly is also the most fun I think for a lot of people, the ability to turn on or off scanlines. It's not necessary, it just adds this very nice, warm, fuzzy feeling to me to actually see those on older games. The GameCube has such an amazing library of games, and it's a real shame there's not really convenient way to experience that right now, and I really do hope that someday it comes to the Switch, because having some of those games on the go would be awesome, but until then, if you just want a way to re-experience those classic titles, and honestly, have them have a visual style that is way better than anything you would have experienced as a kid, this is the way to go. It certainly isn't cheap, but considering the alternative of buying super rare, expensive component cables, this is awesome.