Video: Get The Best Picture From Your NES With This Comprehensive Guide 

I keep around a nice 27" Toshiba CRT for this very reason. Currently have my NES/SNES and a Wii with lots of classic games hooked up along with some large stereo speakers. Because, well, the 80's were all about huge speakers.

All I need now is a good reliable controller adapter for the Wii, so I can use authentic controllers on it.

Oh man, I hope they release Kid Dracula from the Famicom on the EU VC.

Wood paneling and CRT's, just like my childhood. I thought my parents were the only ones who had that style of lamps too.

props for mentioning the horrible NES emulation on wiiu. luckily you can still enter Wii mode and play the NES games that way

How to get the best picture in playing NES games? Simple, use emulator or buy a RetroN 5.

@retro_player_22 for most people sure, but this is subjective as many will tend to argue that scanlines (real ones) look better than the image output by an emulator.

@richeymanic Is this just Wii U? My NES VC games on my 3DS look fine, I don't have any on Wii U to compare too.

@richeymanic What? Kirby Adventure runs as smoothly as it does on a NES or emualotor on my Wii U.

@Tazcat2011 unfortunately, i couldnt tell you, i dont have any NES games on 3ds. you may be able to find info online. as far as the wiiu, image quality is not the only issue. Lag on the gamepad is an issue too. note that this isnt the gamepad's fault. regular wiiu titles and GBA on VC do not lag on the gamepad.

How to make your NES games look great on your HDTV? Use an emulator! DUH!!!

@NTELLIGENTMAN well, technically virtual console is an emulator, and we know how well that turned out

@NTELLIGENTMAN Emulators are notorious for having bugs and issues. Like the video states, running games on original hardware is the best way for games to work correctly. Using one of these mods you can get picture sharp and crisp enough to get the best picture on today's monitors.

@Nico07 emulators are also notorious for having save states, the ability to record your gameplay, and preserving forgotten games forever

Okay first off thanks to United States and other nations removing or hijacking all the air-space most RF switches have great pictures.
1. For me I imported an RF switch with my SEGA that works with my NES?? that gets me the best picture.
2. The NES hooked up through the composite cable via an real SONY trinitron will get great picture.
3. ALL GAMES ON THE NES ARE PIXELS AND NOT IMAGES. SO ANY DISPLAY THAT CAN SHOW A TRUE RESOLUTION VIA THE NES WILL HAVE PERFECT RESOLUTION.

I say this because even on my Apple display I get perfect pixel coloration with computers like the PC-66 and so forth.

ABOUT EMULATORS.

I will not deny that emulators work but they also have issues. Like some games will work and some games will not work. For example is legendary One-chip NES top of SNES I have ( an modder took it apart and made into an portable NES ). That one-chip NES can play most NES games but certain games will run slow or the volume will be low on special games that uses special sound chips. Also the thing does not support true Light-Gun.

Is there any particular reason that NES (and more recently N64) VC games are so dark?

Some parts of DK64 were near-impossible with the already bright but apparently not bright enough TV settings I had.

That is because your DISPLAY ( most likely ) is using true colors mode while an real TV is REALLY REALLY BRIGHTLY LITE.

Try to synchronize your computer display for professional image editing and then run an game. You will see the game will appear to be extra dark. By turning the display colors BRIGHTER you will get the true appearance.

Recent games uses 24-bit coloring that goes beyond that amount. Meaning certain darks appears lighter but previous games uses the brightest colors that appears even darker. This is why many Sega Saturn games have this odd color appearance due the usage of colors.

In short you need to mess around with the CONTRAST AND BRIGHTNESS of your display or TV. Again in the past many people had their colors and brightness on high and we could see the darkest sections of the screen.

I actually ordered an RGB modded NES top-loader once. The end result (with the Play-Choice 10 PCB) was AMAZING! But because it was a US unit, it had jailbars. Doh! Sold it on eBay to recoup the cost. Still, if you wanna play the most gorgeous image possible on original hardware, RGB modding is the way to go.

I'm down to one CRT these days, just a small 14" with built in VHS for cassette nostalgia lol. Pre HD consoles just demand that tube TV

my retron 5 is doin a fine job...i know the video says its emulation but least i own the roms...and the picture is great...why mod the original systems and miss them up in the end???....get a retron 5 and u will be just as happy...

I have an analogue NT preordered. It uses all the original chips from the NES, as well as plays the games via the original NES & Famicom cartridges. No emulation, straight retro goodness, and upscaled via HDMI, or an array of other video port options. I can't wait to see what it look likes.

Does the Zapper work on any of these modern TVs?

@Nintenjoe64 unfortunately, no. The zapper requires a CRT TV/monitor.

Too bad getting RGB out of the NES is such a chore. I know the PC Engine also doesn't officially support RGB either, though it's not hard to figure out how to do it. It's understandable as not many people had the ability to use RGB back in the day. It's really cool that Sega systems typically had native RGB support. SNES did as well.

toaster, top loader, retron, they all look good enough for me on my flat screen honestly.

@sdelfin RBG out of a Turbografx is easy. Just plug the wire headers into the appropriate pin on the EXP port. No permanent modding needed.

retron 5 is one of the best options...give it a try u will not regret it..great colors and sound...built in cheats and saves anywhere...if u have a game that no longer saves the retron 5 will still save your files....plus u can take them saves and put them back to the cart..u can use orginal controllers...why mod and destroy the orignal consoles...

@richeymanic The GamePad lag is nothing compared to the lag on a modern TV screen, though. I've made sure to keep an old CRT around to connect to my RetroDuo, my Wii, and also my Wii U when I want to play my Wii VC and WiiWare games, particularly the ones that rely on motion controls (including even some Wii U games like "Wii Sports Club"). If it weren't for the fact that I can update several of my VC games to the Wii U version at a huge discount, I'd be heavily regretting having transferred my digital Wii games.

@sdelfin The Zapper also requires an NES controller slot, which means to my dismay that it's incompatible with the RetroDuo, as it only features SNES controller slots. At least "Duck Hunt" is now on the VC, although the modern workaround using the Wiimote is generally considered inferior to the original version.

@BulbasaurusRex yea, the gamepad is better than most HDTVs out there. the problem with the gamepad really only lies with virtual console on the wiiu side, wii mode is fine. which kind of defeats the purpose if you want to play with gamepad controls.

@Gavin_Rozee from what I understand (anyone correct me if I'm wrong), nintendo's emulator is trying to recreate the NTSC color scheme. This is vs the brighter RGB color image you would normally see from other emulators.

EDIT: GBA does not suffer from this. nintendo outsourced gba emulation to M2, who do fantastic work with ports and coding.

@Gavin_Rozee Because Nintendo don't give a f#ck. Good job snes9xgx on Wii/Wii U has no such issues.