Nivico NES Palette

A NES color palette that replicates the colors you see via the composite signal of a NTSC NES hooked to a JVC consumer CRT.

Sounds familiar? That's what I had in mind when I created my first NES palette back in 2016 (10 years ago!)

How is it different from the old one?

First, this palette was created and fine-tuned directly on the CRT my stock NES is connected to. I could basically toggle between composite input (NES) and YPbPr input (MiSTer FPGA NES core) to make real-time adjustments.

Second, I now have a much better understanding of CRTs and monitor calibration than I did 10 years ago, and I used a more thorough process to achieve an authentic result. I've spent months testing and tweaking this palette before publishing it here. I wanted to make sure colors, particularly their values, interacted correctly with each other in real in-game contexts.

I’m not entirely sure why (I’m no expert in display tech), but from what I've observed, this palette looks punchier and more faithful to the intended result on consumer CRTs or OLEDs. Its colors may appear a bit subdued on LCD monitors.