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.

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🤯

Fantastic video mate! Interesting to hear about the technical aspects and the differences between the two.

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!

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.

Some great info here 👍🏽 thanks for sharing.

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.

I love the game tech talks. I can’t get enough 💚

Great video!! so helpful! :)

Preety cool video! I would have never known the difference betwen the two, I guess you learn something new every day!

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!

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.

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?

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 !!)

So interesting to learn thanks for the info!

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

One of the craziest differences in PAL and NTSC verisons is Super Mario World's "Athletic Theme".

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.

Does the cartridge adapter with the second cartridge slot get rid of the black bars which I usually have with playing snes Pal games

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

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

subbed. great vid

Interesting. Thanks for the info.

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?

I'm thinking of getting a Super CIC 60 mod on a 1 chip snes PAL version. What's the pro's and cons, and is it worth it?

Thank you for explaining this

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Does the Cartridge play Super Famicom Cartridge on it too?

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.

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)

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.

The european SNES Mini uses NTSC games

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!

As an Australian, I was really shocked to see that the American NTSC SNES exists - I really like PAL the best. ^^

the brightness differences could be bad capacitors, one of my two pal snes has this issue

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 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.

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.

If I play a pal gameboy game on an American gameboy player will it be 50 or 60 hz

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.

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

Pal doesn't fill the whole screen when you play games but NTSC seems to fill the whole screen

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

To be honest I find the Japanese Super famicom cartridges to be cheaper for most cartridges so I'd say collect those

Is there anymore modern day difference these days with NTSC vs PAL for say Nintendo switch games playing on HD TVs instead of CRTs?

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.

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.

Just on looks alone i think the PAL version looks better

Chile and the rest of South America is 60hz. Bad Map on 4:36

We Europeans were fucked in the golden days of gaming. Going back to PAL games now feels like its in slowmotion.

Thank god those days are behind us!

means that one looks better, and another one plays at the "right speed"

Short explanation: It means one is slow and one is fast, they both have their pros and cons Long Explanation: Watch The Video

jaja ihr Jungspechte so haben wir früher gezockt😌 meistens ntsc importiert wegen uncut usw😬

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.

I think Mario is the same speed and everything else is slower

ting tang walla walla bing bang

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.

Feel sorry for the US customers PAL Snes looks ALOT better❤

More rich? More fast? 🧐

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 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.

Go get a copy of Elite for the nes and try and play it on an ntsc nes lol

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.

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.

*PAL is slow and in wide-screen I stick to NTSC and full screen any day* 💡