Voultar has just started selling DIY kits for his Super Nintendo 2-Chip “edge enhancer” bypass. You’ll need to choose which motherboard revision you have during checkout, so definitely take the top off your SNES first and read the label on the motherboard before buying. Also, you have the option of buying a capacitor kit as well and if your SNES has never been recapped, consider this mandatory. If you’d like to see the installation in action, I did a (long, slow paced) livestream a few months ago linked above and Tito from Macho Nacho Productions also did a great video that sums it up in a much nicer video, which is at the bottom of the post. More info and comparison shots below the link:
Purchase Here: https://voultar.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=113
A quick note about the caps before we move on: I’ve personally seen many SNES consoles start to have their caps degrade the signal, on all model revisions. If you’re already taking the time to do this mod, you should DEFINITELY replace the caps too, as if not, you might not get as big of a performance increase. That said, if you’d already recapped it in the last decade (and the work was done right), no need to do it again!
Now lets move onto what this kit can do! First, these kits not only retain Composite and S-Video support, but they enhance them as well! Here’s before and after pictures of the exact same SNES, using the RetroTINK 4K’s 10x sharp profile. Phase was confirmed on both before and after shots before recording. Brightness levels were not set, as the focus of this analysis was the “2-chip smear” removal. Let’s start with the RGB captures…and click on all pictures for full-sized views:
That’s a big difference! And once again, these are taken without any of the RT4K auto-brightness calibration, meaning your end result on any display (BVM, PVM, TINK, OSSC, Etc) will be more color accurate. Let’s switch over to S-Video and see the difference there.
The improvement isn’t as drastic as with the RGB output, however you can still see less smearing. While I’d never suggest doing this mod only for S-Video enhancement, it’s nice to know that if you’re someone who utilizes all the different SNES signal outputs, you’ll get a performance boost across the board:
Now, of course, no mod will magically make composite video look like RGB. But there is room for improvement! Look inside the letters to see less noise and slightly less smearing. I think the most important fact is that all output signals are retained and benefit from the mod. Originally, it was thought near impossible to have such an upgrade with RGB, without completely disabling S-Video and Composite, so this is great news:
…and if you’d like lots more info on the differences between each SNES revision, plus some other cool facts, please check out this video I did awhile back. Also Tito from Macho Nacho Productions did an excellent installation video as well – Here’s links to both:
