Randomizer
Member
Cheers. Off to YouTube to look up some tutorials.
Upscalers, CRTs, PVMs & RGB: Retro gaming done right!
- Thread starter IrishNinja
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I put a single switch on my MD1 to change between JP 60Hz, NA 60Hz, and PAL 50Hz. It's nifty as hell!
http://mdpal60.net/wiki/megadrive/regionmod/start
Check out this for your model 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=618ZyjGWt9c
Haven't tried it myself but it looks okay to me.
I'm doing a SuperCIC on my PAL SNES but need to figure out how to use my pic programmer first. No doubt you could do a single on-off-on switch like the MD though if you want a physical switch in it.
How come you didnt install a 4 position switch so you can play Asian 50hz games?
Are Asian games coded for JP region?
Edit: Scratch that, I think they are coded for ENG... I have a PAL Asian MD2 and it won't play my later JP games, so I assume Asian stuff is 50Hz/ENG which means you can just use the PAL 50Hz switch for it. I've never seen anywhere that recommends adding a JP 50Hz switch, now that I think about it.
I think there was a handful of Asian encoded games, but i just did it because i could and for complete region compatibility lol. That said i use my EverDrive Flash cart most of the time so my actual games never get used...
I think there was a handful of Asian encoded games, but i just did it because i could and for complete region compatibility lol. That said i use my EverDrive Flash cart most of the time so my actual games never get used...
I'm not sure Asian 50Hz differs at all from PAL 50Hz... How did you wire it up? JP and 50Hz jumper?
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Via RGB I presume?
Looks more like s-video
Is there an ordered list of PPUs in terms of quality? I'd be interested in looking mine up.
It's RGB, definitely not S Video. This page goes into detail about the PPU: http://retrorgb.com/snesversioncompare.html
It's odd though, some titles on this SFC look much better, for example:
Maybe it's the cable? I dunno....I am using the same SCART cable I use for my RGB modded N64 (which is crisp as hell), but I can't remember whether it's a PAL or NTSC cable. The NTSC SNES cable I bought specifically for the console from retrogamingcables doesn't work at all - it just outputs a glitchy mess.
So just 3 wires going to the MegaDrive PCB
I mean what is the configuration of your "Asian" part of the switch? Language/Hz wise?
My 3 are JP/60, ENG/60, and ENG/50. You have 4, so is your "Asian" switch JP/50, or something else?
If JP/50, this is news to me that any games use that, hence why I didn't put it in.
Its a PAL signal so 50hz and JPN lang. There were a few Asian games that never got released in Japan, like Tale Spin, Greendog etc
Hm, funny...just tried my copy of Secret of Mana NTSC-U and it looks alright...
There is definitely added blur to the image that shouldn't be there. I'm putting the blame onto the cable - I've ordered another one that is specifically for JP SNES consoles as I've just checked my ebay history and discovered this RGB SCART cable I'm using right now is a PAL one, which may explain the shitty quality.
There is definitely added blur to the image that shouldn't be there. I'm putting the blame onto the cable - I've ordered another one that is specifically for JP SNES consoles as I've just checked my ebay history and discovered this RGB SCART cable I'm using right now is a PAL one, which may explain the shitty quality.
I'd be interested to see if the games are actually coded for JP/50Hz or if they are coded for ENG/50Hz but do not check for region, only Hz. Because as far as I could ever research, JP/50Hz does not exist and therefore a switch for it would be redundant.
bodeiseifer
Member
snes pal rgb cables arewired dufferently to ntsc ones, something ti do with the resistance of the resistors on the rgb pins,sorryboutspelling errors,crppy vita touchscreen
Yeah - it could well be that, but then again I do think it might be the console itself, going by the images on this site...http://sd2snes.de/blog/archives/75 ....
pissing me off now. I didn't realise there was a chance of the image looking so shit.
edit: awwww yeah, it turns out I have a 1-Chip console! Must be the sodding cable then! hooray!
bodeiseifer
Member
Lucky you, I have the crappy one, but Im happy with it, the cable should make some difference I would've thought, the rgb outpud was redesigned on teh PAL snes, I tried using a ntsc snes cable with my pal snes, and the picture just suddenly fades to pretty much black, ntsc cables have capacitors fitted in them on the rgb pins, whereas pal cables have 47 or 75 Ohm reisistors fitted to the rbg pins to darken the image,thats probably why it looks less than stellar.
bodeiseifer
Member
Dunno if anyone wants to split their rgb signal to feed two tvs.
I guess you might want to so you can have a crt for light gun games, or for convenience, anyways I found up my old 2 way distribution amp that I bought ten years ago for £40
here are the results
REVENGE OF SHINOBI - megadrive
CRT
PLASMA
very minor difference in colour tint on the crt (might be camera setting) very very slightly softer on the plasma
PARASOL STARS - turbografx 16
CRT
PLASMA
pretty much identical for both the crt and plasma
I guess you might want to so you can have a crt for light gun games, or for convenience, anyways I found up my old 2 way distribution amp that I bought ten years ago for £40
here are the results
REVENGE OF SHINOBI - megadrive
CRT
PLASMA
very minor difference in colour tint on the crt (might be camera setting) very very slightly softer on the plasma
PARASOL STARS - turbografx 16
CRT
PLASMA
pretty much identical for both the crt and plasma
Looks good! I do this too but I just daisy-chained my CRT's, as I have one horizontal and one vertical. Pro monitors are just phenomenal.
ehhh
not too sure I'm happy with the picture quality on my Super Famicom. Pics:
Just a bit of a disappointment compared to the crystal clear image my RGB modded N64, Mega Drive and PS1 output. It's blurry and a bit muted.
I thought this console was a 1-CHIP model (good!), but it's not. sigh. What do you guys think of the pics above, as shitty as my photo taking is? Acceptable or not?
not too sure I'm happy with the picture quality on my Super Famicom. Pics:
Just a bit of a disappointment compared to the crystal clear image my RGB modded N64, Mega Drive and PS1 output. It's blurry and a bit muted.
I thought this console was a 1-CHIP model (good!), but it's not. sigh. What do you guys think of the pics above, as shitty as my photo taking is? Acceptable or not?
Shadow Hog
Member
Seems okay to me. *shrug*
theSlacker
Member
Wanna be really depressed? Put in FF3/6 and tell me if you have the big white thing down the middle. Then tell me if tell me if you now notice that in every game because it's just something that the SNES does, even though RGB.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Shows up strong in Super Metroid too.
Didn't I hear that there's some way to get rid of it.....? Maybe it was modding a SNES Jr. for RGB or something.
For original, full-size SNES/SFC they are known to have varying levels of blurriness on the RGB signal. Depends on the PPU, but the 1-CHIP produce the best.
By far the best RGB signal you can get out of a SNES is to perform the RGB mod to a SNES mini. It's not hard (basically they just didn't connect the RGB lines to the multiout on the motherboard), and you get a crystal clear RGB picture with no band down the middle either. Look for some tuts on the net. Basically if you don't have a 1-CHIP or snes mini with rgb mod rgb is not going to look much better than s-video.
theSlacker
Member
Yeah, it shows up in a lot, just remember it was either FF2 or 3 that it is imposable not to notice it on. That all black starting screen. No idea about a fix, I've just accepted it now.
Believe it or not, I don't have that line. My old PAL SNES did though.
I may get a mini in the future though, yeah.
theSlacker
Member
It is a bit inconsistent I hear. I mean I've gone though 5 different SNESs on a variety of TVs and none have not had it, but there are people that say that have ones that don't so who knows. A mini on it's own doesn't mean you aren't getting the line as I've heard it being apparent on them as well.
sixteen-bit
Member
I need a time machine to tell Trip Hawking or whoever 480i is not the way to go with that console.
RoninChaos
Member
I'm trying to browse this thread to find the answers but figured maybe you guys could just help me out and let me know what to do.
I have a 55 inch LCD TV. I want to be able to play my old SNES, Genesis, and PS2 games without them looking like complete and total shit when on an HD TV. What kind of equipment do I need to buy to make this happen?
I have a 55 inch LCD TV. I want to be able to play my old SNES, Genesis, and PS2 games without them looking like complete and total shit when on an HD TV. What kind of equipment do I need to buy to make this happen?
It's all in Irish's OP.
You need an upscaler/linedoubler. Read the info at the retro-hazard site Irish links.
To the get the best possible image, you need an RGB signal. Read Irish's links or go to retroRGB.com/guide
We can tell you "buy a XRGB mini from Solaris Japan and then cables from retro gaming accessories on eBay" but really, if you're going to spend the $300-$500 to do that you really want to know what's going on, so read the information at those links.
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
1) Is 1.5 extra frames of input lag acceptable for you?
2) Can your TV accept 240p input through component? (This can be tested if you have a Wii with component cables and certain Virtual Console games.)
3) Do you play a lot of games that switch between 240p/480i on the fly? (This is a difficult question to answer, as I don't think there's a comprehensive list anywhere on the net for this, but AFAIK it's only relatively common for the Saturn/PS1/N64 generation.)
The answers to these questions dictate what devices would be the most ideal.
I could probably bring my XRGB-3 to Final Round if you wanted to try it out on an Asus monitor.
My words exactly!
Member
A heads up, latest revision of Retroarch Wii adds customisable scanline overlays
http://imgur.com/a/LPEmk
Coupled with a CRT it is the cheapest way to get pixel accurate retro goodness.
As before, Wii build supports multiple resolutions per core, it can output from 640X480 to 224X384, 384X256 and almost everything in between (about 30 different presets in all). Ratio and screen size are also completely configurable.
http://www.libretro.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=1531
http://www.libretro.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=1420
http://imgur.com/a/LPEmk
Coupled with a CRT it is the cheapest way to get pixel accurate retro goodness.
As before, Wii build supports multiple resolutions per core, it can output from 640X480 to 224X384, 384X256 and almost everything in between (about 30 different presets in all). Ratio and screen size are also completely configurable.
http://www.libretro.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=1531
http://www.libretro.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=1420
bodeiseifer
Member
Looks good to me but what you see in a photo and what you see when the tv is front of your own eyes can be two different things.
Yeah from what I read a snes jr with rgb mod is the best, no vertical line and 1chip like picture quality.
Thats ace you got it modded, sucks that you cant bypass that nasty interlacing process though, still I bet it looks better than plain old svideo right?
IrishNinja
Member
damn, that one stays at the very back of my want list, next to a sega pico
Sega pico is awesome! Wonder if theres an rgb mod...
Darkangel
Member
This is kind of related to the whole upscaling thing:
Retroactive is developing a digital HDMI output mod for the N64. It takes the digital video and audio data directly off the system's motherboard, meaning no more analog signals. It's impossible to get better N64 image quality than this.
http://retroactive.be/tech_n64_hdmi.php
Retroactive is developing a digital HDMI output mod for the N64. It takes the digital video and audio data directly off the system's motherboard, meaning no more analog signals. It's impossible to get better N64 image quality than this.
http://retroactive.be/tech_n64_hdmi.php
RoninChaos
Member
For 1 it's going to have to be. The stuff I want to play isn't heavily action oriented so the frame lag won't bug me that much.
2. Yes it can. I had my wii hooked up via component and would play virtual console titles pretty regularly but they were UGLY.
3. I have no idea.
How big is your xrgb-3? I'm probably only going to be there on friday though. When are you coming in? I assume seeing it on one of the asus monitors would basically show me what I'd be looking at as far as quality, just on a smaller scale?
Picked up a PAL Gamecube for dirt cheap but the RGB video quality isn't as good as I had hoped. Not sure what's up with the noise. Look at the artifacts present in the Star Fox logo, for instance. XRGB Mini, by the way.
Any thoughts? Image quality is actually nicer using s-video on my NTSC GC even.
While I had the capture open here's a bonus image. SNES via RGB. The image is slightly less clean than Sega systems, though (notice the slight ghosting on pixel edges). I'm preferring this type of image to the fake scanlines as of late. Crisp, clean pixels. Looks almost like an emulator shot, really.
Any thoughts? Image quality is actually nicer using s-video on my NTSC GC even.
While I had the capture open here's a bonus image. SNES via RGB. The image is slightly less clean than Sega systems, though (notice the slight ghosting on pixel edges). I'm preferring this type of image to the fake scanlines as of late. Crisp, clean pixels. Looks almost like an emulator shot, really.
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
In that case, the only two other questions I feel are relevant are whether your TV has a VGA input (or if you have an easy way to convert VGA to something your TV accepts) and if you think 480p component/VGA/HDMI sources look OK on your TV.
If you do have VGA and are OK with 480p visuals, then I'd shop around for whatever deals you could find on an XRGB2, XRGB2+, XRGB3, or Framemeister.
If you don't have VGA or don't think 480p is good enough, then the Framemeister is probably the only logical choice.
A demo of the XRGB3 on an Asus VH236H would give you a decent idea of how these things would look on a larger 1080p flatscreen, particularly since the XRGB3 has two distinct modes that resemble what the other machines would look like as well. I'll be at Final Round from Thursday to Monday and could bring it along with my Genesis or Saturn, but I'll probably be busy streaming for most of Friday and Saturday and could probably only set aside time on those days really late in the evening.
SNES and MD mostly I guess. I think DC component cables exist, and I play my PSX games on the PS2 with component.
EDIT: PSX too please. Seems like PSX on RGB > component.
bodeiseifer
Member
What sort of rgb cable are you using?
Pretty sure you have to use the official gamecube rgb cable on the pal camecube, I remember buying a third party game from game with my machine and it always looked bloody horrible, and this was back on my old crt, then i bought the offical nintendo rgb cable and it looked much much better, l;ike a proper rgb picture.
Think the official cable are pretty expensive, I sold my crappy one, but I'd be happy to take a couple of photos using a third party snes ntsc rgb cable versus the official rgb one for you if you like, just let me know.
bodeiseifer
Member
I picked up the BANDRIDGE 5 port automatic scart switch, and in short, I highly recommend it to anyone wanting a scart switch, it has 5 ports, is available in manual (£15ish) and automatic (£21) versions, the automatic is powered by a 12v 500ma transformer, has a manula override too, both have a seperate L+R audio out, and from what I have observed, no loss in quality, no loss in brightness( the image is acutally a tad brighter through this scart switcher) no noise etc, and its very cheap.
I haven't tested for interference but I never have more than one console on at a time.
Some images.
Rear view, its important there is enough space available between horizontally aligned scart sockets to allow for bigger plugs, the Bandridge has this, my Trilogy 2 doesn't
I haven't tested for interference but I never have more than one console on at a time.
Some images.
Rear view, its important there is enough space available between horizontally aligned scart sockets to allow for bigger plugs, the Bandridge has this, my Trilogy 2 doesn't
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