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Retro AV Club Thread 2: Classic Gaming Done Right!

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N

NormalFish

Banned
Brhoom said:
So guys what do think is the best solution for playing games that switch between resolutions other than a CRT or an Emulator? I'm talking interms of picture quality.
Click to expand...
Picture quality isn't really a concern. Any good contemporary scaler can scale 240p and 480i well.
 
Simbabbad

Simbabbad

Member
Hope people here will enlighten me...

I recently got a much more powerful PC (my previous one was 10 years old), so to enjoy arcade games to their fullest on my 1080p TV, I finally got into advance MAME visual settings and HLSL.

I built artworks for each different game resolution so the scanlines are perfect, I tweaked vector settings, I documented myself a lot and everything looks really nice, but I'm not seeing at all what the shadowmask effect is supposed to do.

My understanding is that it's supposed to add a CRT texture to the screen independent from scanlines, but when I test it by removing the scanlines and putting up shadowmask opacity to (say) 0.75, I simply get a greener/darker screen depending on the texture, there is no nice CRT pattern like in RetroArch with crt-easymode-halation for example.

Why is that? Is this setting for much higher resolutions than 1080p only? Do I misunderstand it? Is there a setting I missed? I use the default MAME raster settings:

#
# OSD VIDEO OPTIONS
#
video d3d
filter 0

#
# DIRECT3D POST-PROCESSING OPTIONS
#
hlsl_enable 1
hlsl_oversampling 0
hlsl_write auto
hlsl_snap_width 2048
hlsl_snap_height 1536
shadow_mask_tile_mode 0
shadow_mask_alpha 0.25
shadow_mask_texture shadow-mask.png
shadow_mask_x_count 12
shadow_mask_y_count 6
shadow_mask_usize 0.5
shadow_mask_vsize 0.5
shadow_mask_uoffset 0.0
shadow_mask_voffset 0.0
distortion 0.0
cubic_distortion 0.0
distort_corner 0.0
round_corner 0.0
smooth_border 0.0
reflection 0.0
vignetting 0.0
scanline_alpha 0.50
scanline_size 1.0
scanline_height 1.0
scanline_variation 1.0
scanline_bright_scale 2.0
scanline_bright_offset 0.0
scanline_jitter 0.0
hum_bar_alpha 0.0
defocus 0.25,0.0
converge_x 0.0,0.0,0.0
converge_y 0.0,0.0,0.0
radial_converge_x 0.0,0.0,0.0
radial_converge_y 0.0,0.0,0.0
red_ratio 1.05,0.00,0.10
grn_ratio -0.10,1.00,0.25
blu_ratio -0.25,0.25,1.25
saturation 1.25
offset -0.30,-0.20,-0.05
scale 1.15,1.05,0.90
power 0.90,0.90,1.15
floor 0.025,0.025,0.025
phosphor_life 0.25,0.25,0.25

#
# NTSC POST-PROCESSING OPTIONS
#
yiq_enable 0
yiq_jitter 0.0
yiq_cc 3.57954545
yiq_a 0.5
yiq_b 0.5
yiq_o 0.0
yiq_p 1.0
yiq_n 1.0
yiq_y 6.0
yiq_i 1.2
yiq_q 0.6
yiq_scan_time 52.6
yiq_phase_count 2
Click to expand...

I fiddled with it a lot (removing scanlines and putting shadowmask opacity to 0.75 to see it better, prescaling, etc.) but no experimentation change anything. I read tons of online discussions and documentation, but I just don't get it. Many thanks in advance for any explanation.
 
P

Peltz

Member
D.Lo said:
Only early PS1s, it was gone after a year or so? And you need a modded PS2 of some sort (or at least some sort of commercial slide card/swap disc/HD loader etc) to create free mcboot. And then patched ISOs to play burned games, so much configuration. I've been doing HD Loader since it first came out, then free mcboot, the type of tinkering required to get stuff going was rather complicated.

Dreamcast and Mega CD you need nothing, burn an iso and it plays on every system (except like 0.5% of Dreamcasts released). And flash carts are drag and drop with roms, and already had homebrew scenes due to emulation of older systems.

I mean yes it can be done on PS1/2 without an actual soldered mod chip, but a mod method is still needed (the swap trick is pretty simple but not universally applicable). They're objectively far less popular as homebrew platforms as something like Dreamcast because there is much more overhead to getting homebrew running. Hence why I thought they'd be lower priority for home brew tools.


CDrs are physically different to pressed discs, so it can be true in some circumstances, but is extremely unlikely in normal use.

Actually DC is a special case, because the games have to be compressed or have items chopped to fit on regular CDs, this can be done in such a way that makes the lazer work much harder and it will wear it out much faster.
Click to expand...

I KNEW IT!

DC had it's own format right? GD-ROM or something?
 
B

BTails

Member
Timu said:
I'm thinking about buying that for backups on my PS2 games.
Click to expand...

Timu, I was able to create a FreeMcBoot card using the Memory Card adapter for the PS3 that allowed you to copy PS1 and PS2 saves to your PS3: Memory Card goes in one end, USB out the other.

Not sure if you have that, or what the going price of them is now, but I bought mine for less than $3 dollars years ago.
 
S

sixteen-bit

Member
BTails said:
Timu, I was able to create a FreeMcBoot card using the Memory Card adapter for the PS3 that allowed you to copy PS1 and PS2 saves to your PS3: Memory Card goes in one end, USB out the other.

Not sure if you have that, or what the going price of them is now, but I bought mine for less than $3 dollars years ago.
Click to expand...

Are those PC compatible?

I have a 3rd-party one so I wonder if it'd even work on PS3 (it's a combinations PS2 pad and memory card adapter but I only used the controller adapter to use old arcade sticks on PS3, and the controller adapter stopped working with one of the PS3 2.XX firmware updates that locked out a bunch of other 3rd part equipment).
 
T

Timu

Member
BTails said:
Timu, I was able to create a FreeMcBoot card using the Memory Card adapter for the PS3 that allowed you to copy PS1 and PS2 saves to your PS3: Memory Card goes in one end, USB out the other.

Not sure if you have that, or what the going price of them is now, but I bought mine for less than $3 dollars years ago.
Click to expand...
You mean something like this or this?
 
M

Madao

Member
i wonder why there's no RGB test suite for N64. is it because it doesn't do RGB out of the box?
though the same could be said of Gamecube but it does have a version and GC needs extra stuff to get homebrew running.

Peagles said:
Fully off? Or on standby?

I'd still look at a replacement sooner rather than later. Last one I had like that blew up and blew the fuses in our apt lol...
Click to expand...

is standby when there's a red LED in the front of the unit? that's the state it ends when i turn it off.

i ordered a replacement just in case.
 
N

Narroo

Member
SheepyGuy said:
Every PS1 can do some sort of disc swap. It's more annoying on the later models, though.

For PS2 you can just copy someone else's FreeMcBoot onto your memory card. If you don't know anyone that has it already, people sell pre-modded memory cards. It's really no more difficult than say buying a DS flash card in that sense. Patching the ISOs is pretty easy too, just drag-n-drop.
Click to expand...

Disk swapping is a bit violent to do on a regular basis though. Unless you can use it to run homebrew that allows you to somehow play other homebrew permanently, I'm not too sure it's totally practical.
 
B

BTails

Member
gingerbeardman said:
What is an example game?
Click to expand...

Silent Hill on PS1 is a particularly bad example. The inventory screen is in 480i whereas gameplay is 240p. This causes a resolution change (and blackout on modern displays) every time you need to quaff a health drink, or switch weapons.
 
P

PumpkinSpice

Banned
Narroo said:
Disk swapping is a bit violent to do on a regular basis though. Unless you can use it to run homebrew that allows you to somehow play other homebrew permanently, I'm not too sure it's totally practical.
Click to expand...
How often do you people use the 240p test suite? I think I've used it a grand total of twice.
 
R

RadarScope1

Member
Timu said:
You mean something like this or this?
Click to expand...

Wow. I remember when I was done using this after first purchasing a PS3 in 2008, and I considered unloading it. But then I thought, "This is one of those weird little items that will be worth some money at some point, and I get next to nothing for it right now." It's nice to be right once in a while!
 
D

davidwhangchoi

Member
RadarScope1 said:
Wow. I remember when I was done using this after first purchasing a PS3 in 2008, and I considered unloading it. But then I thought, "This is one of those weird little items that will be worth some money at some point, and I get next to nothing for it right now." It's nice to be right once in a while!
Click to expand...

i still use my memory card converter. since i have only one standard ps1 memory card w limited memory blocks i move my saves back and forth to my ps3 hdd with this. lol
 
N

NormalFish

Banned
Man I'm finding I'm more and more anxious to get my hands on the ossc. Really hoping there isn't some error in my order number.

Soon....
 
C

Crynox

Neo Member
NormalFish said:
Man I'm finding I'm more and more anxious to get my hands on the ossc. Really hoping there isn't some error in my order number.

Soon....
Click to expand...

I spoke to Videogameperfection yesterday, they are sending out emails & are upto No.480 the moment.

Im No. 555 so fingers crossed !
 
G

Galdelico

Member
Crynox said:
I spoke to Videogameperfection yesterday, they are sending out emails & are upto No.480 the moment.

Im No. 555 so fingers crossed !
Click to expand...

Are the new units going to look like the first ones? I suppose so, to keep the price stable, but it would be nice to have a fully covered up OSSC, similar in a way to the Framemeister.
 
T

Timu

Member
BTails said:
Oh lordy. Well, at least I can finally say that I bought something for pennies that is now worth a whole heck of a lot, haha. Isn't that what all collectors strive for?
Click to expand...
Yeah I'm buying a Free Mcboot card which is like 10 or so bucks!
 
C

Crynox

Neo Member
Galdelico said:
Are the new units going to look like the first ones? I suppose so, to keep the price stable, but it would be nice to have a fully covered up OSSC, similar in a way to the Framemeister.
Click to expand...

Not sure about that. I would prefer fully covered too.
 
Y

Yawnny

Member
It's crazy how many absolute shit pictures people take when they're selling CRT's on Kijiji (Canadian Craigslist). Not to mention little to no info.

No model number (which I know is asking a little bit above what people think is important) and no pictures of the inputs on the back.. just troves of blurry, vertical phone pictures.

I've already picked up a Sony PVM (super excited for it to get here next week!) but wanted a consumer grade CRT to do some comparisons with.. Looks like I'll be sending out some messages to ask for back panel pics.. really want to see if there's S-Video on some of these bad boys.. lots of them seem to just have composite.
 
D

drhankmccoyphd

Neo Member
I noticed a weird issue with my M1 Genesis tonight. It seems that the picture shakes, flickers, pops and sometimes the image goes out for a moment. My setup goes - Retro consoles -> SCART switch -> Framemeister -> Vizio LCD. None of the other consoles display this behavior. I'm wondering if it is my SCART cable or the power supply? It strange that I never noticed this on my PVM setup.
 
P

PumpkinSpice

Banned
mikespit1200 said:
I noticed a weird issue with my M1 Genesis tonight. It seems that the picture shakes, flickers, pops and sometimes the image goes out for a moment. My setup goes - Retro consoles -> SCART switch -> Framemeister -> Vizio LCD. None of the other consoles display this behavior. I'm wondering if it is my SCART cable or the power supply? It strange that I never noticed this on my PVM setup.
Click to expand...
Mine did that when the sync setting on the FM wasn't on Auto. I think when it's manual 17 or 18 was best but even then there's be stutters. Auto just sends the same sync info to your TV and should be perfect as long as your TV handles it.
 
P

Peltz

Member
mikespit1200 said:
I noticed a weird issue with my M1 Genesis tonight. It seems that the picture shakes, flickers, pops and sometimes the image goes out for a moment. My setup goes - Retro consoles -> SCART switch -> Framemeister -> Vizio LCD. None of the other consoles display this behavior. I'm wondering if it is my SCART cable or the power supply? It strange that I never noticed this on my PVM setup.
Click to expand...

Is it a Bandridge unpowered SCART switch? That switch caused some shaking, flickering and popping in my setup on both my PVM and Framemeister.

I did not find any solution other than having to get rid of the switch and change my connection manually every time I wanted to play. Most other people swear by that switch, but it gave me nothing but problems.
 
D

drhankmccoyphd

Neo Member
Peltz said:
Is it a Bandridge unpowered SCART switch? That switch caused some shaking, flickering and popping in my setup on both my PVM and Framemeister.

I did not find any solution other than having to get rid of the switch and change my connection manually every time I wanted to play. Most other people swear by that switch, but it gave me nothing but problems.
Click to expand...

Yes, unpowered. But the other systems work fine. I will try the sync setting above.

edit: strangely enough, I messed around a bit with the sync settings and the genesis seems to work better with sync mode off. I'll do some more testing but we'll see.
 
K

KC-Slater

Member
Yawnny said:
It's crazy how many absolute shit pictures people take when they're selling CRT's on Kijiji (Canadian Craigslist). Not to mention little to no info.

No model number (which I know is asking a little bit above what people think is important) and no pictures of the inputs on the back.. just troves of blurry, vertical phone pictures.
Click to expand...

For what it's worth, it's easier to market a CRT to the hoarder customer-base than the retro-gaming enthusiasts.
 
F

Fuzzy

I would bang a hot farmer!
I liked this picture tweeted by MLiG today. :)

smb-bluesky.jpg
Click to expand...
Purplish sky for life!
 
L

Lettuce

Member
Simbabbad said:
Hope people here will enlighten me...

I recently got a much more powerful PC (my previous one was 10 years old), so to enjoy arcade games to their fullest on my 1080p TV, I finally got into advance MAME visual settings and HLSL.

I built artworks for each different game resolution so the scanlines are perfect, I tweaked vector settings, I documented myself a lot and everything looks really nice, but I'm not seeing at all what the shadowmask effect is supposed to do.

My understanding is that it's supposed to add a CRT texture to the screen independent from scanlines, but when I test it by removing the scanlines and putting up shadowmask opacity to (say) 0.75, I simply get a greener/darker screen depending on the texture, there is no nice CRT pattern like in RetroArch with crt-easymode-halation for example.

Why is that? Is this setting for much higher resolutions than 1080p only? Do I misunderstand it? Is there a setting I missed? I use the default MAME raster settings:



I fiddled with it a lot (removing scanlines and putting shadowmask opacity to 0.75 to see it better, prescaling, etc.) but no experimentation change anything. I read tons of online discussions and documentation, but I just don't get it. Many thanks in advance for any explanation.
Click to expand...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yvme3xdPUQo
 
P

PumpkinSpice

Banned
Morfeo said:
Ok, so there is no easy solution that will just let me enter a game from any region and have the machine play it, without the use of harddrives or rip+burn?
Click to expand...

Sure, buy a PS2 with "TEST" written on the side (a debug unit).

Or a modchip.

I settled for just having two PS2s personally. There are some really fantastic condition used Japanese PS2s out there.
 
M

Morfeo

The Chuck Norris of Peace
SheepyGuy said:
Sure, buy a PS2 with "TEST" written on the side (a debug unit).

Or a modchip.

I settled for just having two PS2s personally. There are some really fantastic condition used Japanese PS2s out there.
Click to expand...

Yeah, this is what I have now, but was kinda wanting to get rid of one of them. MIght have to check out the modchip option, thanks!
 
E

Einhandr

Member
Blargh, I need some help AV Club.

I just got a PAL GameCube DOL-001 (eur) that has both digital and analog out. This was so I could run GBI through Swiss for GBA games through RGB. I'm running it into a DVDO VP30 to my display. Because it's PAL, running a standard composite connection straight to my display works but it's flickery and in b&w. Ok that's to be expected, I know the console works. I tried switching to the RGB cable with csync that I use on my fat NTSC SNES that's running to my VP30 and I get no picture. The light on the front flashes from red to green for a while but then it just stops. It should be blue if the picture is going through properly.

What's the issue here? I tried going through all the settings on the VP30, but all I can change is the output settings. Do I need to mess with the output framerate? Is it the cable? I read that the same cable for NTSC SNES should also work on PAL GameCube.

HELP!
 
P

PumpkinSpice

Banned
Einhandr said:
Blargh, I need some help AV Club.

I just got a PAL GameCube DOL-001 (eur) that has both digital and analog out. This was so I could run GBI through Swiss for GBA games through RGB. I'm running it into a DVDO VP30 to my display. Because it's PAL, running a standard composite connection straight to my display works but it's flickery and in b&w. Ok that's to be expected, I know the console works. I tried switching to the RGB cable with csync that I use on my fat NTSC SNES that's running to my VP30 and I get no picture. The light on the front flashes from red to green for a while but then it just stops. It should be blue if the picture is going through properly.

What's the issue here? I tried going through all the settings on the VP30, but all I can change is the output settings. Do I need to mess with the output framerate? Is it the cable? I read that the same cable for NTSC SNES should also work on PAL GameCube.

HELP!
Click to expand...

Unplug it, now.

The pinout is different between NTSC and PAL multi-av outs for some reason.

The SNES NTSC pinout has composite sync:

RCr7l3W.png


PAL GameCube has +12Volts instead (!!!!!)

1gAihdy.png


This is why sync-on-luma is preferred for Nintendo multi-AV -> SCART

Edit: and another reason why I'll just avoid PAL everything.
 
E

Einhandr

Member
SheepyGuy said:
Unplug it, now.

The pinout is different between NTSC and PAL multi-av outs for some reason.

The SNES NTSC pinout has composite sync:

RCr7l3W.png


PAL GameCube has +12Volts instead (!!!!!)

1gAihdy.png


This is why sync-on-luma is preferred for Nintendo multi-AV -> SCART

Edit: and another reason why I'll just avoid PAL everything.
Click to expand...

Thankfully I don't think any permanent damage was done (cable still works on SNES, and the multi out still works on GameCube). So I guess that means I need a PAL GameCube specific RGB SCART cable?
 
P

PumpkinSpice

Banned
Einhandr said:
Thankfully I don't think any permanent damage was done (cable still works on SNES, and the multi out still works on GameCube). So I guess that means I need a PAL GameCube specific RGB SCART cable?
Click to expand...

Yeah.

Or alternatively you could crack open the Multi-AV side of your cable and re-wire it (soldering) so that the sync wire is attached to the Luma/Y pin. It's the same quality, but more universal and less risk of frying anything.

Edit: actually is luma hooked up on PAL gamecubes? I know s-video isn't, maybe luma isn't available.
 
E

Einhandr

Member
SheepyGuy said:
Yeah.

Or alternatively you could crack open the Multi-AV side of your cable and re-wire it (soldering) so that the sync wire is attached to the Luma/Y pin. It's the same quality, but more universal and less risk of frying anything.

Edit: actually is luma hooked up on PAL gamecubes? I know s-video isn't, maybe luma isn't available.
Click to expand...

This is one from the same seller I bought my csync NTSC SNES cable from. I'm assuming this should work fine? Looks like it uses composite video as sync.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/161548189620

Or this one, which claims to get csync:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/172392387915
 
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