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Retro AV Club Thread 2: Classic Gaming Done Right!

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K

Kiddy Dong

Member
Fuzzy said:
I blame the Retro Roundtable guys for getting me to watch Koralik videos because they're so horrible. His hand gestures are fucking hypnotic also.
Click to expand...

I hope they invite him on an episode of RR and show him the errors of his ways. His PS2 "Best Possible Quality" video in particular is horrendously misinformed.

Adam is like a foil to Bob (of RetroRGB) - Bob is always positive towards new developments in the community even if they don't benefit him directly. Adam just shits on anything that doesn't fit his personal preferences (i.e. the HD retrovision DC component cable, scanlines, and CRTs in general).

And then the guy Adam does his podcast with has a framemeister but only uses composite with it...why...
 
T

Triforce141

Member
alr1ght said:
Good component switcher? I need one for my Wii and PS2.
Click to expand...

Monoprice's component switcher looks like a good option, comparisons MLiG made show little to no loss in image quality.

download.png


download_1.png
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Seems nice for setting up an Xbox, PS2, Wii, and Dreamcast (once HD Retrovision releases their cable) with, though I have no idea if it auto detects signals or you have to press buttons to change source
 
N

NormalFish

Banned
That reminds me, are there any SCART switchers with like 3 inputs in a compact nice design? All of these nice community designed switches have a million inputs and I only need a few.
 
L

Laevateinn

Member
NormalFish said:
That reminds me, are there any SCART switchers with like 3 inputs in a compact nice design? All of these nice community designed switches have a million inputs and I only need a few.
Click to expand...

You're going about this wrong. You don't need a switch with a few inputs. You need more consoles.
 
F

Fuzzy

I would bang a hot farmer!
Kiddy Dong said:
I hope they invite him on an episode of RR and show him the errors of his ways. His PS2 "Best Possible Quality" video in particular is horrendously misinformed.

Adam is like a foil to Bob (of RetroRGB) - Bob is always positive towards new developments in the community even if they don't benefit him directly. Adam just shits on anything that doesn't fit his personal preferences (i.e. the HD retrovision DC component cable, scanlines, and CRTs in general).

And then the guy Adam does his podcast with has a framemeister but only uses composite with it...why...
Click to expand...
The RR guys made fun of him hard during their extra live stream when they were in Montreal. It's kinda good that they didn't archive that stream because I don't think there would be any way AK would join them if he watched it.
 
R

Riesenfass

Member
alr1ght said:
Good component switcher? I need one for my Wii and PS2.
Click to expand...
I use the impact acoustics 3-play and am happy with it. It's on amazon as the C2G/cables to go 40324.

It seems well built, it's powered, and comes with a remote. When I was looking last year, it became clear that finding a good component switch these days is a bit of a hassle.
 
M

mattwhite924

Member
SheepyGuy said:
I don't do capture at all but I have a couple of generic from-China VGA to HDMI boxes. I could try them with my Win98 PC later today to see how they handle DOS games. But even if they work the output might not work with your HDMI capture thing.

FWIW they didn't work at all with 240p (my test for that was a DC outputting VGA forced into 240p mode).
Click to expand...


If you do try it then I'd be curious to hear if it's descent quality.
And yeah, I've got a feeling that even if the converter can handle it, then the capture device won't be able to handle 70Hz.



Shin Johnpv said:
The maker of the DB GrafxBooster put up a blog post about all the miss information in Adam Koralik's "TG16 Best Possible Video Quality". I'm sure it will come as no surprise to people here but I am not a fan of Adam or the insane amount of miss information he spreads in his videos. It's also a good read on getting familiar with the PC Engine/TG16 and what it can do video signal wise.

http://db-electronics.ca/2017/05/19...afx-16-pc-engine-best-possible-video-quality/
Click to expand...

Huh, so in that blog they recommend Retro Gaming Cables over retro_console_accessories. I'd always heard it was the other way around. Did that change? I need to pick up a Saturn RGB cable before too long, so I want to make sure I go with the better of the options.
 
S

Shin Johnpv

Member
mattwhite924 said:
Huh, so in that blog they recommend Retro Gaming Cables over retro_console_accessories. I'd always heard it was the other way around. Did that change? I need to pick up a Saturn RGB cable before too long, so I want to make sure I go with the better of the options.
Click to expand...

The retro roundtable guys talk about it here. It's a bit of a long part of the conversation and they kind of get around it in a circular way.

https://youtu.be/1wryHLmQ8Qs?t=55m00s
 
S

Splash Wave

Member
I'm very new to all this, so pardon these ignorance-laden questions:

I don't have room for my old CRT in my new apartment, so is getting a Framemeister my best bet? Is it essentially the means to make SD games played on an HDTV look good? All I have is composite cables for my Saturn, so I'm guessing that a Framemeister would just make things look mostly "right" when plugged into my receiver?

As of right now, it looks like these things go for around $450. Is that price expected to go up? I really don't feel like dropping that much money right now, but I figure I might as well if I can only expect to pay more in the future.
 
L

lepo

Member
Splash Wave said:
I'm very new to all this, so pardon these ignorance-laden questions:

I don't have room for my old CRT in my new apartment, so is getting a Framemeister my best bet? Is it essentially the means to make SD games played on an HDTV look good? All I have is composite cables for my Saturn, so I'm guessing that a Framemeister would just make things look mostly "right" when plugged into my receiver?

As of right now, it looks like these things go for around $450. Is that price expected to go up? I really don't feel like dropping that much money right now, but I figure I might as well if I can only expect to pay more in the future.
Click to expand...

Never use composite, your best bet is to buy a scart cable from either of these stores
https://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk
http://stores.ebay.com/Retro-Accessories

And you could get an Ossc when it will become available
https://www.videogameperfection.com

That would be my pick, but the framemeister is also good so if you don't want to wait for the ossc, just go for it
 
S

Splash Wave

Member
lepo said:
Never use composite, your best bet is to buy a scart cable from either of these stores
https://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk
http://stores.ebay.com/Retro-Accessories

And you could get an Ossc when it will become available
https://www.videogameperfection.com

That would be my pick, but the framemeister is also good so if you don't want to wait for the ossc, just go for it
Click to expand...

But do I have the correct impression of what the Framemeister actually does? And does SCART require that I mod my system of choice?

edit: And has the Framemeister been discontinued? It's hard for me to get a solid answer on that.
 
P

PumpkinSpice

Banned
Splash Wave said:
But do I have the correct impression of what the Framemeister actually does? And does SCART require that I mod my system of choice?
Click to expand...

Saturn does RGB out natively, you don't need to mod it at all.

If you think the FM's price is too high, one other thing that I can recommend is if you have a Samsung HDTV with component inputs, generally they handle 240p really well over component so you could just get a simple SCART to component transcoder. You'd miss out on fake scanline generation and a few other features but otherwise you get a pretty good result.
 
T

Triforce141

Member
Splash Wave said:
But do I have the correct impression of what the Framemeister actually does? And does SCART require that I mod my system of choice?

edit: And has the Framemeister been discontinued? It's hard for me to get a solid answer on that.
Click to expand...

Most systems already have native RGB Scart support, some like the NES or Turbografx 16 do need to be modded for it (or in the case of the NES you can look at FPGA consoles like the RetroUSB AVS as an alternative)

And the Framemeister is still available, SolarisJapan has them for pre-order right now
 
H

Hero_of_the_Day

Member
Shin Johnpv said:
My Life in Gaming did a video for that comparison.

https://youtu.be/TI60A3DpI6w

Just note that the video was done a few Firmwares ago. Since then the interpolation feature was fixed and then removed to fix some other bugs. Kevtris has also addeded a bunch more palettes to it and they all seem to be working much better. (there was a bug/issue with the implementation of a palette or two in previous firmwares)
Click to expand...

Fuck it, bought an NES with Hi-Def and blinking light win for $300 shipped off ebay. Seemed like a good enough deal since the BLW is $30, Hi-Def is like $130, and then I'd have to pay someone to install it and ship it back and forth.

I'll just see how it compares myself and probably end up selling my RGB NES. Too bad there isn't something similar for SNES, then I'd be able to get rid of my XRGB mini.
 
H

Hero_of_the_Day

Member
I do, and will do. I am pretty excited. My RGB NES looks great, but like I said before, it is a little dark. And the ability to just pack up my NES and bring it somewhere without having to load up the XRGB will be fantastic.
 
P

PumpkinSpice

Banned
mattwhite924 said:
If you do try it then I'd be curious to hear if it's descent quality.
And yeah, I've got a feeling that even if the converter can handle it, then the capture device won't be able to handle 70Hz.
Click to expand...

Found some time to try it tonight. Both worked just fine with every resolution my win98 PC threw at it, including DOS games:

bFyJAW7.jpg


JIByZJG.jpg
Click to expand...

I have a mini vga2hdmi (small white box) as well as an unbranded black box with a VGA head and a hardwired HDMI dongle / headphone jack cable. Both were super cheap so even if they don't end up working with your capture hardware it's not a huge loss.
 
M

mattwhite924

Member
SheepyGuy said:
Found some time to try it tonight. Both worked just fine with every resolution my win98 PC threw at it, including DOS games:



I have a mini vga2hdmi (small white box) as well as an unbranded black box with a VGA head and a hardwired HDMI dongle / headphone jack cable. Both were super cheap so even if they don't end up working with your capture hardware it's not a huge loss.
Click to expand...

That's awesome! Thanks for checking! I didn't really expect that to work, so this is pretty great news!
 
P

PumpkinSpice

Banned
mattwhite924 said:
That's awesome! Thanks for checking! I didn't really expect that to work, so this is pretty great news!
Click to expand...

It's a bit odd that the monitor says they're running at 640xXXX (they're definitely not) so I assume the video card is doing some sort of scaling or line doubling when outputting over vga. If that's the case it might still depend on the age of the hardware you're using.
 
M

mattwhite924

Member
SheepyGuy said:
It's a bit odd that the monitor says they're running at 640xXXX (they're definitely not) so I assume the video card is doing some sort of scaling or line doubling when outputting over vga. If that's the case it might still depend on the age of the hardware you're using.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, you could be right. However for $12 I can't really get too upset if it does something jank.
 
B

Beer Monkey

Member
Anybody have a good HDMI to RGBHV adapter to recommend? Would be using it with a Playstation TV for playing Vita games on a CRT. I have a monitor that can do 480p and 720p, but my adapter is shit.
 
V

Vespa

Member
Beer Monkey said:
Anybody have a good HDMI to RGBHV adapter to recommend? Would be using it with a Playstation TV for playing Vita games on a CRT. I have a monitor that can do 480p and 720p, but my adapter is shit.
Click to expand...

I checked out a bunch here. Found that the Tendak is pretty good for a CRT. Best to get it from a place which has a decent returns options as all these adapters seem to have a short life from what I've read and experienced.
 
T

Triforce141

Member
JDH said:
Would you need to sign up for the mailing list again if you wanted to do that?
Click to expand...

The waiting list is apparently done, Matt Buxton says that you'll be able to pre-order for an OSSC, and it'll be shipped once enough units are made, similar to something like RetroUSB's AVS

So you're going to have to wait awhile for the thing to arrive, but you won't have to worry about batches running out if you're a high number on the waiting list
 
J

JDH

Member
Triforce141 said:
The waiting list is apparently done, Matt Buxton says that you'll be able to pre-order for an OSSC, and it'll be shipped once enough units are made, similar to something like RetroUSB's AVS

So you're going to have to wait awhile for the thing to arrive, but you won't have to worry about batches running out if you're a high number on the waiting list
Click to expand...

Oh that's pretty great than. Although, I am really on the fence about waiting for that as my cheap-o Logitech speakers to output audio to is working quite well actually.

The only thing I long for (besides audio integration which is coming/here) would be the ability to zoom the image. I'm not sure if the OSSC Wolf Edition ever said that would even be possible. I rather not have another device just for zooming i.e.: DVDO

I heard it mentioned a few times that OSSC wouldn't allow zooming due to hardware limitations.
 
S

Shin Johnpv

Member
I could be wrong, and maybe some one with better knowledge can correct me, BUT I think because the OSSC doesn't have a framebuffer you can't do things like zooming.
 
T

televator

Member
Shin Johnpv said:
I could be wrong, and maybe some one with better knowledge can correct me, BUT I think because the OSSC doesn't have a framebuffer you can't do things like zooming.
Click to expand...

This is true. You need more memory to store the frames while they're being worked on and manipulated by a scaler. Memory costs money and so would the scaling processor, though I suppose a powerful enough FPGA could be both a multiplier and a scaler. *shrugs*

Basically it requires a lot more investment and development. I'd love to see that come to pass.
 
A

alr1ght

bish gets all the credit :)
In my quest to get a late model Sony FD Trinitron CRT (<27") with component, I gathered up these pictures to see what the models look like. It helped out tremendously when deciphering sparsely detailed craigslist and letgo postings. I stupidly ended up with 2 (20FS100, 20FS120), but one will be nice for a backup. The model # will be in the filename.

With component in


No component


I ran into a bunch of FV12s, with the FS100s right behind. It's especially difficult to find the smaller sizes with component.
 
A

alr1ght

bish gets all the credit :)
How are these bootleg guncon 2s? Apparently they work with both PS2 and PS1 lightgun games, plus I won't have to hunt down that T cable. If I want to use it with component, can I hook it into the green input?
 
D

DracoBlade

Member
idk but someone who has had to tirelessly test and buy various light guns for the past year, let me say right now: spend the extra money and get the GunCons, they're far superior in accuracy, ergonomics, and most imperative: compatibility.
 
O

onimushroom

Member
A few weeks ago I posted here about a cheap Wii SCART "RGB" cable I had bought off eBay that refused to send an RGB signal to either of my CRT TV-s.
Since I opened up the cable and saw that there were seemingly enough wires in it (almost identical to the shots on this page where the thing eventually worked), I refused to just give up and started to google about Wii, SCART, RGB etc, looking for a solution.
Thanks to pages like these I was able to see that almost everything in my cables was wrong. The only things that were "right" on either end of the cable were the two audio channels and composite video. However, since it did have all those other unused wires in it, I decided to try to "fix" the cable.
I mapped out my faulty version of the cable, wrote down which ends had to be moved (which wire needed a resistor, and so on), and ordered some basic soldering equipment. The stuff arrived today and I'm happy to say that after my very first soldering session I now have a working Wii SCART cable that successfully sends an RGB signal to my TV (both TV-s recognise it as RGB).
 
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