• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Retro AV Club Thread 2: Classic Gaming Done Right!

Status
Not open for further replies.
I like BadAssConsoles but I'd be surprised if it was out within the next year. It's fun to complain about how long it's taking on his Twitter just to get the trolls going.

I ordered way back in September lol. The wait has been brutal, hopefully the final product is worth these insane delays.
 
I like BadAssConsoles but I'd be surprised if it was out within the next year. It's fun to complain about how long it's taking on his Twitter just to get the trolls going.

Yeah I dig BadAssConsoles but this and his USB replacement for the GC optical drive are never actually coming out. At least it seems that way.
 

Brhoom

Banned
So quick update, the TV I picked up ended up being a Sony Trinitron KV-27FS210. I googled the TV and it turns out it's 1080i but I have been happy with the picture quality it puts out vs the old Philips I picked up off the street. I am feeding it S-Video for my SNES and I think it looks pretty good honestly, but I know it probably wouldn't be up to the standards of some in here. To be honest I had no idea this TV was 1080i before the google search, it has me kind of disheartened now that I know its not 480.. but it really does blow the Phillips I had away in terms of PQ so I guess it's not that much of a loss - I was just really really happy to find a Trinitron as I had heard of their greatness for retro gaming for so long. This TV weighs about 108lbs.. I nearly died getting it into my basement, so even if it is 1080i it's not going anywhere ugh.

Thry say 480p on an HD CRT is really good, so congrats on the new CRT :)
 

Kawika

Member
I'm in no hurry to play GameCube games.

I honestly would prefer a Wii HDMI so I can play the 2-5 GC games I am still interested in and benefit from the Wii library without having to have the odd upscaling that the Wii U does.

As it stands, I pretty much use my Gamecube as the GBA Machine (via framemeister) and my Wii is what I use for most gamecube games.
 

RedFox85

Member
Thry say 480p on an HD CRT is really good, so congrats on the new CRT :)

Haha thanks, just waiting on my back pain to subside! :D

On a side note, I am so glad this thread is a thing - retro collecting is awesome and I love the various GAF enthusiast communities! My next upgrade I think is going to be either one of those fancy HD retrovision genesis cables or a genesis SCART + SCART to component adapter.

**EDIT

To all those talking about Gamecube component cables and how costly they are, would it not be cheaper to just have a wii + component cable? I believe that most of the Wii's were back compat with gamecube were they not? Or is there something wrong with it like.. emulation or something?
 
So quick update, the TV I picked up ended up being a Sony Trinitron KV-27FS210. I googled the TV and it turns out it's 1080i but I have been happy with the picture quality it puts out vs the old Philips I picked up off the street. I am feeding it S-Video for my SNES and I think it looks pretty good honestly, but I know it probably wouldn't be up to the standards of some in here. To be honest I had no idea this TV was 1080i before the google search, it has me kind of disheartened now that I know its not 480.. but it really does blow the Phillips I had away in terms of PQ so I guess it's not that much of a loss - I was just really really happy to find a Trinitron as I had heard of their greatness for retro gaming for so long. This TV weighs about 108lbs.. I nearly died getting it into my basement, so even if it is 1080i it's not going anywhere ugh.

While it might not be ideal for 240p games (though if it looks good to you then that's awesome!) it should be fine for 480p and 720p games. I'd love to have something like that for Gen 6 and 7 consoles! Congrats on a good (if unexpected) find! Hope you enjoy it.


Edit:
To all those talking about Gamecube component cables and how costly they are, would it not be cheaper to just have a wii + component cable? I believe that most of the Wii's were back compat with gamecube were they not? Or is there something wrong with it like.. emulation or something?

For most people using a Wii with component cables would be fine. There's a small difference in quality between the GCN and Wii component signal, but it's not too bad. The biggest reason to get the GCN ones is for the Gameboy Player. Using homebrew you can force 240p out of it and it looks great. Probably the best way to play real GBC and GBA games on a TV.
 

RedFox85

Member
While it might not be ideal for 240p games (though if it looks good to you then that's awesome!) it should be fine for 480p and 720p games. I'd love to have something like that for Gen 6 and 7 consoles! Congrats on a good (if unexpected) find! Hope you enjoy it.


Edit:


For most people using a Wii with component cables would be fine. There's a small difference in quality between the GCN and Wii component signal, but it's not too bad. The biggest reason to get the GCN ones is for the Gameboy Player. Using homebrew you can force 240p out of it and it looks great. Probably the best way to play real GBC and GBA games on a TV.

The dreamcast and the Xbox look really good on this TV for sure, Xbox is hooked up via component and I was playing Jet Set Future last night.. looked phenomenal. The dreamcast is hooked up Via S-Video and Zombie Revenge looked really nice. I think the only thing that could look better is the genesis.. it's hooked up via composite so the image comes across a little bit soft, the Super Famicom however hooked up via S-Video looks great to me, the colors are fantastic and the image is really clear.
 
The dreamcast and the Xbox look really good on this TV for sure, Xbox is hooked up via component and I was playing Jet Set Future last night.. looked phenomenal. The dreamcast is hooked up Via S-Video and Zombie Revenge looked really nice. I think the only thing that could look better is the genesis.. it's hooked up via composite so the image comes across a little bit soft, the Super Famicom however hooked up via S-Video looks great to me, the colors are fantastic and the image is really clear.

Congrats man. Glad you're enjoying these retro threads, too. My advice is not to worry too much about the incremental improvements you could get using certain setups. As I said earlier, you don't necessarily have to spend hundreds to enjoy retro gaming. Component out for the Genesis and SNES with those HDRV cables will be a nice improvement with your current setup.
 

Laws00

Member
Got me a CRT today

I mean I have a CRT in the basement but it doesnt have composite cables on it

I got Apex 2015 GT2015 from my friend transistor_fist

Holy shit guys I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT!!

Not to mention too I can use my light gun games now lol

I just got to find a place to put it now....

IMG_0407.jpg


IMG_0409.jpg
 

v0yce

Member
Reminder that HDRetrovision component cables are available again.

Got an order in for SNES, Genesis and Saturn adapter. Can't wait to try them out.
 
crossposting from shmups:

Is anyone using a DVI splitter to split between their display and a capture card? I'm confused as to if the cheap Y cable type splitters are actually going to work. Am I better off converting to HDMI and then splitting? Anyone have a link to a specific product they've had success with?
 

RedFox85

Member
Got me a CRT today

I mean I have a CRT in the basement but it doesnt have composite cables on it

I got Apex 2015 GT2015 from my friend transistor_fist

Holy shit guys I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT!!

Not to mention too I can use my light gun games now lol

I just got to find a place to put it now....

Congrats and welcome to the club!
 

Brhoom

Banned
Bought an HD retrovision Snes cable for my CRT! I'm happy I got one.




Got me a CRT today

I mean I have a CRT in the basement but it doesnt have composite cables on it

I got Apex 2015 GT2015 from my friend transistor_fist

Holy shit guys I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT!!

Not to mention too I can use my light gun games now lol

I just got to find a place to put it now....

Congratulations. Try your best not to listen to the voice inside your head telling you that you need antoher CRT.
 

Jockel

Member
Got me a CRT today

I mean I have a CRT in the basement but it doesnt have composite cables on it

I got Apex 2015 GT2015 from my friend transistor_fist

Holy shit guys I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT!!

Not to mention too I can use my light gun games now lol

I just got to find a place to put it now....
Wait until you get into RGB, friendo.
 

hypotc

Member
I've recently picked up a Bang & Olufsen MX7000 CRT TV. I was wondering if CSYNC RGB SNES cables will work on this TV. Anyone tried this?

Here's the two variants:
https://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk/nintendo/super-nintendo/PAL-SUPER-NINTENDO-RGB-SCART-CABLES

I have the Sync on Luma RGB cable from this site. There is some checkerboarding on colors when I use this cable on my 42" HD TV, but I can't test it on the MX7000 right now, as it's stored somewhere else (no space for it yet). I don't think I'll bother getting one if it only affects the HD TV.

Example of checkerboarding:
http://retroconsolecomputer.blogspot.no/2014/07/snes-rgb-scart-cable-sync-mod.html

I'm using a 50hz PAL console modded to 60hz. Don't know if that would be a problem.

Edit: I think I ordered my RGB cable from that site back when they only had one of them. I'm not sure if it's Luma on Sync or Composite video sync. Blah, this makes my head spin! :D According to this link I shouldn't use CSYNC cables on my modded PAL console. http://retrorgb.com/csync.html, but they sell PAL versions of CSYNC cables.

Here's some pictures of how my SNES looks on my HDTV. It's almost like flimmer. Will this go away with a Luma Sync cable? http://imgur.com/a/dLUSs.

Edit: I just got a confirmation on email from retrogamingcables that the old cable was sync over composite.
 

televator

Member
Watching normalGAF talk about scaling and the difference between 1080p screens and 4k ones...

tenor.gif


Almost as bad as the time I found out most of them set their TV to "cool" color temp.
 

Ashby

Member
Should I bother with the HDRetrovision cables if my two sets right now are a 720p HDTV and a Sony PVM? Right now I've got my SNES S-Video into the PVM. Leaning towards RGB cables for the SNES as a better use of money than the HDRetrovision component.
 

Teknoman

Member
Anyone have any idea why Ape Escape looks like this in AmarecTV?

The PS2 UI and PS1 logos look fine, as does the "Dual Shock required" screens.


It cuts the screen in half when actual gameplay comes on.
 

Timu

Member
Anyone have any idea why Ape Escape looks like this in AmarecTV?

The PS2 UI and PS1 logos look fine, as does the "Dual Shock required" screens.



It cuts the screen in half when actual gameplay comes on.
Do you know what res you set it at?
 

Teknoman

Member
Do you know what res you set it at?

Well usually i have it set at 720 by 480, but i've even tried the 240 options.

EDIT: Does it with all PS1 games played via PS2, which im sure are displayed at 240p. but never had this issue.


Actually its been a very long time since i've been able to capture anything with moving to a new place among other things, so I completely forgot what to set the capture res to.
 

Timu

Member
Well usually i have it set at 720 by 480, but i've even tried the 240 options.

EDIT: Does it with all PS1 games played via PS2, which im sure are displayed at 240p. but never had this issue.
That is odd, now look at the res at the bottom of the program, like here:

bandicam2017-06-2600-baxqu.png


More importantly, what's the res and fps cap next to View.

I found amarec really finicky, personally. took a lot of fenangling to get it to work on all the resolutions i cared about.
It's not that bad, I mainly use 3 resolutions:

720x480(Gen 3-6 and Wii)

1280x720 and 1920x1080(Gen 7 and higher)
 

Teknoman

Member
The crazy thing is, things worked just fine before I moved lol.
Yeah, my experience was that it would just stop working some times with really no rationale for it. Try booting up amarec/your console in turn. So either boot amarec and then your console or vice versa and mess around with that. Unplugging/plugging back in, etc.
It's not that bad, I mainly use 3 resolutions:

720x480(Gen 3-6 and Wii)

1280x720 and 1920x1080(Gen 7 and higher)
Issue isn't any specific res but that it would totally spazz out when swapping between resolutions or when the signal drops, and certain res' would just not display correctly if they were swapped to from something else or similar.
 

Timu

Member
This.



I tried to see how it would look in the streamcatcher software (the one that came with the USBcap startech device) just out of curiousity, and its cutting it off as well.
Set your color space to RGB(not YUY2 as you have it now) and see what happens. Deinterlacing should be on not use as well to be safe.
 

Timu

Member
No change. And Streamcatcher is reporting the feed as 480i for some reason too.
Lol, that is nuts. It shouldn't be doing that. Guess you should show me your config, because it shouldn't be doing that. If you have 720x240 as a res you can use that and have scan line doubler to enable in graph 2.

bandicam2017-06-2601-y4xqm.png
 

Teknoman

Member
Yeah I have no idea what the issue is, other than maybe I might need to...I dunno, try a different USB port maybe? I dunno but i've never had this issue. I was just going to try a bandwidth test with the new fiberoptic net we've got and run into this lol.

Its the first time i've plugged my startech into my PC since...well the date of that last stream.
 

Timu

Member
Yeah I have no idea what the issue is, other than maybe I might need to...I dunno, try a different USB port maybe? I dunno but i've never had this issue. I was just going to try a bandwidth test with the new fiberoptic net we've got and run into this lol.

Its the first time i've plugged my startech into my PC since...well the date of that last stream.
Yeah, do what you can man, this is not normal and I never had a problem like this.
 
Yeah I have no idea what the issue is, other than maybe I might need to...I dunno, try a different USB port maybe? I dunno but i've never had this issue. I was just going to try a bandwidth test with the new fiberoptic net we've got and run into this lol.

Its the first time i've plugged my startech into my PC since...well the date of that last stream.
I realize this isn't the most helpful advice, but I'd just fuck around with different consoles/settings/physical configuration until something seems improved, and just solidify more and more variable over time. It's tedious and basically brute forcing the whole experience, but that's the only way I've found to really reliably solve these problems. There are just too many factors for google-fu or forums to be of great help unless the issue is really widely known.
 

Teknoman

Member
Well that was strange. I ended up having to search for Micomsoft drivers that actually worked for the startech, installed those and it fixed the issue.

Gonna try PS1 games now. I thought I already had those custom drivers installed...but man that was odd.
 

Timu

Member
Well that was strange. I ended up having to search for Micomsoft drivers that actually worked for the startech, installed those and it fixed the issue.

Gonna try PS1 games now. I thought I already had those custom drivers installed...but man that was odd.
So it was a driver issue all along then...didn't expect that.

Then again the Startech devices are the same as the Micomsoft devices so they can use drivers from them.
 

Teknoman

Member
Of course after I reset my PC the issue comes back >_>

Its so strange. I seem to keep having to just "pretend" to reinstall the drivers for things to go back to normal.
 
Of course after I reset my PC the issue comes back >_>

Its so strange. I seem to keep having to just "pretend" to reinstall the drivers for things to go back to normal.

try uninstalling the drivers related to the capture card, restart your PC, and then reinstall the one you found
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom