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Sega Saturn Appreciation and Emulation Thread

televator

Member
I really like that they have the labels on them. They look nice too, and for me who doesn't have a switch box it's nice to know which scart end goes to what.

Yeah I wish all specialty Scart cables had them... I often find myself wondering if the Scart cables I bought before were Csync or SoC.
 
Got the saturn and the RGB cable but apparently the adapter that comes with the XRGB mini doesn't work with the SCART cable?

Actually not that big of a deal while I wait for the adapter because composite somehow looks really nice coming out of the saturn. Way nicer than composite should look.
 

televator

Member
Got the saturn and the RGB cable but apparently the adapter that comes with the XRGB mini doesn't work with the SCART cable?

Actually not that big of a deal while I wait for the adapter because composite somehow looks really nice coming out of the saturn. Way nicer than composite should look.

People say that they can't imagine RGB being that much better than composite on Saturn. I just have to kind of laugh at that. There's still a night and day leap between the 2 outputs on Saturn.

After playing around a lot more with my Saturn lately, I have to say that the Saturn's RGB picture quality is criminally under appreciated. Saturn and Dreamcast have the most flawless analog RGB image quality. Sega wasn't playing around with RGB output from their machines. They're output is fucking god tier.

I mean... Just look at this shit: http://youtu.be/MqgDvGe3q80

Do you see that? It's fucking incredible. Just absolutely perfect. It's RGB valhalla. No massaging, no further modding, or tweaking. It's just reference level right from the source. Boom, one and done.
 
Got the saturn and the RGB cable but apparently the adapter that comes with the XRGB mini doesn't work with the SCART cable?
The adapter that comes with the XRGB-mini isn't SCART. It's JP21.

If you'd plugged that cable into an XRGB3, you'd have broken the XRGB3. Fortunately, the Mini is smarter about this.
 
The adapter that comes with the XRGB-mini isn't SCART. It's JP21.

If you'd plugged that cable into an XRGB3, you'd have broken the XRGB3. Fortunately, the Mini is smarter about this.

whoa, yikes! lol

People say that they can't imagine RGB being that much better than composite on Saturn. I just have to kind of laugh at that. There's still a night and day leap between the 2 outputs on Saturn.

After playing around a lot more with my Saturn lately, I have to say that the Saturn's RGB picture quality is criminally under appreciated. Saturn and Dreamcast have the most flawless analog RGB image quality. Sega wasn't playing around with RGB output from their machines. They're output is fucking god tier.

I mean... Just look at this shit: http://youtu.be/MqgDvGe3q80

Do you see that? It's fucking incredible. Just absolutely perfect. It's RGB valhalla. No massaging, no further modding, or tweaking. It's just reference level right from the source. Boom, one and done.

Good stuff. I want a dreamcast RGB cable but they seem harder to come by.
 

Timu

Member
Saturn's RGB is amazing, I would know as I have a custom scart cable with audio out. Saturn's composite still has that ugly rainbow coloring on text and such.

Most Dreamcast games support VGA(the best for that system), and some can even be patched to support it. Only a few don't support VGA but can do everything else, list here.

As for Dreamcast Scart cables, well, here's one.
 

Krelian

Member
I bought a loose Japanese Saturn a couple of days ago. It was cheap so I figured I could get some cables later. To my surprise the loose console wasn't quite as loose as I thought. There's a Scart cable installed already:
wp_20160304_21_24_06_w2je2.jpg

Has anybody seen a mod like this before? I've never heard of it. I tried to find out if the Cable is RGB or composite and judging from PIN layouts I found on the internet I think it's RGB, but I'm not sure:
Unfortunately I can't test it yet because I'm missing a step down converter (I'm in Europe). Maybe I should open the console to see how the cable's connected exactly? One thing's for sure, though, I have to clean the connector :p
 

televator

Member
I bought a loose Japanese Saturn a couple of days ago. It was cheap so I figured I could get some cables later. To my surprise the loose console wasn't quite as loose as I thought. There's a Scart cable installed already:


Has anybody seen a mod like this before? I've never heard of it. I tried to find out if the Cable is RGB or composite and judging from PIN layouts I found on the internet I think it's RGB, but I'm not sure:

Unfortunately I can't test it yet because I'm missing a step down converter (I'm in Europe). Maybe I should open the console to see how the cable's connected exactly? One thing's for sure, though, I have to clean the connector :p

It's likely, or rather certainly, JP21. Not Scart. It's super weird someone bother to do that. All that is needed in JP21 cable with a Saturn lead.
 

Galdelico

Member
Ages ago, I saw a Japanese Mega Drive 1 coming with a similar cable, straight out of the back of the chassis. In that case, though, the video signal was total crap... Unstable, full of static and color distortions.
 

Krelian

Member
It's likely, or rather certainly, JP21. Not Scart. It's super weird someone bother to do that. All that is needed in JP21 cable with a Saturn lead.
Thanks. Yeah, it's really weird. So I guess I need an adapter to hook it up to my TV. Though maybe I should just use the standard AV out and a different cable.
 

MikeMyers

Member
Finally got to play Golden Axe: Revenge of Death Adder at a barcade I went to yesterday and now am salty Sega didn't port it to the Saturn.

SEGA :(
 

IrishNinja

Member
Finally got to play Golden Axe: Revenge of Death Adder at a barcade I went to yesterday and now am salty Sega didn't port it to the Saturn.

SEGA :(

SO JELLY
its at the top of my sega arcade list to play one day (Moonwalker, ESWAT etc), i'd stay till i beat it for sure. so tragic!

i was lucky enough to get to beat Planet Harriers a few years back, though
 

MikeMyers

Member
Yeah I think I spent like over $5 on credits.

Funny thing is, whenever I go to an arcade, my friend always says "we're in Sega's domain now."
 
Get a Toro VGA box instead for the DC. It has Native RGB Scart on it which supports 480p where as the native DC RGB Scart cables don't.

I use my Toro with VGA out into my PVM, are there any benefits for using the RGB SCART output instead? And are there specific SCART cables that people use? My understanding is it's different from HDMI cables, where every cable is essentially identical..even the overpriced Monster cables and such
 
I use my Toro with VGA out into my PVM, are there any benefits for using the RGB SCART output instead? And are there specific SCART cables that people use? My understanding is it's different from HDMI cables, where every cable is essentially identical..even the overpriced Monster cables and such

If your pvm takes vga there is no point in using scart. Scart is a universal connector that can carry all forms of video. The actual video output we are looking for when using scart is RGBs.

SCARTand VGA cables are analog and there is a large difference between cables. Always buy good cables when dealing with analog signals. Hdmi is digital and less susceptible to noise/interference.




Very much a "kitchen sink" sort of game - everything about the presentation was incredible.

How did sega have so much talented devs and artists back then?

Sega fucking killed it with software development. It's a shame that Sega hardware eventually tanked the entire ship.
 

televator

Member
I use my Toro with VGA out into my PVM, are there any benefits for using the RGB SCART output instead? And are there specific SCART cables that people use? My understanding is it's different from HDMI cables, where every cable is essentially identical..even the overpriced Monster cables and such

No real advantage to going Scart over VGA if your monitor accept both. In some ways, Scart is a step down from VGA. VGA has discrete Hsync and Vsync lines and supports higher resolutions in most devices. The only thing that can be an issue how you monitor handles 720 horizontal lines from PC formatted 480p.

The dreamcast spits out a 720x480 frame with an active 640x480 area. Some TVs might recognize that incorrectly and not scale horizontally properly - leaving some folks with a squished horizontal picture. On an HDTV like a late Panasonic Plasma one has to be sure to set the image to 4:3 rather than full or vice-versa... Can't remember how it goes off the top of my head.
 
Anyone here have experience with the Rhea? I'm curious as to how the user experience is on that thing.


I have one. It does what it says. I also have a gdemu for my dreamcast and the 2 are very different.


Installation was a breeze.


Rhea has no GUI. You can have multiple image files on a card but you must flip through them with the button on the Rhea board. I personally keep 2 games on the SD card and the rest I transfer to and from the computer.

Rhea does not increase load speed like a GDEMU. Your experience will be identical to using a disc.

Rhea does work with an action replay cart the same way you would use a disc.

Rhea is very picky with image format. I use UltraISO to convert/rip into MDF format.

On the topic of images; there are alot of garbage images out there for download. Any issue you run into will most likely be from this. Rip your own discs to avoid any issues. Alot of images run in an emulator because emulators can cheat/force there way through issues. Real hardware cannot do that.

Overall I love my Rhea. I've had it for approximately a year and have had no issues.
 

Galdelico

Member
^ Thumbs up, dude. It would be super helpful, imo, to have similar hints in every retroconsole-related appreciation/collecting thread. ;)
 

StevieWhite

Member
I have one. It does what it says. I also have a gdemu for my dreamcast and the 2 are very different.


Installation was a breeze.


Rhea has no GUI. You can have multiple image files on a card but you must flip through them with the button on the Rhea board. I personally keep 2 games on the SD card and the rest I transfer to and from the computer.

Rhea does not increase load speed like a GDEMU. Your experience will be identical to using a disc.

Rhea does work with an action replay cart the same way you would use a disc.

Rhea is very picky with image format. I use UltraISO to convert/rip into MDF format.

On the topic of images; there are alot of garbage images out there for download. Any issue you run into will most likely be from this. Rip your own discs to avoid any issues. Alot of images run in an emulator because emulators can cheat/force there way through issues. Real hardware cannot do that.

Overall I love my Rhea. I've had it for approximately a year and have had no issues.

This is extremely helpful - thank you!
 

KC-Slater

Member
I have one. It does what it says. I also have a gdemu for my dreamcast and the 2 are very different.


Installation was a breeze.


Rhea has no GUI. You can have multiple image files on a card but you must flip through them with the button on the Rhea board. I personally keep 2 games on the SD card and the rest I transfer to and from the computer.

Rhea does not increase load speed like a GDEMU. Your experience will be identical to using a disc.

Rhea does work with an action replay cart the same way you would use a disc.

Rhea is very picky with image format. I use UltraISO to convert/rip into MDF format.

On the topic of images; there are alot of garbage images out there for download. Any issue you run into will most likely be from this. Rip your own discs to avoid any issues. Alot of images run in an emulator because emulators can cheat/force there way through issues. Real hardware cannot do that.

Overall I love my Rhea. I've had it for approximately a year and have had no issues.

I also have both a Rhea and a GDEMU, and can confirm everything socksfelloff stated, with one exception. The Rhea does have a GUI, in the form of a very basic menu. It's simple and works well. As was noted above, Rhea is extremely picky about images formats, and the optional menu is even more so, only supporting .CDI and MDF formats, in my experience.

A couple of other notes; you can bypass region with the Rhea, allowing you to play imports without further console modification (and freeing up your cart slot for other uses). There is also the option to turn on a 'high speed' SD Card transfer option, potentially decreasing load-times, but I haven't messed around with that yet. Both of these options are available by adding a simple text-file on to your SD Card.
 
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