NormalFish
Banned
XRGB FM Coming in tomorrow or monday (assuming no weekend delivery, I can't figure out what it is now since we got a package last sunday). Pretty pumped. Got everything else I need already.
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Upscalers, CRTs, PVMs & RGB: Retro gaming done right!
- Thread starter IrishNinja
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sixteen-bit
Member
I assume you looked at the Bandridge already?
I took a couple of hits for the team to research this. I tried out a very cheap ~$35 Portta upscaler and a more expensive one from Coosis (~$75). The Portta one did its job and was reasonably lag free but screwed up aspect ratio and still deinterlaced 240p. The Coosis one preserved aspect ratio but had even worse deinterlacing artifacts and lag to boot. End result: I now own a Framemeister. The difference in image quality and feature set is night and day, and given the relative weakness of the yen recently, it's the cheapest it's ever been to import.
You'll be safe with any switch box that doesn't come with it's own cabling.
This is good:
This isn't:
Scart problems are with the cables, a box without cable shouldn't have any problem. You just need a solid Scart cable to connect your box to your TV. Something like this http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000MMONQ8/ is good, you want them to be sturdy and thick, it's an indication of individual shielding. Additional props if it has a ferrite bead. Finally you don't want it longer than needed.
I browsed Amazon for a bit and there seems to be some shortage of 5way switch boxes, I could only find 3ways. Mind you these things come and go. If it doesn't bother you you can safely daisy chain them. As long as the cable between them is good you shouldn't have any problem.
Hey thanks for the advice, he called me back asking me to make him an offer and i told him i'd have to think about it so i'll call him back and offer $100 and try to get it around $125.
I would definitely get the Bandridge if I could find it available!
You'll be safe with any switch box that doesn't come with it's own cabling.
This is good:
This isn't:
Scart problems are with the cables, a box without cable shouldn't have any problem. You just need a solid Scart cable to connect your box to your TV. Something like this http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000MMONQ8/ is good, you want them to be sturdy and thick, it's an indication of individual shielding. Additional props if it has a ferrite bead. Finally you don't want it longer than needed.
I browsed Amazon for a bit and there seems to be some shortage of 5way switch boxes, I could only find 3ways. Mind you these things come and go. If it doesn't bother you you can safely daisy chain them. As long as the cable between them is good you shouldn't have any problem.
Thanks for the advice, I was close to settling for one of those crappy wired ones.
Daisy chaining might be the way I have to go. I really did want an auto switch though.
My setup makes it difficult to reach a button every time I want to play a different console.
baphomet
Member
You should be more concerned that those run voltage into consoles not even plugged in. It can very easily damage them.
They're good. Automatic are better, it's one less button to push.
The problem with basic boxes is that they are splitter boxes, not switch boxes. The way Scart is designed means you are sending current to the other devices, making them somewhat run underpowered if they themselves are also incorrectly designed (most are). Also, the provided cable is always cheap and unshielded, which can lead to a fuzzy image and buzzing sound.
That's very interesting. I have no idea what this means! Do you possibly have a resource that explains this?
This. I tested one out once and wondered why my Saturn had the power light on. Tried to turn it off but it was already off. Tried to unplug it but it was already unplugged. Scary!
NormalFish
Banned
That's not electricity, that's a ghost.
There is no Peagles. There is only Zuul.
baphomet
Member
Exactly what peagles said. Those have nothing stopping the 5/12 volts from running into everything plugged into those things through the scart cable. So much it can actually power the system, not plugged into the wall, just from the voltage that's being sent through its av out.
I don't need to say that it isn't good for your console.
Well, I also guess it's a capacitor wearing out. I would check two specific high
critical ones. The first one (on the second side of the power supplier
transformer) which turns 120VAC (~15kHz, driving the horizontal deflection
plates) into DC leading to a 120VDC (B+) supplier for the plates. The
capacitor which is coupled with the rectifying diode to actually produce the
DC voltage is very likely to wear out. In the worst case the screen would
start to wobble horizontally to a large degree. Since it wobbles only a
fraction it's possible that the capacitor doesn't charge to its fullest any
more. However, there is a catch. If the capacitor is wearing out, the voltage
B+ will drop. There is a special unit in the power supply which monitors this
voltage drop (indirectly). If it drops, it will increase the voltage to bring
B+ to the required level again. And due to the wearing out capacitor, this
process of increasing the voltage each time is an oscillating one, which may
also explain the jittering on the screen. Well, there is another catch. The
monitoring circuit itself depends on an AC to DC conversion process which
utilizes a capacitor as well. If this one wears out with the other one in
good shape, the monitoring circuit will indicate a false positive, i.e a
voltage drop where there isn't one, increasing B+. This would also lead to
such jittering. These two capacitors need to be of very high quality. The
capacitor first mentioned is perhaps the one and only needing the highest
quality in the entire TV (next to those other two or three hanging also on the
second side of the power transformer).
Well, it could also be that the rippling DC voltage (called hum, or more
specific; geometric hum), could also come from the low-pass filter right next
to the rectifier stage producing B+, if such a filter does actually exists.
This filter also works with a capacitor. If this one fails, the ripples in B+
won't be diminished enough.
It can also be a combination of the two above.
Or none at all. 
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
Are you posting from some phone that just constantly fucks up your formatting or something?
You could just do the mod on it which involves cut just 1 trace?
Huggers
Member
This is good:
That's odd. I just bought this exact thing. See about 2 minutes into this vid; https://youtu.be/NOiyqjdboOs . Really pleased with it. Has saved me a lot of messing about. Especially as my monitor only has 2 input cards.
NormalFish
Banned
Got my Framemeister just a little while ago (like an hour) and I'm setting it up. So far I'm pretty happy. Certainly better than my fuzzy CRT. I've got a couple questions though which seem to be drowned out when searching via google.
1) Is there a preset that will effectively stretch the display window to full screen? I realize this isn't the best for image quality, and I won't always do this, but when I'm already playing on a relatively small screen, letterbox is a bit rough.
2) Can I set presets for different types of signal? All my settings seem to go "poof" when I go from 480p to 480i or what have you.
1) Is there a preset that will effectively stretch the display window to full screen? I realize this isn't the best for image quality, and I won't always do this, but when I'm already playing on a relatively small screen, letterbox is a bit rough.
2) Can I set presets for different types of signal? All my settings seem to go "poof" when I go from 480p to 480i or what have you.
NormalFish
Banned
using a Computer monitor, so my options aren't necessarily the standard for TVs. I'll look for that in a bit, though I'm busy at the moment.
Speedwagon
Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel. Yabuki turned off voice chat in Mario Kart races. True artists of their time.
I don't think so. It's a plasma TV. Assuming it doesn't, what would I need?
BONKERS
Member
Ah, well that makes sense.
If the signal is still being sent as a 16x9 one you may be SOL. My PC monitor lets me stretch 4:3 signals if I want, but not the other way around.
It's an ASUS, "Aspect Control" is the name of the setting
You're not going to see more or have a larger screen somehow. You're just going to warp the image and make everything fatter.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
NormalFish
Banned
There is something a little odd about buying an expensive upscaler to get a perfect picture.. and then stretching it
But I don't want to tell people how to game. To each their own.
I appreciate that. Like I said, I don't intend to do it all the time, just when I don't feel like bothering with things lol.
baphomet
Member
I don't believe the mini will let you stretch an image.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Fair enough.
If you have it on a bigger TV someday, I imagine you'll find that it's big enough in 4:3. On my 50" plasma it's almost too big!
Have a read through of the first post in this thread, it's a goldmine of info if you are wanting to get into RGB. For a modern TV without RGB SCART inputs you're probably looking at either picking up an upscaler or converting to component (provided your TV can accept 240p over component).
NormalFish
Banned
What I've done is tinker with the H/V_Pos and H/V_Width values, and this has effectively given me the size I want. There's some level of distortion, but honestly it isn't bad. The image quality issues I have are present even at 4:3 aspect ratio (though I'll admit they're somewhat more noticeable when stretched. Pretty happy with the way this turned out.
Thank you folks :]
**
Unrelated: Anyone have suggestions for an HDMI Splitter? Gonna need one for use with a capture card, and I'm not sure how to tell which are or are not shit. Seems to be minimal info (or my google-fu is rusty).
Quoting myself...
(*)
(**)
For the sake of completeness:Well, I also guess it's a capacitor wearing out. I would check two specific high
critical ones. The first one (on the second side of the power supplier
transformer) which turns 120VAC (~15kHz, driving the horizontal deflection
plates) into DC leading to a 120VDC (B+) supplier for the plates. The
capacitor which is coupled with the rectifying diode to actually produce the
DC voltage is very likely to wear out. In the worst case the screen would
start to wobble horizontally to a large degree. [**] Since it wobbles
only a fraction [*] it's possible that the capacitor doesn't charge to its
fullest any more. However, there is a catch. If the capacitor is wearing out,
the voltage B+ will drop. There is a special unit in the power supply which
monitors this voltage drop (indirectly). If it drops, it will increase the
voltage to bring B+ to the required level again. And due to the wearing out
capacitor, this process of increasing the voltage each time is an oscillating
one, which may also explain the jittering on the screen. Well, there is
another catch. The monitoring circuit itself depends on an AC to DC conversion
process which utilizes a capacitor as well. If this one wears out with the
other one in good shape, the monitoring circuit will indicate a false
positive, i.e a voltage drop where there isn't one, increasing B+. This would
also lead to such jittering. These two capacitors need to be of very high
quality. The capacitor first mentioned is perhaps the one and only needing the
highest quality in the entire TV (next to those other two or three hanging
also on the second side of the power transformer).
Well, it could also be that the rippling DC voltage (called hum, or more
specific; geometric hum), could also come from the low-pass filter right next
to the rectifier stage producing B+, if such a filter does actually exists.
This filter also works with a capacitor. If this one fails, the ripples in B+
won't be diminished enough.
It can also be a combination of the two above.Or none at all.
(*)
(**)
Later Alligator
Member
whats a 19" BVM worth?
someone trying to sell one for $400 on kijiji in my area. what should i offer?
to add to this.. i already have a framemeister. so i dont really need it, but would be nice to have for another room or below my big tv
someone trying to sell one for $400 on kijiji in my area. what should i offer?
to add to this.. i already have a framemeister. so i dont really need it, but would be nice to have for another room or below my big tv
NormalFish
Banned
I'm not as knowledgeable as other people on the board, but it seems to be that about 200$ would be a more reasonable price. These monitors -- on release -- were super expensive, so I think a lot of sellers don't want to admit how much they've depreciated. Kinda hard to value them, too, since they're such a niche market at this point.
Later Alligator
Member
got it, thanks.. checking out ebay and such, the $200 range seems to be about the norm. I've got him down to 225, just checking if it has any geometry issues, etc...
TerryLee81
Member
I have a question which may fit into this topic:
Did we folks here in PAL land play all our SNES, N64, GC games etc. in 50hz and not, as they were intended, in 60hz? So all our games ran slower?
Did we folks here in PAL land play all our SNES, N64, GC games etc. in 50hz and not, as they were intended, in 60hz? So all our games ran slower?
Yes.
Even those which were "PAL-optimised" usually just had their music or screen ajusted, but the gameplay was kept slow. For ex: Aladdin on the Megadrive, Sonic 2 on the Megadrive and Master System. Switching them to 60Hz can make a mess.
A tiny fraction of them were properly optimised, like Sega Rally on Saturn which has the proper gameplay and music speed, and added screen estate.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Hearing about PAL gaming always makes me sad.
It would suck that the market of old games around me was made up of slightly inferior copies. Yeah you can import them from America or Japan but that takes effort and money.
It would suck that the market of old games around me was made up of slightly inferior copies. Yeah you can import them from America or Japan but that takes effort and money.
Actually most of the time you don't need to. The games are most often the same worldwide, the console being the one forcing the resolution and speed. This is why you can mod switch most console to recover the original speed and resolution of your games.
One obvious offender being the Playstation: the region settings are burnt onto the disks, while the consoles themselves are international (except for the region lock.) With this one you need to mod chip the console itself to get rid of the region-lock AND import the disks to get the proper speed.
Speedwagon
Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel. Yabuki turned off voice chat in Mario Kart races. True artists of their time.
Hm I don't think I need an upscaler. Just want to connect my N64 to my Plasma via RGB. After I have my N64 RGB modded, would the official Nintendo component cable work? Probably not the most cost effective, but just wondering.
don't you mean RGB cable?
there's only Component cables for GC and Wii and those definitely don't work on N64.
D.Lo
Member
That's not entirely true.
Yes, that's all the optimisation Sega ever did, they were particularly bad. Until the Saturn actually, when Sega started to optimise well on some mid-gem titles (VF2 was great). Sony was also almost universally awful, almost no games on any Sony consoles were ever PAL optimised (until the PS3 where it became HD and irrelevant). Strange how PAL territories overall embraced the companies that treated them the worst, optimisation wise (goes to show that most people don't even notice).
80% of Nintendo first party games were speed and music optimised on all consoles, all the way back to Super Mario Bros, Metroid and Zelda. ALL SNES games had the correct music speed, because the sound chip ran on a separate clock, and quite a lot had resolution adjustments to fill the screen and speed adjustments. There were some odd exceptions, like the half optimised Kirby's Adventure, and a few early N64 games like Wave Race. And many N64 3rd party games were too. PAL GCN games almost universally had a 60Hz option, though unfortunately it replaced the progressive scan option. Some GCN games (e.g. Metroid Prime 1) the PAL version is the best because it runs at a higher resolution - it's a true 576i, with 20% more lines rendered on screen.
Overall a mixed bag, and PAL is not how the games were originally designed so I don't use it at all anymore (except the odd GCN). But Nintendo truly treated PAL by far the best in terms of optimisation.
Speedwagon
Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel. Yabuki turned off voice chat in Mario Kart races. True artists of their time.
Well the GC one is the same connector as the N64 so I thought it might work. Initially it wouldn't work, but isn't that what the RGB mod is for?
that's still a RGB cable, not Component cable. they are different.
the cables that have the same plug on N64 and GC are RGB cables.
besides, i think the official GC RGB cable needs to be modified to be used on a RGB modded N64. i read something about that when i got my RGB N64 but didn't look too much into it because i got a cable that plugs in the Framemeister instead since i went that route.
RGB and Component are two completely different things.
Speedwagon
Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel. Yabuki turned off voice chat in Mario Kart races. True artists of their time.
Okay. So would it work?
edit: ninja'd
I don't want to use an upscaler since I don't want any additional input lag added on my Plasma. The XRGB is supposed to have low input lag, but I don't think my TV has VGA.
No.
See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAlrdCBjUAQ
And VGA is yet another thing, different from RGB and Component.
it was just an example to show the cable was different.
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