Micomsoft SC-500N1 RGB Capture Card

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AndehX
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Re: Micomsoft SC-500N1 RGB Capture Card

Post by AndehX »

Heres a video to show whats happening with my Gamecube.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/625zblaa8s01t ... d.mp4?dl=0

I've noticed that weird red distortion at the top is only present in the top field. If I discard the top field and only display the bottom field, that distortion is gone completely.
The image is perfect on my BVM, so I have no idea whats going on.
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unmaker
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Re: Micomsoft SC-500N1 RGB Capture Card

Post by unmaker »

So I'm stumped. Cannot get my SC-500N1 to work on my new PC which is running Windows 10 Home even though it worked perfectly fine on my older PC that was running Windows 10 Home. I've tried most of the drivers, different PCIe slots, reformatted my PC, nothing works. My motherboard detects the card but refuses to do anything with it. Really disappointed as I want this to work on my new PC since my old PC could barely handle 720p capture.

Image

"UPDATE"

Finally got it after about 7 hours of trying. I swapped my graphics card to another PCIe16 slot and put the PEXHDCAP in the PCIe16 slot that was being used. Now it works with every driver version that I've tried (108,126,140,160). Hopefully this info could be of some help to someone else.
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AndehX
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Re: Micomsoft SC-500N1 RGB Capture Card

Post by AndehX »

Yeah I was about to say. Issues with devices being unable to start, is usually down to bus congestion or IRQ allocation. Swapping the card around into different ports is usually the easiest way to fix issues like this.

Im currently using the 108 driver. Gives the best image for 240p and 480i
Thrill
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Re: Micomsoft SC-500N1 RGB Capture Card

Post by Thrill »

http://micomsoft.co.jp/sc-512n1.htm 168 was released last week.

Pretty much confirmed they are no longer supporting old game capture and to "buy a framemeister" smh.
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AndehX
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Re: Micomsoft SC-500N1 RGB Capture Card

Post by AndehX »

That's fine. Let them do what they want. The 108 driver works fine for 480i and 240p.
NightSprinter
Posts: 225
Joined: Thu May 02, 2013 2:24 pm

Re: Micomsoft SC-500N1 RGB Capture Card

Post by NightSprinter »

Ok, so this is extremely strange. I'm using the new drivers on the Micomsoft page for the SC-512, and amazingly my 15KHz consoles over RGB work fine. I haven't gotten my Atari STE to work in hi-res 640x400 mode (anyone have an idea on that, or is it just something the 512 alone can do?), but everything else seemed to work wonderfully. The picture looked fine and everything.
bytesaber
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Re: Micomsoft SC-500N1 RGB Capture Card

Post by bytesaber »

I have been using the StarTech PEXHDCAP60L with some testing. So far I'd say it's a really good card.

There are some questions about all of this that I still don't comprehend? Is this an appropriate group to ask?

How does one determine if a hardware encoder is available on a capture card? Far as I know, neither of the two capture cards I am testing with have any hardware encoders. Is this correct?
StarTech PEXHDCAP60L (rebadged Micomsoft SC-512N1-L/DVI)
AverMedia C027.

Why are some applications able to record in x264, without me installing the x264 codec?

I have played with the usual OBS, Xsplit, AmarecTV. Also vendor supplied software such as Stream Catcher (from StarTech) and Aver MediaCenter 3D. Other than AmarecTV, they were all capable of recording game play and encoded video on the fly into x264 in an mkv or mp4 container (and other formats). It did not bury my CPU. As far as I know, my GPU was not used.

Why did AmarecTV not offer this, until I installed the K-Lite codec mega pack?

After installing the codec pack, AmerecTV offered x264. Why did choosing that bury my CPU? (1st gen Core i7). The other applications using x264 did not push my CPU beyond 30%

Does this mean applications such as OBS have their own version of the codec already compiled in?

Any general advise for recording and archiving gameplay? Record lossless and encode after? Encode on the fly and be happy?

Can multi channel audio be bit streamed and saved into the video?

Can GPU or encoder chip load be monitored the same as a CPU can be?

Thank you experts and fellow geeks.
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evilsim
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Re: Micomsoft SC-500N1 RGB Capture Card

Post by evilsim »

I just gave in and bought the Startech PEXHDCAP60L card like so many here. I ended up using the .140 driver on W10 Pro x64 to get the best out of the card for my use (lots of old consoles + my OSSC or Framemeister via the DVI-D port).

Using Amarec 2.31 I get a good picture with little lag on my Sony TV or very low lag DELL 22" lcd. I still have not figured out how to get the best setup for recording to h264 avi files, but I'll get there.

All of my retro consoles have worked and correctly reported 240p, via RGB or component, but I did have to un-solder the J2 on my E-Tim av-driver on my pc-engine jap white console, to get it to sync properly (eg TTL sync, not 75R sync). This is due to the Startech having pulldown 75R resistors on almost all of its input pins eg R/G/B/s etc. The OSSC and Framemeister are not so picky with sync.. The latest startech drivers report 480i as the signal - incorrectly.

Very happy with my purchase at this point - this long forum post has been very helpful ; so thanks too all who've contributed :mrgreen:
( /me puts his C027 Avermedia in a drawer )
bytesaber
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Re: Micomsoft SC-500N1 RGB Capture Card

Post by bytesaber »

Any more you can tell us on why you went with .140 driver? I just installed what came with the card. .168 I think. I also have used the Yaun .170 driver.
NightSprinter
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Re: Micomsoft SC-500N1 RGB Capture Card

Post by NightSprinter »

Sort of a dumb question, but has anyone tested the SC512 with DOS games? I just want confirmation if it can accept output from such (including games that switch to/from 60Hz tweaked ModeX games), as I heard.
Mr.Broken
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Re: Micomsoft SC-500N1 RGB Capture Card

Post by Mr.Broken »

I recently bought a PEXHDCAP60L the picture quality seems quite nice but i seem to run into some kind of bug.

First day i used it the card performed well, i could capture and stream 60fps rgb signals from ps2 and dreamcast, after rebooting my pc the card doesnt capture in 60 fps anymore....doesnt make any sense at all, didnt change anything in the settings/drivers yet it just captures at 29.97fps.

In the device input settings the signal gets correctly (?) interpreted as 720 x 480I @ 59.94fps. I tried installing different drivers but to no affect. What could be the source of this problem?

The hardware seems to have a mind of his own and it wont bend to my will to capture anything in 60fps :(
At this point I wasted like 6 hours trying to find a fix but nothing seems to work, feels like a big waste of money and time.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.

Edit: After multiple restarts and different drivers im able to capture 240p Signals at 60fps but still no luck with 480i content via rgb
Does anyone have the same issues with 480I? Is there a driver that does rgb 240p and 480i 60fps?

Edit2: Thanks NJRoadfan, based on your information i found a way to capture all my consoles in 60fps.
Gsm resolution selector allows me to force most ps2 content in 240p and for dreamcast capturing i will use a vga box.
Last edited by Mr.Broken on Tue Apr 04, 2017 3:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
NJRoadfan
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Re: Micomsoft SC-500N1 RGB Capture Card

Post by NJRoadfan »

Interlaced content (480i) should be capturing at 29.97fps. Only natively progressive content (240p and 480p) should be capturing at 59.94fps.
donhonk
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Re: Micomsoft SC-500N1 RGB Capture Card

Post by donhonk »

Why didnt I know this card didnt work on X99... :\ It freezes after having like 30 seconds of video feed.
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AndehX
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Re: Micomsoft SC-500N1 RGB Capture Card

Post by AndehX »

So it's been a while. Has there been any significant updates or changes to this card?
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AndehX
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Re: Micomsoft SC-500N1 RGB Capture Card

Post by AndehX »

What I've discovered is that the 140.7 Yuan driver would be the perfect driver if it didn't break interlaced video (field order is incorrectly reversed or something). It has "Auto resolution scaling" so games that switch between 480 and 240 on the fly would be no problem.

The Micomsoft 108 driver seems to be the best one of them all as 480i interlaced and 240p seems to work fine. It doesn't however, have the "Auto resolution scaling" option though, so if a 240p game switches to 480i, it will look all stretched and warped, forcing you to manually switch the card to 480i. Hopefully someday a driver will exist that will combine the pro's of both of these drivers.....
Licentious Howler
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Re: Micomsoft SC-500N1 RGB Capture Card

Post by Licentious Howler »

Hey there, I hope I haven't missed anything stupidly obvious in my research, but I'm having some trouble with a SC-512n1-l/DVI capture card (with passthrough, if that matters). Also, I apologize if there's a SC-512 thread I should have posted this in!
The issue is that when I install a driver, Windows seems to become fundamentally unstable and freezes (or STOP errors) at random intervals, but seemingly more often when the card is in use.

I have heard that Startech drivers are usually more stable, but Startech drivers do not support 240p capture (except maybe some really old ones???) which is something I'd prefer to keep but probably can work around in most cases (I have an XRGB-3 and Framemeister).

The drivers I had been using came directly from Micomsoft from here http://www.micomsoft.co.jp/sc-512n1.htm but appear to be made by Yuan-Tech.
The random crashing seems to be a fairly common issue, but the details seem to be muddled. Some people seem to think that if you install a "crashy" driver you need to nuke the whole operating system, which is why the going has been slow for me. : \
I have installed the two drivers above on Windows 10 and 7 with the same results.

So I guess my questions would be 2 simple ones:

-Firstly, does anybody know about this driver issue? Any general advice or common pitfalls to avoid?

-Secondly, does anybody know where I can find older drivers for testing? Startech and Micomsoft only host newer ones, Yuan-Tech doesn't seem to host any of them anymore, and while "TheThrillness" drivers should only apply to Startech versions of these cards, even that site seems to have been nuked from the web.

Thanks for any advice! I'm so close to getting this awesome piece of hardware working!

Relevant specs and software:
-Asus X370 Prime-Pro
-AMD Ryzen 5 1600
-8 GB DDR4 2400
-AMD Radeon R7 260 (Adrenaline 18.3.4)
-HT Omega Fenix (listed because I used it for audio capture)
-Windows 10 Home (x64), Windows 7 Professional (x64)
-OBS 2.1.1
Licentious Howler
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Joined: Fri Apr 08, 2016 7:44 am

Re: Micomsoft SC-500N1 RGB Capture Card

Post by Licentious Howler »

I just wanted to update this to say that the plot has thickened.

Basically, I am almost certain that there is a difference between the freezing that I had been observing up until now and the blue screen/STOP errors I had encountered with the newest Micomsoft driver exclusively (the old 140 one only appeared to cause freezes--no blue screens), as after doing even more testing I have discovered that even the newest Startech driver causes the PC to freeze, but no blue screens.

I'm afraid maybe it's just something about the platform that this is running on that doesn't agree with the card, or perhaps the other hardware or drivers like the sound card or GPU.
I have a brother with an old Z-97 motherboard and i5 4690k that I may be able to swap with this stuff and test with. Hopefully that will give me some results.

In case it is useful for anybody else who may happen upon this issue, the "freezing" I'm referring to here is unique because often the CPU can recover from it now and then (but it still messes up the recording/stream), but it renders the computer unable to read input devices for fractions of a second or more (or seemingly infinitely) and seemingly completely halts the CPU--the audio gets stuck in a very short and fairly loud loop for the duration of the freeze, and only seems to occur when OBS is open and the capture card active.
squarealex
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Joined: Sun Oct 18, 2015 11:54 am

Re: Micomsoft SC-500N1 RGB Capture Card

Post by squarealex »

Licentious Howler wrote:Hey there, I hope I haven't missed anything stupidly obvious in my research, but I'm having some trouble with a SC-512n1-l/DVI capture card (with passthrough, if that matters). Also, I apologize if there's a SC-512 thread I should have posted this in!
The issue is that when I install a driver, Windows seems to become fundamentally unstable and freezes (or STOP errors) at random intervals, but seemingly more often when the card is in use.

I have heard that Startech drivers are usually more stable, but Startech drivers do not support 240p capture (except maybe some really old ones???) which is something I'd prefer to keep but probably can work around in most cases (I have an XRGB-3 and Framemeister).

The drivers I had been using came directly from Micomsoft from here http://www.micomsoft.co.jp/sc-512n1.htm but appear to be made by Yuan-Tech.
The random crashing seems to be a fairly common issue, but the details seem to be muddled. Some people seem to think that if you install a "crashy" driver you need to nuke the whole operating system, which is why the going has been slow for me. : \
I have installed the two drivers above on Windows 10 and 7 with the same results.

So I guess my questions would be 2 simple ones:

-Firstly, does anybody know about this driver issue? Any general advice or common pitfalls to avoid?

-Secondly, does anybody know where I can find older drivers for testing? Startech and Micomsoft only host newer ones, Yuan-Tech doesn't seem to host any of them anymore, and while "TheThrillness" drivers should only apply to Startech versions of these cards, even that site seems to have been nuked from the web.

Thanks for any advice! I'm so close to getting this awesome piece of hardware working!

Relevant specs and software:
-Asus X370 Prime-Pro
-AMD Ryzen 5 1600
-8 GB DDR4 2400
-AMD Radeon R7 260 (Adrenaline 18.3.4)
-HT Omega Fenix (listed because I used it for audio capture)
-Windows 10 Home (x64), Windows 7 Professional (x64)
-OBS 2.1.1
I know, I comming late, but that's pretty crazy if we do nuke the whole OS.
I have twice the same thing... "CPU 100% bug" even with newer driver.. and even if I change the driver on Windows 10 or use System Restore.

I came with a lot Driver (older, newer) wich people can test and claim who the best for the newest OS. (With all input working).

https://mega.nz/#!7gxnFKAD!kI0S18sODBGq ... eDKA-4LTzo

Today VGA is still broken.

I going to test wich Old Driver works with Windows 10 1903.
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