PC Engine RGB jailbars, let us find a working solution

[Fudoh]

Classic white one. My IFU is a IFU-30A.

mine too - both.

What game/program are you using to show the banding ?

always the very first level of New Adventure Island. Just start running and you'll immediately notice the banding on the light blue sky.

Any other fixes to your PCE ? RF unit removed/disabled ? Capacitor mod to the graphics chip to reduce banding ?

[rtw]

always the very first level of New Adventure Island. Just start running and you'll immediately notice the banding on the light blue sky.

Any other fixes to your PCE ? RF unit removed/disabled ? Capacitor mod to the graphics chip to reduce banding ?

Tested New Adventure Island. I do not see any banding or I do not see any obvious banding.

Tomorrow I will take my XCAPTURE-MINI and record the start of New Adventure Island and post it for your scrutiny.

No mod done to the PCE. Unit is PI-TG001

[Fudoh]

Amazing - really! I've been fighting this RGB mod for a decade now. With the white PCE I also get a lot of (video-) noise on the Framemeister.

When you say GND and 5V is taken from the 7805, what's that 7805 exactly ? On my mod GND and 5V are taken from the EXT port as well and I would certainly love to change that to your configuration.

[Artemio]

The 7805 is a voltage regulator: http://potentiallabs.com/cart/image/cac ... 00x416.jpg

That image shows how it looks like and the pins for 5v and ground

[Fudoh]

excellent! rtw, just waiting for your video and I'll give it a try after that

[ApolloBoy]

When you say GND and 5V is taken from the 7805, what's that 7805 exactly ?

All that technical knowledge and you still didn't know what a 7805 is? Wow.

[Pasky]

LoL.

The 7805 is the linear voltage regulator Fudoh. You can feed it a higher voltage and it will output 5V and burn off the excess as heat.

[Artemio]

Here are basic measurements with the scope, please orient me in order to get better information. All images are available in full size if you click teh link and then the image at the site.

================
PC Engine Duo images:
================

Banding:



Composite video as sync @ line 80

Notice that the signal is slightly curved, was about the only difference I noticed.

Close up of the same line:


FFT of the full line:

Of course this is still composite video, a 3.6 Mhz dominant signal

Composite video in yellow vs Green channel in blue:

Closeup of the same line green vs composite video:


=============
TG-16 photos
=============

Composite video as sync:


TG-16 Green vs composite:



I expected less noise in the TG-16, and it seems to be more... unless the noise eliminates teh banding, I don't understand these result.

[Pasky]

Where do you suspect the interference is coming from? The composite video signal as sync? Or is it the green color line? Does disconnecting R, G, or B remove the banding? Or are you talking about banding in the composite video signal???

[CkRtech]

Long time since commenting on this one - I have a scope + one unmodded Turbo Duo + one unmodded TG16. I am not going to be around that stuff for another week, but I would probably do the following if I started scoping/comparing -

Using a multi-channel scope comparison of both systems simultaneously running the same software, I would shoot the breeze by looking for... -

1: Noisy power (at regulator and possibly voltage inputs of Hu chip)
2: Disconnecting a single color to see if banding disappears (as Pasky mentioned).
3: Comparing output of composite video as sync vs. composite sync as sync.
4: Comparing color output of each individual signal of both systems running Artemio's suite. (Run it on both consoles and scope Red from each console to the same scope and look for noise)
5: Changes in the signal after adding filter caps where mentioned elsewhere (I think maybe I linked to some places earlier in this thread?)
6: Changes after adding filter caps to all power inputs to the Hu chip.

Personally, I am curious as to what the output of the raw sync signal is without any sort of amping. I think most people just use composite video, but I think that the xrgb and take anything from 0.7v/1v up to 5V for the sync pulse.

My list above is just a bunch of guesswork and is not meant to demonstrate that I know what I am talking about.

[RGB32E]

Personally, I am curious as to what the output of the raw sync signal is without any sort of amping. I think most people just use composite video, but I think that the xrgb and take anything from 0.7v/1v up to 5V for the sync pulse.

Tim's AV-DRIVER has a sync buffer specifically tailored for the Hu6260 CSYNC output. I've observed zero banding when using the AV-DRIVER using PCE CSYNC. Pac-Land works really well for checking banding artifacts, as it has a lot of bright color fields along with black outlines.

[rtw]

As promised here are two videos from my setup

https://mega.co.nz/#!VUk1CZZK!IqqCseiNt ... YSEfG6-nT4
https://mega.co.nz/#!xclD2KZb!jLawSmmkF ... HPDdOBAGJc

Now tell me if I have banding or not...

edit: changed host

[Fudoh]

2nd video stops loading at about 23mb... but what I can see looks pretty good.

You got a sync dropout though in the Adventure Island video. There are certain games that will be unplayable on your setup. Do you have Ys 1/2 ? Try running the intro. Your setup should go berserk. To cure this you'll have to buffer the sync signal.

[RGB32E]

It would help if you disabled scanlines when checking for horizontal banding... I didn't notice any egregious banding in your scanlined video. What was the signal chain?

[rtw]

It would help if you disabled scanlines when checking for horizontal banding... I didn't notice any egregious banding in your scanlined video. What was the signal chain?

Oops, I can redo the video without scanlines...

[rtw]

Changed the hosting to: MEGA

@Fudoh
. At which point in the movie does it glitch ?
. Sorry no Ys 1/2 CDs around here, anything I can try in the HuCard department ?

Which Framemeister mode should I use when redoing the video: STANDARD ?

[Pasky]

Running it through a frame meister to test for artifacts is a bad test in my opinion. It can filter out some anomalies and noise since it's re-processing the signal. I had a genesis that would produce jailbars on my television and through my PEXHDcap but through the XRGB it looked fine. If you can, try to run it straight to the capture card.

[rtw]

Running it through a frame meister to test for artifacts is a bad test in my opinion. It can filter out some anomalies and noise since it's re-processing the signal. I had a genesis that would produce jailbars on my television and through my PEXHDcap but through the XRGB it looked fine. If you can, try to run it straight to the capture card.

Sorry all CRTs are gone, only one left is in my cab. This is my future, and it does not look too bad

The capture cart is connected to the HDMI output of the Framemeister, the card is an: XCAPTURE-MINI

Fudoh stated that he got artifacts on his Framemeister so that is what we are comparing

[Fudoh]

New Adventure Island is my primary test for sync dropouts on HuCards, while Ys in on CDs. The dropout can be seen at 0:11 right before you hit the snail under the cherry extra item. You can try to adjust the sync level on the Mini to get more (or fewer) dropouts.

The intro of Winds/Lords of Thunder can cause dropouts as well, but it's less messy than Ys1/2.

For 240p content like this set the Framemeister to PICTURE instead. Minimal filtering and processing.

[CkRtech]

Tim's AV-DRIVER has a sync buffer specifically tailored for the Hu6260 CSYNC output. I've observed zero banding when using the AV-DRIVER using PCE CSYNC. Pac-Land works really well for checking banding artifacts, as it has a lot of bright color fields along with black outlines.

Yeah! Still looking forward to this one.

[rtw]

New Adventure Island is my primary test for sync dropouts on HuCards, while Ys in on CDs. The dropout can be seen at 0:11 right before you hit the snail under the cherry extra item. You can try to adjust the sync level on the Mini to get more (or fewer) dropouts.

The intro of Winds/Lords of Thunder can cause dropouts as well, but it's less messy than Ys1/2.

For 240p content like this set the Framemeister to PICTURE instead. Minimal filtering and processing.

Here are the videos in PICTURE mode:

https://mega.co.nz/#!5ZUlkYaI!vA7s-j9md ... 2TMokAcH1s
https://mega.co.nz/#!lYkyXYIA!Yvxy66wXp ... WMEVO54LjQ

I still want to know if there is any banding

With banding out of the way I can start to worry about sync dropouts!

[Fudoh]

No visible banding for me

[rtw]

No visible banding for me

Thank you Fudoh, now I guess I have to order a Ys 1/2 to check my sync

Simple question, can I play a TG-16 CD-ROM on my Japanese IFU-30A setup ?

Looking forward to checking out viletim's adapter as well!

For reference I used pin C22 SYNCV (Composite Sync) as my source.

[Fudoh]

For reference I used pin C22 SYNCV (Composite Sync) as my source.

me too.

Simple question, can I play a TG-16 CD-ROM on my Japanese IFU-30A setup ?

sure, CDs on the PCE were region-free.

[rtw]

Thanks for all the help Fudoh!

One more question, did the colour levels look OK in the videos I posted ?

[Fudoh]

looks alright, but it's hard for me to tell. On my workstation here I use quite dimm brightness levels and a color temp of only 5000°K.

[rtw]

Only extra thing it needs a good quality multi gang (3+) potentiometer to adjust the video level (every PCB is a bit different). I bough a bag of 4 gang pots some time ago for this purpose, but the tolerance wasn't good enough. I'll see if I can get some samples from different suppliers to find something suitable.

viletim, did you manage to find any gang potentiometers with good enough tolerance ? I need one to step down some arcade RGB levels.

[rtw]

Acquired a YS 1 / 2 Japanese version.

Where exactly does the game go "berserk" with the Framemeister ?

Allowed it to run the intro and did not observe anything special.

There is a problem when starting the game. I select new game and then the screen shows "In the beginning" and then it hangs. After a while the CD-ROM menu apperars. I reset NVRAM on the unit but to no avail. Do I need a special Super System Card for this to work ?

Dumped the CD-ROM on my PC and was able to read all sectors so there is no issue with the disc... on my PC at least.

[Fudoh]

Acquired a YS 1 / 2 Japanese version.
Where exactly does the game go "berserk" with the Framemeister ?

right in the intro. Dark screen with the tower in blue light in the middle and lightning strikes around it. With the exact same dropouts as seen in your New Adventure Island video, just every second or so.

I found that this scene in Ys is more critical than anything else. Winds of Thunder after that and New Adventure Island after that.

Weird that you got no troubles running this, but still ocassional dropouts in other games.

When a CD game hangs, it can help to slightly tip on top of the CD lid. I encounter it sometimes. Doesn't matter if I use a hardly used or a well used CD drive.

[rtw]

right in the intro. Dark screen with the tower in blue light in the middle and lightning strikes around it. With the exact same dropouts as seen in your New Adventure Island video, just every second or so.

I found that this scene in Ys is more critical than anything else. Winds of Thunder after that and New Adventure Island after that.

I'll make a video at the next opportunity and post it for you all to inspect.

Weird that you got no troubles running this, but still ocassional dropouts in other games.

Might have missed it, but the video will confirm that.

When a CD game hangs, it can help to slightly tip on top of the CD lid. I encounter it sometimes. Doesn't matter if I use a hardly used or a well used CD drive.

You mean tap on top ?