RetroTINK 5x-Pro

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ldeveraux
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by ldeveraux »

768peeistrash wrote:^ I think it's likely peopel who are ps2 enthusiasts are gonna be all over the ps2digital that is supposed slated for q3 or q4 this year? according to a product roadmap of the pixelfx products (iirc)
Their record for actually releasing products when they intend to is spotty at best.
Sargon
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by Sargon »

I have been using an OSSC for many years and I'm a little late to the game on the RetroTINK 5x-Pro.

My question is, for someone who exclusively uses a scaler for 240p RGB SCART inputs (RGB-modded NES, Triple Bypass modded Genesis, Sega Saturn, Atari Jaguar) to HDMI out, is there any benefit to using the 5x over an OSSC?
Steven
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by Steven »

RT5X can do a 6x scale. I don't think the OSSC can do that, but I haven't used the OSSC since I got the RT5X.
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bobrocks95
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by bobrocks95 »

Sargon wrote:I have been using an OSSC for many years and I'm a little late to the game on the RetroTINK 5x-Pro.

My question is, for someone who exclusively uses a scaler for 240p RGB SCART inputs (RGB-modded NES, Triple Bypass modded Genesis, Sega Saturn, Atari Jaguar) to HDMI out, is there any benefit to using the 5x over an OSSC?
1440p vs 1200p, better scanline filters + HDR flagging to boost brightness, automatic sampling phase via selecting console+res in the menu, motion-adaptive deinterlacing for the rare 480i menu you'll run into, and non-integer scaling options if you want to fill more of your screen. Automatic sampling phase is the main thing I wish the OSSC had because I can never quite get it right.
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Josh128
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by Josh128 »

I can confirm that the RT5X Pro's 6X / 1440p mode will evenly scale 480p into 1440p using 2 monitor pixel rows for game lines and 1 monitor pixel row for blank/scanlines. Not sure if the OSSC can do that.
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Rock Man
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by Rock Man »

What are some good profile settings for the Original XBOX?
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Josh128
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by Josh128 »

Try this for a "Tate CRT" look for 480p content on 1080p display:

https://imgur.com/2feaePL

Try this for centered integer scaled 480p on 1080p display:

https://imgur.com/J6vyrL6


I personally really like the "Tate CRT" look for Gamecube 480p content.
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Steven
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by Steven »

Oh cool Gen Lock acts as a mute feature for my Saturn! My monitor doesn't have a mute button, so now I can be lazy and turn Gen Lock on instead of sitting there holding the volume down button for 5 seconds or unplugging the L and R audio things if I ever find a reason to mute my Saturn!
Shake Your Rump
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by Shake Your Rump »

Sargon wrote:My question is, for someone who exclusively uses a scaler for 240p RGB SCART inputs (RGB-modded NES, Triple Bypass modded Genesis, Sega Saturn, Atari Jaguar) to HDMI out, is there any benefit to using the 5x over an OSSC?
In my opinion, no. Not unless you have some sort of Brewster's Millions arrangement, where you need to spend as much money as possible.

I say this as someone who was content with his 240p setup, but allured by the 5x's preset optimal timings and CRT masks. It was not worth the cost to "upgrade".
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Guspaz
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by Guspaz »

It depends on your use case. It has more features on top of the OSSC for 240p than just automatic optimal timings and CRT masks. Even if you don't want to use it for 480i/480p content, the timing normalization greatly increases compatibility with TVs/displays/capture cards/etc that don't tolerate 240p console off-spec timing well (the SNES being notorious for this). You might also want to use the HDR feature to increase brightness when using BFI on your TV (or scanlines/CRT masks, since the OSSC can do the former but not with HDR). Or you might want the ability to get RGB and composite from the same console at the same time over a single cable, being able to switch between the two quickly with the remote, for scenarios where games lean really heavily on the composite blending (a lot of these on the Genesis).

Of course, I don't disagree that the more narrowly restricted your use case, the less additional value you're going to get from a 5X, the device's strong point is the versatility, being good at 240p/480i/480p all at the same time.
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Mykaizer
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by Mykaizer »

A silly question but how long do you think the 5x will stay relevant? Pretty ignorant on a lot of this stuff. Will it depend on the future of TVs? Will TVs eventually phase out 1080p? Guessing the 5x would be imcompatible with Tvs that only support 4k and up. But that would probably wouldn't be for a long time.

Bought a 5x and very happy with it but maybe I should have waited.
fernan1234
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by fernan1234 »

Mykaizer wrote:A silly question but how long do you think the 5x will stay relevant? Pretty ignorant on a lot of this stuff. Will it depend on the future of TVs? Will TVs eventually phase out 1080p? Guessing the 5x would be imcompatible with Tvs that only support 4k and up. But that would probably wouldn't be for a long time.

Bought a 5x and very happy with it but maybe I should have waited.
TVs are still supporting 480i... They do a horrible job with it, but they support it. 1080p support will be around for the rest of your lifetime as we go through 8k displays and beyond.
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Guspaz
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by Guspaz »

fernan1234 wrote:
Mykaizer wrote:A silly question but how long do you think the 5x will stay relevant? Pretty ignorant on a lot of this stuff. Will it depend on the future of TVs? Will TVs eventually phase out 1080p? Guessing the 5x would be imcompatible with Tvs that only support 4k and up. But that would probably wouldn't be for a long time.

Bought a 5x and very happy with it but maybe I should have waited.
TVs are still supporting 480i... They do a horrible job with it, but they support it. 1080p support will be around for the rest of your lifetime as we go through 8k displays and beyond.
TVs might support 480i, (and they actually do an incredible job with it, but with significant latency) but fewer and fewer of them support analog input, so their 480i support is effectively limited to OTA digital broadcasts.
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BuckoA51
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by BuckoA51 »

Indeed I'd agree deinterlacing quality varies quite a bit, but it's pretty much always tailored to video content rather than video games. As time goes on and standard definition gets rarer we can expect manufacturers to spend less effort and resources on 480i/576i too. As far as game deinterlacers go I don't think anything's as good as the RetroTINK 5x for videogames, even the Framemeister which does have a slightly nicer overall deinterlaced picture but more input lag.
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Guspaz
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by Guspaz »

I think deinterlacers will stick around as long as 1080i remains the near universal standard for broadcast video (at least in North America). Heck, they can't even get rid of MPEG-2 support since that's what all North American OTA broadcasts use.
ldeveraux
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by ldeveraux »

Guspaz wrote:I think deinterlacers will stick around as long as 1080i remains the near universal standard for broadcast video (at least in North America). Heck, they can't even get rid of MPEG-2 support since that's what all North American OTA broadcasts use.
1080i isn't STILL the default for NA HD broadcasts, is it? Honest question!
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TooBeaucoup
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by TooBeaucoup »

ldeveraux wrote:
Guspaz wrote:I think deinterlacers will stick around as long as 1080i remains the near universal standard for broadcast video (at least in North America). Heck, they can't even get rid of MPEG-2 support since that's what all North American OTA broadcasts use.
1080i isn't STILL the default for NA HD broadcasts, is it? Honest question!
1080i is still used by many networks, yes.

Many others use 720p.
ldeveraux
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by ldeveraux »

TooBeaucoup wrote:
ldeveraux wrote:
Guspaz wrote:I think deinterlacers will stick around as long as 1080i remains the near universal standard for broadcast video (at least in North America). Heck, they can't even get rid of MPEG-2 support since that's what all North American OTA broadcasts use.
1080i isn't STILL the default for NA HD broadcasts, is it? Honest question!
1080i is still used by many networks, yes.

Many others use 720p.
Yeesh, that's absurd.
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orange808
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by orange808 »

It's a bandwidth issue for cable providers. There's so much buried old cable and so many nodes to upgrade. Internet data has a ravenous appetite and it eats up fresh bandwidth immediately as upgrades roll. Every television box eats bandwidth, too. Finally, customers don't understand that the cable after the drop on their property belongs to them.

Wiring and plumbing on private property belong to the property owner in the United States. So, a massive upgrade would eventually ask customers to rewire their homes. Nobody understands that cable wire is wiring and it's your responsibility. It's just like any other wiring. The utility doesn't maintain your infrastructure after the "drop". You don't call the water utility when your pipe leaks.

Anyhow, there's no bandwidth on the wire without making changes. Of course, there's also the over the air broadcasting standards. Although, that's not the big roadblock for local stations in the US. Local stations make half their money (and sometimes more) on cable retransmission fees.

Sorry. Worked for a cable firm in a past life. I don't think broadcast video is going to change any time soon. Need better switching at the "bottom" nodes, but the trunk has to carry everything.
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ldeveraux
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by ldeveraux »

orange808 wrote:It's a bandwidth issue for cable providers. There's so much buried old cable and so many nodes to upgrade. Internet data has a ravenous appetite and it eats up fresh bandwidth immediately as upgrades roll. Every television box eats bandwidth, too. Finally, customers don't understand that the cable after the drop on their property belongs to them.

Wiring and plumbing on private property belong to the property owner in the United States. So, a massive upgrade would eventually ask customers to rewire their homes. Nobody understands that cable wire is wiring and it's your responsibility. It's just like any other wiring. The utility doesn't maintain your infrastructure after the "drop". You don't call the water utility when your pipe leaks.

Anyhow, there's no bandwidth on the wire without making changes. Of course, there's also the over the air broadcasting standards. Although, that's not the big roadblock for local stations in the US. Local stations make half their money (and sometimes more) on cable retransmission fees.

Sorry. Worked for a cable firm in a past life. I don't think broadcast video is going to change any time soon. Need better switching at the "bottom" nodes, but the trunk has to carry everything.
I think I'm one of the last 7 people in the US that still pay for cable anyway :)
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Guspaz
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by Guspaz »

All the SD channels are still 480i too, and all the US channels that I can pick up have multiple (up to half a dozen) standard definition 480i sub channels to go along with them. Usually without enough bitrate, but the quality of the deinterlacer and upscaling of modern TVs is very impressive for how good those 480i signals can look. Canadian channels never have any subchannels for some reason, so as a result, the vast majority of the channels that I get over the air are American, despite living in Canada.
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azmun
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by azmun »

Last night I updated my firmware to the latest one released few months ago (December 23, 2022). I usually don't like updating but version 3.0 had a feature that piqued my interest. I'm referring to the 240p down scale function. I don't see much discussion regarding this.

I ran my unit today and glad to report that the abomination which plagued many games (mostly in the PS2) seems to have been remedied!

I'm using a Sony Wega 27" set via component video and a Startech HDMI to vga/component converter. The results are very satisfying but I've got two caveats. First, when the source is default 480i, I notice a bit of choppiness in the scrolling. This leads to the second point--when I enable progressive scan mode (i.e. source becomes 480p), the stuttering seems gone. I know this is considered "experimental" and it'd be great to hear feedback from others. Next would be to test and compare, see how games would run on an RGB signal via SCART input.
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Guspaz
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by Guspaz »

I'm not sure what the image processing path looks like for 480i in and 240p out. Try playing with the deinterlacing settings (and if it's a 240p game in a 480i container, try using bob offset), since ideally you'd want a good stable 480p image before the downscaling. But why can't you just feed it 480p? 480i should always be a last resort for input resolution.
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azmun
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by azmun »

Guspaz wrote:I'm not sure what the image processing path looks like for 480i in and 240p out. Try playing with the deinterlacing settings (and if it's a 240p game in a 480i container, try using bob offset), since ideally you'd want a good stable 480p image before the downscaling. But why can't you just feed it 480p? 480i should always be a last resort for input resolution.
Because not many games have 480p to begin with? This mode is enabled in select few games by holding △ and × when powering on your PS2. I've sampled with different settings including bob offset but I find motion adaptive still works best.

Here's a discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK1MNb2hisc starting around the 15:30 minute mark.

Essentially, 240p is the output we want (to restore or rehabilitate) for games that ran under that resolution originally but got messed up when developers had the bright idea of upscaling to fugly 480i. In my opinion, this travesty has never been properly rectified--that is, until recently.
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by SavagePencil »

Silly question, but is there a reason why some of the Optimal Timing presets aren't showing up for me? I hooked my Wii up to the RT5X with component cables (via HDRV component cables). The only Horizontal Sampling presets I get are Generic 16:9 and Generic 4:3. I'd like to set it to HiRes 858.

If I boot the RT5X with the Wii turned off, I can select HiRes 858. But the moment I turn the Wii on, it reverts to one of the Generic values and won't let HiRes 858 be a selectable value.

The Wii itself is set to Widescreen and 480p output. The TV is set to 16:9 aspect ratio. Am I missing something?
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by bobrocks95 »

SavagePencil wrote:Silly question, but is there a reason why some of the Optimal Timing presets aren't showing up for me? I hooked my Wii up to the RT5X with component cables (via HDRV component cables). The only Horizontal Sampling presets I get are Generic 16:9 and Generic 4:3. I'd like to set it to HiRes 858.

If I boot the RT5X with the Wii turned off, I can select HiRes 858. But the moment I turn the Wii on, it reverts to one of the Generic values and won't let HiRes 858 be a selectable value.

The Wii itself is set to Widescreen and 480p output. The TV is set to 16:9 aspect ratio. Am I missing something?
What's your output resolution set to? Some of the sampling modes only show up in 1440p output, though that shouldn't be one of them.
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SavagePencil
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by SavagePencil »

Happens with all three 1080p variants.

I’m going to try to eliminate some variables tonight like getting rid of the component matrix and see if that affects anything.
SavagePencil
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by SavagePencil »

Same results with Wii, GC, GC + GBA Player, and OG Xbox. All through component. Will try some SCART in the morning. Hmmm…still feels like PEBKAC.
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by SavagePencil »

I've summarized the issue here: https://youtu.be/mxy7mdIcEBs

Let me know if I am doing something stupid.

Further updates:
1. This is a launch RT5X that does not allow GenLock.
2. On the Wii, GC, and Xbox the only presets I am allowed to select are Generics and occasionally the DTV ones.
3. Not shown: SCART inputs DO allow more selections like GEN 320.
4. It will detect GBI Optimal when GBI is launched with the gbihf-ossc.dol, but NOT if launched with gbihf-direct-ypbpr.dol.
5. In this video I have consoles TO component matrix TO RT5X TO HDMI matrix. The same issues occur if going straight from consoles TO RT5X TO TV
6. The TV here is a 2010 38" LG HDTV. I haven't tried on any other sets.
SavagePencil
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Re: RetroTINK 5x-Pro

Post by SavagePencil »

Thanks to MikeChi in the Discord channel, I've determined the following things:

1. HiRes 858 was not the Preset I wanted to be using, but rather one of the DTV-* Presets. This was because I was misled by the description in the RT5X Wiki about HiRes 858 which called out 480p.
2. The list of presets that are presented is determined by an internal matrix of input/output combos.

I've made edits (currently under review) in the RT5X wiki to reflect these changes.
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