PixelFX Morph

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kitty666cats
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by kitty666cats »

bobrocks95 wrote:
orange808 wrote:I'll stop hijacking the thread now. Although, this does illustrate and highlight the need, market niche, and demand for new gaming video processors. Purchasing, managing, and maintaining "legacy" video gear to "hook it up right" is difficult, time consuming, and expensive.
I wonder how popular the analog output would have been if they'd kept it in. If you need simultaneous scaled+unscaled output I don't see why you wouldn't just split at the source, but clearly there's a demand for an all-in-one device that could do it.
The analog output would probably have been pretty popular with the woke-folks who realize that linedoubled consoles or a PC CRT is gonna look damn near as good as a BVM in practice, heh. I always enjoy changing things up and rocking consoles linedoubled to my PC toobs once in a while :)

The annoying thing is finding HDMI to VGA DACs that don't crush blacks and properly process full range RGB! I made a thread about this conundrum, hah.
Vigilante
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by Vigilante »

So... I am not exactly very knowledgeable about these things. So I assuming infinity switch is a modular Switcher, while the Morph is the scaler.

My question is... if I get stuff like N64Digital, would I benefit from the Morph? Or would it just be redundant?
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Lincolnlog
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by Lincolnlog »

Will the Morph support low resolutions like 320x200 RGBHV so we can finally have good a solution for upscaling things like DOS games on vintage PC’s?
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VEGETA
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by VEGETA »

hello

mind if i ask what video digitizer ic you used? and will it suppor 444 transcoding of all signals including s-video and cvbs? I found good ics like AD9984A but this one only does RGB+YPbPr and no s-video or cvbs.
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bobrocks95
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by bobrocks95 »

Vigilante wrote:So... I am not exactly very knowledgeable about these things. So I assuming infinity switch is a modular Switcher, while the Morph is the scaler.

My question is... if I get stuff like N64Digital, would I benefit from the Morph? Or would it just be redundant?
Don't think you'd see any benefit. If the N64Digital doesn't support 1440p you might be able to feed the Morph 480p from it and scale it 3x to 1440p for a slightly sharper image on a 4K screen?

Definitely very diminishing gains when you're already using a purely digital 1080p signal. There are of course plenty of consoles that don't have HDMI mods available, but I don't see the point of getting a Morph if the only analog consoles you have are HDMI modded anyways.
VEGETA wrote:hello

mind if i ask what video digitizer ic you used? and will it suppor 444 transcoding of all signals including s-video and cvbs? I found good ics like AD9984A but this one only does RGB+YPbPr and no s-video or cvbs.
I don't know the IC they used but it definitely supports S-Video and composite video, presumably in 4:4:4.
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Konsolkongen
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by Konsolkongen »

For HDMI modded consoles that do 480p only like the GC and Wii I think the Morph would be an improvement depending on your display :)
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bobrocks95
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by bobrocks95 »

Konsolkongen wrote:For HDMI modded consoles that do 480p only like the GC and Wii I think the Morph would be an improvement depending on your display :)
Definitely, I'll be really happy to ditch my external DAC to get component for the OSSC, it's really silly to take a digital signal, convert it to analog, and then convert it back to digital with an upscaler.

They're definitely the outliers though- I'm pretty sure every other console HDMI mod currently available offers at least 1080p? The first Xbox HDMI mod didn't have scaling, but it's been updated twice now.
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VEGETA
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by VEGETA »

I don't know the IC they used but it definitely supports S-Video and composite video, presumably in 4:4:4.
I know it does but I want to know the exact chip used, I liked AD9984A but it is only for RGB and component. I think their chip could be ADV7401 or ADV7403 since they can do all signals at 444... but they don't have dev boards available which is not optimal... therefore wanted to know what fellow designers use... if they don't mind that is :D
ldeveraux
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by ldeveraux »

PixelFX announced the DCDigital v2. I don't think this Morph is ever coming out..
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orange808
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by orange808 »

To be fair, it's a really ambitious idea. Components are also hard to find and expensive these days.
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bobrocks95
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by bobrocks95 »

Wonder if the RetroTink 4K will beat it to market at this point. I'm really looking for an HDMI input so whatever comes out with one of those first...
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Josh128
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by Josh128 »

bobrocks95 wrote:Wonder if the RetroTink 4K will beat it to market at this point. I'm really looking for an HDMI input so whatever comes out with one of those first...
Honestly, it seems Mike has a corner on the market. The guy is relentless. The 5X is burning down the retro world and the 4K is just going to improve on it for higher end stuff. It'll be extremely hard for any other product to compete at this point.
spmbx
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by spmbx »

What's the latest status on the morph, is it hanging in component shortage oblivion? I was kindof looking forward to morph and retrotink comparisons :(
ldeveraux
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by ldeveraux »

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bobrocks95
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by bobrocks95 »

Best guess: FPGA shortages have forced a drastic redesign. Or they're pivoting to 4K to compete with the Retrotink 4K. Personally I was all-in for a Morph when it was first shown but now I just want a Tink 4K.

Keep in mind with the shortages that the OSSC Pro has been ready for release for quite a while, they just can't order FPGAs at any sort of reasonable price point.
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Josh128
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by Josh128 »

Mike Chi cornered the market.
ldeveraux
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by ldeveraux »

bobrocks95 wrote:Best guess: FPGA shortages have forced a drastic redesign. Or they're pivoting to 4K to compete with the Retrotink 4K. Personally I was all-in for a Morph when it was first shown but now I just want a Tink 4K.

Keep in mind with the shortages that the OSSC Pro has been ready for release for quite a while, they just can't order FPGAs at any sort of reasonable price point.
Yeah I was also psyched for the Morph, then delay after delay. I'm pretty happy with my RT5x, so not really holding my breath any more.
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bobrocks95
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by bobrocks95 »

ldeveraux wrote:
bobrocks95 wrote:Best guess: FPGA shortages have forced a drastic redesign. Or they're pivoting to 4K to compete with the Retrotink 4K. Personally I was all-in for a Morph when it was first shown but now I just want a Tink 4K.

Keep in mind with the shortages that the OSSC Pro has been ready for release for quite a while, they just can't order FPGAs at any sort of reasonable price point.
Yeah I was also psyched for the Morph, then delay after delay. I'm pretty happy with my RT5x, so not really holding my breath any more.
I opted to skip the 5X, thinking the Morph was just around the corner. Manually setting sampling phase on the OSSC has just never worked well for me, and generic sampling has a lot of ringing on my unit and display. I also wanted an HDMI input so I figured the 5X was going to be replaced shortly after anyways. But now it's been taking quite a while and I could have been enjoying the 5X for over a year already...
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Josh128
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by Josh128 »

Mike put his heart and soul into the 5x, and it shows. If you hold out for anything, it should be the 4K, which is already in Voultars hands, so its likely not going to be too long before it gets an official release date.
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bobrocks95
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by bobrocks95 »

Josh128 wrote:Mike put his heart and soul into the 5x, and it shows. If you hold out for anything, it should be the 4K, which is already in Voultars hands, so its likely not going to be too long before it gets an official release date.
Oh no point in giving up and settling now, haha. It's 4K or bust, but the global FPGA market is what's holding up production right now, so I would honestly not hold my breath for anything before 2024 for a hobbyist product like this. I don't know exactly what line of FPGA Mike is designing around for the 4K, but plenty of high-end Intel FPGAs are sitting in the 40-50 week lead time range on mouser or digikey. I saw some at 65 weeks!

Actually looking into it, it might be a Cyclone 10 GX chip given their integrated 12.5Gb/s I/O transceiver (on the money for 4K60Hz output at 12.54Gb/s, though that's without HDR- I am not an FPGA dev so I don't know if 12.5Gb/s transceivers are necessary for HDMI's TMDS pairs, but typically you read it's difficult to hit such high pixel clocks with regular I/O pins at the very least). The cheapest of these (10CX085 line) is $130 in low quantities with that lovely 64 week lead time.

Digikey lists the 5CEFA5F23C8N the OSSC Pro was built around as Active, but with no ability to even place an order.
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by fernan1234 »

I'm guessing the 4K, like the 5X now, won't actually output an HDR signal with its larger bandwidth requirements, but simply flagging the output as HDR so that the display can use its full brightness capabilities, which is especially important when using scanline filters.
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by bobrocks95 »

fernan1234 wrote:I'm guessing the 4K, like the 5X now, won't actually output an HDR signal with its larger bandwidth requirements, but simply flagging the output as HDR so that the display can use its full brightness capabilities, which is especially important when using scanline filters.
Oh, duh, it would be pointless to convert an 8-bit color source to 10-bit, which is the part of HDR that requires higher bandwidth. So the Cyclone 10 GX is very likely what the Tink 4K is targeting.
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TooBeaucoup
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by TooBeaucoup »

Yeah, as much as I'd love to have it this second, I wouldn't expect that Tink4k for, at least, another year, minimum. If I were a betting man, I'd actually say more like 1.5-2 years. :(

I asked Mike on Twitter a few months ago if he thought the Tink4k would take another 1–3 years if he were to guess, and his response was simply "I hope not 3 years, but you never know with these parts". The fact that he even said something like "I hope not 3" makes me think he feels that at least 2 years could be very likely.
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NormalFish
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by NormalFish »

I had thought we were getting news on this given PixelFX's big announcement. Given we havent, is this project still being developed?
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bobrocks95
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by bobrocks95 »

There was a tiny blurb at the bottom of the screen at one point that said something like "We are working on an external upscaling solution to support 4K output with the Gem".

I will personally be pairing a few base (non-shiny) Gem installs with a new Retrotink 4K, hopefully later this year it's looking like :wink:
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NormalFish
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by NormalFish »

bobrocks95 wrote: Fri Jul 21, 2023 4:30 pm There was a tiny blurb at the bottom of the screen at one point that said something like "We are working on an external upscaling solution to support 4K output with the Gem".

I will personally be pairing a few base (non-shiny) Gem installs with a new Retrotink 4K, hopefully later this year it's looking like :wink:
Ah, thanks for pointing that out. I'm still holding on to my OSSC and have been playing more games on my PC and handhelds of late so I'm happy to wait, but it's a shame that the parts shortage has derailed our promised utopia of an actually competitive scaler market lol
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VEGETA
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by VEGETA »

Actually looking into it, it might be a Cyclone 10 GX chip given their integrated 12.5Gb/s I/O transceiver (on the money for 4K60Hz output at 12.54Gb/s, though that's without HDR- I am not an FPGA dev so I don't know if 12.5Gb/s transceivers are necessary for HDMI's TMDS pairs, but typically you read it's difficult to hit such high pixel clocks with regular I/O pins at the very least). The cheapest of these (10CX085 line) is $130 in low quantities with that lovely 64 week lead time.

Digikey lists the 5CEFA5F23C8N the OSSC Pro was built around as Active, but with no ability to even place an order.
well, 130$ seems kinda reasonable as a price, but as many people expect... the rt4k will be very expensive device. someone spoke to its creator on twitter if it would be 500 or 400$ and he said it will be much more than that. most expectations are 800-1000$ which is why it won't replace the 5X since very very few people will be willing to pay such huge prices.

FPGAs are not optimized for anything, they are general chips. therefore you need a chip which is more powerful than the application you want to design. the market is very bad pricing and it does not seem to settle down or get better. availability is very bad too.

till now looks like rt4k does not have anything significant more than the 5x, besides outputting to 4k60 or so. i could be wrong here since i didn't follow all news.
Oh, duh, it would be pointless to convert an 8-bit color source to 10-bit, which is the part of HDR that requires higher bandwidth. So the Cyclone 10 GX is very likely what the Tink 4K is targeting.
hmmm there is SDR to HDR conversion which does enhance the colors and output, you can search on it and see results. it requires that the outputting source or scaler in this case to be the one doing it not the tv which needs the designer to make all that himself... unless fpga he is using have an IP for it.

doing the flagging to HDR thing will be kind of gimmicky feature more than anything.


I feel these new scalers are going to get delayed even more but nothing to do about it.
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bobrocks95
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by bobrocks95 »

Since I posted that in February the 5CEFA5F23C8N is available to purchase in small quantities now, which is a massive improvement over "64 week lead times". I think end of this year, start of the next we're going to see movement. Mike posts about the RT4K enough that I think it's coming within half a year.

From what I hear, people have enjoyed the HDR flagging feature when combined with scanlines to brighten the image back up, it all depends on how your display can tone map. I would not personally have any interest in any algorithms to do a full artificial conversion from SDR to HDR, but maybe some more ability to tweak the colors when flagging the output as HDR would be nice.
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orange808
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by orange808 »

I'd be most concerned with the grey ramp when forcing HDR.
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fernan1234
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Re: PixelFX Morph

Post by fernan1234 »

Looks like this scaler project is really dead. There's basically no need for it now that the 4K is on the horizon.

PixelFX is pivoting to internal ADC kits. It looks like their planned licensing/paywall model is not sitting well with a lot of people. It may even invite "jailbreak" attempts.

Personally I don't see the value proposition for any of the two options though. The basic kit just for direct output? The 5X and the 4K will clean up your analogue output just as well as long as you have good cables. And likewise you might as well just let the external scaler do all the processing, with a simple plug-and-play solution rather than a very involved/expensive console modification. Even the 5X already does everything the shiny licensed kit does and more, and it's $300 vs $200 (which doesn't include install costs).
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