GameCube: RGB modded component cable vs analogue GCvideo

[andykara2003]

I have a question about GameCube image quality:

Is 480p RGB via GCvideo sharper than 480p RGB from an RGB modded official component/D-terminal cable?

[fernan1234]

I'd be surprised if there's any difference at all, especially in terms of sharpness. I recall some older GCVideo releases had differences in how bright white would look, as well as some chroma shift issues that were fixed a good while ago. But nevertheless interesting to hear from anyone who has everything up to date and can do comparisons.

[andykara2003]

Thanks for chiming in & I suspect you’re right. What I’m ultimately trying to determine is if GCvideo’s 480i RGB on CRT will be any sharper than RGB-modded component/D-Terminal in 480i on CRT, but that’s an obscure question (especially as no one uses 480i) & so more people would know the answer to my first post - which would also effectively answer my use case scenario.

[fernan1234]

(especially as no one uses 480i)

I do! I was just talking about this on another topic a few days ago, how that generation of console 3D graphics from the early and mid 2000s really has its sweet spot in 480i rather than 480p as commonly believed, assuming that you're using a CRT of course.

More on topic though, the answer for 480p may not necessarily apply fully to 480i, since in particular GC and Wii titles may use different filters for each one, and some of the Swiss video options may also factor into the equation, especially for 480p. What I do know is that most of the filtering differences affected 480p more in general, so you're probably fine with 480i either way. When I was deciding what solution to go to for GC/Wii I went into this as well, and compared a WiiDual/GCVideo solution vs. RGB from a PAL Wii @ 480i, and could not spot a difference. Just eye'd it though. Ultimately went with the WiiDual option as it covers everything and solves issues with games that don't work with forced PAL60.

[andykara2003]

I do! I was just talking about this on another topic a few days ago

Yes that was with me - that’s great to know, thanks. In that case I think I can be pretty confident that 480i should be roughly equivalent. I’d be very interested to hear if anyone else has compared these although as I say, it’s something most people won’t have bothered with.

After we chatted I did a load of testing to make sure and came to some conclusions. I actually found that I much preferred 480i on my consumer sets than my BVM. The BVM’s sharp but I find the interlacing is very apparent because of the 1000 line TVL. On my Sony trinitron consumer sets, the interlacing blends in nicely and creates this beautiful image - the interlacing acts like anitialiasing and gives the image that lovely texture that I liked back in the day. And that ‘texture’ gives the image a touch of the clarity without any aliasing.

I agree with your theory that retro gamers today are used to using flat panels or professional CRT monitors for 480p and so consider 480i defunct. 480i on their pro monitors would amplify the interlacing effect & has collectively turned them against it. Consumer CRTs display 480i very nicely - especially if you have a low-use set. I think the reason a lot of people think consumer sets are too soft is that their sets are. Consumer sets go soft after a few thousand hours - I’ve collected some new & low use sets over the last 7/8 years & it makes a big difference. The GameCube looks clean, smooth not pixelated or soft.

Also, a lot of gamers these days are purposely going for the sharply pixelated look for 240p and 480p. That’s absolutely fine and there’s no wrong way, but it’s nothing like the games used to look back in the day. I personally hate that look - I have a 21” trinitron for 240p and 25” trinitron for 480i and it all looks lovely & clean, crisp and not overly pixelated just like it used to - and I believe the way the developers intended. Just my opinion of course.

Can I ask if you use a consumer CRT or pro monitor for 480i?

[fernan1234]

Oh yeah it was you also in that other topic, just didn't notice the user name. I'm a part time interlace evangelist so I just take every chance I get to say my bit.

I agree with you that on the professional and broadcast monitors you can see more of the 480i flicker compared to a consumer set. I personally don't mind it though, and take it as a (to me) negligible tradeoff more than worth it for the superior colors, alignment, and RGB inputs. But I'd also be perfectly happy with a nice consumer set that doesn't have signs of excessive wear on the tube.

Can I ask if you use a consumer CRT or pro monitor for 480i?

For a few years I used one of the 1000 TVL 24'' BVMs, then this year moved to an 800 TVL 14 incher for the same sharpness/AG pitch but a more manageable size, and due to the screen being smaller the gaps between the fields are narrower (in part due to reasonable viewing distance for such a screen size) so the flicker is less noticeable, but lately I'm actually doing all of my retro gaming on a BVM OLED paired with a GBS-C+OSSC, and I've set the GBS-C to its bob mode which also adds alternating black lines for interlaced inputs. The OSSC alone can do the same, or a RetroTINK's CRT simulate mode. The resulting look is almost identical to the look of the 1000 TVL BVM, though I find the flicker to be even less noticeable so that's a plus.

Nowadays all the talk is about adaptive deinterlacing, but if I keep gaming on a flat panel like this I'll still stick to emulating the look of fields interlaced as on a high quality CRT.

[Guspaz]

You don't need either an RGB modded component cable or a GCVideo to get 480i RGB out of a GameCube, as you can just use a PAL one and use whatever method of region breaking you want, since it can output NTSC timings without issue. It's a lot cheaper. The component cables and GCVideo are only really relevant if you want to do 480p.

Bob did a comparison between the native RGB and an RGB-modded component cable: https://www.retrorgb.com/gamecubeoutput.html

MLiG covered comparisons between the official component cables and gcvideo analog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RBgbA8DhM0

There essentially isn't any major difference between the three, and whatever difference there is is subtle.

[fernan1234]

Some parts of those comparisons are probably outdated though given later updates to GCVideo.

Re: PAL for RGB, yeah you can force PAL60 on NTSC consoles and this will work for almost everything. I did run into a couple of Wii titles that didn't work, as in outright crashed when booting with PAL60, but maybe there are no GC titles with this problem.

[Guspaz]

You don't need to force anything, if you run an NTSC game on a PAL gamecube, it simply runs at NTSC timings by default. And since we're talking about RGB, calling it PAL 60 is a bit misleading, as there's nothing about PAL involved. It's just NTSC timings over RGB.

[fernan1234]

You don't need to force anything, if you run an NTSC game on a PAL gamecube, it simply runs at NTSC timings by default. And since we're talking about RGB, calling it PAL 60 is a bit misleading, as there's nothing about PAL involved. It's just NTSC timings over RGB.

PAL60 is just the term used in all the homebrew software used for this purpose. Without this mode, if you run NTSC stuff on a PAL console (edit: via RGB) you can get a red picture. At least that's the case on the Wii, never really tried doing this myself on a GC.

[andykara2003]

I personally don't mind it though, and take it as a (to me) negligible tradeoff more than worth it for the superior colors, alignment, and RGB inputs.

True, the BVM colours are fantastic. I always have mine set up alongside my consumer sets

800 TVL 14 incher for the same sharpness/AG pitch but a more manageable size, and due to the screen being smaller the gaps between the fields are narrower

Yes that would look very nice and clean.

lately I'm actually doing all of my retro gaming on a BVM OLED paired with a GBS-C+OSSC, and I've set the GBS-C to its bob mode which also adds alternating black lines for interlaced inputs. The OSSC alone can do the same, or a RetroTINK's CRT simulate mode. The resulting look is almost identical to the look of the 1000 TVL BVM, though I find the flicker to be even less noticeable so that's a plus.

Jesus that’s quite a setup! Sounds perfect, I didn’t know OLED BVMs were making their way onto the retro scene now. Must look phenomenal with those scalers.

You don't need either an RGB modded component cable or a GCVideo to get 480i RGB out of a GameCube, as you can just use a PAL one and use whatever method of region breaking you want, since it can output NTSC timings without issue. It's a lot cheaper. The component cables and GCVideo are only really relevant if you want to do 480p.

True, I got this for 480p originally before I sided with interlaced. The funny thing is that the 480i RGB image from this cable is actually a bit cleaner than the stock PAL RGB scart 480i image. I’d heard this before from Yossi from Behar bros (he made up the cable for me), but for some reason I dismissed it.

But I tested it, switching between the two on a scart switch. The difference subtle, but definitely noticeable and appreciated during gameplay. I was going to make a thread about it as I haven’t seen it mentioned before here.

Funny thing is this was the exact same setup I had in the early 2000s - I bought a modified D-terminal cable with integrated stereo to play my US cube in RGB.

[matt]

I've been using a modded component cable (in both 480i and 480p) for a long time. I was lucky to get it from Nintendo back in the day for $30, and of course I promptly ruined its resale value by turning it into a VGA adapter instead! I also have a Wii with a WiiDual that's wired for VGA output.

Although it's not a perfect comparison, I find that the Wiidual running GCVideo give a marginally better picture. It seems to do a better job of compensating for the Gamcube/Wii's chroma subsampling and I find that there's less color bleed around the edges of objects.

Also, the official Nintendo cables have a somewhat noisy signal. I can't use them with the VGA input on my OSSC because it will show a lot of interference without the low pass filter. The WiiDual does not have this problem.

These nitpicks are only evident through the OSSC, and only if the scaler has been tweaked for optimal timing. On a CRT I can't tell the difference.

So, from my experience, GCVideo is slightly better. But, it's not a big enough difference for me to stop using my current setup and go buy a Carby.

For what it's worth, I personally think Gamecube games look awesome in 480p. While I don't mind 480i I much prefer to play them in progressive mode when possible.

[andykara2003]

These nitpicks are only evident through the OSSC, and only if the scaler has been tweaked for optimal timing. On a CRT I can't tell the difference.

Brilliant, thanks for the clarification. Good to know there’s no difference on CRT.

For what it's worth, I personally think Gamecube games look awesome in 480p.

I totally respect that, most people are on your side - Fernan and I are the outliers here. I wonder if interlaced will become more popular one day though. Perhaps so, although I think it’ll always be relatively niche.

[fernan1234]

Jesus that’s quite a setup! Sounds perfect, I didn’t know OLED BVMs were making their way onto the retro scene now. Must look phenomenal with those scalers.

I feel like there's still very few people who have these and use them for retro gaming (Fudoh here has a few but sounds like he doesn't use them much for gaming). I think eventually their potential will become known more. For me they can be a full package CRT replacement given that they have near-CRT levels of motion clarity. They can also take SD and HD interlaced signals and both insert black lines and compensate for the brightness loss, so passing through 15khz RGB or YPbPr via HDMI works great.

The problem is that they are still very expensive even in the second hand market, as they're still viable for professional work. Older OLED PVMs can be found for more affordable low 4-figure ranges, but for the BVMs especially without scratches on the screen they approach or go over 5 figures. As studios start selling them like with CRT they should become cheaper, but the chances of the screens being in good shape will be lower, so they will probably never catch on as much as the pro CRTs. The older LCD PVMs and BVMs get close and are a viable option too IMO.

I totally respect that, most people are on your side - Fernan and I are the outliers here. I wonder if interlaced will become more popular one day though. Perhaps so, although I think it’ll always be relatively niche.

We'll probably remain the minority by far, since there's just not enough people being able to see 480i in optimal conditions. On the other hand, all the CRT enthusiasts who only have SD TV sets will use it regardless.

[maxtherabbit]

I am a CRT enthusiast with several high quality SD CRTs and I hate 480i. I'd take 480p on a VGA CRT every time.

If the choice was 480i on a good SD CRT vs 480p scaled on a flatscreen, it would be a little more appealing to use 480i

[fernan1234]

I am a CRT enthusiast with several high quality SD CRTs and I hate 480i. I'd take 480p on a VGA CRT every time.

Yeah what I was referring to was people with only SD CRTs who will use 480i either because they prefer it or it's their only option.

Just wondering, do you have this preference across the board for all systems? I can see it more for stuff like Dreamcast due to the way it renders graphics, same with the Xbox, but less for PS2 and Wii for example.

[maxtherabbit]

I always use 480p on PS2 and Gamecube when it's available (I don't own a Wii)

[andykara2003]

I feel like there's still very few people who have these and use them for retro gaming

I thought as much - I’ve been away from the scene for a while but I didn’t think things could have moved on *that* quickly! May I ask how on earth you managed to get one?

On another note, tonight I’ve been playing with using Swiss (in 480i mode) to reduce the vertical filter just down one notch to ‘1’. It’s not suitable for all games, but makes some just that bit sharper without going too far. Wave race is no good as you get rough interlacing on the buoy arrows but super monkey ball and F-zero gx look very nice without looking too pixelated.

I’m liking it so far. I think it’d look over-sharp & pixelated on my BVM, but with the softer image on the larger 25” consumer set it seems to work well.

[Guspaz]

If content was natively 480i, there might be something to it, and I think some PS2 games render to offset 240p framebuffers natively to get 480i... But I don't understand the appeal of taking a 480p image and throwing away half the image every frame to create the 480i fields. That's what the GameCube is doing. The framebuffer is 480p.

[fernan1234]

I thought as much - I’ve been away from the scene for a while but I didn’t think things could have moved on *that* quickly! May I ask how on earth you managed to get one?

Yeah and due to availability limits I don't think there will ever be such a transition in this scene, even when prices drop. I got kinda lucky running into a studio selling a couple in good shape, though it was definitely not cheap, but made sense to me given what the 24'' CRT BVMs go for nowadays, and these beat those in virtually all ways. Oh and this is only talking about the HD panels, the 4K HDR BVM is insanely difficult to find even used, and the prices asked will make you cry.

If content was natively 480i, there might be something to it, and I think some PS2 games render to offset 240p framebuffers natively to get 480i... But I don't understand the appeal of taking a 480p image and throwing away half the image every frame to create the 480i fields. That's what the GameCube is doing. The framebuffer is 480p.

I wonder if the GC is like the DC in that the game is actually rendered internally in 480i/480p depending on the corresponding cable or setting detected. Either way, on a CRT capable of displaying both the same 480i and 480p is identical in terms of resolution, after all it's the same resolution presented with different techniques. Of course, with some moving objects you will see combing artifacts on the former and not the latter, but on the other hand moving objects may appear a bit more blurry on the latter. And more importantly those prominent jaggies characteristic of that early 3D graphics era will be more noticeable with 480p, and that's precisely what a few of us want avoid (and others pursue).

[matt]

I wonder if the GC is like the DC in that the game is actually rendered internally in 480i/480p depending on the corresponding cable or setting detected. Either way, on a CRT capable of displaying both the same 480i and 480p is identical in terms of resolution, after all it's the same resolution presented with different techniques. Of course, with some moving objects you will see combing artifacts on the former and not the latter, but on the other hand moving objects may appear a bit more blurry on the latter. And more importantly those prominent jaggies characteristic of that early 3D graphics era will be more noticeable with 480p, and that's precisely what a few of us want avoid (and others pursue).

I do think that GC games (and other consoles that render at 480p) look better on a softer display vs a PC monitor. The extreme sharpness, visible scanlines, and 60hz flicker are distracting, and I can see why you'd prefer the softer image of an SD display despite the interlacing artifacts. Personally, I think these games look best on a consumer HD CRT or a low TVL multisync monitor. It's the best of both worlds - you get a stable image without flicker or combing, but with less jagginess.

My personal favorite monitor for the Gamecube is a GVM 2020, which has the same tube as the PVM 2030 but displays up to 36 khz.

[Josh128]

I was an early adopter of the GC component cable, ordered direct from Nintendo as soon as it was available, and used it on my Hitachi 36" HD-Ready curved screen CRT. I loved the way 480p looked on it and to me (perhaps because thats how I did all of my GC gaming from Metroid Prime onward) its the gold standard. My best friend used to think it was too sharp, but he was used to 480i on a smaller CRT. I just tried GC via GBS-C on a 17" VGA CRT this weekend, and it was perfect IMO. The look of the giant Hitachi on a screen a quarter the size. If you prefer 480i, the bob mode gets you perfect 480i on such a display, looks just like an SD CRT.

I recently got a Sony KV-36HS420 HD CRT and ran some component GC though it. Looked very good, but actually just a tad soft. The unit could probably use a very slight tweak on the flyback focus pot. The Compaq 17" CRT however, has just the right sharpness/softness balance in 480p mode. As for too sharp, setting the GBS-C to 960p and running GC through it produces an image that is too sharp on the VGA CRT. When I get time I may post a few photos.


I didnt get to try it, but from what I've seen from using DC VGA on the Wei-ya / Makvision Tri-sync M-3129, I would imagine GC 480p would look awesome on it. DC VGA looked so good and so authentic on it, it was just amazing. I has a larger dot pitch than the 36" Hitachi I previously mentioned, despite being a 27" monitor. It would probably be the perfect GC solution, and 480i also looked fantastic on it. Unfortunately, I blew the chassis last year when I powered it up with the horizontal deflection plug unplugged (accident) and I havent had time to try to repair yet. But if you could snag one of those I think you would be most pleased with the picture.

[andykara2003]

If content was natively 480i, there might be something to it, and I think some PS2 games render to offset 240p framebuffers natively to get 480i... But I don't understand the appeal of taking a 480p image and throwing away half the image every frame to create the 480i fields. That's what the GameCube is doing. The framebuffer is 480p.

I don't understand the appeal of the pixelated look of 480p - but I respect the depth of your knowledge and wisdom on this, having been on the forum a long time as well. It's funny how you observe and absorb a person's feelings and opinions on this stuff for so many years but know nothing about them. In fact I love the that there's so many different and opposing preferences in this hobby. 480i on consumer CRT is how I remember the games, so I love that look.

My personal favorite monitor for the Gamecube is a GVM 2020, which has the same tube as the PVM 2030 but displays up to 36 khz.

We're on the same page, totally agree with everything you said. Having looked into it, I really like the look of that monitor. I'd love to see one in person.

I was an early adopter of the GC component cable, ordered direct from Nintendo as soon as it was available, and used it on my Hitachi 36" HD-Ready curved screen CRT.

I remember you going on about this Hitachi model a good few years ago. I didn't know what to make of it as Hitachi wasn't regarded as a very high quality manufacturer of electronics kit in the UK at the time. All the Hitachi stuff I saw here was middle of the road & definitely not something I'd be interested in.

I'd never seen any info about this particular TV - and then out of the blue I saw a lone post about it a year or two ago and realised that the TV is in fact a legendary set - a standout CRT of the highest order, prized by AV enthusiasts. I'd love to have one but unfortunately I doubt that'll ever happen. I have a feeling very few people in the retro gaming community know about this set and it's quality.

[Josh128]

Below is a listing for a variant of the model I owned. **EDIT- mine was the Ultravision Digital, maybe this one below is SD only?? Mine had component and VGA in, this one doesnt appear to have VGA in from the pictures, which is odd. But yeah, this one looks to be in really good shape. I'd love to go back and do some lag testing at different resolutions of these models, I never really noticed any 480p lag on mine, but I played so little 240p on it I have no idea.



https://www.ebay.com/itm/383696235930

[andykara2003]

Nice one :) I'm in the UK tho - I doubt they have them here. To be honest I keep my CRTs new or very low hours and like them smaller for a tight image. The largest I go for 240p is 21" and 25" for 480p/i. Still, I'd be very interested to see one in action - although picking up a new/low hours one of these would be pretty much impossible :)