XRGB-3

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Strider77
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Post by Strider77 »

OK.... I got the XRGB2+ the other day. After playing with it I think my tv's native res must be 720p. It looks the clearest when i put my vga>component transcoder to output 720p.

Plus I noticed when I set the transcoder to any other resolution the scanline feature of the xrgb gets a bizzare effect. It's hard to put into words but the scanlines are "uneven", the screen gets horizontal bars kinda, like I said hard to put into words.

I'm guessing my TV is scaling the picture and causing this when it's not getting its native res? Either that or since my transcoder gives me multiple output resolutions it's doing some scaling and is the culprit or both are. If I set the scanlines to level 2 it looks all right. At 1st it looked awful also. Then after tinkering with the picture controls of my TV, transcoder and the xrgb2 I got the effect that I was talking about to go away to the point where it almost was gone even when the scanlines were set to level 3. Christ I have TO MANY things to let me adjust the picture. I was jugling the TV, transcoder and XRGB2 settings at once.

Plus keep in mind I'm only using S video now b/c that's all I have to test it with at this point. Even with S video I got the picture looking reasonable and that was pretty shocking. It does show some nasty dot crawl but i know that will go away once I am using RGB cords. Maybe the bizzare scanline effect will go away with the RGB cables or be reduced even further. Like i said i got it to go away when using 720p out of the trancoder and tinkering with the picture adjustments when setting the scan lines to level 2.

One thing that I'm kinda ticked about is the guy that sold it to me had a "bought as is statement" and mentioned that he only ever used the composite in. I think i know why he sold it now. I can get no picture when using the composite hook up. I don't even get the xrgb's display/options to come up on screen when flipping the XRGB to composite. Not that I would be using it but I payed 200 and would like to have known this. He probably sold it b/c the only port he ever used stopped working. Is there something that I am being stupid about or am I right assuming that port is dead?

If anyone has any ideas on that odd scanline effect let me know.
Damn Tim, you know there are quite a few Americans out there who still lives in tents due to this shitty economy, and you're dropping loads on a single game which only last 20 min. Do you think it's fair? How much did you spend this time?
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elvis
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Post by elvis »

Strider77 wrote:Plus I noticed when I set the transcoder to any other resolution the scanline feature of the xrgb gets a bizzare effect. It's hard to put into words but the scanlines are "uneven", the screen gets horizontal bars kinda, like I said hard to put into words.
720/480 = 3/2. It's not an even/whole scaling value, so yes you are probably going to get lines scaled by different amounts. You see the same effect when you run emulation software at 640x480 when the native input was not an even 320x240 (say, SNES running 256x224, etc).
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Strider77
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Post by Strider77 »

720/480 = 3/2. It's not an even/whole scaling value, so yes you are probably going to get lines scaled by different amounts. You see the same effect when you run emulation software at 640x480 when the native input was not an even 320x240 (say, SNES running 256x224, etc).
well, i see where you are going with that but the scanlines themselves are evenly spaced on the screen. I can see them on there fine it's just some seem to be a bit brighter than others. but there spacing is fine and they are all the same thickness as far as i can tell also.

Last night I tinkered alot with the picture controls on all three (TV, transcoder, XRGB2+) and got the effect almost eliminated with the scanlines to level 3. I guess I really have no buisness making judgement calls really till I get a RGB cable and stop using s video for the sake of playing with the unit.

I'll take a pic of the effect and post it later to
Damn Tim, you know there are quite a few Americans out there who still lives in tents due to this shitty economy, and you're dropping loads on a single game which only last 20 min. Do you think it's fair? How much did you spend this time?
Wanderer
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Post by Wanderer »

fubarduck wrote:
Wanderer wrote:
fubarduck wrote: What kind of video card/scaling software are you using for that process? I have a video card that outputs DVI, but I could never find a way to input signals that didn't lag. I get pretty bad lag through the S-Video on my capture card even if I output straight to my PC Monitor with DScaler, for example.
Ok, stating the PC scaler was my "primary" set-up is a little misleading. It's more like my "experimental" set-up as I only recently purchased the necessary capture card.

Input: PDI deluxe component capture card used to capture PS2 video signal.
Software: Dscaler
Output: DVI to HDMI 720p/1080i via Geforce 6800 graphics card

So far the picture quality only looks marginally better than plugging the PS2 component cables directly into the HDTV. Once I start tweaking dscaler, I'm confident i can improve the picture enough to justify the purchase of the capture card. As of now the main advantage of the set-up is playing tate mode without rotating the TV by utilizing the graphics card's pivot feature. Regarding lag, so far I have detected none. Maybe your lag is due to your CPU processor?

BTW, what settings are you using for dscaler?
I have a Supergun that outputs both RGB and S-Video simultaneously. I use the RGB to output to my XRGB-2+ and the S-Video to the capture card in my PC so I can capture.

Even when I'm not capturing, though, (DScaler running side by side with a different monitor or HDTV on the XRGB-2+) there is a very clear delay in DScaler with any of the deinterlacing modes. The delay is probably at least 7 or 8 frames, which for me, is enough to notice without even needing a side-by-side comparison. The CPU is a bit old (Athlon XP 2400+) but I've been leaning towards believing that DScaler is to blame for the lag. If you have any time sensitive games that you can test side-by-side you'd be more likely to notice.

What are your CPU specs, and what deinterlacing mode are you using?
My CPU is a AMD Athlon 3700+ 2.2 ghz and I'm using default TomsMoComp or default Greedy or Greedy high motion. I messed around with the sharpness filter a bit, but this only helps picture slightly. Colors were a bit saturated so I turned down the Color, Color U, Color V a bit and it looks better.

My main gripe is picture quality is slightly blurry when everything is in motion. The bullets in shooters are really blurry and color of bulllets duller than everything else. Also the shadows of flying enemies have white vertical bars inside them for some reason.
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Inkvisitor
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Post by Inkvisitor »

Still, it's really too bad that PS3 does no upscaling. Still got my fingers crossed for a patch, but I won't count on it.
I am looking for some clarification on this. Does that mean old PS1/PS2 games sets the resolution to something like 480i or 480p ? Not only will that look like crap on most HDTVs, it would also create lag ?

If the PS3 was really clever there would be an option to set the resolution to whatever you want. Native resolutions should look best on LCD screens.
BTW, the Xploder HDTV Player from Blaze which was released last week can also be used to output any PS2 game in 480p straight from the PS2. It's just a boot-up disc that can unlock progressive scan in any game. Supposed to work pretty well.
This was first rumoured to be a hoax. I'm impressed if it actually works. But does that require swapping disc ?
fubarduck
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Post by fubarduck »

Inkvisitor wrote: I am looking for some clarification on this. Does that mean old PS1/PS2 games sets the resolution to something like 480i or 480p ? Not only will that look like crap on most HDTVs, it would also create lag ?
It just means that they will output the same resolution they outputted on PS1/PS2. So PS1 games would all output 480i, PS2 games would output 480i or 480p (if supported, like they already can on PS2). Gran Turismo 4 would still be able to output 1080i, but it's the only game that does that.

If the PS3 was really clever there would be an option to set the resolution to whatever you want. Native resolutions should look best on LCD screens.
You're pretty much stating the obvious. This announcement was a real slap in the face from Sony to HDTV owners. Good video scalers cost thousands of dollars; it's a shame that the X-Box 360 can do this with X-Box 1 games but PS3 can't with PS1/PS2 games.

This was first rumoured to be a hoax. I'm impressed if it actually works. But does that require swapping disc ?
Yes, it does require disc-swapping. It works well on some games, but from what I got to test the incompatibility rate is pretty high and a lot of games have warped output (for example, FFXII will output 480p 16:9 with the actual game in a 4:3 window, so there's no way to play it in true widescreen).

This is just for enabling Progressive Scan btw. Anyway, I wouldn't recommend it unless you really, really need a non-interlaced signal on your TV to avoid motion banding or lag. The XRGB-3 already does a much better job of handling interlaced signals in B1 mode.
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Strider77
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Post by Strider77 »

OK.. my final opinion on all that work, asking questions and getting those gears in my head turning.

I got a RGB cable for my saturn today finally and tried it out threw everything to my HDTV. I am incredibly happy with the results. That scanline issue I had with S-video is GONE!!! I can have my cake and eat it to with the xrgb2+. I can have my progressive and HD display, I can take VGA, and now all my low res games look fantastic again. On top of all that I can have my scanlines back!!

I can't tell you how thrilled I am with the results. I HIGHLY recomend this route to anyone trying to tackle low res on a HDTV and/or miss their scanlines.

I lucked out on the saturn RGB cable. I order it from NCSX and thought I was getting a scart cable. Then I opened the head of the plug and started looking at the pin connections and noticed if this really was scart then the blue line wasn't connected at all. The box was in japanese also. The cord was about 17.00.

XRGB2 rocks the block... :shock:
Damn Tim, you know there are quite a few Americans out there who still lives in tents due to this shitty economy, and you're dropping loads on a single game which only last 20 min. Do you think it's fair? How much did you spend this time?
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Inkvisitor
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Post by Inkvisitor »

I have been using the latest drivers for the XRGB-3 (1.07) for a while now. And the unit seems to be more stable using the DVI passthrough and switching resolutions.

Do you know if you can have both DVI and VGA connected and somehow switch over to VGA from the menu ? As it is now I have to pull the DVI connector and select B1 every time I want to play mushi :?
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Craiji
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Post by Craiji »

unfortunately you can not have both plugged in at the same time and switch to B1, eveytime i tried box showed nothing and i had to power cycle
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Craiji
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Post by Craiji »

I have tested my ps3 (D-terminal cables) with the xrgb-3 heavily in B1 mode I have noticed that all Ps2 games read as 480p, I have not tested with any PsOne games yet.

Also Blue Ray movies will go to 1080i and not 720p when they cannot display in 1080p (kind of sucks, no 1080i on B1 for me) even when setting custom resolution and removing 1080i and leaving 720p movies will then go to 480p

Also the whole Ps3 no 1080i mode on games, I have concluded is not from the system but from the software, all games list supported resolutions, RR7 supports D1-D4 and if the max resolution is set to 1080i it will work (on B0 arggg) but resistance will go to 480p

Ill post pictures tomorrow at work now.
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Post by fubarduck »

Craiji wrote:I have tested my ps3 (D-terminal cables) with the xrgb-3 heavily in B1 mode I have noticed that all Ps2 games read as 480p, I have not tested with any PsOne games yet.

Also Blue Ray movies will go to 1080i and not 720p when they cannot display in 1080p (kind of sucks, no 1080i on B1 for me) even when setting custom resolution and removing 1080i and leaving 720p movies will then go to 480p

Also the whole Ps3 no 1080i mode on games, I have concluded is not from the system but from the software, all games list supported resolutions, RR7 supports D1-D4 and if the max resolution is set to 1080i it will work (on B0 arggg) but resistance will go to 480p

Ill post pictures tomorrow at work now.
Interesting results.

I was actually under the impression that PS2 games are only forced to 480p when going through HDMI, since 480i is "supported" through the Component/D-Terminal output.

This would be really bad news if the Component output REALLY DID force PS2 games to 480p; the PS3 actually does a god awful job of deinterlacing and adds a 2-3 frame lag on top of that (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=753069).

Keep us updated!
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Craiji
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Post by Craiji »

Devil May Cry 3 with D-terminals on the xrgb-3
Image
Played DMC3 all morning and did not notice any lag, had my roommate play also and he had no notice, also my sound is running thru optical to my receiver and the sound is dead on with the game play. I will also test my ps3 more when I go back to my parent’s home for the holiday and test on an hdmi set. Does anyone have a good way to test for delay?

720p shot of Store
Image
fubarduck
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Post by fubarduck »

If the PS2 game you're playing is one that natively supports 480p, you shouldn't experience the lag (so if you select 480p in the game options or by holding X + Triangle on startup, the lag will go away). But, if you're getting that 480p signal without changing any settings in DMC3 then it is definitely lagging.

The best/easiest way to measure it is with Guitar Hero 2. There is a HDTV Lag calibration function in the settings where you can figure out in MS how much delay there is (1 frame is about 16ms). You can also turn Progressive Scan on/off within the game to see how bad the difference is (If you turn it off, and you're still getting a 480p reading on the XRGB-3, you should feel the lag but if you enable the setting it should disappear).
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Craiji
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Post by Craiji »

I choose to show DMC3 as the game does not have a 480p mode, with tekken 5, soul calibur 3, and shadow of colossus when I switch the games into 480p mode there is no noticeable delay, but again I am only using my sound system as reference, I will also test with guitar hero and again on my moms hdmi equipped TV on Thursday
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Post by D »

I just saw this and thought it might be of interest to some. or not.
http://nfggames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=30
katzinator
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Post by katzinator »

After much research, I decided to take the plunge and purchase a PDI Deluxe. I just got the card in this morning and gave it a quick try.

I didn't have a whole lot of time (I had to leave for class), but so far, this thing may have solved my HDTV lag.

I tested out my NTSC Sega Saturn with Street Fighter Zero 3 and Layer Section. I ran S-Video into the PDI Deluxe and ran component out to my 62" Mitsubishi at its native resolution of 1080i. Quality-wise, it far better than I expected any capture card to produce. It was comparable to, if not better than, plugging the Saturn straight into my TV. Off the bat, I was unable to notice any lag whatsoever. I was able to pull off some moves that required precise timing in SFZ3 without problems, and Layer Section seemed to be as responsive as ever. I'm going to further investigate this when I get home tonight, but so far, I think it may have the problem licked.

One of the big(gest) pluses to having this card is that I am able to adjust the image size and position, thus eliminating any sort of overscan when outputting to my TV, YES! Additionally, the wide variety of filters and image adjustments should allow me to greatly increase the picture quality.

One minor issue I noticed was that during certain rapid white-flashes (like when a boss was being shot), there was noticeable "interlace lines". I'm sure this issue can be reduced/remedied by altering some of the filter/interlace settings. Still, it is barely considered a nuisance.

I was running this on my Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 with 2Gb of PC5400 RAM and an ATI X800XT. DScaler only used about 7% of my processor on one core and I experienced 0 dropped frames.
Razumen
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Post by Razumen »

katzinator wrote:After much research, I decided to take the plunge and purchase a PDI Deluxe. I just got the card in this morning and gave it a quick try.

I didn't have a whole lot of time (I had to leave for class), but so far, this thing may have solved my HDTV lag.

I tested out my NTSC Sega Saturn with Street Fighter Zero 3 and Layer Section. I ran S-Video into the PDI Deluxe and ran component out to my 62" Mitsubishi at its native resolution of 1080i. Quality-wise, it far better than I expected any capture card to produce. It was comparable to, if not better than, plugging the Saturn straight into my TV. Off the bat, I was unable to notice any lag whatsoever. I was able to pull off some moves that required precise timing in SFZ3 without problems, and Layer Section seemed to be as responsive as ever. I'm going to further investigate this when I get home tonight, but so far, I think it may have the problem licked.

One of the big(gest) pluses to having this card is that I am able to adjust the image size and position, thus eliminating any sort of overscan when outputting to my TV, YES! Additionally, the wide variety of filters and image adjustments should allow me to greatly increase the picture quality.

One minor issue I noticed was that during certain rapid white-flashes (like when a boss was being shot), there was noticeable "interlace lines". I'm sure this issue can be reduced/remedied by altering some of the filter/interlace settings. Still, it is barely considered a nuisance.

I was running this on my Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 with 2Gb of PC5400 RAM and an ATI X800XT. DScaler only used about 7% of my processor on one core and I experienced 0 dropped frames.
That card sounds pretty good, I looked into it and the price is not that bad either. If it really does have no noticeable lag than I may be sold. I'm a little hesitant to use a PC card for games though, considering I've been trying to use external solutions so far.

Do you know if it accepts resolutions of 480p or higher through the component input? If so then I could probably do away with my transcoders, and just run all my consoles through the card via a ext. component selector.

Oh, and it says it requires a AGP video card, but I assume it'll work with the newer PCI-Express cards as well, right?

It's a shame the PS3, doesn't upscale 480i games, considering how powerful it's supposed to be, I don't think it would be that hard to implement. I don't know about the 360 or Wii, but I'm pretty sure they don't upscale older games to progressive scan either.
katzinator
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Post by katzinator »

Razumen wrote:
katzinator wrote:After much research, I decided to take the plunge and purchase a PDI Deluxe. I just got the card in this morning and gave it a quick try.

I didn't have a whole lot of time (I had to leave for class), but so far, this thing may have solved my HDTV lag.

I tested out my NTSC Sega Saturn with Street Fighter Zero 3 and Layer Section. I ran S-Video into the PDI Deluxe and ran component out to my 62" Mitsubishi at its native resolution of 1080i. Quality-wise, it far better than I expected any capture card to produce. It was comparable to, if not better than, plugging the Saturn straight into my TV. Off the bat, I was unable to notice any lag whatsoever. I was able to pull off some moves that required precise timing in SFZ3 without problems, and Layer Section seemed to be as responsive as ever. I'm going to further investigate this when I get home tonight, but so far, I think it may have the problem licked.

One of the big(gest) pluses to having this card is that I am able to adjust the image size and position, thus eliminating any sort of overscan when outputting to my TV, YES! Additionally, the wide variety of filters and image adjustments should allow me to greatly increase the picture quality.

One minor issue I noticed was that during certain rapid white-flashes (like when a boss was being shot), there was noticeable "interlace lines". I'm sure this issue can be reduced/remedied by altering some of the filter/interlace settings. Still, it is barely considered a nuisance.

I was running this on my Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 with 2Gb of PC5400 RAM and an ATI X800XT. DScaler only used about 7% of my processor on one core and I experienced 0 dropped frames.
That card sounds pretty good, I looked into it and the price is not that bad either. If it really does have no noticeable lag than I may be sold. I'm a little hesitant to use a PC card for games though, considering I've been trying to use external solutions so far.

Do you know if it accepts resolutions of 480p or higher through the component input? If so then I could probably do away with my transcoders, and just run all my consoles through the card via a ext. component selector.

Oh, and it says it requires a AGP video card, but I assume it'll work with the newer PCI-Express cards as well, right?

It's a shame the PS3, doesn't upscale 480i games, considering how powerful it's supposed to be, I don't think it would be that hard to implement. I don't know about the 360 or Wii, but I'm pretty sure they don't upscale older games to progressive scan either.

For the lag situation, I got a chance to play a bit of Ikaruga on my Dreamcast the other night. As stated before, the response was fantastic. Unfortunately, I don't have any precise method of measuring any possible lag (no PS2 with Guitar Hero or the like), but I'm fairly certain it is non-existent. As soon as I get a chance, I'll do a side by side comparison of Battle Garegga on my Saturn VS MAME and find out for sure.

I'm afraid the card only accepts 480i inputs. This is not a problem for me, as my HDTV native resolution is 1080i anyway. The de-interlace methods are top-notch, however.

I was just as puzzled as you were about the AGP requirement. Worry not, I believe what they are trying to indicate is you cannot have a plain old PCI graphics card (their reasoning is that the PCI bus does not have enough bandwidth). My PCI-Express Radeon X800 runs just peachy with the PDI Deluxe.

I agree that it is a shame the new-gen systems are unable to scale up older titles for us with HDTVs, but there are more and more HDTVs that can handle 480p with no lag nowadays. Considering I got my 62" DLP for what should be considered highway robbery, I can't complain.
Razumen
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Post by Razumen »

katzinator wrote:For the lag situation, I got a chance to play a bit of Ikaruga on my Dreamcast the other night. As stated before, the response was fantastic. Unfortunately, I don't have any precise method of measuring any possible lag (no PS2 with Guitar Hero or the like), but I'm fairly certain it is non-existent. As soon as I get a chance, I'll do a side by side comparison of Battle Garegga on my Saturn VS MAME and find out for sure.

I'm afraid the card only accepts 480i inputs. This is not a problem for me, as my HDTV native resolution is 1080i anyway. The de-interlace methods are top-notch, however.

I was just as puzzled as you were about the AGP requirement. Worry not, I believe what they are trying to indicate is you cannot have a plain old PCI graphics card (their reasoning is that the PCI bus does not have enough bandwidth). My PCI-Express Radeon X800 runs just peachy with the PDI Deluxe.

I agree that it is a shame the new-gen systems are unable to scale up older titles for us with HDTVs, but there are more and more HDTVs that can handle 480p with no lag nowadays. Considering I got my 62" DLP for what should be considered highway robbery, I can't complain.
Do you know how well it compares to XRGB's de-interlacing? (In the normal line-doubling, non-laggy mode). I'm debating whether it's worth tying up a PCI slot on my MB (I'm building a new PC and the mobo will likely only have two PCI slots, three at most, with one being used for a sound card) and the cost of a component selector+splitter (one to the PC for 480i signals, the rest to a transcoder).
katzinator
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Post by katzinator »

Razumen wrote:
katzinator wrote:For the lag situation, I got a chance to play a bit of Ikaruga on my Dreamcast the other night. As stated before, the response was fantastic. Unfortunately, I don't have any precise method of measuring any possible lag (no PS2 with Guitar Hero or the like), but I'm fairly certain it is non-existent. As soon as I get a chance, I'll do a side by side comparison of Battle Garegga on my Saturn VS MAME and find out for sure.

I'm afraid the card only accepts 480i inputs. This is not a problem for me, as my HDTV native resolution is 1080i anyway. The de-interlace methods are top-notch, however.

I was just as puzzled as you were about the AGP requirement. Worry not, I believe what they are trying to indicate is you cannot have a plain old PCI graphics card (their reasoning is that the PCI bus does not have enough bandwidth). My PCI-Express Radeon X800 runs just peachy with the PDI Deluxe.

I agree that it is a shame the new-gen systems are unable to scale up older titles for us with HDTVs, but there are more and more HDTVs that can handle 480p with no lag nowadays. Considering I got my 62" DLP for what should be considered highway robbery, I can't complain.
Do you know how well it compares to XRGB's de-interlacing? (In the normal line-doubling, non-laggy mode). I'm debating whether it's worth tying up a PCI slot on my MB (I'm building a new PC and the mobo will likely only have two PCI slots, three at most, with one being used for a sound card) and the cost of a component selector+splitter (one to the PC for 480i signals, the rest to a transcoder).
Unfortunately, I really haven't seen the XRGB up close and personal, so I really wouldn't be able to comment on how advanced the de-interlacing methods are. The reason I went with the PDI was mainly because I wanted to upscale all my old systems to 720p (turns out my Mits wasn't 1080i native, after all) with zero lag, the XRGB can only do 480i to 480p line doubling without lag.

Considering DScaler has a variety of de-interlacing methods for different kinds of application (some being rather process-intensive, requiring a >1GHz processor), I am lead to believe it could produce a better quality image than the processor inside the XRGB-3. This being said, I'm sure there is some quality loss in the PC converting the analog signal to digital, then analog out again.

Someone posted some screenshots of the PDI in action on the Gamesx forums some while back. Let me know if you'd like some screencaps from my setup.
Razumen
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Post by Razumen »

katzinator wrote:
Razumen wrote:
katzinator wrote:For the lag situation, I got a chance to play a bit of Ikaruga on my Dreamcast the other night. As stated before, the response was fantastic. Unfortunately, I don't have any precise method of measuring any possible lag (no PS2 with Guitar Hero or the like), but I'm fairly certain it is non-existent. As soon as I get a chance, I'll do a side by side comparison of Battle Garegga on my Saturn VS MAME and find out for sure.

I'm afraid the card only accepts 480i inputs. This is not a problem for me, as my HDTV native resolution is 1080i anyway. The de-interlace methods are top-notch, however.

I was just as puzzled as you were about the AGP requirement. Worry not, I believe what they are trying to indicate is you cannot have a plain old PCI graphics card (their reasoning is that the PCI bus does not have enough bandwidth). My PCI-Express Radeon X800 runs just peachy with the PDI Deluxe.

I agree that it is a shame the new-gen systems are unable to scale up older titles for us with HDTVs, but there are more and more HDTVs that can handle 480p with no lag nowadays. Considering I got my 62" DLP for what should be considered highway robbery, I can't complain.
Do you know how well it compares to XRGB's de-interlacing? (In the normal line-doubling, non-laggy mode). I'm debating whether it's worth tying up a PCI slot on my MB (I'm building a new PC and the mobo will likely only have two PCI slots, three at most, with one being used for a sound card) and the cost of a component selector+splitter (one to the PC for 480i signals, the rest to a transcoder).
Unfortunately, I really haven't seen the XRGB up close and personal, so I really wouldn't be able to comment on how advanced the de-interlacing methods are. The reason I went with the PDI was mainly because I wanted to upscale all my old systems to 720p (turns out my Mits wasn't 1080i native, after all) with zero lag, the XRGB can only do 480i to 480p line doubling without lag.

Considering DScaler has a variety of de-interlacing methods for different kinds of application (some being rather process-intensive, requiring a >1GHz processor), I am lead to believe it could produce a better quality image than the processor inside the XRGB-3. This being said, I'm sure there is some quality loss in the PC converting the analog signal to digital, then analog out again.

Someone posted some screenshots of the PDI in action on the Gamesx forums some while back. Let me know if you'd like some screencaps from my setup.
Nah, I'm more interested in precisely how much lag there is, I can't seem to find any more info on that anywhere.
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Craiji
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Post by Craiji »

Unfortunately, I really haven't seen the XRGB up close and personal, so I really wouldn't be able to comment on how advanced the de-interlacing methods are. The reason I went with the PDI was mainly because I wanted to upscale all my old systems to 720p (turns out my Mits wasn't 1080i native, after all) with zero lag, the XRGB can only do 480i to 480p line doubling without lag.
The XRGB-3 in Base 1 (line doubling and transcoder mode) has no delay on 1080i or 720p

I am getting some noticeable humbar on my screen, I am using the VGA cables that came with my monitor, should I upgrade to higher grade cables or is this just a natural trait of the VGA output port on the box, when using DVI cables I never had any humbar
Last edited by Craiji on Mon Dec 18, 2006 3:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
Razumen
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Post by Razumen »

Craiji wrote:The XRGB-3 in Base 1 (line doubling and transcoder mode) has no delay on 1080i or 720p

I am getting some noticeable humbar on my screen, I am using the VGA cables that came with my monitor, should I upgrade to higher grade cables or is this just a natural trait of the VGA output port on the box, when using DVI cables I never had any humbar
I actually meant the PDI Deluxe, but thanks.

I don't know what you mean by Humbar, but I assume you mean signal degredation. What resolution are you running at? I know that with a lot of Transcoders with a VGA passthrough that high resolutions such as 1600x1200 will not make it through without degrading, I had to buy a seperate KVM switch to deal with that.
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Craiji
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Post by Craiji »

Sorry work lingo, humbar lines are horizontal lines that are moving across the screen, usually caused by interference.

Unfortunately in Base 1 mode the XRGB-3 cannot use its DVI output. So I had to use the VGA cables that came with my monitor. With my pretty good DVI cables I never had this problem, but using VGA it is pretty apparent.

I am using an LCD monitor so it also might be a result of that, I just wanted to know if the cause was the cables, then i would just drop some cash on some nice OFC shielded VGA cables.
Razumen
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Post by Razumen »

Craiji wrote:Sorry work lingo, humbar lines are horizontal lines that are moving across the screen, usually caused by interference.

Unfortunately in Base 1 mode the XRGB-3 cannot use its DVI output. So I had to use the VGA cables that came with my monitor. With my pretty good DVI cables I never had this problem, but using VGA it is pretty apparent.

I am using an LCD monitor so it also might be a result of that, I just wanted to know if the cause was the cables, then i would just drop some cash on some nice OFC shielded VGA cables.
Well, I suppose you could try hooking the VGA cables up directly to your computer and see if you still get the interference. If that fixes it the XRGB may be at fault. Of course quality cables are never a bad idea.
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mario2butts
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help!!!

Post by mario2butts »

Hi everyone. I'm new here, but I've been following this thread for a few months now since it seems to be the greatest source of info for the XRGB-3 on the 'net! So first I'd like to say thanks to everyone who contributed information here, it's been invaluable to me and others I'm sure!

I finally decided to pull the trigger on the XRGB-3 and got it in the mail a few days ago. However, I've been having issues upgrading the firmware and was hoping you guys could help me out.

I tested it on a spare CRT monitor and everything seemed to work fine out of the box. However I really wanted to use this thing in B1/ line doubler transcoder mode since A) I don't want lag!, and B) I'll be using this on a 854x480 DLP projector, so 640x480 is my preferred resolution. So using my friend's PC (I only have a mac :( ) I installed the update tool. I saw there were two updates, the CPU 1.07 update and the line doubler update. I wasn't sure which to do first, so I did the CPU update. It went through without a hitch. Then I did the line doubler update. This time, once the blue progress bar filled up, the window just hung there without doing anything, and the XRGB didn't turn itself off like it did for the CPU update. After 20 minutes trying to figure out what was suppossed to happen next, I quit the update tool and reset the XRGB. I went under "FPGA select", put the arrow next to "B1", hit "OK", and nothing happened. It still says "1024x768" under screen status.

So can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong? Sorry for the long post, but I really REALLY don't want to be stuck with a $300 paperweight :shock:
If it helps here's what I get when I look under "Firm Ver":
CPU Ver 1.07
FPGA1 Ver 6 10 13
FPGA2 Ver 6 10 19
FPGA3 Ver
FPGA4 Ver
CMD Ver 1.07
OSD Ver 1.01
PLL Ver 1.00
PCB Ver 1.3

Thanks again, guys!!
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Craiji
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Post by Craiji »

To get Base 1 mode to work set the FPGA to B1, exit out of the menu and turn off the unit. Then back on and it will be in base 1 mode, and make sure you are not using or have a DVI cable plugged into the unit

If that does not work you should reset the box to default. This must be done after any firmware updates. And try the above process again
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mario2butts
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Post by mario2butts »

Thanks, Craiji!

Sorry for another dumb question but how do I reset the box to default? I didn't see that anywhere in the menu translation posted earlier.
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Craiji
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Post by Craiji »

Turn off the power (stand by mode), hold the MENU button and the OK button, and push the POWER. The POWER lights and the STANDBY lights should both light simultaneously while holding down all three buttons
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mario2butts
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Post by mario2butts »

Crap... still not working! :(

I tried exiting the menu and powering off/on the unit after setting to B1, still 1024x768. Then tried the reset to default, set to B1, still 1024x768. Then tried re-flashing the line doubler update, still got the hanging blue progress bar I mentioned in my first post (dunno if its a problem or not), reset to default, still no luck. Any ideas on what to do next? I didn't reset to default between updates originally (didn't know how), I hope that didn't screw everything up...? Are the numbers I have under "firm ver" I posted originally look right?

Regardless, I appreciate your help, Craiji.
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