Cloning the Gamecube component cable

[Pent]

I picked up one of these GCplugs from Ali and the seller has been less than helpful (unsurprisingly) in diagnosing an issue I have (See images)
As far as I can tell it's connected well and it's obviously getting enough data to kind of render the screen but the signal seems almost like it's having sync issues. On other monitors I get the same issue and I have both a JAP and PAL GC and I get the same results on both.

Before I start my own attempt at diagnosis I wondered if anyone had seen anything similar and could point me in the right direction.

[Unseen]

Before I start my own attempt at diagnosis I wondered if anyone had seen anything similar and could point me in the right direction.

I have never seen anything like this, but I would guess that it's somewhere on the output side of GCVideo. The "noisy bar" on the left of the screen looks like the data islands where audio and metadata is transmitted - under normal circumstances they should never show up in the visible video signal. I'm actually amazed that your display is able to generate a recognizable picture at all because the sync signals are also hidden in there.

Have you tried a different, possibly shorter cable?

[Pent]

Have you tried a different, possibly shorter cable?

I have not, I'll give that a try as soon as I can get my hands on one.

[maxtherabbit]

seeing as how it's from aliexpress, i'd say the most likely explanation is either bad soldering in the unit or a bad flash

send it back or get a refund

[Pent]

Have you tried a different, possibly shorter cable?

I bought a Mini HDMI convertor and used that with a 0.5m cable and now everything works just fine.
Thank you so much for the help.

[Ikaruga11]

Did the white levels ever get fixed? The brightest white is a very light gray.

[Unseen]

Did the white levels ever get fixed? The brightest white is a very light gray.

Analog or digital? If digital, are you sure you don't have a limited range/full range mixup?

[Ikaruga11]

Did the white levels ever get fixed? The brightest white is a very light gray.

Analog or digital? If digital, are you sure you don't have a limited range/full range mixup?

Analog

[Extrems]

My advice is to calibrate for each analog source.

[kloow]

I have firmware that will fix this. Just have not released it yet. But will very soon.

Hey citrus, my apologies if I this has already been answered... Are you planning to release any firmware updates to the GC Plug or is that project obsolete?

I posted them on discord. Sorry for not relaying them here, this is 2.4c for the GCPlug. The GCPlug constraints file is on my fork of gc-video. So anybody that wants to compile it on there own, its there.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... _flash.bin

Do you happen to have a binary for version 2.4d available as well? I'd like to update my GCPlug that I got for Christmas to the latest version. Also, is your fork of GCVideo open source? I can't seem to find the repo... It's been years since I last dabbled with VHDL, but I'd love to learn more on how GCPlug differs from say Shuriken v3.

Thank you!

[bobrocks95]

What options are available for analog video + digital audio? Just got an OSSC and it's time to upgrade my HDMI-modded Gamecube as suddenly it's the worst looking console in my setup.

What I'm seeing:

• * GCHD- fully featured but pricey
  * GCMax- has everything I want but I think this was just a citrus3000psi board he made? Doesn't seem like anyone made a lot, unless I can get one from China? Not opposed to that.
  * Use an HDMI to component DAC + an HDMI audio extractor- clunky and it feels really dumb to go from HDMI to component to HDMI with the OSSC.

Anything I'm missing?

[maxtherabbit]

What options are available for analog video + digital audio? Just got an OSSC and it's time to upgrade my HDMI-modded Gamecube as suddenly it's the worst looking console in my setup.

What I'm seeing:

• * GCHD- fully featured but pricey
  * GCMax- has everything I want but I think this was just a citrus3000psi board he made? Doesn't seem like anyone made a lot, unless I can get one from China? Not opposed to that.
  * Use an HDMI to component DAC + an HDMI audio extractor- clunky and it feels really dumb to go from HDMI to component to HDMI with the OSSC.

Anything I'm missing?

you could do an internal TOSLINK mod

[Ikaruga11]

What options are available for analog video + digital audio? Just got an OSSC and it's time to upgrade my HDMI-modded Gamecube as suddenly it's the worst looking console in my setup.

What I'm seeing:

• * GCHD- fully featured but pricey
  * GCMax- has everything I want but I think this was just a citrus3000psi board he made? Doesn't seem like anyone made a lot, unless I can get one from China? Not opposed to that.
  * Use an HDMI to component DAC + an HDMI audio extractor- clunky and it feels really dumb to go from HDMI to component to HDMI with the OSSC.

Anything I'm missing?

EON GCHD MK-II

[nmalinoski]

What options are available for analog video + digital audio? Just got an OSSC and it's time to upgrade my HDMI-modded Gamecube as suddenly it's the worst looking console in my setup.

What I'm seeing:

• * GCHD- fully featured but pricey
  * GCMax- has everything I want but I think this was just a citrus3000psi board he made? Doesn't seem like anyone made a lot, unless I can get one from China? Not opposed to that.
  * Use an HDMI to component DAC + an HDMI audio extractor- clunky and it feels really dumb to go from HDMI to component to HDMI with the OSSC.

Anything I'm missing?

EON GCHD MK-II

Has the same price caveat as the regular GCHD.

[bobrocks95]

MK-II is what I meant, don't think you can even get the original anymore.

[Unseen]

GCVideo-DVI 3.0 is released, download here. This should've been a christmas release, but my main PC decided to die rather than suffer an upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10 and that combined with 36C3 and AGDQ delayed everything a bit.

Short summary of new features (may be incomplete):

• attempted to improve signal compatibility
• non-standard mode detection
• automatic processing bypass for non-standard modes
• automatic image centering, with optional image shift
• more flexible scanline strength including hybrid
• scanline profiles
• infrastructure for installing future firmware updates via console (but not this one!)
• faster startup time
• analog component output signal range workaround
• YCbCr 4:4:4 and 4:2:2 output options
• advanced options menu for disabling parts of the image processing
• less strict gamepad snooper timing to fix GC+ compatibility

[maxtherabbit]

GCVideo-DVI 3.0 is released, download here. This should've been a christmas release, but my main PC decided to die rather than suffer an upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10 and that combined with 36C3 and AGDQ delayed everything a bit.

Short summary of new features (may be incomplete):

• attempted to improve signal compatibility
• non-standard mode detection
• automatic processing bypass for non-standard modes
• automatic image centering, with optional image shift
• more flexible scanline strength including hybrid
• scanline profiles
• infrastructure for installing future firmware updates via console
• faster startup time
• analog component output signal range workaround
• YCbCr 4:4:4 and 4:2:2 output options
• advanced options menu for disabling parts of the image processing
• less strict gamepad snooper timing to fix GC+ compatibility

hot damn!

[thebigcheese]

Nice! Hope the GCDual fork comes soon, I've been holding off on updating for quite a while now...

[Unseen]

Hope the GCDual fork comes soon

You could just install the GCDual build from my repository?

[thebigcheese]

Hope the GCDual fork comes soon

You could just install the GCDual build from my repository?

Oh! I though Dan had a special version or something once upon a time. Guess I'll just do that, then.

Edit: So I've done this procedure once before to get to 2.4b and had no issues, but I'm having a hell of a time this time around. I got it to 3.0 and it verified successfully. I plugged it in and booted it up and it turned on, but looked kinda yellow. Figuring it was maybe an issue with the cable, I unplugged it and plugged it back in and got nothing at all. I tried several times to fiddle with cables and nothing. The GC turns on, as far as I can tell, but no signal. I thought maybe it was a firmware issue, so I flashed it back to 2.4b and it booted, but the signal was really flakey. Jiggling the cable even a bit would mess it up. I opened it back up, redid my soldering for the GCDual (even though it has been fine for over a year now), reflashed 3.0, and... nothing again. Messed with it a bit and eventually tried the HDMI to see if that would work and it did, but after turning it off and back on to try the analog out again, nothing over analog or HDMI anymore. So I don't know what's going on anymore... Anyone have any ideas? I'm getting tired of opening this thing up over and over and over. Really wishing the external options had existed when I got this, would've just gotten one of those instead. I don't think any traces had to be cut, so I guess I could always take it back out and get an external one, but it just seems a shame since I've already got this mod.

[tesla246]

Hey guys and girls on shmups

More work is needed to get this working, but it would look like this:

If this is what I think it is colour me excited, especially when the future will allow for perfect integer scaling (8KTV).

I have been reading a bit through this thread and I was intrigued by the cube's output conversion of RGB to YUV 4:2:2. Would it be theoretically possible in anyway to circumvent that downgrade/conversion in image quality, for example by wiring directly to the GPU? And if so, would GCvideo be able be adapted or would that require a complete overhaul of the code, a more powerful FPGA or both among other things?

Very impressed with GC video and how it is still being improved upon; I have been using it for a few years and it works wonderfully (thanks unseen). However, Gamecube (even over HDMI) always looked i bit blurry (edges, text) in comparison to other consoles with high quality connections like Dreamcast over VGA and especially DCHDMI, which just looks a lot clearer, sharper and vivid.

[thebigcheese]

So I did a lot of troubleshooting and resoldered basically everything. I'd get audio, but still no video. After doing all that, I reflashed the 2.4b firmware and it seems to be working again. Every time I've flashed the 3.0 firmware, it seems to work on the first boot, then it stops working after I power cycle. Has anyone else tried flashing on one of the GC Dual kits from Dan (citrus)? The only things I'm changing are linedoubler off and output to RGB instead of YPbPr since I'm connecting to a PVM. Then I store the settings and turn it off, then no video when I turn it back on.

[Unseen]

Then I store the settings and turn it off, then no video when I turn it back on.

Is the video missing on the analog output, the digital one or both?

[citrus3000psi]

I just loaded up vanilla 3.0 and it seems when I save settings the bitstream is overwritten or something of that nature.

[thebigcheese]

Then I store the settings and turn it off, then no video when I turn it back on.

Is the video missing on the analog output, the digital one or both?

Both, though because there is no video on HDMI, I can't even get audio. There's no sync, either, so I had to connect directly to TV and speakers to even hear that there was audio.

[Unseen]

I just loaded up vanilla 3.0 and it seems when I save settings the bitstream is overwritten or something of that nature.

Are there GCDual boards with less than 4 MBit of flash memory?

[citrus3000psi]

I just loaded up vanilla 3.0 and it seems when I save settings the bitstream is overwritten or something of that nature.

Are there GCDual boards with less than 4 MBit of flash memory?

The flashed used is 4Mbit, specifically https://www.digikey.com/products/en?key ... 06EM1I-12G

[Unseen]

The flashed used is 4Mbit, specifically https://www.digikey.com/products/en?key ... 06EM1I-12G

Thanks, in theory that one should work. I just updated my own GCDual board using the release binary and I can store the settings there without any problems.

Spoiler

No longer relevant, moved to spoiler because I can't find strikethrough.

@thebigcheese: Can you access the flasher using About->Update firmware in GCVideo 3.0 if you do not store the settings? If you can, please hit the Z button, you should then be in the Flash memory dump tool and the contents of address 00000 should be shown on screen. Do you see eight rows filled with "ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff" followed by eight more rows of hex numbers? After that, please hit the X button, which should switch to address 30000. Does the first line of the dump start with "47 43 44 55"? (equivalently, "GCDU..H." in the right column)

I suspect I know what the problem is, will investigate further.

Edit: Found it, building 3.0a release binaries now, will be uploaded when done in an hour or so.

[Lostdotfish]

Can someone tell me which firmware 3.0 version I need to flash a generic GCPlug please?

gcvideo-dvi-dual-gc-3.0-spirom-complete.bin?

EDIT - assuming I'm using a CH341a and programming the SPI chip directly.

EDIT 2 - I'm guessing in need a specific binary for GCPlug? gcvideo-dvi-shuriken-v3-gc-3.0-spirom-complete.bin and gcvideo-dvi-dual-gc-3.0-spirom-complete.bin = brick

[Unseen]

New release: GCVideo 3.0a. Fixes a likely flash memory corruption when saving settings.

I didn't hit that bug because my system already had a valid v6 settings record from development. If you didn't have that, there was a 1 in 8(?) chance (depending of the number of previous settings records) that you would only suffer from settings that would not load on restart instead of corrupting the flasher bitstream.

Edit: Oh, and using the internal update function to install 3.0a from 3.0 should be safe.