XRGB-mini Framemeister

[blizzz]

Do you already have a plan for a replacement blizzz? There doesn't seem to be another good candidate on Conrad..

I will stick with the original PSU (on a step-down converter). It's not my favorite setup but it's guaranteed to work.

[TheShadowRunner]

Do you already have a plan for a replacement blizzz? There doesn't seem to be another good candidate on Conrad..

I will stick with the original PSU (on a step-down converter). It's not my favorite setup but it's guaranteed to work.

Got you, i'll test as soon as the mini shows up and report, I also have a proper stepdown converter to compare it with. Got 14 days to return/exchange the Voltcraft..

[Shuco13]

What's just wrong with the mini's 480p processing? Now that I've done my first direct comparison today I can't believe how bad the 480p scaling of the mini seems to be. No matter which output resolution I choose it always looks worse than if I hook it directly to my TV. Smart x2 is somewhat acceptable but the screensize is not wide and to small for my taste. Even if I choose 480p as output the mini seems to screw up the signal. Am I doing something wrong or is there anything I can do to improve picture quality?
My settings for component:
Picture
H_scaler: 7
V_scaler: 5
Standard/normal2 for 720p
Smart x2 for 1080p
Color: as suggested

I furthermore think it's not my cable's fault because 240p input looks extremely good.

Edit: I suspect it hast something to do with the framemeister's wide mode, but I'm not sure. Can anybody confirm this?

Yes, the Mini does not handle 480p very well plus Component is noisy on the Mini especially if your are using it with a PS2. Make sure to set Sharpness to 1. It does help. There's not much that can be done to fix this problem though and plugging directly into your TV is probably the best option.

It seems as if Sharpness 1 is just too much. I got a lot of jagged edges from setting it to that value. Why is there nothing in between 0 and 1?
Anyways I'm going to stick to the mini because of scanline support and another thing I figured out just yesterday:
As some of you might know the Wii's 16:9 mode doesn't fill the full screen if selected. Usually you get two large black boarders on the sides. So after I had read that the Wii doesn't even output a 16:9 signal but just a 4:3 signal in wide mode I was very shocked at first. In the end it turned out to be a huge advantage because with the following settings I achieved to actually get fullscreen 16:9 without overscan or boarders:
1. I set the Wii's output to 16:9, also in games if possible.
2. I set the Framemeister's output to 4:3.
3. I set my TVs output to "4:3-full-format", which basicly stretches the 4:3 image to the sides without issues. Interestingly this mode is not selectable if I hook the console directly to my TV but this might all be very individual.

I thought I just share these settings in case somebody else wants to try them as well. It's really nice to have the correct aspect ratio without overscan or boarders.

[Pasky]

So, the V line option under visual set. This enables scan lines in modes other than meister mode? Or is it actually setting the picture to meister mode? Is there any additional lag added to it using the scanlines?

[Fudoh]

To enable scanlines in all modes you use the "C" button on the remote. It does not add additional lag. You should not use "meister" mode since it's based on one of the game mode settings, which means you get worse deinterlacing for 480i and stronger filtering.

[TheShadowRunner]

Arg, I could use some help with the mini I just received from Solaris Japan.
Every resolution I set for HDMI-out besides 480p (SAFETY MODE) gives me a black screen.
My TV is a high end Sony 40Z5500, has never had any troubles displaying any HDMI signal I threw at it so far.
My test: I hooked up SuperFamicom via SVideo.
The HDMI output resolutions that are working:
- 480_60p
- 576_50p

Absolutely everything else gives a black screen (like the TV isn't receiving any signal).

I tried "HDMI 1" (my PS3) and it'll only display at 480p maximum as well.
If I set HDMI output mode to 1080_60p, I get the damn black screen again.

Is there something obvious I'm missing or is the unit defective? :?

[Fudoh]

You could (just for the moment) try to disable v-sync before switching to another resolution. This way you could at least verify that the Mini itself does still output in HD.

[TheShadowRunner]

You could (just for the moment) try to disable v-sync before switching to another resolution. This way you could at least verify that the Mini itself does still output in HD.

Thanks for your reply.
So I set: Visual_Set > Sync_Mode to "OFF" instead of "Auto". (is that v-sync?)
It didn't change anything.

[Fudoh]

yes, that's what I meant. My Sony (2010 model) won't display HDMI 480p from any videogame source unless I run through a switch first. Still - after all those years - no idea why that is. So I still wouldn't blame it on the Mini. Do you have any other display(s) near by that you could try ?

If it works fine on another monitor and you like to keep your TV, you could add a cheap HDMI to VGA D/A converter between the Mini and the Sony. Those are lag-free of course.

[blizzz]

Did you try both the original PSU and the one from Conrad? You should also try it on a computer monitor and with a different HDMI cable. A few weeks back I had the problem that I wouldn't get a picture from an old PC on an old monitor with a cheap HDMI cable. It worked after I switched the cable.

Do you get at least the blue screen when no console is connected?

[TheShadowRunner]

yes, that's what I meant. My Sony (2010 model) won't display HDMI 480p from any videogame source unless I run through a switch first. Still - after all those years - no idea why that is. So I still wouldn't blame it on the Mini. Do you have any other display(s) near by that you could try ?

If it works fine on another monitor and you like to keep your TV, you could add a cheap HDMI to VGA D/A converter between the Mini and the Sony. Those are lag-free of course.

Thanks again for your answer Fudoh, it was a false alarm, the HDMI cable I bought for the mini is just bad o_O
I just tried to connect the mini to a PC display via another HDMI cable with HDMI-to-DVI adapter, everything worked, I thought god damn Sony HDTV :S
But for the sake of it I took this very same HDMI cable to my TV and tried again with the mini, all good!
Damn, lost like 3 hours trying to find out what was wrong and it was just the freaking cable :[
In all cases, thanks for your super fast support/suggestion Fudoh, much appreciated!

[blizzz]

Good to hear that it's working! Have fun with your Framemeister

[TheShadowRunner]

Did you try both the original PSU and the one from Conrad? You should also try it on a computer monitor and with a different HDMI cable. A few weeks back I had the problem that I wouldn't get a picture from an old PC on an old monitor with a cheap HDMI cable. It worked after I switched the cable.

Do you get at least the blue screen when no console is connected?

Man, you were exactly right, cheap HDMI cable!
Yes I did get the blue screen, except anything beyond 480p just wasn't working.
That's nuts, I would have thought HDMI cables either worked 100% or 0%.
As for the Voltcraft PSU from Conrad, I didn't even try it and returned it. The reason is it's a "switched mode power supply" and the major disadvantage about those is they add crazy noise.
Instead, I miraculously found an old Power adater that I got with my Gigabeat G40 from Japan (Toshiba DAP), and it's exactly fitted for the mini on top of being a Linear Power Supply (LPS).
You can see a pic of it here:


Now off to test some consoles and see how this beast works! 8)

[TheShadowRunner]

After being blown away by what the mini does with 240p, I tried the PS2.
There I have a bit of an issue again ^^;
The setup: PS2 connected to Mini via official RGB Cable SCPH-10142.

Intermittently, I'm losing image & audio for a split second, it seems random.
I tried playing with the Sync level (from 9 to 30), it didn't help and actually made matter worse at higher values (more occurence of the drop-out happening).

I then tried a cheapo RGB cable, and low and behold, no more dropouts! (but bad audio noise due to how the cable isn't grounded proper).

So I think there is something the official cable does that the mini doesn't like...

I opened the SCPH-10142 SCART end, and there is some funky stuff going on in there, I think there is a circuit to raise the voltage to 12 volt for pin8 (I know it's unused by the mini, but could it still be the culprit hmmm)

I'm posting a picture here: would anyone have any idea what I could try to disable the voltage circuit completely? (I'm not afraid to sacrifice this cable.)






Or if a Mini user also uses the same SCPH-10142 cable for PS2, is it working OK for you as-is?
Please let me know!

[Zero1]

Hi guys.
Got a couple of issues/improvements that could easily be fixed with some firmware updates. I notice that past issues and feature requests seem to have made it in to subsequent firmwares, so is there a way to make your voice heard? I understand that Micomsoft is a Japanese company, but I'm prepared to list my requests and pay to have them translated professionally if there is a chance they will listen to them.

A little bit of background actually, since my use is probably a bit different from most. I don't use my XRGB to play on LCD - I use it purely for video capture from a UD CPS2. I have a standard SCART cable going into a Keene SCART distribution amp which gives me an output for a CRT and an output into the XRGB mini. Since it's being played on a CRT, aspect ratio and such as displayed on the XRGB doesn't matter to me - but more on the specifics of that later on.

One of the problems with the game I capture (Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo) is that the life bars have a 1 pixel checker pattern, and due to the resolution of the game and scaling method of the XRGB, it can cause uneven scaling of the pixels, especially when displayed in 4:3 or resized to 4:3 for live streaming in the stream program. This image is from an emulator, but it's a similar kind of problem. It will give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

Good integer scale


Bad non-integer scale


Now these examples were made by me for a totally different issue regarding emulation and upscaling, but illustrate the issue I have (though the XRGB scaling is a lot better than the dumb NN filter I used for the example) You can read my article here if you are interested.

There is an option in the service menu of the arcade board to display graphics contained in the ROMs (which is a lot easier than going into the game and taking screenshots as the CPU beats you up or you get timed out, hah). Note that I have already done a lot of tweaking to the image so it already looks better than usual in 4:3, but this is what it looks like currently.


The above image is a 1x1 pixel grid. The game resolution is 384x224 which is wider than 4:3, so it's never going to look perfect. However I found that for the purpose of capture it was better to resize the image in the software than let the XRGB resize to 4:3.

And that brings me to my feature request. In order to get the best quality scale in the software, I need the XRGB to do a perfect integer scale. It already does a 3x scale on the height - 224 pixels padded to 240 with the black area, and then 3x to 720. However it does not work that way with the width. I do not know why, but I expect it's something to do with the fact that the width is padded to some value and output by the system as 720x240, and obviously 720 does not scale nicely to 1280 or 1920. I even tried the DVI mode to access the weird resolutions but I didn't find anything suitable.

In the end I left the device in 16:9 (so the XRGB wouldn't try to scale the width down for 4:3) and poked around in the scaling options and set the H width while dropping screenshots into photoshop and checking the width of the active image. Ideally I want 1152x672 for a 3x width and height scale, but the closest I could get was around 1148x672.

Here's how it looks in widescreen without changing the H width


As you can see there is a weird dark area effect due to the scaling. Some pixels appear to have been scaled 3x perfectly and are dead sharp, but because of the odd width it means some pixels had to be scaled by different amounts and got blurry due to the scaling method used. Interestingly enough, the skew feaure allows you to "move" the dark patches left and right.

After increasing the H width to 34, it now looks like this. Almost perfect!


You can still see some scaling artifacts and you can see some pixels aren't as sharp as others but this is as good as it gets for now.



So what's the feature request? To offer finer increments of adjustment for the H width. I'm fairly certain if I could set it to 34.1 or something it would be perfect as it's only 4 pixels out on the width. If I could do that, I'd have a perfect 3x scale from the XRGB and my video captures would look even better.

Also related to video capture would be the ability to adjust saturation in RGB SCART mode.

I can see why this isn't an option - but should be. Especially when you are able to enable the anime setting and it boosts the saturation in RGB mode anyway. The problem with the anime mode is that it's way too heavy handed and ends up with the colours blowing out. I've done a lot of colour adjustments in the colour bars option of the arcade board and you end up losing the last 2 or 3 blocks where they all merge into the same shade of red green or blue.

Thanks for reading, sorry it was so long but these are features I think are pretty important!

[Fudoh]

And that brings me to my feature request. In order to get the best quality scale in the software, I need the XRGB to do a perfect integer scale.

that's actually the real problem. The processors receives an analogue signal without ANY information about the actual horizontal resolution. This A/D process (called sampling) is what's actually the most difficult part. You hitting a sweet spot by just adjusting the horizontal width is real luck.

[CkRtech]

And that brings me to my feature request. In order to get the best quality scale in the software, I need the XRGB to do a perfect integer scale.

that's actual the real problem. The processors receives an analogue signal without ANY information about the actual horizontal resolution. This A/D process (called sampling) is what's actually the most difficult part. You hitting a sweet spot by just adjusting the horizontal width is real luck.

It seems like a nice addition would be the ability to store profiles (if memory will allow it) or be able to push settings via an external device by way of the USB port that is typically used for flashing (if possible). Much like using RS232 for sending commands.

If they did it onboard, I assume space would be quite limited. Maybe just a few slots. You could set all of your scaling settings, picture tweaks, etc, and then save it to a slot (1, 2, 3, etc).

This sort of idea has been mentioned before in this very thread, but I don't really know how much feature development would be put into firmware revisions vs tweaks for helping with compatibility where possible - or any revisions at all since they appear to be rare.

[TheShadowRunner]

It seems like a nice addition would be the ability to store profiles (if memory will allow it) or be able to push settings via an external device by way of the USB port that is typically used for flashing (if possible). Much like using RS232 for sending commands.

If they did it onboard, I assume space would be quite limited. Maybe just a few slots. You could set all of your scaling settings, picture tweaks, etc, and then save it to a slot (1, 2, 3, etc).

This sort of idea has been mentioned before in this very thread, but I don't really know how much feature development would be put into firmware revisions vs tweaks for helping with compatibility where possible - or any revisions at all since they appear to be rare.

Absolutely, it's actually surprising it wasn't designed this way to start with.
It seems like Micomsoft thought users would only use the RGB input for 1 system :S
I believe Jacob (Solaris Japan) is in a position where he could relay this request (I already mentionned it to him).
Instead of having the 4 bottom colored buttons doing Zoom related features, RGB profiles would be so much more useful ^^;

As per my PS2 issue, I think I found the culprit, there's just no "Composite ground" pin (pin17) on the official Sony SCPH-10142 RGB cable !?
Instead there is a ground on Pin14 (Data ground), which I've never seen used on a SCART cable ever before. I wonder if it's just a mistake or intended..
I have 2 of these SCPH-10142 and they're identical so I doubt it's a manufacturing error..

[Bax]

Or if a Mini user also uses the same SCPH-10142 cable for PS2, is it working OK for you as-is?
Please let me know!
...
As per my PS2 issue, I think I found the culprit, there's just no "Composite ground" pin (pin17) on the official Sony SCPH-10142 RGB cable !?
Instead there is a ground on Pin14 (Data ground), which I've never seen used on a SCART cable ever before. I wonder if it's just a mistake or intended..
I have 2 of these SCPH-10142 and they're identical so I doubt it's a manufacturing error..

Mine does the same. I believe Sony use pin 18 for ground and/or pin 4 audio ground. Nintendo for example only use pin 17, "incorrectly" as it's for output ground. But it doesn't matter because the Mini scart-to-din cable should link them all together.

[Fudoh]

believe Jacob (Solaris Japan) is in a position where he could relay this request (I already mentionned it to him).
Instead of having the 4 bottom colored buttons doing Zoom related features, RGB profiles would be so much more useful

it's been requested. Nothing more we can do.

[TheShadowRunner]

Or if a Mini user also uses the same SCPH-10142 cable for PS2, is it working OK for you as-is?
Please let me know!
...
As per my PS2 issue, I think I found the culprit, there's just no "Composite ground" pin (pin17) on the official Sony SCPH-10142 RGB cable !?
Instead there is a ground on Pin14 (Data ground), which I've never seen used on a SCART cable ever before. I wonder if it's just a mistake or intended..
I have 2 of these SCPH-10142 and they're identical so I doubt it's a manufacturing error..

Mine does the same. I believe Sony uses pin 18 for ground and/or pin 4 audio ground. Nintendo only use pin 17 IRC. But it doesn't matter because the mini scart to din cable should link them all together anyway.

Yes, I just temporarily rewired my RGB21 to SCART cable to use pin14 as Composite ground, it sadly didn't correct the issue. What solution are you using for PS2 then? A cheapo cable without the voltage circuity seem to be doing the trick here, have you tried ?
Ideally I'd like to use the official cable because it's way better built and no audio noise... I'm sure a mod to make it work properly with the Mini shouldn't be too hard, like cutting a trace here or there xD

it's been requested. Nothing more we can do.

Ah nice, finger crossed ^^

[Bax]

Yes, I just temporarily rewired my RGB32 to SCART cable to use pin14 as Composite ground, it sadly didn't correct the issue. What solution are you using for PS2 then? A cheapo cable without the voltage circuity seem to be doing the trick here, have you tried ?

I'm currently using a scart coupler with a sync separator and a toggle switch that's connected to sync and green(for 480p). That solves the sync issue and you get RGB 480p option as a bonus. I've also done some experimenting with a solution that auto switches between the two on demand. I've got it working but it's still in a breadboard stage.

[cyborc]

Just for shits and giggles I tried groovymame with the framemeister.

For those who aren't aware, groovymame is a fork of MAME meant for CRT users. When combined with specific ATI cards and a hacked driver, groovymame can run MAME roms in their original resolutions and refresh rates.

As far as the mini goes, on games with weird refresh rates there was some stuttering in the scrolling. Also I had to constantly fiddle with the v_width for each game to get the scanlines to look correct.

[Fudoh]

A cheapo cable without the voltage circuity seem to be doing the trick here, have you tried ?

The Mini doesn't even use the voltages supplied to Pin 8 or 16.

If you get dropouts on a PS1/2 RGB cable, it usually means that the caps in the RGB lines are either missing or faulty.

[kel]

I'm pretty sure that the PS2 already has caps for the RGB lines in the console itself.

I also remember having dropouts with the SCPH-10142 with my XRGB-3 and also direct to my Edge. At the time I either used to wiggle the scart connecter in the socket until the dropouts stopped which didn't always solve the problem or just switch to my SCPH-1052 cable which worked fine.

I thought it may be a loose connection in the cable at the time, hence the wiggling of the scart plug and cable fixing the problem sometimes but I doubt that is the case now that it seems that my SCPH-10142 is not the only one with this problem.

[TheShadowRunner]

The Mini doesn't even use the voltages supplied to Pin 8 or 16.

No but could it be the circuit disrupts/interferes with the Composite sync signal, I wonder.

If you get dropouts on a PS1/2 RGB cable, it usually means that the caps in the RGB lines are either missing or faulty.

I don't think that's the issue here..

I also remember having dropouts with the SCPH-10142 with my XRGB-3 and also direct to my Edge. At the time I either used to wiggle the scart connecter in the socket until the dropouts stopped which didn't always solve the problem or just switch to my SCPH-1052 cable which worked fine.

I thought it may be a loose connection in the cable at the time, hence the wiggling of the scart plug and cable fixing the problem sometimes but I doubt that is the case now that it seems that my SCPH-10142 is not the only one with this problem.

Thanks for another confirmation that this cable does something funky...

[Fudoh]

Thanks for another confirmation that this cable does something funky...

I assume the yellow wire is the composite video line. You could just bypass the board for the sync signal. Just remove the yellow wire from the input pin and solder it to the proper output pin on the board.

[TheShadowRunner]

Thanks for another confirmation that this cable does something funky...

I assume the yellow wire is the composite video line. You could just bypass the board for the sync signal. Just remove the yellow wire from the input pin and solder it to the proper output pin on the board.

It was the circuit alright.
I just unsoldered the wire that brings power to the circuit (the purple wire) and hey presto no more dropouts


Always trust your instincts!

[Zero1]

Thanks Fudoh. I was thinking about what you said and I think I understand the process better now. So yeah, I did get pretty lucky with the width setting being almost perfect. It would still be nice if we had finer control over it though, like if the range was 0-255 instead of 0-64 or whatever it is now, or just the ability to scale to inbetween numbers (eg 34 is almost perfect, 35 is too wide, so being able to pick 34.2 might work or something)

Really want some RGB saturation adjustment though. I'm not sure if it's just my setup but the colours look a bit washed out on my capture rig.

I'm really surprised there is no ability to store profiles - I thought that would have been a standard feature to be honest. Especially when you consider it even has a micro SD card slot - it's just begging to be used! It would be so good, being able to make profiles for your different consoles, or TVs and being able to share configs to your friends.

Oh, also the ability to load an image from the SD card and use it as a splash screen instead of a blue/black screen would be cool - we could display our logo while we are changing games at events etc.

Is anyone in contact with the guy at Solaris Japan who could forward my request? I would do it myself but I don't think he would take any notice of a random person. I'm pretty desperate for some of these features. I'd donate money or anything.

[quash]

I'm torn between purchasing an XRGB-3 or a Framemeister. I'm going to lay out what I've gathered from my research so far so someone more knowledgable can make sure I haven't missed something.

I will be using this for Xbox, PS2 and Dreamcast primarily. Being able to hook up all three in to the same box with minimal effort (through D-Terminal and VGA respectively) is a big plus to me. However, all but one of the XRGB's D-in ports apparently exhibit a fair amount of noise (though this was only tested with 480p sources, according to the wiki). I guess the component signal is clearer over the RGB-21 port anyways? Lots of half-conclusions with little to no supporting evidence.

The Framemeister apparently handles 480i sources better than the XRGB, though I don't know exactly what this entails (or more importantly, how the XRGB falls short). This is a pretty important factor to me since the majority of PS2 games and a fair number of Xbox games never supported progressive scan. Hooking up a Dreamcast, while possible, is going to require either modifying the VGA box or buying a signal converter. I realize either of these is a drop in the bucket compared to the ~$300 I'm going to drop on a Micomsoft product (not to mention the endless tweaking of image settings before things look right), but I can definitely appreciate the simplicty of just using the VGA output I already have.

The only thing that is making me wary of the Framemeister is that it doesn't output my monitor's native resolution. I have a Dell U2413, which is a 1900 x 1200 display. While it does have a 1:1 pixel mapping option, I've yet to test this for display lag.

In short, there's three things that I want to know about the XRGB-3 that I haven't been able to find answers to:
- Just how noisy the D-in is (particularly when using 480i sources)
- Just how bad the upscaling is
- Exactly how it doesn't handle 480i sources well

It really does seem like the Framemeister is the better solution here, but naturally I want to be sure before I make a purchase.