XRGB-mini Framemeister

[CkRtech]

However, the background noise on my 1CHIP SNES has been significantly reduced. Yay

Could you elaborate a bit on this? I keep putting off a power supply upgrade for my xrgb in order to help reduce the "wispy" horizontal lines in large instances of solid color (usually backgrounds). What sort of background noise are you talking about?

[Grimakis]

So scanlines DO work properly with 1080p now, BUT only in the Smart 2x and Smart 1x modes.

The INT_* options affect these modes. Probably because they are the integer scaling modes. You can have them look as razor sharp as you want, or you can blend and blur the scanlines to recreate that CRT look. It really works.

However if you use Standard, or Normal2, or whatever, you have to use the DEC_* options. Here we still have an issue with odd and even scanlines being different thicknesses.

Also, scanlines really decrease the perceived brightness of the display. Is the best way to compensate for this to kick up the backlight on my actual TV?

Regards,
George

[Smashbro29]

I have to admit I'm pretty excited to be able to download set ups from you guys based on console.

[eightbitminiboss]

So scanlines DO work properly with 1080p now, BUT only in the Smart 2x and Smart 1x modes.

The INT_* options affect these modes. Probably because they are the integer scaling modes. You can have them look as razor sharp as you want, or you can blend and blur the scanlines to recreate that CRT look. It really works.

However if you use Standard, or Normal2, or whatever, you have to use the DEC_* options. Here we still have an issue with odd and even scanlines being different thicknesses.

Also, scanlines really decrease the perceived brightness of the display. Is the best way to compensate for this to kick up the backlight on my actual TV?

Regards,
George

Ah perfect, I was going to ask if anyone figured out how to get integer scaling working, but you got the answer I was looking for. Thanks!

[Fudoh]

Smart 2x and 1x will give you pretty heavy underscan though. And your aspect ratio will usually be to wide as well.

Using FBX's custom zoom modes are better and you should be able to use the new scanline functions with those just as fine.

[Grimakis]

Smart 2x and 1x will give you pretty heavy underscan though. And your aspect ratio will usually be to wide as well.

Using FBX's custom zoom modes are better and you should be able to use the new scanline functions with those just as fine.

I'll try them again, but I was getting odd scanline behavior on the very center horizontal line in the image.

Regards,
George

[Galgomite]

Can someone have a look at the "overlay" option? It would be awesome if it gets rid of the colored borders in Genesis/Mega Drive games.

It's some weird color bar overlay that shades the graphics. However, I believe this is just a default test image, and this means we should be able to develop our OWN overlays!

Also just got done learning how to use, save, and load profile settings. They work great! I'm uploading my Genesis one now and will write a guide here on how to download and use it (there's a couple of tricks to get it working properly).

Custom overlays are something I've been wanting since I bought my Mini. If they allow for transparency they can accomplish a great many things outside of games also.

[RGB32E]

However, the background noise on my 1CHIP SNES has been significantly reduced. Yay

Could you elaborate a bit on this? I keep putting off a power supply upgrade for my xrgb in order to help reduce the "wispy" horizontal lines in large instances of solid color (usually backgrounds). What sort of background noise are you talking about?

The picture mode "appears" to have a better LPF in this FW, as yes, there's slightly less noise in this mode in full fields.

I don't think any firmware will ever cure the YUV4:2:2 conversion that occurs with the mini however!

[austin532]

Doesn't look like there is any difference when switching from 240p to 480i.

[eightbitminiboss]

Doesn't look like there is any difference when switching from 240p to 480i.

Have you changed the Sync Time? 10 and 100 seemed to yield somewhat better results. Far from perfect though.

[austin532]

All that does is delay the Sync time. It doesn't actually shorten the transition time from 240p to 480i and vice versa. It's like your friend saying "Hey, do you want me to completely block your screen now or a few seconds from now?" when playing.

[eightbitminiboss]

All that does is delay the Sync time. It doesn't actually shorten the transition time from 240p to 480i and vice versa. It's like your friend saying "Hey, do you want me to completely block your screen now or a few seconds from now?" when playing.

I see, I guess that's what would explain how I could go into the inventory screen in RE2 repeatedly and read the Bomber's Notebook in Majora's Mask.

[FBX]

Smart 2x and 1x will give you pretty heavy underscan though. And your aspect ratio will usually be to wide as well.

Using FBX's custom zoom modes are better and you should be able to use the new scanline functions with those just as fine.

Was just going to post this as well since they work great on my custom zoom modes. Obviously those that don't want severe underscan (i.e. 4xscale) will have to use the 5xscale profiles I made, but the upside is the option to have working scanlines, and of course aspect-corrected perfectly scaled pixels. Speaking of which, I'm going to be steadily adding new profiles to the zip packaged I made, since I have to go back and recalibrate the settings for each anyway.

[Konsolkongen]

It may be because it's early, but I couldn't find the new firmware anywhere on their site. Searched for "2.0" and "beta" using the search function in my browser. I had to guess the url to get it:

http://micomsoft.co.jp/XRGBminiV2.00E.zip

So has it been taken down, or is it not listed on the regular download page?

[eightbitminiboss]

It may be because it's early, but I couldn't find the new firmware anywhere on their site. Searched for "2.0" and "beta" using the search function in my browser. I had to guess the url to get it:

http://micomsoft.co.jp/XRGBminiV2.00E.zip

So has it been taken down, or is it not listed on the regular download page?

It's still up from what I can tell and I just redownloaded it to verify I could still get it and I did.

Maybe try from the page rather than directly? http://micomsoft.co.jp/xrgb-mini_download.htm

[FBX]

All that does is delay the Sync time. It doesn't actually shorten the transition time from 240p to 480i and vice versa. It's like your friend saying "Hey, do you want me to completely block your screen now or a few seconds from now?" when playing.

It's actually quite useful. It's for when you want to play a different game on the same console, but don't want the prolonged re-handshake wait times. Setting it to 100 gives you plenty of time to swap games and it will keep the timing on screen. So instead of waiting 5 to 8 seconds for the handshake, you only end up waiting maybe 2 seconds at most.

I'm going to start adding in 100 Sync Time settings in my profiles by default.

[FBX]

NTSC Super NES profiles added to the package:

http://www.firebrandx.com/downloads/fra ... ofiles.zip

Remember that these profiles are designed for 1080p HDMI displays at full RGB color space, and the 5x profiles require setting the display screen size to "full pixel" or whatever your brand of TV calls it.

[Smashbro29]

NTSC Super NES profiles added to the package:

http://www.firebrandx.com/downloads/fra ... ofiles.zip

Remember that these profiles are designed for 1080p HDMI displays at full RGB color space, and the 5x profiles require setting the display screen size to "full pixel" or whatever your brand of TV calls it.

I'd love a breakdown on how you made all of these. Must have taken some work.

[FBX]

NTSC Super NES profiles added to the package:

http://www.firebrandx.com/downloads/fra ... ofiles.zip

Remember that these profiles are designed for 1080p HDMI displays at full RGB color space, and the 5x profiles require setting the display screen size to "full pixel" or whatever your brand of TV calls it.

I'd love a breakdown on how you made all of these. Must have taken some work.

Indeed it did. I've spent entire nights fine-tuning them (mostly trying to reduce the flicker noise introduced by the Framemeister itself). Dialing in the exact scaling parameters was just a matter of testing games with vertical scroll and adjusting ZOOM_SIZE and ZOOM_OVERSCAN until the pixels were perfectly uniform on the vertical axis. Then from there, doing math & geometry calculations on the resolution versus 1080 display screens proved the settings were correct.

But hey, I'm an endearing moron that foolishly throws my money at stuff like a Framemeister when I don't know how display technology or photography works...

[Pasky]

Any plans to make any profiles for 720P TV's?

[Smashbro29]

NTSC Super NES profiles added to the package:

http://www.firebrandx.com/downloads/fra ... ofiles.zip

Remember that these profiles are designed for 1080p HDMI displays at full RGB color space, and the 5x profiles require setting the display screen size to "full pixel" or whatever your brand of TV calls it.

I'd love a breakdown on how you made all of these. Must have taken some work.

Indeed it did. I've spent entire nights fine-tuning them (mostly trying to reduce the flicker noise introduced by the Framemeister itself). Dialing in the exact scaling parameters was just a matter of testing games with vertical scroll and adjusting ZOOM_SIZE and ZOOM_OVERSCAN until the pixels were perfectly uniform on the vertical axis. Then from there, doing math & geometry calculations on the resolution versus 1080 display screens proved the settings were correct.

But hey, I'm an endearing moron that foolishly throws my money at stuff like a Framemeister when I don't know how display technology or photography works...

I'm more of a moron then you'll ever be. Don't you worry.

[FBX]

Any plans to make any profiles for 720P TV's?

I was thinking about it, but I don't have access to a 720p display, so I'm not sure I can do them accurately without one.

[Fudoh]

Technically almost all "720p" displays are actually 768p, so the image gets rescaled anyway. In other words: if you make 720p profiles by setting your FM to 720p on your 1080p display, it will be as good as it gets.

[Grimakis]

Hey FBX,

Check out scanlines using your PS1/2 setting. I am having trouble getting scanlines to work with this one.

Regards,
George

[FBX]

Hey FBX,

Check out scanlines using your PS1/2 setting. I am having trouble getting scanlines to work with this one.

Regards,
George

Consider all my web site profiles obsolete for now until I can get back to them. Just Genesis and SNES are updated and packaged in the zip file right now.

Edit: I noticed the Sync behavior is now somewhat random. In the prior firmware version "Auto" meant basically forced. The new version seems to decide sometimes to be similar to "Off" with random frame skips.

[Konsolkongen]

It's still up from what I can tell and I just redownloaded it to verify I could still get it and I did.

Maybe try from the page rather than directly? http://micomsoft.co.jp/xrgb-mini_download.htm

I had to refresh the page before it appeared

[Smashbro29]

Hey FBX,

Check out scanlines using your PS1/2 setting. I am having trouble getting scanlines to work with this one.

Regards,
George

Consider all my web site profiles obsolete for now until I can get back to them. Just Genesis and SNES are updated and packaged in the zip file right now.

Edit: I noticed the Sync behavior is now somewhat random. In the prior firmware version "Auto" meant basically forced. The new version seems to decide sometimes to be similar to "Off" with random frame skips.

About that 5X one, scanlines are good in 1080p right?

[Grimakis]

Hey FBX,

Check out scanlines using your PS1/2 setting. I am having trouble getting scanlines to work with this one.

Regards,
George

Consider all my web site profiles obsolete for now until I can get back to them. Just Genesis and SNES are updated and packaged in the zip file right now.

Edit: I noticed the Sync behavior is now somewhat random. In the prior firmware version "Auto" meant basically forced. The new version seems to decide sometimes to be similar to "Off" with random frame skips.

About that 5X one, scanlines are good in 1080p right?

1080p Scanlines worked for me with the 5x Genesis profile.

Regards,
George

[Smashbro29]

I'm trying out the profiles and I noticed some things.

I don't know what's so different about it but it refuses to be captured correctly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3w9vuz ... e=youtu.be

I also noticed it lopped off parts of the screen as seen here:

Spoiler

Vs.

I also noticed these weird transparent waves that are visible on solid colors though I think that's more my issue.

[MMJuno]

I also noticed it lopped off parts of the screen as seen here:

It doesn't look like it's lopped off, to me. It just looks like the width is different. Compare the blue sphere on the leftmost edge of the screen and the red sphere on the rightmost edge of the screen. All pixels are still accounted for in both pictures, the image is just squished more in the top one.

I haven't tested with the new firmware yet, but I know I've seen similar differences in the width of the displayed image when switching the Mini between Standard and Normal2 modes.

For instance running Xenogears from the PSN release on PS3. The aspect ratio always looked wrong to me when going direct to the TV: too narrow in 4:3 mode, and too wide in 16:9 mode. Once I tried routing it through the mini and setting it to Normal2, it finally looked proper to me.