Upergrafx "UGX-02" - TG16/PCE DVI Upscaler w/SD CDROM2

[RGBSource]

A newly announced version of the Upergrafx (model UGX-02) will be shipping this October. A exciting feature is an integrated CDROM2 drive replacement that uses SD cards!

Announcement page: http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.a ... 2Fugx02_ja
(Original link)

Perorder page: https://www.beep-shop.com/blog/8154/

Example with Fatal Fury Special: https://youtu.be/88jXr_B3zgs

[Guspaz]

Only slightly less insanely overpriced, and still uses the silly vertical orientation. It still costs $411 USD (previous version was $700 IIRC?). Buy a Framemeister (or an OSSC) and an Engine Block instead, you'll get the same quality and much more flexibility. Or, if you really want to use the CD functionality, buy a Framemeister or OSSC and pay Voultar to RGB mod your console.

[Unseen]

Only slightly less insanely overpriced, and still uses the silly vertical orientation.

Makes life easier for the designer though - with a vertical PCB you just need a horizontal header of sufficient length which can be pieced together from smaller ones if necessary. An angled 3-row 2.54mm connector is probably much harder to come by.

I agree about the price though and personally I'd rather see an internal version that I could fit into my existing PCE Duo =)

[cr4zymanz0r]

I don't care about a console specific video scaler at all, but they should make a much cheaper stand-alone CD-ROM2 SD loader.

[RGBSource]

I'd rather see an internal version that I could fit into my existing PCE Duo =)

Replacing the CD-ROM2 with a SD card is a really great feature, as you no longer need a Duo. A FPC to attach to the HU6260 for internal installation would be great, but it doesn't sound like the Upergrafx creator is interested in making one.

It still costs $411 USD (previous version was $700 IIRC?).

If you had bothered to check the Upergrafx main page you would have seen the following:

◦型番: UGX-02
◦希望小売価格: 44,980円(税込)
◦発売日: 2017月10月(予定)
◦型番: UGX-01
◦価格: 38,664円(税込)
◦発売日: 2016年8月26日

I don't care about a console specific video scaler at all, but they should make a much cheaper stand-alone CD-ROM2 SD loader.

Best quality is a good reason. While I can get excellent results using the AV-DRIVER + OSSC on 256px games, a full digital pipeline is always advantageous. Just wish he would sort 1080p output. Using the inner 216 lines is ok with people!

[Guspaz]

Only slightly less insanely overpriced, and still uses the silly vertical orientation.

Makes life easier for the designer though - with a vertical PCB you just need a horizontal header of sufficient length which can be pieced together from smaller ones if necessary. An angled 3-row 2.54mm connector is probably much harder to come by.

I agree about the price though and personally I'd rather see an internal version that I could fit into my existing PCE Duo =)

René used to have a full-width angled connector on the dbgrafx booster, and even though he eventually switched to dual 3x3 connectors on the ends (because he didn't need any signals in between), there is no reason why he couldn't just put a bunch more to complete the connector (if using 3x3, leave a one-column gap where there are no signals you need since 23 isn't divisible by 3). So René already seems to have sourced for himself everything that would be needed... And even if for some reason they couldn't use the same parts René used/uses, they could have designed a riser PCB into their design, because the cost of a flat flex cable to connect the two PCBs is small in comparison to the overall price of this product.

[Guspaz]

It still costs $411 USD (previous version was $700 IIRC?).

If you had bothered to check the Upergrafx main page you would have seen the following:

◦型番: UGX-02
◦希望小売価格: 44,980円(税込)
◦発売日: 2017月10月(予定)
◦型番: UGX-01
◦価格: 38,664円(税込)
◦発売日: 2016年8月26日

Who cares what the original cost? I misremembered what Jason said in his video, and didn't spot it in the Japanese text when I looked at the page. If anything, that's even worse, that he took an incredibly overpriced product and managed to substantially increase the price even higher! The original pricepoint is still incredibly overpriced considering it can't even do 1080p, although even then it'd still be far too expensive.

Best quality is a good reason. While I can get excellent results using the AV-DRIVER + OSSC on 256px games, a full digital pipeline is always advantageous.

I'm not arguing that the all-digital solution isn't technically superior, I'm arguing that the price is far too high to justify any advantages that the superior solution might produce.

[RGBSource]

Only slightly less insanely overpriced ... It still costs $411 USD (previous version was $700 IIRC?).

Who cares what the original cost?

What you stated isn't correct, and you're being ornery AF when being called on it. If it's too expensive for your tastes, so be it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Guspaz]

I didn't state it as if it was some sort of absolute truth, I even labeled it as suspect. I'm not being ornery, I'm trying to point out that the price of the old one doesn't change the fact that the new one is still incredibly overpriced. I think you're the only one I've ever seen that has argued that either version of the Upergrafx wasn't far too expensive for what it is: it appears to be too expensive for almost everybody's tastes. We're talking about a device that costs three and a half times as much the Hi-Def NES and seven times as much as GCVideo despite both of those products having more sophisticated FPGAs.

[Steamflogger Boss]

We're talking about a device that costs three and a half times as much the Hi-Def NES and seven times as much as GCVideo despite both of those products having more sophisticated FPGAs.

The price is a joke. I can't imagine they will sell many of these. The CDROM drive replacement part is awesome, and hopefully gets implemented in another, cheaper product.

[juji82]

The guy that made other ODEs is almost done with his pce cd rom ode.

[Voultar]

Only slightly less insanely overpriced ... It still costs $411 USD (previous version was $700 IIRC?).

Who cares what the original cost?

What you stated isn't correct, and you're being ornery AF when being called on it. If it's too expensive for your tastes, so be it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

There's really no reason to be such a needless ass to people, ya know.

[RGBSource]

The price is a joke. I can't imagine they will sell many of these. The CDROM drive replacement part is awesome, and hopefully gets implemented in another, cheaper product.

Yeah, the price is pretty painful, but it will potentially provide a solution to having an interesting OED + up-scaler!

As a reminder to local TROLLS, this thread is not an endorsement, but rather a heads up on the new and latest products those who are actually wiling and inclined and to create are doing so. This kind of product flies well and beyond the heads of application sheet warriors can hope to accomplish!

[Guspaz]

Did I ever object to you providing information on the product? I objected to the product's pricepoint. You're in for a big surprise on the Internet if you think citing nearly universally held opinions is what trolling is.

[Voultar]

The price is a joke. I can't imagine they will sell many of these. The CDROM drive replacement part is awesome, and hopefully gets implemented in another, cheaper product.

As a reminder to local TROLLS, this thread is not an endorsement, but rather a heads up on the new and latest products those who are actually wiling and inclined and to create are doing so. This kind of product flies well and beyond the heads of application sheet warriors can hope to accomplish!

Are you really trying to make people who actually know how to interpret a datasheet feel less than? I think we can all appreciate a healthy discourse, but nobody wants to be audience to your silly toxic bullshit.

[Woozle]

It looks like a really cool product, especially the SD card loading. Price seems a little high considering the lack of 1080p and that no real engineering effort went into having it mount properly/lay flat with the PCE.

Just seems like the price is based on a void in the market, rather than on the features of the product...I guess that's valid, but meh, I'd pass. Hopefully it inspires some competition.

[Elrinth]

I hope they or someone else release the sd cdrom2 separate.

[LDigital]

I'm tempted just for the sd card function. The gdemu like ode is taking a looong time to appear and he keeps hitting snags and having to redesign it. However reading the translated page it talks about incomplete compatibility which will receive patches as time goes on. I'd be interested in testing it out but that's quite a price

Edit: screw it, I put my name down for one in the name of science. I'll post a review here when the time comes

[Steamflogger Boss]

The price is a joke. I can't imagine they will sell many of these. The CDROM drive replacement part is awesome, and hopefully gets implemented in another, cheaper product.

Yeah, the price is pretty painful, but it will potentially provide a solution to having an interesting OED + up-scaler!

For the record I have no issue buying quality hardware. The scaler aspect of this doesn't interest me at all, as I have a PVM as well as multiple high quality upscalers. So, I'm only interested for the drive replacement. Given that I still have a stack of well made 650MB cdrs, $400 is a fair bit to spend for that. Certainly the scaling aspect adds something to the cost here, so I'll wait it out for a standalone drive replacement product, which is definitely something I want.

The guy that made other ODEs is almost done with his pce cd rom ode.

Now this excites me.

[cr4zymanz0r]

Best quality is a good reason. While I can get excellent results using the AV-DRIVER + OSSC on 256px games, a full digital pipeline is always advantageous. Just wish he would sort 1080p output. Using the inner 216 lines is ok with people!

Is it actually a full digital pipeline? I wasn't even aware you could get the digital video signals from the PCE expansion port. I just assumed this was taking the analog RGB signals, amping, then upscaling.

[Unseen]

I wasn't even aware you could get the digital video signals from the PCE expansion port.

You can get the full 9-bit color index input (8 bit color index, 1 bit sprite/bg selection) to the palette mapper chip as well as syncs and pixel clock. The external hardware needs to do the palette mapping itself, but capturing CPU writes to the palette registers isn't that hard.

Using the analog RGB signals for such a device would probably be more complicated than going the digital route. Unfortunately there is no simple way to do the same for sound without implementing a full sound chip emulation.

[Guspaz]

I wasn't even aware you could get the digital video signals from the PCE expansion port.

You can get the full 9-bit color index input (8 bit color index, 1 bit sprite/bg selection) to the palette mapper chip as well as syncs and pixel clock. The external hardware needs to do the palette mapping itself, but capturing CPU writes to the palette registers isn't that hard.

Using the analog RGB signals for such a device would probably be more complicated than going the digital route. Unfortunately there is no simple way to do the same for sound without implementing a full sound chip emulation.

Would there really be that big of an improvement over simply using a DAC for audio? Analog audio is available on the same connector.

[bobrocks95]

Would there really be that big of an improvement over simply using a DAC for audio? Analog audio is available on the same connector.

Check out page 39 of the GCVideo thread for some people who adamantly feel that digital audio sounds much better.

[Guspaz]

Don't get me wrong, I understand that in some cases it absolutely does make a huge difference, because some consoles just have really poor quality audio output. But is the audio on the expansion connector of the TG16/PCE bad enough to justify the effort of emulating the sound hardware just to improve upon it, particularly since accurate emulated audio is really hard (even the NT Mini doesn't get it completely right for certain mappers due to hardware limitations)?

[LDigital]

On the pce I would say 100% yes. It's one of the worst

[Hoagtech]

Overpriced. And why would you code something to upscale without including multiple 240p sources.

This seems like an existing Malaysian upscaler being bought for 12 bucks and sunk into a plastic frame that sold for 410 bucks.

And who the F uses 720p?

[orange808]

I use OSSC x3 240p to 720p. Looks immaculate.

1080p options should be there, but no really good display should make 720p look bad.

[BONKERS]

Did I ever object to you providing information on the product? I objected to the product's pricepoint. You're in for a big surprise on the Internet if you think citing nearly universally held opinions is what trolling is.

Complaining about the price is hardly a universally held opinion. What you are doing is more approaching group think.

400$ for an ODE+Console specific upscaler isn't all that unreasonable considering one individually might cost up to half that. And then an upscaler half that or just as much.

Not to mention it is plug and play. Where as HDMI mods for other consoles require internal modding, which not everyone has the time or skill for. Add the cost of the unit+installation costs if you don't have the above. And then the costs of those rise quite a bit. And they don't contain the equivalent of being able to run games off a SD card. Those are separate purchases.

I wouldn't pay 400$ I think.. But I don't think it isn't worth the value considering it is plug and play, comes with an enclosure, a console specific high res upscaler without artifacts and no necessary tweaking, and optical drive emulation.

Current ebay prices of PCE Cdrom units (Alone or with a core graphx) range from 100$ (Only see two near this price) to 400$+

Sold listings recently for Turbo Duos or PCDuos go as high as around 550$ (A TurboGrafx duo sold for 1100$ a few days ago). Averaging between 200-400$

Prices for current base PC-Engines can be for 150$ or less.

Just reference for current market of PCE hardware on ebay.

[Unseen]

Would there really be that big of an improvement over simply using a DAC for audio? Analog audio is available on the same connector.

I don't know, to me the big point would be to avoid including an ADC in the converter if it's easier to get/create a digital version of the sound signal. For the PCE, the ADC is really the simpler route, but for example with the Neo Geo the decision is not that simple (really weird sample rate that must be converted vs. analog).

And who the F uses 720p?

From an implementor's point of view, 720p would probably be my second choice. The top one would be 2880x240 with an appropriate pixel repetition factor, but that does not have universal support.

[LDigital]

For me this is all about the ode replacement. I would still use the rgb out I fitted to my pce most of the time. That is the part I am really interested in