shmups.system11.org

My new csync cable from retrogamingcables.co.uk is producing rolling sync on my bvm d24 and no sync on my ossc. Image is pretty dark too. I’m going to take it apart to bypass the cync chip and see if that works

Ok great let us know how you get on, I've e-mailed Rob to let him know there's a problem too.

Ok, there’s no sync stripper in there. The unit is super neat and professional tho. It basically goes through a small resistor and then a cap

I am thinking it’s the cap, any experts?

Yeah I opened my cable it looks exactly the same as that.

Doesn't seem like anyone is having much luck with csync cables currently, anyone looking to buy a cable I would suggest using comp as sync if you are in a hurry or waiting for further developments.

What value resistor is this?

4700??

Well the cable discussion combined with the fact that terraonion is actively participating in the completely terrible, toxic & worthless "community" that is neo-geo.com do not exactly inspire me to purchase this thing.

I'll probably wait for version 1.1 or whatever where they fix all these problems instead of verbally attacking customers who express concern or legitimate problems with their 300$+ product.

This product should work with the best cables perfectly (retro-access and retrogamingcables.co.uk), anything less than that it is the manufacturers fault, period.

What a joke.

Bypassing the cap didn’t work. Bummer, I was totally down for some serious super cd action tonight. I think I will fiddle with the ossc and see if I can get that to lock on. If I find settings that work I will post back

I agree, Premium spec cables really should work on this out of the box, everything else about the packaging and product is top of the class. Hopefully there is an easy fix possible. I don’t mind taking my super cd apart.

From my experience composite sync and csync for pce have a very distinguishable difference so getting csync going for me is important

No it's 470*10^0, i.e. 470 which is correct for the MD2.

Yeah disappointing for sure. Mine's working with my old, crappy RGB mod, but of course no CD audio then (as well as crappy picture as it's a really, really old mod).

If this thing is outputting 75 ohm sync shouldn't it be the resistor you're bypassing?

OK, here are some images of the sync signals. First one if the one the SSDS3 is generating, measured AFTER the 470 ohm resistor and before the capacitor. It's what your monitor/scaler will see:



The signal is 0.7Vpp without any DC.

Next one is the CSYNC signal from the PCE cart connector as is, without any resistor or capacitor. The signal is 0.3Vpp with 1.5V DC bias



I'd like to plot both signals to see if the edges match, but I can't find my other probe. As soon as I find it I'll make some captures.

We mainly use Sync on composite cables for testing, and I think all the testers use them too, but we tried the csync signal in our monitors and there weren't any issues. We decided to provide a regenerated CSYNC signal as a convenience, instead of using the internal CSYNC or not providing it at all, but it seems it's becoming another cable nightmare . Maybe it's out of spec and we didn't notice as it was working fine here. We are going to try to find the causes and find a solution. We left a way in the PCB to bypass the regenerated CSYNC signal and use the internal PCE one, but never used it.

At a first glance, I just see the cart connector separate sync signal pulses are wider than the connector csync. Also the internal CSYNC levels are lower. It has a DC bias, but that will be removed by the capacitor.

It actually seems difficult to get a composite video for sync Mega Drive 2 cable at the moment, all Rob's are CSYNC 75ohm.

And the cable I have here is sealed at the connector end so I can’t even attempt a rewrite

>We left a way in the PCB to bypass the regenerated CSYNC signal and use the internal PCE one, but never used it.
OK - is this a jumper on the PCB?

If not wire from C22 on the ext bus direct out to test?

has anyone tried a HD Retrovision cable yet? Supposedly they pull composite sync. Hoping they work as a fallback.

Bear in mind that the csync straight from the ext bus is also out of spec and requires buffering/amplification before it can be used.

>Bear in mind that the csync straight from the ext bus is also out of spec and requires buffering/amplification before it can be used.
Not true in all cases, works fine being feed directly into pro monitors and most rgb scart native tvs
For scalers/switches/hd tv etc yeah maybe but I have none of those in my set up

Yeah fair enough, definitely not really an acceptable permanent solution though.

I’m gutted about this, going to look up a cheapo md scart lead while a fix is developed

Normally I'd just be laughing at the sidelines, thinking 'look at all these morons that couldn't wait for v1.1'

That is all incredibly disappointing to hear :/ I currently have a RGC CSYNC cable on order and am waiting for another MD2 CSYNC cable that I need anyway.

I just don't understand how you not test such a device with the cables from the two de-facto standard suppliers of quality retro console cables, RGC & RCA, and the two commonly used video scalers, Framemeister & OSSC. Guess that happens when your main feedback & testing source is the 'cables are for nerd fags' forum

Would really hate to be forced to use sync-on-composite because this always causes issues in my setup. Long cable runs and Bandridge SCART switches don't like it. Among my 8 RGB consoles only the PAL GC does sync-on-composite and I had to get shielded cables and a sync stripper to finally eliminate all crosstalk artifacts from composhit.

Agreed. Especially as they have advertised this as being able to output csync, turns out it doesn't work or hasn't been tested properly. We'll see what solution they come up with. Still, very disappointing that it is not working out of the box.

I suspect as NeoSD's success grows and they release more ambitious products to an even wider audience, their association with ng.com is going to become not just a support liability, but a business liability. Imagine a thousand buyers getting called "fagits" in the support forum and then demanding refunds because they can't get the thing to work.

It's a great product and I'm sure they'll solve these teething issues. I'm hoping they'll involve the community more on the next product's design though, at least during the QA phase. I know how frustrating and annoying it can be to have a lot of people picking apart your work (I design software for a living and spend many hours each week listening to people criticize my work openly), but that's the fire that tempers the steel.

The association with ng.com makes me not want the product as much so I doubt that is what they want for their customer base or future plans.

And in all fairness, it really isn't that hard to put up a simple support forum to announce products and answer questions.

Much less work than having to switch between different forums and much more customer friendly.

Still, I really hope they can get these problems sorted out soon as I really appreciate all the work they put into it.

I was already prepared to open up the console and adjust it to the MD2 spec back when they were saying you need a pass thru cable. I’ve already done similar work for half a dozen other consoles, so why not?

And nomatter what issues arise with v1.0. It’s usually a bad move to switch your output specs while using an identical connector. So I wasn’t banking on sweeping changes.

Ok guys,

I think you all are going far beyong with this NG.com stuff ...

When we released NEOSD we registered in NG.com to answer some users (same thing we did here, to answer you, guys)
It happened that we found in NG.com a place where to answer our customers, the same way we are doing here.

Do we like people at NG.com ? we like some, we don´t like others, just the same as in life. NG.com is not our home, they gave us a place there and we are pleased to be able to use this place to comunicate with our users. They have our infinite gratitude for that.

We are listening here and there, and at elotrolado.net aswel (spanish forums)

I myself think that having respect for others helps while comunicating/solving issues and so.

So there is one thing i would like to ask here : why don´t you guys keep giving us suggestions, hints, improvements ideas .... instead of opening the drama/hate box ?

My own experience says that drama/hating comes to nowhere. And respect helps to improve things.

This is a humble post. Please, consider thinking about that with an open mind.
Our goal is to please everyone (or atleast try it), thats why we are here, answering, listening ...

BTW, this is Alex using neodev´s account

Agreed, and I would suggest starting your own support forum on your website to avoid having to visit different forums for feedback. Like I said earlier.

I haven't tested one personally yet, but I'd like to point out / suggest a few things:

- The NeoDev team was really responsive to launch issues with their NeoSD. Hopefully they'll be as responsive to this, but we need to be a little patient.

- I strongly recommend modifying the SSD3, NOT the cable. They claimed they designed a device for use with Genesis RGB SCART cables, so that's where the adjustments need to be made. The only exception to this would be if you plan on ONLY using that cable on this device...but even then, there's always the chance someone will plug the cable into a Genesis.

- Leave the drama on the NG forum. They've created a culture where that's not only okay, but expected. Shmups has not. Let's keep it that way.

While I will agree that the situation over at ng is less than ideal (I personally find it comical, and slightly baffling more then anything else), it really could be a lot worse. Most questions are answered on the first pages of the threads, and Terraonion now has it's own subforum making answers to questions a little more easy to find.

The csync issues are troubling and a bit irritating, but I am sure NeoSD will get them ironed out pretty quick.

The sheer functionality and usefulness of this product in the long run, along with what I perceive to be a real effort at listening to and resolving customer issues (ng nonwithstanding) should be taken into account I think.

A little patience and perseverance will go a long way. Personally I'm pretty excited for mine, just patiently waiting on my shipment notice.

Milspex,

You are totally right, but as today, we lack of time for that.

We are a 6 members team, and all our efforst are on the engineering side.
We are developing 4 products right now. Some of those are really challenging. I can tell you i have literally no life as today, i been working 16 hours a day for who knows how many weeks, can´t really remember that, saturdays, sundays ... everyday.
I know i/we can´t get every pending task done, so we are working on the ones we think that are priority.

As today, shipping orders is priority, but we are also working on other aspects such as hiring more people, producing, sourcing and so.

We are an small company doing things big companies do with four times the staff we have.
Just think in SSDS3, everything is done by us, nothing is outsourced, you can´t imagine the amount of work that has been put there.

So sumarize, we lack of time right now to run our own forum, and i know we should do that, but i also think that having orders shipped is more important that than as today.

This is why we say thanks everyday to NG.com, cause they are doing a work letting us being there that we could not do by lack of time.

You will never see me telling if i like or i don´t like how NG.com handles users, and ofcourse i have my own opinion.

We have infinite gratitude for them to gave us resources we lacked of. You guys have to understand that.

Alex,