Questions that do not deserve a thread

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emphatic
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by emphatic »

Xyga wrote:hit it multiple times until you get a picture.
Had I been more limber, I would've drop kicked it. :)
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tomwhite2004
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by tomwhite2004 »

Does MAME have any interpolation options or shaders that can achive an effect similar to "Pixellate" in Retroarch?
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Fudoh
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by Fudoh »

Does MAME have any interpolation options or shaders that can achive an effect similar to "Pixellate" in Retroarch?
if you enable bilinear filtering and set the prescale factor to 3 or 4 at the same time, the results should be pretty similar. Last time I used time was years back though, so things might have changed since.
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tomwhite2004
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by tomwhite2004 »

Fudoh wrote:if you enable bilinear filtering and set the prescale factor to 3 or 4 at the same time, the results should be pretty similar. Last time I used time was years back though, so things might have changed since.
Thanks Fudoh. Whilst that worked it's significantly blurrier than Pixellate. However it's still an improvement for games like Progear and eliminates the shimmering on the horizontal axis at 4:3 so appreciate the response. Wish I was smart enough to work out how to convert Pixellate into a format MAME understood!

Out of interst do you know what the difference is in terms of appearance between the nearest neighbour and linear setting on the Pixellate shader setting within Retroarch?
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Xyga
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by Xyga »

have you tried turning integer scaling on instead?

Code: Select all

intoverscan               1
last time i've tried it was bothersome especially when i wanted to combine with filtering (although it's facultative if you only want razor sharp) because it was necessary to make multiple .ini's, including a vertical.ini and horizont.ini
game ini's go to the ini folder along those, but drivers ini's now go to the source subfolder
the hard part is to figure which setting has priority over the other in relation to ini's hierarchy that's ever more complicated lol
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by kazaakas@hotmail.com »

I'm thinking of doing the THS7316 bypass mod on my 1CHIP-02 SNES. Would a SNES Jr with this mod be better, or is the circuitry that makes the Snes Jr superior to the other 1CHIP's bypassed by this mod?

Of course there's the question whether the difference is noticable, but I'm ususally about 1.5" away from my BVM-D24 and I'm also quite nitpicky, so there's that :)
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by tomwhite2004 »

Xyga wrote:have you tried turning integer scaling on instead?

Code: Select all

intoverscan               1
I do use that setting or use unevenstretch on or off depending on the content. Its all ball ache through, I spend too much time faffing around with settings when I just want to play the games.

That's why I was so impressed with Pixellate, just set it to 4:3 and it just looks great with no need to worry about the original hardwares resolution or integer scaling etc. Just wish the MAME core in Retroarch wasn't so sub standard compared to the stand alone.
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Xyga
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by Xyga »

Yeah pixellate sure is convenient.
Maybe it could be added to baseline by - forgot his name sorry - the guy at mamedev who works the most on this.
Assuming it's possible and he has time of course, but I think it's perfectly okay to at least ask him.
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Fudoh
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by Fudoh »

@tomwhite2004: do you mind posting a snapshot of how MAME looks on your setup ?

As said, it's been a few years, but I remember that I even lowered the prescale factor since it was too sharp otherwise. Makes me wonder why the result turns out too blurry on your setup. If you set the prescale to - let's say - 4. You basically feed a 960p image into the bilinear filter. There's hardly anything left to blur.

Have you tried setting the prescale factor to something to results in an image larger than your output screen size ?
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tomwhite2004
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by tomwhite2004 »

Fudoh wrote:@tomwhite2004: do you mind posting a snapshot of how MAME looks on your setup ?

As said, it's been a few years, but I remember that I even lowered the prescale factor since it was too sharp otherwise. Makes me wonder why the result turns out too blurry on your setup. If you set the prescale to - let's say - 4. You basically feed a 960p image into the bilinear filter. There's hardly anything left to blur.

Have you tried setting the prescale factor to something to results in an image larger than your output screen size ?
Tried setting the prescale to 5 or 6 but the end result looks exactly the same as with 4. I notice a large change in visual quality between going from a prescale of 3 to 4 which you can see in the below album. I would use 3 but there are still scaling issues with that setting, it has to be at 4 to completely eliminate the shimmering / rippling effect when the screen scrolls.

The screenshots are from Progear but I also tried it with hardware with lower horizontal resolutions (MVS) and see the same result.

https://imgur.com/a/pNCkd

EDIT: please note all mame screenshots are with these base settings.

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jade88
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by jade88 »

Just tried to use a Component to HDMI converter by portta and I get no video or audio on my TCL 4K TV. Any obvious reason for this?

Trying to use my Wii with this

https://www.amazon.com/Portta-Component ... B00A8FIQXA
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by nmalinoski »

jade88 wrote:Just tried to use a Component to HDMI converter by portta and I get no video or audio on my TCL 4K TV. Any obvious reason for this?

Trying to use my Wii with this

https://www.amazon.com/Portta-Component ... B00A8FIQXA
The converter you linked is HDMI to Component, not Component to HDMI; probably excellent for using HDMI sources on component inputs, but not the other way around, I'm afraid.
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by jade88 »

nmalinoski wrote:
jade88 wrote:Just tried to use a Component to HDMI converter by portta and I get no video or audio on my TCL 4K TV. Any obvious reason for this?

Trying to use my Wii with this

https://www.amazon.com/Portta-Component ... B00A8FIQXA
The converter you linked is HDMI to Component, not Component to HDMI; probably excellent for using HDMI sources on component inputs, but not the other way around, I'm afraid.
Wow, shows you how much research I did lol. Geez.

Would this work?

https://www.amazon.com/Portta-Component ... B00ATNIFPA
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by nmalinoski »

jade88 wrote:
nmalinoski wrote:
jade88 wrote:Just tried to use a Component to HDMI converter by portta and I get no video or audio on my TCL 4K TV. Any obvious reason for this?

Trying to use my Wii with this

https://www.amazon.com/Portta-Component ... B00A8FIQXA
The converter you linked is HDMI to Component, not Component to HDMI; probably excellent for using HDMI sources on component inputs, but not the other way around, I'm afraid.
Wow, shows you how much research I did lol. Geez.

Would this work?

https://www.amazon.com/Portta-Component ... B00ATNIFPA
The labeling has the conversion in the correct direction, so I would think it would be fine.
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by GojiFan90 »

I need to finally bite the bullet and get my Dreamcast hooked up to my Framemeister but I'm torn between the Akura and the Toro. Which is preferable and why? Does the Toro have any advantage over the Akura? There is only a $5 difference in price.
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by kazaakas@hotmail.com »

So I learned that using PAL consoles to output 60Hz leads to an off-spec 59-60Hz that's actually about one percent slower and this can cause problems. I was wondering, are all PAL consoles that are capable of 480p60 free from these issues? They must be equipped with a crystal that can perfectly reproduce 60Hz? Will that crystal only be used for 31kHz resolutions?

I'm European and my pre-480p era consoles are NTSC for this reason, but will my PS2, NGC and Wii be fine?
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by Fudoh »

I need to finally bite the bullet and get my Dreamcast hooked up to my Framemeister
why? Your TV will most definitely doing a better job upscaling the DC's 480p output than the FM does.
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by nmalinoski »

GojiFan90 wrote:I need to finally bite the bullet and get my Dreamcast hooked up to my Framemeister but I'm torn between the Akura and the Toro. Which is preferable and why? Does the Toro have any advantage over the Akura? There is only a $5 difference in price.
The biggest problem with the Akura is that it enables VGA mode full-time, which prevents unpatched 480i-only games from booting. At least with the Toro, you have a switch that you can use to trick most of these games into booting in progressive mode.

Personally, I prefer the Toro (I bought one over the Akura) because it's overall more versatile; not only can I play the 480i-only games, I can choose what I use for the analog-to-digital conversion. Right now, I'm using an OSSC, but I can always switch to a Framemeister, or a generic SCART or VGA upscaler.

On the plus side for the Akura, it's cheaper to get going; you'd only need an HDMI cable, which you can get anywhere; whereas, with the Toro, you'd need either an HD15 to SCART adapter or a fully shielded SCART cable, and then a SCART to miniDIN for connecting to the Framemeister (assuming you don't already have one), which can add another, what, $50 to $60 USD on top of the Toro?
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by nmalinoski »

kazaakas@hotmail.com wrote:So I learned that using PAL consoles to output 60Hz leads to an off-spec 59-60Hz that's actually about one percent slower and this can cause problems. I was wondering, are all PAL consoles that are capable of 480p60 free from these issues? They must be equipped with a crystal that can perfectly reproduce 60Hz? Will that crystal only be used for 31kHz resolutions?

I'm European and my pre-480p era consoles are NTSC for this reason, but will my PS2, NGC and Wii be fine?
Are you referring to the ability of these PAL consoles to run NTSC games correctly, or their ability to run PAL60 games correctly?
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by orange808 »

nmalinoski wrote:
GojiFan90 wrote:I need to finally bite the bullet and get my Dreamcast hooked up to my Framemeister but I'm torn between the Akura and the Toro. Which is preferable and why? Does the Toro have any advantage over the Akura? There is only a $5 difference in price.
The biggest problem with the Akura is that it enables VGA mode full-time, which prevents unpatched 480i-only games from booting. At least with the Toro, you have a switch that you can use to trick most of these games into booting in progressive mode.

Personally, I prefer the Toro (I bought one over the Akura) because it's overall more versatile; not only can I play the 480i-only games, I can choose what I use for the analog-to-digital conversion. Right now, I'm using an OSSC, but I can always switch to a Framemeister, or a generic SCART or VGA upscaler.

On the plus side for the Akura, it's cheaper to get going; you'd only need an HDMI cable, which you can get anywhere; whereas, with the Toro, you'd need either an HD15 to SCART adapter or a fully shielded SCART cable, and then a SCART to miniDIN for connecting to the Framemeister (assuming you don't already have one), which can add another, what, $50 to $60 USD on top of the Toro?
Why would anybody want to use anything but the OSSC? Aspect ratio will be wrong without it.
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by nmalinoski »

orange808 wrote:
nmalinoski wrote:The biggest problem with the Akura is that it enables VGA mode full-time, which prevents unpatched 480i-only games from booting. At least with the Toro, you have a switch that you can use to trick most of these games into booting in progressive mode.

Personally, I prefer the Toro (I bought one over the Akura) because it's overall more versatile; not only can I play the 480i-only games, I can choose what I use for the analog-to-digital conversion. Right now, I'm using an OSSC, but I can always switch to a Framemeister, or a generic SCART or VGA upscaler.

On the plus side for the Akura, it's cheaper to get going; you'd only need an HDMI cable, which you can get anywhere; whereas, with the Toro, you'd need either an HD15 to SCART adapter or a fully shielded SCART cable, and then a SCART to miniDIN for connecting to the Framemeister (assuming you don't already have one), which can add another, what, $50 to $60 USD on top of the Toro?
Why would anybody want to use anything but the OSSC? Aspect ratio will be wrong without it.
I may be inclined to bring my Dreamcast to a friend's or relative's house, but I'm not going to bother ripping my OSSC out of my setup to bring it, too. :P

Can't the Framemeister be configured to accept and properly display the 720x480 frame size from the Dreamcast?
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by Fudoh »

Can't the Framemeister be configured to accept and properly display the 720x480 frame size from the Dreamcast?
on the FM you can set any aspect ratoi you like. The problem is simply that the FM's upscaling on 480p sources isn't particularly great.
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by GojiFan90 »

Fudoh wrote:
I need to finally bite the bullet and get my Dreamcast hooked up to my Framemeister
why? Your TV will most definitely doing a better job upscaling the DC's 480p output than the FM does.
My television doesn't have VGA input so I have no way of playing VGA compatible games on my Plasma.
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by GojiFan90 »

orange808 wrote:
nmalinoski wrote:
GojiFan90 wrote:I need to finally bite the bullet and get my Dreamcast hooked up to my Framemeister but I'm torn between the Akura and the Toro. Which is preferable and why? Does the Toro have any advantage over the Akura? There is only a $5 difference in price.
The biggest problem with the Akura is that it enables VGA mode full-time, which prevents unpatched 480i-only games from booting. At least with the Toro, you have a switch that you can use to trick most of these games into booting in progressive mode.

Personally, I prefer the Toro (I bought one over the Akura) because it's overall more versatile; not only can I play the 480i-only games, I can choose what I use for the analog-to-digital conversion. Right now, I'm using an OSSC, but I can always switch to a Framemeister, or a generic SCART or VGA upscaler.

On the plus side for the Akura, it's cheaper to get going; you'd only need an HDMI cable, which you can get anywhere; whereas, with the Toro, you'd need either an HD15 to SCART adapter or a fully shielded SCART cable, and then a SCART to miniDIN for connecting to the Framemeister (assuming you don't already have one), which can add another, what, $50 to $60 USD on top of the Toro?
Why would anybody want to use anything but the OSSC? Aspect ratio will be wrong without it.
Sorry for the double-post (not sure how to multi-quote). I only have access to a Framemeister ATM. Bought it before OSSC was really a thing, and I don't currently have the funds for an OSSC as well. I have the SCART to mini-DIN adapter already, so aside from a Toro, all I would need to buy is a M to M SCART cable. Can anyone recommend where to get an inexpensive, properly shielded cable (that ships to the US)?
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by Steamflogger Boss »

GojiFan90 wrote:
Fudoh wrote:
I need to finally bite the bullet and get my Dreamcast hooked up to my Framemeister
why? Your TV will most definitely doing a better job upscaling the DC's 480p output than the FM does.
My television doesn't have VGA input so I have no way of playing VGA compatible games on my Plasma.
You can transcode it to ypbpr. Probably the better option. Or just wait for retrovision's Dreamcast ypbpr cable. IT'S COMING.
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by Dochartaigh »

orange808 wrote:Why would anybody want to use anything but the OSSC? Aspect ratio will be wrong without it.
Because the OSSC doesn't work on all TV's, where the FM does for the most part. OSSC also hates SNES for some mysterious reason (at least 2 of mine...).
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by nmalinoski »

Dochartaigh wrote:OSSC also hates SNES for some mysterious reason (at least 2 of mine...).
You may want to check out this thread about NES and SNES video jitter: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=61285
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by GojiFan90 »

Steamflogger Boss wrote:You can transcode it to ypbpr. Probably the better option. Or just wait for retrovision's Dreamcast ypbpr cable. IT'S COMING.
Ah, OK I didn't even think to do that! Can you recommend a good VGA to YPbPr transcoder? I've had bad experiences with the cheaply made video converters from China that you see floating around on eBay.
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by Dochartaigh »

nmalinoski wrote:You may want to check out this thread about NES and SNES video jitter: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=61285
Thank you for the link... but that's really ok...when a topic starts with "NES and SNES are known to use slightly inconsistent scanline timing in their 240p output signals. 2C02 PPU in NTSC NES / Famicom nominally outputs 262 scanlines, each consisting of 1364 MCLK cycles which equals 341 PPU cycles (MCLK is divided by 4). However, length of the pre-render scanline (#14 after vsync) is 4 MCLK cycles shorter in certain circumstances".....I kinda immediately close the page. No offense meant, but I'm already on my 3rd occupation....really don't have the need in learning how to become an amateur electrical engineer in my spare time - I just want to play video games!
Last edited by Dochartaigh on Wed Feb 28, 2018 2:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Mendion
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Re: Questions that do not deserve a thread

Post by Mendion »

Hi everybody. This is my first post here as an active member of the forum. A read A LOT and learned so much!

Very short and straight question:

Does the Front Loader NES (NES 001), when installing the NESRGB mod, really need the external voltage regulator connected or not?
I see some people installed it and some other just uses the voltage regulator the NES already has and is not using the supplied one on the kit.

I'm going to install the kit on the next days so, I want to be sure about this matter.


Thanks!
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