Xer Xian wrote:Hey Blair, thanks for chiming in, and also for sharing your findings on getting 240p from conventional scalers! Those shots are interesting, I didn't know you could get transparency effects back via emulation/shaders.
you're welcome. always happy when somebody gets some use out of the stuff I mess around with. (I was very surprised that nobody had ever tried using video processors to downscale before my initial experiment)
Xer Xian wrote:Those shots are interesting, I didn't know you could get transparency effects back via emulation/shaders.
yeah that's something I'm still very interested in achieving on a reliable level. Technically it's also something that should be possible on real hardware without the use of emulation. (it was on the to do list for the OSSC, but there doesn't seem to be enough memory to implement right now on the current 1.6 hardware)
Xer Xian wrote:Unfortunately my reason for downscaling is a bit more urgent - the monitor I've destined for tate is 15kHz only, and many shooters don't have a 240p option. I could just use a vga monitor (of which I have several) for tate, but I'd like to try getting authentic low-res visuals for my primary set-up.
I know that feel. (what sizes is your tate display?)
Xer Xian wrote:I'm now quite sure there's nothing left for me to tweak with the iScan HD+ to get a perfect 240p result. Changing timings other than the active lines does not impact on the visuals, but only on the image position. All in all, the iScan provides a solid 240p picture, but it's not as good as native 240p - or indeed, as what you can get from a TvOne scaler.
there's always the old VGA monitor plus SLG combo that a lot of people enjoy, if done properly the results can be indistinguishable from a real 240p signal. (see these pictures from one of my older experiments with a vp50+RGB interface+SLG combo)
Games: Streets of Rage, Revenge of Shinobi
Console: American Sega CDX
Video chain: Coaxial RGB Scart -> VP50pro ->RGB203 rxi vtg ->SLG (100% intensity) -> Lacie Electron 22 blue iv (CRT monitor)
Xer Xian wrote:Again, I'm nitpicking here
It really is a minor flaw, which only affects a small portion of the whole screen anyway. It's probably due to the scaling algorithm used. The iScan also has the very low latency on its side, and that can't be written off. I mean, I can see a few flaws on this picture (480p to 240p with the iScan), but that doesn't mean it's a bad result.
it does look really nice! I imagine that the flaw could be relatively unnoticeable depending on the game, especially in hectic shooters. it would be interesting to see how something like gun bird 1 or 2 looks/plays like your setup. (are your overscan/underscan settings at 0%?). for most slower pace games you could probably just use the Corio2. but for everything that requires intense reaction times the iscan with its low input lag is probably the best choice even with a CRT. (although from what I remember most 480i tate capable shooters on the ps2 could be patched to 240p or or forced into 480p/1080i) Phatnightmares also has a YouTube channel with some of his HD+ experiments (haven't had a chance to watch all of them myself, but he seems to be having good luck).
orange808 wrote:I struggled as well. I gave up on the HD+ and permanently installed the Corio2 for 240p.
My trouble with iScan HD+ is that I can't get a standard 240p signal with properly aligned scanlines. I can use the settings in this thread with a monitor and it looks nice enough, but that's not *really* 240p. 240p should display on virtually any consumer CRT.
When we start cranking things up to 283 total lines, it goes too far out of spec for both the consumer sets I have on hand.
have you tried using component video? (or svcoco's settings?) telemetry and svcoco had success with getting the HD+ work with consumer television sets. I used svcoco's timings with my old Sony KV-13FS100 13-Inch crt via component/HD+ and it worked fine. I didn't see any problems, I played a lot of soul caliber, Ikaruga and various Shmups on the Dreamcast in 240p over the weekends using that setup.