fandangos wrote:A HDMI solution for the DC would be great but I remember so many years ago reading all the development on this in AssemblerGames and Ozone working on this and not sure if anything ever surfaced or if it's vaporware?
Is there someone working on it ?
Also, I've found an easy mod to add internal VGA port and a switch from the DC so I could use regular VGA-VGA cables.
http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/dreamcast-internal-vga-mod/
There is activity in the
DreamcastHDMI github by chriz2600 thread as recent as March of this year.
fandangos wrote:I guess with this switch, you can boot a game at RGB and just toggle it for VGA and bypass the game video mode lock.
I just fear for the OSSC.
If I output RGB 15khz into the OSSC for a moment through the VGA port can I damage the OSSC?
Or can this work for a moment?
There's no risk of damaging the OSSC by flipping that switch; video mode changes are inherent to video technology, such as the numerous PS1 and PS2 games that switch between 240p gameplay and 480i menus, the switch between RGBS and RGsB in the handful of PS2 games that support 480p+, and the Xbox with its 480i menus (assuming an original dash) and its handful of games that support 480p+.
What you might have an issue with is the OSSC's lack of automatic mode detection and switching. I believe you have to start the Dreamcast in RGBS mode and then flip the switch to activate RGBHV mode during the white SEGA licensing screen, after which the game will switch from 480i to 480p.
The problem with using the straight VGA cable, then, is that you would need to manually switch the OSSC's input to AV3 RGBS so you can get a visual cue (the licensing screen) to flip the switch, then manually switch the OSSC's input to AV3 RGBHV to play the game. If you still had the GD-ROM drive installed, you could use that as an aural cue and just leave the OSSC on AV3 RGBHV. Then again, I'm not sure what facilities, if any, your USB GDROM has for launching games in RGBHV mode.
In my case, I have a BeharBros Toro, which I have configured to output RGBS, and it's connected to my OSSC via SCART. With this setup, I always get RGBS out of the Dreamcast, so I can get the visual cue and flip the Toro's mode switch without futzing with the OSSC.