GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

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rama
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by rama »

The power supply shouldn't be such a hassle. I wonder if some GBS boards are more picky?
Then again, total power is ~3W, so dunno.
People with scopes watching the GBS input side:
The buck converter produces lots of switching noise on its input side. This is normal and expected from the design.
You can check the output on the lowest V/Div setting for actual system noise, and that should be very low.
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FinalBaton
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by FinalBaton »

For people who use the GBS8200 for old Hercules/CGA/EGA/Tandy standard for Graphics games : did you know about the MCE2VGA upscaler? it seems to be pretty damn good for that particular application. I only share this because I just leaned about it's existence recently(maybe it'S been out for a long while?) and thought that maybe other people didn't know about it either. It even emulates CGA composite mode (pretty cool) as well as giving both green and amber color option to monochrome, in addition to white.

An overview of the machine : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SII7ujB3FY
-FM Synth & Black Metal-
rigues
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by rigues »

Rama,

While trying to mod a spare board yesterday I accidentally set my soldering iron too hot and ripped out the SCL pad on P5. Do you know of any other place on the board where I can grab this signal? I found the datasheet for the MTV230 and saw that there are pins marked as HSCL/HSDA and ISCL/ISDA, but I checked with a multimeter and they don't seem to be directly connected to P5.

Regards,
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donluca
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by donluca »

FinalBaton wrote:For people who use the GBS8200 for old Hercules/CGA/EGA/Tandy standard for Graphics games : did you know about the MCE2VGA upscaler? it seems to be pretty damn good for that particular application. I only share this because I just leaned about it's existence recently(maybe it'S been out for a long while?) and thought that maybe other people didn't know about it either. It even emulates CGA composite mode (pretty cool) as well as giving both green and amber color option to monochrome, in addition to white.

An overview of the machine : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SII7ujB3FY
Wow, that little box is awesome! I'm wondering if it converts the original 70hz to 60hz or if it outputs at the same frequency.
rigues
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by rigues »

donluca wrote:
FinalBaton wrote:For people who use the GBS8200 for old Hercules/CGA/EGA/Tandy standard for Graphics games : did you know about the MCE2VGA upscaler? it seems to be pretty damn good for that particular application. I only share this because I just leaned about it's existence recently(maybe it'S been out for a long while?) and thought that maybe other people didn't know about it either. It even emulates CGA composite mode (pretty cool) as well as giving both green and amber color option to monochrome, in addition to white.

An overview of the machine : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SII7ujB3FY
Wow, that little box is awesome! I'm wondering if it converts the original 70hz to 60hz or if it outputs at the same frequency.
My guess is that it outputs at 70 Hz. Clint mentions in the video that he had problems with capture devices that do not support this frequency.
rama
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by rama »

rigues wrote:...ripped out the SCL pad on P5. Do you know of any other place on the board where I can grab this signal?
Regards,
Quick multimeter check:
The right side of R10 (towards the MTV230) can be used.
jmuzi
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by jmuzi »

Hi All,

For those still interested, I've done a quick revision on the PLCC based coupling board: https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/lrvd4065. The jumper on P6 is no longer required as it is directly grounded on the coupling board; normal board function is restored by simply lifting the PLCC+ESP8266 off the board. All thoughts and comments welcome :)
Last edited by jmuzi on Mon Nov 12, 2018 2:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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FinalBaton
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by FinalBaton »

donluca wrote:
FinalBaton wrote:For people who use the GBS8200 for old Hercules/CGA/EGA/Tandy standard for Graphics games : did you know about the MCE2VGA upscaler? it seems to be pretty damn good for that particular application. I only share this because I just leaned about it's existence recently(maybe it'S been out for a long while?) and thought that maybe other people didn't know about it either. It even emulates CGA composite mode (pretty cool) as well as giving both green and amber color option to monochrome, in addition to white.

An overview of the machine : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SII7ujB3FY
Wow, that little box is awesome! I'm wondering if it converts the original 70hz to 60hz or if it outputs at the same frequency.
I think it outputs at 70Hz.
-FM Synth & Black Metal-
rigues
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by rigues »

rama wrote:
rigues wrote:...ripped out the SCL pad on P5. Do you know of any other place on the board where I can grab this signal?
Regards,
Quick multimeter check:
The right side of R10 (towards the MTV230) can be used.
PERFECT! Thansk a lot, board working as intended again. And for the record, the right side of R37 is SDA.
rigues
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by rigues »

Rama,

I have two v4 boards, one from May 2014 and the other one from May 2018, and I'm having image positioning issues with both of them using the latest firmware (downloaded from Github on November 9).

My first GBS-Control setup was built on June with the 2014 board, using firmware downloaded on June 19. This one ran fine, the image was perfectly centered both on my 32" LG TV and on a 17" Philips 170S LCD Monitor. This week I built another setup, using the 2018 board and newer firmware, and the image is shifted WAY to the left. I have to adjust HS Right to the MAX (if I got any further, the TV goes out of sync) and play with the Picture Size and positioning controls to get it centered on my TV. However, if I do so, it becomes shifted way to the right on the monitor, and I have to push HS Left to get it centered. See images below.

Image
TV. Sorry for the glare.

Image
Monitor

I thought it might be the new board, so I upgraded the firmware on the old one. Same results. Sources are a japanese Mega Drive II and a Panasonic FS-A1 MSX Computer, and both show the issue.

Any ideas on what might be happening? I have no problem using the "old" firmware if it is the easier fix, but I fear i might be "missing out" on some bugfixes or new features.

Regards,
rama
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by rama »

Hm, I recently adjusted the horizontal timings, comparing the active video and horizontal sync positions to a PC with VGA.
The intention was to best mimic the VGA results.
This improved positioning on my displays and especially the HDMI version got better.

I guess your setup isn't happy with the new timings.
The new default timings should allow your displays to auto correct easily.
Please try to use only default presets and correct mainly with the display auto adjust functions.
You can help it a little using the web ui controls, but try to avoid moving the horizontal sync.
If there's absolutely no way to center the image without touching HSync, then there's something wrong with my timings.
In that case, I need some clues on why it fails on your displays.

Edit:
The picture left / right controls that don't touch HSync are called Picture Control > Move Picture > Picture Left / Right.

Edit2:
And I just happen to have a Mega Drive connected. All presets fall into place nicely on my display, so it does work here (for what it's worth :p).
rigues
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by rigues »

[quote="rama"][...]Please try to use only default presets and correct mainly with the display auto adjust functions.
You can help it a little using the web ui controls, but try to avoid moving the horizontal sync.[...]

I will try and report the results.
rigues
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by rigues »

rama wrote:Hm, I recently adjusted the horizontal timings, comparing the active video and horizontal sync positions to a PC with VGA.
The intention was to best mimic the VGA results.
This improved positioning on my displays and especially the HDMI version got better.

I guess your setup isn't happy with the new timings.
The new default timings should allow your displays to auto correct easily.
Please try to use only default presets and correct mainly with the display auto adjust functions.
You can help it a little using the web ui controls, but try to avoid moving the horizontal sync.
If there's absolutely no way to center the image without touching HSync, then there's something wrong with my timings.
In that case, I need some clues on why it fails on your displays.

Edit:
The picture left / right controls that don't touch HSync are called Picture Control > Move Picture > Picture Left / Right.

Edit2:
And I just happen to have a Mega Drive connected. All presets fall into place nicely on my display, so it does work here (for what it's worth :p).
Rama,

Tried adjusting the picture using only the controls in the Picture Control section. I CAN move the picture back into the frame using Picture Right, but it is too large horizontally. When I try to "shrink" it using Horizontal Smaller, I get this green bar on the right after pushing the button a few times (not enough to correct the picture).

Image
rama
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by rama »

Okay, that's a start.

Try to move the picture so that the left active video border aligns with your display, then hit the auto fit button on your display.
Is this a PAL console, by the way?

Edit:
Checked the timings on the scope again. It looks like they wandered off for some reason ><
Fixed the NTSC presets on master, hope the PAL ones are alright.
It may have happened when I added the deinterlacer stuff, possibly the buffer regions in SDRAM.
rigues
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by rigues »

rama wrote:Okay, that's a start.

Try to move the picture so that the left active video border aligns with your display, then hit the auto fit button on your display.
Is this a PAL console, by the way?

Edit:
Checked the timings on the scope again. It looks like they wandered off for some reason ><
Fixed the NTSC presets on master, hope the PAL ones are alright.
It may have happened when I added the deinterlacer stuff, possibly the buffer regions in SDRAM.
Rama,

1) The console is switchable between PAL and NTSC. It WAS set to PAL, but switching to NTSC made no difference.
2) Sadly, my TV does not have an Auto Fit Option. Will try on a monitor when I get the chance
3) Tried the new code on Master, it DID improve positioning. However, as before, I still can't get the image centered using only the Picture Controls (green bar on the right, as before). See a comparison screenshot below. The "OLD" shot was made with the code I downloaded on Monday, the new has the changes you commited a few ours ago.

Image
rama
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by rama »

I haven't checked the PAL presets yesterday. They may also be affected from the offset issue.

NTSC:
On my scope, active video on Mega Drive is dead center on the scanline.
If you make horizontal magnification a little less, does that work better?

The green bar marks a couple limits in the scaler (line buffers and memory fetch).
I'm trying to use as many horizontal pixels as possible, so the bar can show up, instead of just black noise.
Active video should never reach into the green bar in any of the default presets.
One trick is to mask the green bar. You have controls called Horizontal Mask + / - to control masking.
The presets should be pretty spot on already however, so that users just fine tune with these controls.
In your case, it looks totally off still.
I'll just assume you used PAL and PAL is still bad. Gonna check it now :)

Edit:
Done.
I found and fixed some issues. Especially on 1280x960 and 1280x1024. All PAL presets should be able to show all of Sonic again ;p
PAL is trickier than NTSC to fit within the resource limitations, but I'm happy with what I've got now.
(Until the next big feature breaks it all again? ;p)
CZroe
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by CZroe »

I have a GBS-8200 but haven’t done the CFW/GBS-Control thing yet. I’ve mainly used it for troubleshooting MVS boards when I don’t have access to an arcade monitor (just need an image), but now I’m interested in using it to consolize MVS boards without buying an NTSC encoder with component, composite, S-Video, etc.

How well/poorly suited is the CFW for this purpose? Can I configure it for my particular console and have it recall these settings automatically so that I never need to use WiFi again? Will I have to do anything to change outputs or will they all work simultaneously?

I do have an OSSC but I don’t want a consolized MVS to require that or any other specialty equipment. It ain’t “consolized” for North America unless it could connect to any NTSC TV of the era with nothing more fancy than an S-Video to Composite adapter or an RF modulator, ya know? ;) Of course, that doesn’t mean I want to deprive myself of a better output, like YPbPr Component, VGA, or RGBS, so I’d like at least one of those too.

I’m hoping for something that can stay permanently installed in a consolized MVS that has various connection options without needing to open up a phone browser to tweak or change outputs. If it can’t simultaneously use multiple outputs then I should be able to select them with the physical buttons or a switch or something that doesn’t require WiFi.

Is all this possible with the current iteration? To be clear, I don’t mind needing WiFi to set it up for the MVS as long as it remembers my settings and I don’t need to go back once set up for long-term use.
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NoAffinity
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by NoAffinity »

It only outputs VGA (or hdmi, if you have the hdmi version) ;) yes, you can dial it in on the cfw, then save what you've dialed in as a preset, then set the preset as the default profile to load on startup. One time fiddling with the settings via wifi, then it will boot to your chosen preset from then forward.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
rama
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by rama »

CZroe:

I believe gbscontrol can do what you want from it.
On the software side, you get 4 output resolution presets that adapt to 50Hz or 60Hz sources, as well as a huge margin for those arcade boards.
You can select an option and have it load automatically on startup.
The software does a lot of things automatically, so you don't have to babysit it.
It'll go into low power seek mode when you turn off your game to change it, for example.

You'll have to provide TV level signals for RGB and Sync.
75 Ohm termination is installed for RGB, but Sync has a 560Ohm termination.
An easy fix to this is installing one 100 Ohm resistor on Sync in to ground, bringing the Sync termination close to specs.

Just connect your source like that (CSync of 0.3Vpp to 3.3Vpp is fine), and it'll find and process it.
Out comes VGA, which you can turn to HDMI with a VGA to HDMI device ($5 ones use the Macro Silicon transcoder, very good choice).

It's a diy solution, but there isn't much to do, nor is it particularly hard. Imho. :)
CZroe
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by CZroe »

NoAffinity wrote:It only outputs VGA (or hdmi, if you have the hdmi version) ;) yes, you can dial it in on the cfw, then save what you've dialed in as a preset, then set the preset as the default profile to load on startup. One time fiddling with the settings via wifi, then it will boot to your chosen preset from then forward.
Thanks! I recall seeing something in this thread about correcting it to properly support YPbPr, but I assume that was as an input?
rama wrote:CZroe:

I believe gbscontrol can do what you want from it.
On the software side, you get 4 output resolution presets that adapt to 50Hz or 60Hz sources, as well as a huge margin for those arcade boards.
You can select an option and have it load automatically on startup.
The software does a lot of things automatically, so you don't have to babysit it.
It'll go into low power seek mode when you turn off your game to change it, for example.

You'll have to provide TV level signals for RGB and Sync.
75 Ohm termination is installed for RGB, but Sync has a 560Ohm termination.
An easy fix to this is installing one 100 Ohm resistor on Sync in to ground, bringing the Sync termination close to specs.

Just connect your source like that (CSync of 0.3Vpp to 3.3Vpp is fine), and it'll find and process it.
Out comes VGA, which you can turn to HDMI with a VGA to HDMI device ($5 ones use the Macro Silicon transcoder, very good choice).

It's a diy solution, but there isn't much to do, nor is it particularly hard. Imho. :)
Thanks! I was hoping these modifications allowed for YPbPr output to use directly with an NTSC television or RetroTink 2X but enough older NTSC TVs have VGA for that to be a viable output for consolization (pretty much none have RGBS). The VGA to HDMI adapters likely force 16:9 on many televisions, but I’m sure it will come in handy, regardless.

Thanks for everything you’ve done! I will, of course, be getting another GBS8200 for the test bench. :)

Oh! If I spring for the HDMI version of the GBS-8200 will it window the output within 16:9 to maintain a 4:3 aspect ratio?
redcatex
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by redcatex »

@rama
i swapped caps as suggested, but still need sync stripper to get sync for my n64 pal rgb. Did i understand something wrong, thought swaping caps will remove need of sync stripper ?
rama
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by rama »

redcatex:

It's still a fragile system of analog signals that can go wrong somewhere. It's inherent to classic consoles on modern hardware.
You probably can't measure your sync signal, so try to work out what components are in the path.
If sync is CV or Luma, then it needs the additional 100 Ohm to ground resistor on the input, and nothing else.

I've started using the scaler's debug outputs to try and make a guess on the sync signal. This code isn't very robust yet. Maybe it fails for you?
Look for debug logs that say something like "sog level: 0" or many "HD? SD?" etc prints. Those indicate the software can't work the signal out.

CZroe:
I don't have a TV here that force stretches the HDMI transcoder output. That could just be my luck though, it depends on a test.
Fortunately, all hardware for this project is very cheap.
Component output is something I haven't spent time on yet. I know the chip can mix Luma and Sync, but without additional hardware (or tricks), the amplitude will only be 0.7Vpp instead of 1.0Vpp. It will work, but look washed out.
redcatex
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by redcatex »

@rama understood. will try. might be that otakustore rgb board has something wrong or maybe scart cable itself uses uneeded stuff. Regarding 100ohm resistor, it's there. Just hope that chinese didn't send me 100nf capacitor instead of 1nf (or is it pf 100pf = 1nf i think), because before instead of ceramic smd i received electrolytic through hole caps. but my multimeter on capacitance measurment doesnt read these caps.
rama
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by rama »

E-caps? Those are probably too high. 1nF is a very small value (1000pF) and e-caps don't normally go that low.

My guess is that you now have 1uF (micro Farad) installed, not 1nF (nano Farad) :p
redcatex
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by redcatex »

nope 1nf ceramic smd: these ones https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-Sh ... 4c4dDBuq7r (1nf option)

So far haven't had problem with chinese parts to be honest, sometimes wrong item comes.
rama
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by rama »

Ah, I get it. You've just ordered new ones.
Good luck then :)
redcatex
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by redcatex »

and received them and installed :) came quickly (1,5 week) So just wanted to ask why still i get no sync, but i got my answer, thanks rama. will check with other consoles.
rama
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by rama »

TobiasRieper wrote: Rama, I do recall you sending me the commands to enable horizontal and vertical stretching on the 640 x 480 but I'm not sure I've this has changed over the past few months. If you could send me a quick reminder then I can save it on my PC. Many thanks!
I've changed the 640x preset handler to automatically enable scaling when users change the scaling factor.
So from now on, this isn't necessary to do manually anymore :)
rama
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by rama »

redcatex wrote:@rama
i swapped caps as suggested, but still need sync stripper to get sync for my n64 pal rgb. Did i understand something wrong, thought swaping caps will remove need of sync stripper ?
N64 will work with the stock Composite cable, yellow plug into the green RCA input.
You'll get a black and white image full of dot crawl, but it can be used to verify the format works.
(Works with all sources that output CV by the way ;) )

Ah, and speaking of Composite, this is a PAL unit that's been modified for RGB? How?
PAL CV cables all have an additional resistor inside the N64 plug end, because Nintendo designed the PAL console for that.
This needs to be replicated in the mod if CV is to be used. It's probably the same for Y / Luma as well.
If the CV to green RCA test doesn't sync, and the same CV is used for sync for RGB, then this resistor is not installed.
redcatex
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Re: GBS 8200/8220 CFW Project

Post by redcatex »

@rama will try. It's modfied with otakusstore rgb mod board (probably clone of etim rgb board)
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