Which next-generation retro-gaming video processor are you most interested to buy?

[Konsolkongen]

There isn’t room on the Morph for Scart, VGA and component inputs. Maybe if a component to 4 pin mini-jack adapter was used it could all fit, but that’s easily mistaken for an audio input, if the user is not paying attention.

For those of us that run all three signal types through the same switch, either of the VGA ones or the BNC one will be good choices.
Of course adapters can be used that will allow component or Scart on VGA but I can definitely see why someone would find it inconvenient.

The backplate with Scart and component is weird to me. I think it would have been better if it was Scart and VGA instead.
Component > VGA adapters are cheap and easy to find, and I think the loss of the digital audio input is bad.

If a Scart + VGA + digital audio plate was made I would go that route personally.

Speaking of audio. I hope someone with proper audio knowledge will put the analog to digital converters to the test in these machines.

Of course the best route is to keep analog audio analog and just run it around the scaler and directly to your audio system. But there is convenience in having both audio and video together.
If wonder if any of these scalers have any features put into the ADC besides just a barebone audio conversion.
It would be interesting if a filter could be applied that removes the hum some systems have when an all white screen is displayed.

[kitty666cats]

To date I haven’t seen a plate for the Morph that has SCART, VGA, and Component (but I understand one could be built). I’m curious to see how the Morph is received before I choose one.

I was just looking at the above plates and thinking the same thing-- very odd indeed. Meanwhile the 4K has literally everything, including S-Video, only "missing" BNC, which no gaming console outputs. Oh, and its missing RF too, lol.

The more one looks at it, the more the 4K stands out as in a class all its own. Its not even close.

BNC isn't a type of signal. It's a connector.

[Josh128]

To date I haven’t seen a plate for the Morph that has SCART, VGA, and Component (but I understand one could be built). I’m curious to see how the Morph is received before I choose one.

I was just looking at the above plates and thinking the same thing-- very odd indeed. Meanwhile the 4K has literally everything, including S-Video, only "missing" BNC, which no gaming console outputs. Oh, and its missing RF too, lol.

The more one looks at it, the more the 4K stands out as in a class all its own. Its not even close.

BNC isn't a type of signal. It's a connector.

I know that. I worked in satellite, microwave, VHF, and cellular comms for well over a decade before transitioning to industrial electrical and automation. Not that its anything to brag about, but Ive likely terminated more N-type, F, BNC, TNC, SMA, SMC, and 7/16 DIN connectors, both crimp and solder type, male and female, on various types of and sizes of coax than anyone here by quite a large percentage, if I had to bet. I was talking about the fact that no classic console has BNC output connectors on it or ever had a multi-out that terminated to BNC on the other side. I wouldnt be surprised if, at least in the US, for retro gaming purposes, more people are using still using RF modulators on wood framed Zenith and RCA TVs than are using BNC cables to PVMs and fancy Extron boxes.

[SavagePencil]

Ehn no need to be pedantic. Yes many of my devices could output in a standard format but I haven’t. If I were smart ten years ago I would’ve had everything custom built with cables for VGA or BNC to make my life easier.

But at present I’m using all three connector formats for various devices. And now a fourth with HDMI. And my goal is to reduce hops through different converters if at all possible. Anyway, back to being on topic…

[kitty666cats]

I was just looking at the above plates and thinking the same thing-- very odd indeed. Meanwhile the 4K has literally everything, including S-Video, only "missing" BNC, which no gaming console outputs. Oh, and its missing RF too, lol.

The more one looks at it, the more the 4K stands out as in a class all its own. Its not even close.

BNC isn't a type of signal. It's a connector.

I know that. I worked in satellite, microwave, VHF, and cellular comms for well over a decade before transitioning to industrial electrical and automation. Not that its anything to brag about, but Ive likely terminated more N-type, F, BNC, TNC, SMA, SMC, and 7/16 DIN connectors, both crimp and solder type, male and female, on various types of and sizes of coax than anyone here by quite a large percentage, if I had to bet. I was talking about the fact that no classic console has BNC output connectors on it or ever had a multi-out that terminated to BNC on the other side. I wouldnt be surprised if, at least in the US, for retro gaming purposes, more people are using still using RF modulators on wood framed Zenith and RCA TVs than are using BNC cables to PVMs and fancy Extron boxes.

Haha, me neither. Lots more people are getting into CRTs and there seems to be less and less people who won't settle for anything less than a PVM. I see groups nowadays where people proudly post their shitty 12" sets with built in VCRs. Bless them

[Josh128]

^^

reddit.com/r/CRTgaming, lol. At least they are doing their part to combat e-waste I say more power to them!

[Konsolkongen]

After watching My Life in Gamings video I have changed my vote to the RT4K. Rescaling in re-releases and modern style 2D games is my most wanted feature of all time. It’s unreal to see some of these titles fixed.

Hopefully the Morph can do the same eventually.

[BuckoA51]

You mean the pre-scale thing? That's already in Morph, they posted some screenshots of their "demake" filters as they call them a few weeks ago - https://www.pixelfx.co/post/mighty-morph-4k-screenshots

[Guspaz]

That’s not quite the same thing. The RT4K’s fractional prescale is sort of like optimal sampling for digital video, which is why it lets you undo unevenly scaled content.

[SGGG2]

After watching My Life in Gamings video I have changed my vote to the RT4K. Rescaling in re-releases and modern style 2D games is my most wanted feature of all time. It’s unreal to see some of these titles fixed.

Hopefully the Morph can do the same eventually.

I was extremely impressed with that.

[bobrocks95]

That’s not quite the same thing. The RT4K’s fractional prescale is sort of like optimal sampling for digital video, which is why it lets you undo unevenly scaled content.

Looks like a fully customizable fractional prescale to me
https://media.discordapp.net/attachment ... fa28d0ad8&

[Konsolkongen]

That would be fantastic. I hope Try from MLiG can get one and do comparisons with the RT4K

[Guspaz]

That’s not quite the same thing. The RT4K’s fractional prescale is sort of like optimal sampling for digital video, which is why it lets you undo unevenly scaled content.

Looks like a fully customizable fractional prescale to me
https://media.discordapp.net/attachment ... fa28d0ad8&

That appears to just let you divide by an integer number. Technically 1/2 or 1/3 or 1/4 are fractions, but what I mean by fractional prescale is something like 1/(3/5), which is what lets you undo uneven scaling at the source.

[bobrocks95]

That’s not quite the same thing. The RT4K’s fractional prescale is sort of like optimal sampling for digital video, which is why it lets you undo unevenly scaled content.

Looks like a fully customizable fractional prescale to me
https://media.discordapp.net/attachment ... fa28d0ad8&

That appears to just let you divide by an integer number. Technically 1/2 or 1/3 or 1/4 are fractions, but what I mean by fractional prescale is something like 1/(3/5), which is what lets you undo uneven scaling at the source.

Ah, gotcha, maybe it's more granular than it appears, or at least will be developed further. I still need to watch the MLiG video so maybe shouldn't comment yet.

[Konsolkongen]

I wonder if the prescale feature can make the horrible PS2 ports of Ibara and Mushihime look decent?

Probably wishful thinking. I think the ports are too messed up to be fixable.

The 240p hacks doesn’t work as the pixels doesn’t align properly.

[BuckoA51]

I watched the MLIG video through last night. The Tink4k honestly looks pretty awesome, obviously part of me wants to just go and buy one and play with it Anyway, I was able to do the whole prescale thing on my Switch with the Morph just like Try did with the Tink 4K.

For Turtles there was always some text that didn't quite align with the scanlines, suggesting maybe they didn't stick strictly to low resolution (like a lot of indie games don't) but overall the result was extremely pleasing. I don't see that there's ever a way around that unless I'm fundamentally misunderstanding something, I mean how can you prescale half a scanline?

For Gunlord, which /was/ originally a 240p game on the Dreamcast, everything lined up perfectly and it looked stunning... this is now my favourite version (even though I like the Dreamcast pseudo engrish intro more )

The Morph's GameID is going to be really useful here. It should be fairly easy to extend GameID to a platform like Switch, which basically broadcasts to the world what game you are playing through your Nintendo ID. Then, the Morph will automatically be able to apply your saved preset for games like Gunlord etc. Get bored of that after an hour or two and switch to e.g. Splatoon? Morph will know, and can just apply your default settings for a modern game. Again, don't get me wrong this isn't in Morph now and might not be for some time. I think their first target platform for this is Steam deck/steam.

Considering the premium price point I can't help but think Tink4k should have had wifi connectivity out of the box too when you consider all the potential applications for it.

Also I'm surprised MLIG didn't seem to touch on auto profiles much?

[orange808]

Considering the premium price point I can't help but think Tink4k should have had wifi connectivity out of the box too when you consider all the potential applications for it.

What are those, again? ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

I hate the GBS Control web page thing. Unlocking my phone is a hassle. I also don't want any more wifi or bluetooth than absolutely necessary in the house. My bluetooth game controllers and other wireless devices don't need any more interference. Why raise the noise floor in my gaming room?

[Josh128]

Considering the premium price point I can't help but think Tink4k should have had wifi connectivity out of the box too when you consider all the potential applications for it.

What are those, again? ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

I hate the GBS Control web page thing. Unlocking my phone is a hassle. I also don't want any more wifi or bluetooth than absolutely necessary in the house. My bluetooth game controllers and other wireless devices don't need any more interference. Why raise the noise floor in my gaming room?

Yeah I would take a simple display like the OSSC Pro has over wifi.

[bobrocks95]

GameID, like Bucko mentioned in the paragraph just above the quoted one. Boot up Gunlord, wait a few seconds, and your profile auto-switches.

I'll likely end up with a digital morph + Tink4K at some point, depending on what PixelFX can bring to the table.

[tongshadow]

I bucko is talking about the TINK4K being able to automatically update optimal game/console specific profiles instead of fildding with SD cards.
Wireless updates would make perfect sense with the profile feature.

[EnragedWhale]

Is game ID not possible with the RT4K?

[Guspaz]

Game ID requires several steps in a chain. It requires support from the flash cart or ODE to process the name of the ROM/ISO loaded and pass it to the HDMI mod installed in the console (it doesn't work with real cartridges/discs, I believe), and then for the HDMI mod to transmit the game ID over the HDMI connection to the connected scaler, and then it requires the scaler to support receiving the game ID and acting upon it.

In relation to the RT4K, there are two concerns here:

1) Not many users will have a game-id compatible console since it requires both specific flash carts and specific video mods
2) Game ID's usefulness is limited when the scaler already supports real-time resolution detection, since this reduces the need for per-game profiles

I suppose I'm conflating two things a bit, since game ID requires an HDMI mod for the console, but real-time resolution detection is only useful for analog video inputs, but my overall point is that game ID doesn't really enable much. Per-game crop settings, maybe.

[BuckoA51]

Game ID requires several steps in a chain. It requires support from the flash cart or ODE to process the name of the ROM/ISO loaded and pass it to the HDMI mod installed in the console (it doesn't work with real cartridges/discs, I believe), and then for the HDMI mod to transmit the game ID over the HDMI connection to the connected scaler, and then it requires the scaler to support receiving the game ID and acting upon it.

It only needs those things on retro consoles, on modern platforms, (where we can use things like prescale and filters on retro titles like on Switch, Steam/Steam Deck), it can just check what game you're playing the same way your friends can.

Yeah I would take a simple display like the OSSC Pro has over wifi.

This is at least an optional extra on the Morph for folks who want it.

[Guspaz]

What's the use case for a scaler querying an Internet resource to find out what Nintendo Switch game you're playing, though? That's the kind of thing that I *could* actually implement for the RT4K, but it's not clear to me *why* I would.

[BuckoA51]

I thought I'd explained it fairly well before...

I'm playing a retro style indie game that needs a one third prescale, combined with a little zoom. The scaler sees I'm playing this and applies this
I go and play a modern game where I want just scanlines, or a mask, or nothing, the scaler sees I'm playing this and applies this
I go and play another game, that requires a different prescale or zoom factor, and for this game I prefer different scanline settings. The scaler sees I'm playing this and applies this

I mean that sounds pretty useful to me?

[Guspaz]

Hmm, I suppose that could be useful. I guess I'll put querying rich presence status for modern consoles on the TODO list.

[EnragedWhale]

Thanks for the thorough explanation @Guspaz.

I agree with Matt that in the ways it could be very useful for modern pixel art games that could require very different settings. Although selecting a profile probably isn’t that much effort anyway. Personally not fussed for analog sources as I don’t use ODE’s and it seems the auto res detect will do its’s thing there.

[bobrocks95]

It is dumb but I also want the Discord integration PixelFX showed that will pull your game ID over Wi-Fi and then update your currently played game.

Game ID requires several steps in a chain. It requires support from the flash cart or ODE to process the name of the ROM/ISO loaded and pass it to the HDMI mod installed in the console (it doesn't work with real cartridges/discs, I believe)

See my sig for GameID with original discs on PS1. PS2 you can use OPL and hopefully in the future either boot discs from it or someone will just create a homebrew disc booter you can run with FMCB that passes it along. Swiss on GameCube can pull it as well, hopefully GCVideo in the future by some means.

[SavagePencil]

GameID sounds great on paper, but I would be curious how well it works in practice. It needs a lot of understanding about the customer's setup and their preferences. You don't want the device making decisions "for" the user that step on their toes, or worse, put them into an incompatible situation. The first time that happens, the user is going to lose trust and turn it off.

[tongshadow]

It is dumb but I also want the Discord integration PixelFX showed that will pull your game ID over Wi-Fi and then update your currently played game.

Game ID requires several steps in a chain. It requires support from the flash cart or ODE to process the name of the ROM/ISO loaded and pass it to the HDMI mod installed in the console (it doesn't work with real cartridges/discs, I believe)

See my sig for GameID with original discs on PS1. PS2 you can use OPL and hopefully in the future either boot discs from it or someone will just create a homebrew disc booter you can run with FMCB that passes it along. Swiss on GameCube can pull it as well, hopefully GCVideo in the future by some means.

If someone is already this deep into the PS1, might as well install the relatively inexpensive XStation, which does the GameID thing perfectly with the MemCardPRO and even the RetroGEM.