Get that Authentic arcvade look from consoles

[hijakt]

Hi everyone.I decided to join, I've used the site off and on for many years.I've just recently fixed up a Namco Exceleena arcade cabinet.I'm currently waiting on a Dreamcat to place inside.I love fighting games, but am getting interested in shmups, since I want to get good use out of my cab and really class myself as otaku.In the past couple of days, I read a brilliantly written article about scanlines and getting that authentic look for your arcade games.Thankfully some Dreamcast games have the option to run in there arcade cousins native resolution, but unfortunately some that really should don't.So I was hoping you guys here can just explain, when it comes top scan converters, what I should look for.Now I want to get the authentic arcade 240p, scanline look.So I guess I will want a scan converter that

!:Can take intake a 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 720i(for PS3,Xbox 360), 480i, 480p (Dreamcast) (PC VGA)

:Then output: 240p (<-for 15kz Arcade cab use) 1080p, 1080i, 720p <-If I want to use it on LCD in futre 1080p, 1080i, 720p


Is this what I need to ask the seller, when I decide to grab a suitable unit.I'm not really interested in using one on my LCD, but I guess if the unit can do what I want it for,
it'll probably do the LCD stuff, which I assume is what they're originally intended for. The article, is a little old now, but does give a couple of examples of units to purchase, that will do what I want it for.Are there any other standout units that are either affordable now.I see the XRGB units mentined quite a bit, are they for use on arcade monitors aswell or strictly HDTV's.Anyway, that's it for now, just want to say it's great to have such a resource as this website, thanks.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

You'd want to pick up one of shmupper viletim's excellent Scart to Jamma adapters:

If you'd like to play your favorite fighting and/or shmups on the 360 gaming platform, you'll need an 360 Scart cable as well (in addition to an Scart to Jamma adapter) & you're good to go. Just set the output resolution to 480p and the adapter will convert the 480p signal into 480i. The sound will be in mono as well (so if said game has selectable option to choose from stereo or mono, select mono for best results). To gain access to your arcade control panel, pick up either an PS360 or an PS360 Plus adapter and plug it into the 360's USB port, attach the joystick/push button outputs from the PS360 PCB to the Scart to Jamma adapter via wiring (with the screw-in terminal interface) & you're all set.

Or you could go with this second setup:

Pick up an 360 VGA cable & an Ultracade UVC (Universal Video Convertor) adapter. Select from 640 x 480 or 800 x 600 resolution & you're good to go. For using your arcade control panel with said games, you'd want to get a pair of hacked game controller pads hooked up to your control panel's wiring (which requires more work, of course). If your arcade monitor has a user selectable option to play games in 24khz medium-res mode, your 360 games will look better & sharper if using an UVC adapter + VGA cable on such a dual-sync arcade monitor setup.

Here's a third option to consider:

Or get an tri-sync monitor chassis such as an Wei-Ya produced one, swap out the dual-sync (15kHz/24khz) monitor chassis & use the handy VGA input for the high-res 31khz console games (DC & 360 platforms) and/or arcade PCBs as well (Taito Type X, Sammy Atomiswave, Sega Naomi, etc). The only drawback is, that you'll lose the razor-sharpness afforded by not using a dedicated low-res monitor chassis setup for use with dedicated low-res arcade PCBs but will gain the ability to play such high-res games on your arcade monitor setup. Some folks would rather not lose the sharpness of an low-res arcade monitor chassis offers and just stick with that current setup for the time being (by just using either one of the both listed options above to play such high-res games on a dedicated low-res arcade monitor setup).

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[hijakt]

Totally forgot about Viletim's adapter, does that change a 480i image to 240p?
Really, the 480i to 240p is the conversion I'm most interested in. I've inly got a dual res chassis and can't get
480p from a RGB connection, can I ?

[fagin]

You could also use an Extron RGB interface. This will accept a 480i signal and output a pseudo 240p image (all 15khz naturally).

The Extron RGB units are cheap (any RGB model will do) and plentiful on eBay.

[hijakt]

Would this do the job
http://www.broadcaststore.com/store/mod ... ?id=649260
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/EXTRON-RGB-2 ... 2317c3057d

Or should I just get a Ultracade UVC.Are the Ultracade UVC's lossless, like the Extron would be.
Also does Viletims Scart to Jamma adapter convert 480i to 240p. Thanks so much for the help.

[fagin]

Those units look like they scan convert a progressive to a RGBS signal. That's not what you need here.

I'm not sure a UVC goes from 480i to 240p either?!

You want to deal with 480i to 240p yeah?

[hijakt]

yaeh, basiaclly, I believe the UVC Ultracade does what Im after.

[emphatic]

yaeh, basiaclly, I believe the UVC Ultracade does what Im after.

The Ultracade will take a 480p or higher (800x600, 1024x768) signal and give you a 240p signal or output to 24kHz (640x384p). No lag, powerful RGB for your arcade screen.

http://www.emphatic.se/?p=139

[fagin]

As I suspected.... the Extron RGB Interface is your best and probably cheapest option then.

[hijakt]

Fagin, would you be able to give me a link to a couple.I see theres Extron machines, but I don't know what to look for.Is there a specific function I should look for when I look at these scan converters, something that will let me know that it'll give a 240p image.I'm warming to the idea of the ultracade, as I'll be able to use that on my 360 and PS3.

[fagin]

What part of the world are you located?

[hijakt]

Australia, mate.I believe a lot of the extron's have autoswitching psu's.So if the shippings not crazy, buying one from the Us, isn't totally out of the question.

[fagin]

The RGB interfaces don't need PSU per se. They take a direct mains voltage input.

Ignore what I said previously about the eBay item you linked to. Upon closer inspection it appears to have a RGB 202xi functionality built in to that scan convertor. It should be fine.... even if it does have extra functionality that you porbably won't need. As it's a scan convertor it will also take a 480p signal and convert it to a 15khz signal. However I have no idea if that output would be 480i or 240p (like the emotia).

[hijakt]

Yeah, IO read through the manual for both the vtg and 202xi and it doesn't mention a 240 resolution, so I dont know.
With the power thing, I was just thinking out loud I guess, it's good that I could get a unit from the US an it'd work on 240v.

[fagin]

It won't mention 240p..... it's an undocumented "feature".

[hijakt]

Yeah, I figure it's not something the manufacturer expected people to want to do.
If anyone knows if that one linked would do the 240p thing, that'd b great.
Anyone has opinions of what I'll get the best pic from, the extron or the Ultracade/The 24kz feature on the UVC is a nice extra, I assume the
Extrons would most likely do the same.
I'll be grabbing one (or the other) on Friday, so

Fagin and everyone, thanks for the hep, I do appreciate it.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Running the DC GD-Rom version of Gigawing 2 on a DC console with a Japanese scart cable + Scart to Jamma adapter = looks awesome running on a 15kHz low-res arcade monitor setup. Sure, it'll be running at 60fps in 480i format.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[rugdoctor]

Running the DC GD-Rom version of Gigawing 2 on a DC console with a Japanese scart cable + Scart to Jamma adapter = looks awesome running on a 15kHz low-res arcade monitor setup. Sure, it'll be running at 60fps in 480i format.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Funny you should mention that game...was playing it on 31khz via naomi hardware just a few days ago and still looks mesmorising. Too busy bullet eating to notice the presence of scanlines what not. But saying that, all the 2d fighting games do benefit from scanlines compared to shmups and 3d fighting games on the hardware.

[hijakt]

Yeah, unfortunately, my Dreamcast dies, Im waiting on one from Japan at the moment.The game I really want to look arcade perfect is Super Street Fighter.Before it died, I put in Marvel Vs Capcom and that looked beautiful, but Super looked nice, but something wasn't quite right.I assume the 3d games will look awesome because, Shenmue looked amazing in 480i.It's a brand new chassis so it's not ever going to look better.I never really have been a shmup, although I did love Axelay on the SNES (Where do u officianados rate that), but now I've got the cabinet, I might as well use it to it's fullest, as the cab has a tate bar on the monitor frame, so I'll be using that down the track.Also I believe Gigawing 1 might have a 240p option the SF3rd Strike.AS I said, I'm waiting in the Dreamcast, I can't wait to play on it.

[rugdoctor]

In terms of look and play, I think the ps1 conversion is the best at a price...loading time. Citing from the sf collection 1 NTSC version, its 240p (whether played on the ps1/2) via SCART RGB or S-VHS (...I know fagin, its less desirable but at least its not interlaced) and lags as much as the arcade version. The dreamcast one lags even more by 1 frame. Check out this vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoJzobmdGzU to see what I saw. I think you will get your authenticity fix from either a ps1 or sega saturn rather than a dreamcast purely from a correct conversion and game library point of view.

[hijakt]

The lag in that test, I'd say is caused by the trigger buttons on the original DC controller, they're know to lag, 1 frame. I'm waiting on some madcatz 6 button controllers to use in the cab.I've got an Agetec stick, of which I'll use the PCB for the time being. I know the Ps1 version is correct in the 240p but it's missing frames and all sorts .The Saturn one is a great conversion, not sure if it uses the Ram cart or not, but I do believe its 240p and is basically Arcade perfect, all frames, bg animations etc. I dont own a Saturn atm, I have in the past, had one at launch, butr sold it unfortunately.So It'd be cheaped to get a Extron and use either the DC or xbox 1 CPS emulated or Anniversary versions, through coinops, but I need to confirm if the 202xi will give me the desired results, since theres no Emotia's in my range.

The Ultracade is a little to expensive, for what I want it for, when I can wait and get an Emotia, which gives me other options/ features like adjustment etc.Theres plenty of DC fighters that are 240p, then theres heaps of awesom 3d fighters and shmups, Ill be occupied for a while yet anyway.I couldnt bring myself to put a PS1 in it, doesn't feel right, a DC, because of the Naomi,I can live with and a Saturn down the track, no probs, because of the beautiful ports. Ive just otta find an extron that do what I wwant, Ill skip on the Ultracade, as I've spent a bit to get the cab so far.

[hijakt]

Well after making myself dizzy trying to understand all this stuff, I bit the bullet and grabbed an Ultracade UVC.
Now just wondering if those HDMI to VGA cables are fine for the PS3 or xbox 360 or would I get better pic from the ones which don't use the HDMI port.
Thanks everyone for the help.

[Fudoh]

HDMI to VGA cables never work.

With the UVC you need 480p sources. You can't feed 480i. For 480i you need an upscaler before the UVC, e.g.

Source (480i) > Upscaler (480i to 480p) > UVC (480p to 240p) > Monitor.

[fagin]

Well after making myself dizzy trying to understand all this stuff, I bit the bullet and grabbed an Ultracade UVC.
Now just wondering if those HDMI to VGA cables are fine for the PS3 or xbox 360 or would I get better pic from the ones which don't use the HDMI port.
Thanks everyone for the help.

What you doing man!!!!

You said your primary concern was converting interlaced to progressive (480i to 240p @ 15khz).

You where then advised to go down the Extron RGB Interface route and subsequently advised that the unit you linked to was OK (it has an inbuilt RGB 202xi Interface which is fine and was stupidly cheap) for this 480i to 240p "conversion". You even had a chance that the unit may even go from 480p to 240p as well.

I feel dizzy now!

[Dave_K.]

I don't know what fagin is talking about, but UVC is a fine choice for real 240p. Buy an XB360 vga cable off ebay for $5, and set the console video settings to 480p non-widescreen. Then follow emphatic's blog post for hooking the UVC up to a Jamma fingerboard.

[fagin]

I don't know what fagin is talking about

Can I suggest you re-read the OP's posts then.

His PRIMARY requirement is to take a 480i signal and "convert" it to a 240p signal. The UVC will not do this.

Taking a 480p and converting to 240p is not the OP's primary requirement.

[Dave_K.]

I read the posts, and his primary requirement is to output 240p from dreamcast/xb360/ps3 consoles.

It seems someone lead him down the wrong path thinking he needed to do this with 480i input, which is rather silly when these consoles can output 480p for cleaner downscale conversion.

UVC is the right choice for his end goal.

[hijakt]

Actually Dave is the closeset,I wanted to get 480i to 240 for DC Super street Fighter 2 X
Now I can get SSF2X to 240p and many other systems to 240p aswell as use 24hz when I want to.

What I can now do is 480p VGA box to UVC for 240p with scanlines.

Xbox X2VGA2 to to ultracade to monitor = 240p goodness

Basically after last night I can hook up all my consoles and get 240p, if they were originally 480i SSF2 X Im looking at you


Aswell as run a PC with GGPO later on.


Then theres the DC, which I can get 240 out of natively, so true 240p with scanlines, as well as SFZ 3/ SFA 3, SF 3rd Strike, Marvel Vs Capcom
same goes for Gigawing I believe, and others.

PS3/Xbox 360- KOF 98,SSF2HD remix.-basically all my XBLA games online aswell.

And thats not mentioning shooters.I just want the stuff to arrive.Buy Ii believe we as a community need to look int the possibilty of ggetting a DC of what ever system we believe best and get/ pay someone to create a bootdisk, that will ignore what res the game is telling the system so we can for that games get it into its native resolution. Boot disks change 40/60hz games, I m sure its possible, SF3rd strike as most here know has a 240p mode, how/ who can get the code a bootdisk/patch that does this, then we can patch all the games without it, similar to the 50-60 patches. Is there anyway too get the DC DEV unit running on a PC yet?


oh and tahnks DAVE

[emphatic]

I don't have the DC Super street Fighter 2 X, so I haven't tried it out through the UVC, but it *might* work, depending on how the UVC interprets the video signal coming out from your DC VGA box. When I had a trisync cabinet, all DC games I tried (including Mars Matrix that's 480i, right?) were displayed in 31kHz, so don't loose hope 'til you've tried it.

[Fudoh]

SSF2X on DC works fine in 31khz through a DC VGA Box, so it should work through the UVC without any problems.