XRGB-mini Framemeister

[Konsolkongen]

Haha it's Normal2. But You're right, it's wider than other consoles using that aspect

[Fudoh]

Normal 2 uses the pixel AR on several systems. I wonder how CPS2 with it's ultrawide resolution looks using the various AR settings ?

[jdubs]

Hey guys, anyone know what the purpose of the two ground points is on the Mini's input?:

http://www.gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id= ... amemeister

I finally got some stuff to make cables (at least for my Genesis 2) and I am curious if I have to connect the ground from the console side to both or if one is sufficient.

-Jim

[Zapf]

Those are some crazy good looking cables

I don't have pictures of my wires, but I took a few pictures of my setup after I finished moving a month ago. They can be seen halfway down on the last page here:
http://www.playright.dk/forum/emne/3979 ... -ud#583899

All in Danish, but I'm sure Google translate will do an excellent job as always

Do you have custom bnc cabling to directly hook up the older consoles to the extron switch, or are you going through a scart -> bnc adapter? I was planning on the latter, as I could reuse the cabling I already have, and I'm not sure how you'd deal with cables like the snes rgb one that requires resistors / caps on the line (depending on region).

I would probably hide the back on your shelving, but I hate cables showing personally. I use one of ikea's older besta shelves on its side (with multiple sized cubby holes). Similar to yours, but unfortunately with the height, I can no longer tate my screen (mounted similarly)

[Konsolkongen]

Do you have custom bnc cabling to directly hook up the older consoles to the extron switch, or are you going through a scart -> bnc adapter? I was planning on the latter, as I could reuse the cabling I already have, and I'm not sure how you'd deal with cables like the snes rgb one that requires resistors / caps on the line (depending on region).

I'm using female scart to BNC adaters I made myself. I used to have lot of VGA to BNC cables, but since I barely use VGA anymore, I just butchered those to build my adapters. Looking back at how much I paid for the VGA to BNC cables it sure wasn't the cheapest option, but it was the easiest When you use those female scart to BNC adapters you don't have to worry about the resistors and caps in your cables. Just hook them up normally. Your cables have to use c.sync though, otherwise it won't work through the Extron.

I would probably hide the back on your shelving, but I hate cables showing personally. I use one of ikea's older besta shelves on its side (with multiple sized cubby holes). Similar to yours, but unfortunately with the height, I can no longer tate my screen (mounted similarly)

My shelves did have backcovers when I bought them (also from Ikea), but they were just in the way too much, so it was much better to just remove them. I have been thinking about hanging a black curtain on the back instead though.

[speedlolita]

So, am I correct in assuming I could upscale 240p to 1200p and it would look nice?

Got a Dell U2410 I'd like to plug 240p consoles into.

[Fudoh]

The Mini can't upscale to 1200. You can chose 1200p output, but then you get windowboxed output for 4:3 material. Nevertheless, the Mini at 720p with scanlines or 1080p without scanlines will look pretty awesome on your display (despite the little aspect ratio quirks of your display, since 16:9 is converted to 16:10).

[speedlolita]

So no scaling to 1200. Bummer.

Probably isn't worth the entry price for me then, although you say it's a great 240p scaler.

Say I wanted to only scale to 480p, is another scaler preferable?

[Fudoh]

get an older XRGB unit. As long as you don't need scanlines, the XRGB-3 can even scale to 1920x1200 with proper AR.

[grumly54]

hello everybody,
I'm new on this forum and I'm a new owner of a XRGB-Mini.
Thanks all for your informations,
So I've some questions :
1: I've a Plasma Panasonic G20 series, which settings are the best for use with the Mini ?

2: I would like to use the Mini with my PS3 60go JAP to play PS2 games and PS1, which settings used on the Mini and on the PS3 ?

3: I've a PC Engine DUO-R withoud RGB mod, therefore I use the composite cable. Which RGB mod do you prefer to have the best quality & compatibilities with the RGB in of the Mini ?


Sorry for my english,
thanks from France

[speedlolita]

get an older XRGB unit. As long as you don't need scanlines, the XRGB-3 can even scale to 1920x1200 with proper AR.

And the mini can't?

If so it may have to be a 3 then, thanks for the info.

[Fudoh]

The Mini uses the Marvell processor for scaling and while it should technically be possible to scale to 1200p Micomsoft has limited the scaling to 1080p. The XRGB-3 uses a FPGA for scaling and it does 1920x1080 without problems. Just remember that the Mini scan use scanlines on all modes, while the XRGB-3 is limited to 480p via VGA if you want to use scanlines.

Unless your display's upscaling is very bad (and I doubt that for the Dell 2410) I wouldn't worry too much about feeding the display's native resolution. Some scaling doesn't hurt.

[speedlolita]

I don't really care for scanlines honestly, unless they're natural 15kHz.

And the U2410 has pretty great scaling, Fill, Aspect and 1:1. Could even use the XRGB in a little window..

The 3 sounds better for my uses now, thanks for the info. Especially as I would value the VGA out.

[Fudoh]

And the U2410 has pretty great scaling, Fill, Aspect and 1:1. Could even use the XRGB in a little window.

Is 1:1 available for 1920x1080p as well ? I though 16:9 sources (1280x720 and 1920x1080) were forced to fullscreen on all the Dells (?).

[speedlolita]

Pretty sure that's just the cheaper models (U2412M). This is a "proper" H-IPS model.

EDIT: Actually I'm 100% sure as I play CS in 1080p for more FOV.

[BuckoA51]

The XRGB-3 uses a FPGA for scaling and it does 1920x1080 without problems.

Without problems?! The fact that many many displays won't even accept XRGB3's signal at 1080p seems like a pretty big problem...

[Joelepain]

Hello every one,

I bought a xrgb mini and received it a few days ago. I already played a little with it and tried to tweak the options. For now I really satisfied with it, it's really great.
I had a few questions about it and some suggestions too.

First, is there a way (an option I didn't see or a particular version of the firmware) where the mini switch the frequency output according to the frequency input? For example I have a PAL Gamecube, in the bios the mini could output 1080p50 and once in a game that support 60hz it could switch automatically to 1080p60. It's not a big deal because you don't need to switch the frequency often but it could be great if the mini could do it automatically. Maybe it's linked but I don't understand what the v-sync option do, I tried to switch between auto and off and I didn't see any difference. It is buggy by now ? (I put the last version of the firmware already, the 1.07A).

Another probleme I have is, I have a PAL N64 RGB modded (the rare french model ^^). The mini work really well with PAL Gamecube at 50 and 60hz, and with the N64 at 50hz too. But if I try an NTSC game using a Passport Plus III, the mini show a good image for a few second then after that, most of the bottom part of the image get complety messed up (like 1/3 of the top of the image is ok, and the rest is messed up, I'll try to take a picture if you want, and if my camera is decided to work). If I check in the status of the mini, the output is at 59.94hz and the input is at 61hz. I precise the problem is not the n64 because it works on other equipment. Do you think the problem is linked to the first one ? Do you think if I try using an lm1881 it will help ?


Finally, I don't know if some of you have some influence or some relationship with the team developping the firmware, or if they read these kind of forums, but I have a suggestion of feature for the next firmware, maybe it worth the shot. I have read a little the blog of Fudoh about all the scalers before buying the mini (I didn't read all because it's quite long ), but it looks like there are very few units that propose a rotation feature. I think it can be difficult to implement 90° or 270° (-90°) feature, but do you think micomsoft could at least implement a 180° rotation? I'm thinking of this because I noticed that most of the PC screens that have of rotation feature propose 90° clockwise rotation, and most (correct me if I'm wrong, presonaly I only have Ikaruga on gamecube, but I based on what I see in MAME) of the shmups are counterclockwise rotated. In this situation a 180° rotation could really be great. So since the mini is aimed for 240p and low lag input (sound like shmups for me ) and we are on a shmups forum, do you think it's an interesting feature, and do you think micomsoft could implement it ? (because it's technically really simple to do).

Thank you.

[Fudoh]

From my experience I would say that 1080p HD timings are problematic, but PC VESA timings, including 1920x1200 are no trouble at all. I had no problems on the PC monitors I tested and I actually never heard of anyone having any troubles with their displays (at UXGA or WUXGA). Micomsoft probably used a pretty stupid and uncommon 1080p timing for the output, which caused the problems on several TV sets. If I remember right, 1920x1200 was available *LONG* before they added 1080p (EDIT: yes, just checked, 1920x1200 got added with the old B2 update already, while 1080p was only made available years later for the B0 mode.)

[BuckoA51]

First, is there a way (an option I didn't see or a particular version of the firmware) where the mini switch the frequency output according to the frequency input?

No, there's no auto 1:1 frame-rate option. On the Gamecube you're way better off with NTSC titles that support progressive scan, if you can find a component cable.

Your N64 could simply need a sync cleaner or perhaps the NTSC output is too far off spec, try turning the V-Sync lock off and see if that helps?

Of course a rotation feature would be great, but I've only heard of one other scaler that can do that.

[Joelepain]

Yes I already have the component cable for the gamecube, and I have some titles in US version (I bought them on purpose for Progressive scan, like F-Zero GX, this game is just pure awesomeness). And most of the Pal games support 60hz, and I think they look really great with the mini event if not progressive.

For the N64 I have to try a sync cleaner because currently the v-lock option seems to be completely useless (bug ?). Do you know if retro access is still active? I don't find their sync booster on thier website and they didn't respond to my mail yet. I have a bunch of lm1881 here but it's like it will be hard to put it in the cable that came with the mini. There is not a lot of place in it and I thought it was already hard to change the pinout from JP21 to EU because the wires inside are not of good quality and i'm not very skilled in soldering. And if I do it wrong it will be hard to remove it with the "damaged" wires and I don't have any other cable. Maybe I'll need to buy some plugs to make my own cable. I don't know what I'll do yet.

Another great feature I think could be a "screen shot" feature that save the picture on the sd card. I think there's a lot of interessting things that could be done with the mini but it all depends on micomsoft involvement.
Do you think Micomsoft is the kind of company that could open the specs of their products and leave the xrgb firmawares as open source ?

[BuckoA51]

The V-Lock option does work, at least to a degree anyway, it's not the same as a 1:1 frame-rate option. If you turn it off or on on some systems you can fix excessive stuttery scrolling.

Progressive is always a lot better than interlace especially for games, both in terms of picture quality and input lag. If you have the component cable its well worth trading in your favourite PAL titles for the NTSC ones where progressive is available.

I dunno about Retro Accessories, she doesn't seem to reply to messages any more so maybe she has some real life issues at the moment.

[Joelepain]

Yes I already have more or less games that interest me in NTSC Version, mainly multiplayer oriented games or games were the scenario is not so important. I'm not so bad in english, but i'm not a lot in the mood "Original Version is always better". My native language stay my native language. Sometime you don't have the motivation to read a lot another language. That's why I keep my french versions of games like Zelda or Metroid Prime.
And some games don't support progressive scan even in NTSC like the Resident Evil series.

For the V-Lock I don't really understand what it does. It is for system where the refresh is not very stable, so on one position it will always stay at the value the system boot on no matter what happen next, whereas on another position it can more or less ajust itselft to the "unstable" vertical refresh ?

[CkRtech]

I dunno about Retro Accessories, she doesn't seem to reply to messages any more so maybe she has some real life issues at the moment.

I actually ordered some cables from Retro Accessories last Friday. They arrived this week.

I sent a message a couple of months back about something & didn't get a response. I can't remember if I used the form submission on the webpage or used the e-mail address.

Either way, I pulled the trigger on cables last week and they got shipped out.

[Joelepain]

Ok thanks, good to know.
The problem is I don't find the cable with the sync cleaner on her website neither her ebay shop. If you search xrgb sync booster on google you find it it, but I wasn't sure if they were still making them.
Moreover the one you find on google is the simplest version. I was more interessed in the version which takes its power from the xrgb supply unit and with additional RCA plugs for audio out.
I asked them using the form submission about a week ago, but I haven't received any message yet.

[anticipating]

Here is a link to the item you describe, although it won't let you buy it:

link

It says on the same page that it is unavailable and that there are 5 available. Perhaps it is an error. Anyway, I post the link for info.

[Joelepain]

Oh thank you. That is what I was thinking about. I thought it have additionnal audio plugs but I must be mistaken.
Maybe if they're still active on shipping orders coming from ebay, they could response to message through ebay.
I'll try that, and I'll ask if there is a way of buying one of these.

[BuckoA51]

The v-lock option locks the output frame rate to the input. Most consoles don't have vertical refresh rates that are exactly to spec, so for instance if the console outputs 59.8 rather than 59.94 exactly, with v-lock on the mini will output that too. Some systems are too far out of spec for some sets though, and so v-lock needs to be turned off, which can result in stuttery scrolling.

At least, that's what it's supposed to do anyway.

[Fudoh]

also at some point the TVs start to cause problems. MVS for example (59.15Hz) with enabled v-sync option causes a tiny regular hickup on my Sony LCD and on Konsolkongen's Panasonic Plasma.

[BuckoA51]

You are lucky to only get a hiccup, my Sony jerks round like crazy and shoots white lines through the picture if it's too far off spec! Though since the latest Mini firmware Micomsoft did something to mitigate this, I don't know what but it's really impressive.

[Joelepain]

So the v-lock option is a kind of 1:1 framerate matching but only for value around specs, and it does not allow to automatically switch between 50hz and 60hz. That's quite understandable is the sense that TVs and screens do not always support everything.
I think micomsoft should introduce a 1:1 framerate option. I know that sound a little selfish, but for example I have a pc screen Asus PA238q, which is far from being the most expensive screen out there, and I just tested it : it accepts whatever framerate I throw at it in the nvidia panel between 24 and 66 hz in 1920x1080 (and it can go up to 75hz in lower resolutions). And the shame is that it's a pc screen! they could have make him support just 60hz and too bad for the other !
It's the only solution for system out of specs and I think micomsoft should not be deprived of doing it. For screens that don't support out of specs framerate, the problem is already close, they is no other options than stuttering or tearing.
And this reinsforces my idea that most TVs (not all but a lot of them) are just a scam for the price they're selling them.

Or maybe I'm just thinking too much like a PC Gamer/nerd