Micomsoft XPC-4 Information Thread

[Fudoh]

PS3 won't work - no HDCP support.

I really only tried my 360 (Slim) with a direct connection and I got heavy artefacts. Would just be nice to have somebody confirm ANY HDMI source working. I think the XPC-4 requires RGB colorspace.

[Fudoh]

So, my review's up



As usually to be found on http://retrogaming.hazard-city.de/ . Sorry, still no anchors implemented. Just hit Ctrl+F and search for XPC-4. The review's right under the Framemeister review.

Comments from other XPC-4 users are highly welcome. It's a complex unit and things get easily missed. I would like to add comments on component and DVI-D processing, once somebody else tried those.

Thanks guys!

[slk486]

Great review as always, thanks!

Was hoping for faster performance, but seems the perfect unit is a ways off yet.

[Fudoh]

I did a cross check with a CRT taking over 50 shots. The lag varies from 3 to 18ms. That's to be expected, if the input refresh differs slightly from the output. If you want faster, your only choices right now are the XRGB line doublers.

[slk486]

Yeah, looking to try out the XRGB-3 for my needs.

[leonk]

Total newb question (something that I must be missing or not very well highlighted) what is the main purpose of xpc-4 vs framemeister/xrgb-3?

I was under the impression that framemeister/xrgb-3 allows one to connect consoles/superguns running 15/31 pcbs to modern flat panel TVs and still get amazing picture with the option of adding scan lines. But the xpc-4? To connect 31k low res dos video to modern TVs? What is the the main diff between the 2? No scan lines?

[SuperDeadite]

XPC-4 is most useful for retro Japanese Computer use (PC-88/98, X68000, FM Towns), as it can take 15/24/31khz input, and then output it to a modern TV. An older FM Towns for example uses 24khz for the BIOS screen, then switches to 31khz for the OS, and some games then switch to 15khz. X68000 has a few games that use 31khz for menus, and 15khz for gameplay, constantly switching between the two. The XPC-4 is mostly designed to replace an old auto tri-sync monitor that these computers originally used.

[Ed Oscuro]

If a person already has an XRGB-2 and a 2+, will selling one of those devices to get a XPC-4 give still a wide range of suitable upscalers for finicky arcade boards? (I'd like to get a DISPL sometime but none ever show up, and I don't have the money to make purchases like that at the moment anyway, hence the question about a trade.) I am thinking about selling on the XRGB-2+ and putting that money towards the XPC-4.

[Fudoh]

Your vintage XRGBs will output a framelocked signal. Input refresh rate = output refresh rate, so they're compatible with basically all arcade boards, but it's up to the connected display if they'll show up properly. The XPC-4 (like the XRGB-3 in B0) does a framerate conversion, so all boards will work on all displays. But the scrolling won't be as smooth as with a framelocked output.

[Fudoh]

what is the main purpose of xpc-4 vs framemeister/xrgb-3?

SuperDeadite is absolutely right about it's genuine purpose. If you don't use 24khz sources and you're happy with the Framemeister, there's absolutely no need to look into the XPC-4. I'm not happy with the Framemeister's 480p handling though. I use the Mini for 240p and 480i, but I use other processors for 480p. So, I'm still on the quest for the perfect all-in-one processor. The XPC-4 handles 480p considerably better than the Mini, 240p very close to the Mini, but unfortunately 480i only hardly.

If somebody's planning to upgrade and doesn't need 480i deinterlacing, the XPC-4 a valid alternative to the Framemeister. Really depends on the lineup of sources to be connected to it...

[Ed Oscuro]

Oh, that reminds me - what is the lag situation like on the XPC-4?

I also thought that the 15KHz plug-and-play handling of personal computer output was a big draw for the system. This isn't really that big a deal for most X68000 games (for instance) because of the ability to start in 31KHz (if you don't mind lost scanlines, I think that's what happens) or do a button combination to switch it over. It would be nice to have the ability to start in that resolution and see what's going on, though.

[Fudoh]

Oh, that reminds me - what is the lag situation like on the XPC-4?

just answered that a few posts above. It varies at time depending on if the the input is in sync with the output or not. The output isn't framelocked, so the input may "drift" apart from the output, causing a higher lag at this time, until it gets re-synced. 3ms to 18ms were the results I got.

[Fudoh]

ruger, any chance you could do that quick check using a component and/or HDMI source ?

[ruger]

ruger, any chance you could do that quick check using a component and/or HDMI source ?

Sorry for the long delay Fudoh.

Did some tests with digital input on the XPC-4 today. The source was a DVDO Edge with Xbox 360 (1080p) and Wii (Neoya Wii2HMDI) (480p) inputs.
The DVDO Edge set the output to RGB colour space and 1080i at 60Hz by default (auto). The XPC-4 detected this as 1920 x 540, but the picture was ok.
I manually set the output of the DVDO to 1080p. The XPC-4 detected this as 2078 x 1084, but the picture was ok.
I manually also tried to change the colour space on the DVDO output to YCbCr 422 and 444, but that did not work with the XPC (wrong colours). Only RGB worked.

I think I have another issue in my setup, perhaps not related to the XPC-4 or there is a setting I must adjust, that might lead to wrong conclusions:
At low output resolutions the XPC-4 seems to work fine (i.e. 1024x768, 1280x1024 and 1280x720 output resolution on the XPC)....
But I have serious problems with noise on the XPC-4 digital output for output resolutions 1600x1200 and 1920x1080.
This seem to be the case for all input resolutions - and for both analog and digital sources. At least RGB sources - have not tested component yet.

Due to not having enough inputs on my LCD TV (Sony w4500) I have lately used the XPC-4 through the Lumagen HDP over DVI.
I get lots of noise and shaking if the XPC-4 outputs 1600x1200.
In the tests I did today the Lumagen HPC reported "no signal" when XPC-4 was set to 1920x1080 output. Lots of noise on 1600x1200.
I am pretty sure it has worked with 1920x1080 output with analog sources before, but with lots of noise...

I connected the XPC-4 directly to the Sony w4500 today as well.
It did not show any picture at all with the XPC set to 1920x1080 output,
but showed an ok picture with the XPC set to 1280x720 output (no noise or at least very little).

[Fudoh]

Thanks for testing the Edge on the XPC!

I'm pretty sure that 1200p and 1080p are both above the Lumagen's official limit on the DVI inputs, so I would blame the noise you see on the Lumagen processor in the chain.

The W4500 is a pretty old LCD, but from the problems the XRGB-3 had with it's 1080p output (hardly worked on any LCD), I wouldn't be surprised if the XPC's output timing - though a little more compatible - was still problematic for the Sony. I have a few monitors with UXGA resolution and 1600x1200 works fine on them - as does 1080p on my Sony. For scanline purposes I switched to VGA though. Maybe you want to try this ? The XPC's VGA output has great quality - absolutely on par with the digital output and since your Sony TV still has a VGA port, why not just use it.

[parodius]

Just upgraded the firmware of my XPC-4 to version 1.15 (mine came with 1.14).
The procedure is basically very similar to the XRGB-3 one.

Download the upgrade software from here :
http://www.micomsoft.co.jp/xpc-4_download.htm

Direct link :
http://www.micomsoft.co.jp/xpc4_update_ ... _v1_21.exe



Install the software.
Connect the XPC-4 with a USB cable to your PC and wait for Windows to install the driver.

Launch the update software.
Click on the big grey button on the center left.


Select the xpc4_cpu_flash_v1_21.x3b file.
Note : the screenshot below from the Micomsoft website shows an older version of the firmware so the file has a different name.


Wait for the upgrade to finish, then when you reach this Window click on the leftmost button to reboot the XPC-4.


Click the button in the center to exit.


That's it !

[Das Muel]

I've just ordered one of these from Solaris Japan, mainly for my 24khz PCBs. Is there any chance someone could list the different adapter cables included in the box? (I don't want to have to order loads of extra guff when it arrives).

Thanks

[Fudoh]

Manual pages 12 and 13 shows them (with drawings).

In short: composite cable, s-video cable. HD15 to DVI-A cable. DVI-D to DVI-D cable and a DVI-A to HD15 adapter plug.

[Das Muel]

Groovy. Now to hack up some VGA cables to get my RGBs in there. Has anybody had any joy with 480p over component/D-terminal? I read about the chroma shift in your review, Fudoh. I was hoping it might make my Xbox look halfway decent on my HDTV.

[Das Muel]

If anybody's interested, the XPC-4 does a fantastic job of upscaling 24khz to 1080P. Both of my Sega 'Model' boards look superb with a few tweaks. I've uploaded a video at which show a few of the results (the image quality's a lot better in person though): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ7q7tY ... e=youtu.be.

I'm a little disappointed that it doesn't seem to upscale component 480P stuff (I get the same massive chroma shift as described by Fudoh), but it's taken everything else I've thrown at it so far. 480P from the Dreamcast/Naomi looks really good upscaled to 1080P (but still not quite as good as a PC CRT monitor in my opinion).

I've got a Sync Strike coming soon, so I'll test some 15khz stuff with it when it arrives.

[Fudoh]

Gratulations on the setup!

You can feed component sources by using an analogue transcoder. At least component to VGA is pretty easy to get ahold of compared to other way around.

15khz is great as well and very easy to use as long as don't want scanlines. With scanlines it gets a little more complicated, since the auto picture adjust function of the XPC removes all visible underscan automatically (which doesn't play well with scanline emulation).

At the end of the video you mention that this and the GBS are the only options for 24khz. The Framemeister does 24khz as well and so do the Extron DVS scaler units which can be found pretty cheap.


PS: Would be great if you had some digital DVI/HDMI source to test - I never found out why I got those heavy artefacts using a 360 via DVI.

[Das Muel]

Thanks, Chief. I've added an annotation about the other 24khz compatible scan converters. I'll try the XPC-4 out with some digital inputs as soon as I get another DVI-HDMI cable. I'd be quite interested to see if it can do a better job of upscaling 720p stuff than my TV/360.

I should hopefully get my sync stripper tomorrow, so I'll give it a whirl with 15khz. I still have my XRGB2+ if it doesn't work out very well, although I'm hoping it will be something of an improvement (I find the shaky sync of my XRGB pretty distracting). I'll probably put another video up when I've tested all this stuff.

Very impressed with this device so far. Performance has been rock solid. It also has the best 'sharpness' feature of any item of consumer electronics that has ever been made in the history of the Universe (which isn't saying much, admittedly).

[Das Muel]

I've had no joy with digital sources so far. I get nothing from the PS3 (HDCP) and a nicely scaled but bright pink image from the 360. I haven't fiddled around with it much so there might be a workaround.

I've found that setting the manual sync setting to 1408 eliminates jailbars on almost every source I've thrown at it (most importantly the Saturn) and gives a very nice image, but I'm struggling to get properly aligned scanlines with 224p sources thanks to the auto adjust feature. I can only get them properly aligned with an output setting of 1024/1280 X 768 for some reason, and then I seem to get 2x too many of them. If I then increase the width of the scanlines, they become misaligned. My scanline generator has a few tricks up its sleeve (Vsync flip, width etc) but I still can't quite get it right. I think I might just stick with my PVM for 15khz.

The box does really shine with 24khz though. I throw some scanlines over a 1280X768 image (double the vertical resolution of the Sega Model 1/2's 384p) and the image looks, for want of a better word, perfect on my Trinitron PC CRT.

[Fudoh]

a nicely scaled but bright pink image from the 360. I haven't fiddled around with it much so there might be a workaround.

if it's pink your 360 is set to YCbCr output instead of RGB in the HDMI config settings.

but I'm struggling to get properly aligned scanlines with 224p sources thanks to the auto adjust feature.

as described in my review, you have to do a hardware reset and NOT use the auto function afterwards. This way you get a proper linedoubled output when using 480p output. Once you get the idea, it's not this hard.

[Das Muel]

Wow. You're like the AV equivalent of Jeremy Paxman.

I have little use for the 360 upscaling to be honest, but thanks for the tip anyway.

The hardware reset method leaves me with a completely garbled image until I use the auto-sync. I'm not able to sync at all without touching either the skew/dot clock settings or the auto sync itself. It would also leave me with bad jailbars on my Saturn, which is my favourite 15khz console. I might try the overscan method you described, but it would be hopelessly time-consuming and the box is also pretty terrible with 480i (as is my XRGB2+) so I might just have to make room for the PVM on my desk.

I'll definitely continue using it for 480p/384p upscaling though. It gives some fantastic results.

[Fudoh]

I'm not able to sync at all without touching either the skew/dot clock settings or the auto sync itself

might be related to the input sync. You're using a RGBs connection (Sync Strike?) while I used a RGBHV connection from the XSELECT-D4. But hey - I think we can agree that the XPC-4 is pretty nice for 15khz as well as long as you don't want scanlines.

Oh, and one more thing I wanted to ask you to try - or maybe you already did: 384p input. 768p output + SLG unit should look pretty neat as well. You should get thin scanlines which should pretty much perfectly resemble the 24khz monitors you see in the arcade.

[Das Muel]

Yeah I've added scanlines to the 384p/768p image. It looks flawless. Absolutely superb.



I'm using one of these: https://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk/ext ... eo-outputs

Maybe a Sync Strike would do a better job, but I'm not going to spend more money anytime soon.

Yeah, I agree that the XPC-4 is very nice for scanline-less 240p. It does look good on my LCD - it's kind of a shame about the 480i, but that's not really why I bought it anyway.
As you said in your review, it'd be great to combine the best features of the XPC-4 and the Framemeister, but such is life I guess.

[goji]

Hi,

Xpc4 just received, i'm running it with my megadrive for now.

I have jailbars on black backgrounds, auto ajust and dot clock and skew settings don't improve the display.

[Das Muel]

Hi,

Xpc4 just received, i'm running it with my megadrive for now.

I have jailbars on black backgrounds, auto ajust and dot clock and skew settings don't improve the display.

For whatever reason I've found that setting a manual adjustment figure of 1408 has eliminated jailbars for a number of my systems (particularly the Saturn). It's probably worth a try.

[goji]

[
For whatever reason I've found that setting a manual adjustment figure of 1408 has eliminated jailbars for a number of my systems (particularly the Saturn). It's probably worth a try.

Thanks ! Are you meaning a value of 1408 when you go into the third auto adjust menu ? I tried this with no results.

I found a setting of 1680-1700 in dot clock to be the best result for my 15khz consoles, jailbars are almost gone with black backgrounds although you can see very weak jailbars.

XPC4 is really surprising, adding a slg3000 gives very good results.

My X68000 is coming, I bought the XPC4 especially for this one^^.