XRGB-mini Framemeister

[Fudoh]

Huh? Are you talking about some kind official whishlist? Didn't know something like that existed.

no, but I'm compiliing a bug list and have it translated to japanese. It's almost done. I'll add the banding if I can confirm it on my setup.

[Thomago]

no, but I'm compiliing a bug list and have it translated to japanese. It's almost done. I'll add the banding if I can confirm it on my setup.

Great work! Btw I confirmed the banding with a PAL and a NTSC PS2. My Gamecube doesn't show banding, but it shows strong noise/flickering with stuff like the colour bars in Resi games. You probably read about that in the Maniac forum.

[Fudoh]

I did, yes. Noise is a different issue. I'll make sure to look into the banding shortly.

[catbasketry]

Sorry if this is answered somewhere I didn't find, I did a search throughout the forums and found similar topics but not the exact same thing.

I bought a SCART to YPPR box awhile back, and SNES and Genesis cables (from different stores, no store had both cables). The YPPR box got returned because my TV rejected the below-1080 signal coming out of it. So I saved up for a Framemeister.

So when I got the Framemeister just recently, I plugged everything together, and the Genesis worked fine. The SNES cable didn't. I attempted to tinker with it based on schematics I found on the internet. The wiring was pretty janky. I got audio but no video at all.

After tearing the SNES cable apart and having no success rewiring it, I broke down and got another cable (from the same retailer, now selling a different cable without the RCA A/V out block I had on the old cable - which was required at the time, i thought, since I couldn't pass audio through the original YPPR converter I bought). Just got the new cable. It works.

But.

The colors are pretty washed out all around, and the brightness is kind of a mess. Things are hazy. I worked with the brightness and the gamma, and I got the colors to work a bit better with different video modes, but it's never... quite right. Is the cable problematic? Or am I just misremembering the colors on the SNES and should tinker around with the video settings more?

[Thomago]

Before I described problems I had with the PS2's RGB output respectively with the Mini's RGB input:

"3. The RGB input is pretty problematic.
3.a) It's sharp but not as pixel perfect as the Component input.
3.b) I noticed the same thing as Riholay with my PS2's 288p/240p RGB output, however it's only noticable in saturated areas of the picture. Using the same RGB cable (IXOS XPP151 - I think it doesn't get any better than that) with my PSone results in a perfect 288p/240p picture, however the 576i/488i picture is pretty noisy.
3.c) Depending on what the PS2 / the PSone are showing there are diffuse "traces" in the overscan area of the picture. Probably this isn't the Mini's fault, but it's certainly annoying."

"Also i managed too take a photograph of what I mentioned in 3.c): http://imgur.com/7NPha" [yeah, sic]

I purchased a so called optimized RGB cable from Wolfsoft. Well - long story short, the stuff I described under 3.b) and 3.c) is history and I'm happy to have purchased somthing that actually works.

@Fudoh:

Another thing for your list: If you change H_WIDTH or V_WIDTH, the picture becomes decentered (tried that with PAL Component). Very annoying.
Additionally V_WIDTH should allow a higher zoom level: The current maximum is okay, but a bit more would allow mapping a game where 480 vertical pixels are mapped to 576 pixels (--> the usual lazy PAL conversion) back to 480 pixels.

[speedlolita]

Is that the Hama PS2 SCART cable?

[Fudoh]

The Playstation RGB cables from Wolfsoft use the s-video luminance signal for sync instead of composite video.

[BuckoA51]

The Playstation RGB cables from Wolfsoft use the s-video luminance signal for sync instead of composite video.

Nice, do they ship outside of Germany too?

[Fudoh]

I would not recommend their cables. There are great 3d party cables (SnakeByte for example) and if you have problems with composite vs. luminance, then just exchange the two pins within the system.

[Thomago]

Is that the Hama PS2 SCART cable?

On their Website it says they used the "Premium RGB-Cable from Sunflex" as a basis, however on the actual cable (looks exactly like on their picture) it says "snakebyte".

The Playstation RGB cables from Wolfsoft use the s-video luminance signal for sync instead of composite video.

Neat little trick! However I always had the impression that the PS1's S-Video signal was much brighter than the PS2's S-Video signal ... gotta test that out.

Nice, do they ship outside of Germany too?

Yes, they do.

[BuckoA51]

then just exchange the two pins within the system.

That's not very easy for the likes of me, I could not do it myself and by the time I'd found a modder who'd do the work for me I could just as well grab one of those cables. Why don't you recommend them then, too expensive?

[Fudoh]

no, pricing and quality are ok, don't misunderstand me. I would just assume that you already have a proper cable. Also most people should not have any problems with composite video as sync. It depends on both the particular PS revision and the processor or display in question.

[Konsolkongen]

Could luminance as sync fix the issues with the Optoma HD3000?

[Hamburglar]

Is there any way to remove the low-pass filtering on the XRGB Mini? I don't see anything obvious in the menu.

not there is not. The firmware versions up to 1.06 have a way better LPF setting for high-frequency noise. The LPF for lower frequencies differs with the picture settings. "Standard" filters pretty heavily. I'll request a manual LPF setting.

Oh Fudoh you are THE MAN. Thank you so much!

What's funny is I thought A/D adjustment in the "special" menu was adjusting the LPF Shows what I know!

This is so exciting! Finally, no more flickery/cloudy effects on flat colors!

[Fudoh]

The two effects don't neccessarily have the same origin. I think the A/D conversion might introduce noise which isn't there in original the signal. I don't know if a manual LPF function would be the weapon of choice to counter this...

[Thomago]

As far as I've seen the A/D setting doesn't introduce extra noise.
However since it essentially works like a contrast slider it can seem (!) to introduce extra noise (actually it's more like flickering) to the banding-ridden component input. Of course adjusting the setting will only help reducing the flickering with certain colour values; other colour values who didn't show flickering before WILL show flickering after the adjustment

The RGB isn't affected by this, you can adjust the A/D setting to your heart's content without introducing any noise/flickering.
Well ... actually you shouldn't adjust it to you heart's content. Just set it so that pure white from your preferred signal source is shown as pure white.

- just my 2 cents regarding the A/D setting

[Riholay]

Hi guys,

I've noticed that on my mini, the sqturation level setting is always greyed out and I can't figure out how to enable it again, could you help on that? I'm on firmware 1.07a.

Thanks for the info

[Fudoh]

It's greyed out for RGB sources and enabled for everything else.

[Riholay]

Oh ok thanks Fudoh. Do you know why it is so?

[Fudoh]

it's a design decision - and an unfortunate one if you ask me. Hardly anyone fiddles with the seperate RGB controls anyway. I've seen the same on other processors or monitors or displays. It's seems silly here, since the RGB input is converted to digital component anyway prior to passing into the Marvell processor.....

[Riholay]

Hum too bad, I often feel the need to lower a bit the value... Anyway thanks for the explanation

[Konsolkongen]

Does anyone know how the Mini handles CPS2 games? I'm wondering if the refresh-rate is off like the MVS, and how does it handle the wider screen resolution?

[CkRtech]

I've run CPS2 Darkstalkers on it, and it seemed to handle it OK. It was a *very* crude, temporary connection, but the aspect ratio was right. Standard 4:3.

The CPS2 video output is quite strong, so I had to add some resistors to it (thanks to the fyi from this very forum). I am building a Supergun at the moment, and I will have 500 ohm pots on it for adjustment. I never tried messing with the Mini's internal 220 setting (I think it has one), but I am sure it could help as well.

[Konsolkongen]

Sounds good. I have a Supergun with 1000ohm pots so I should be fine.

Do you feel any stuttering when playing?

[CkRtech]

Unfortunately, I have only hooked it up to verify that it worked after acquiring it off of ebay. My Supergun is a work in progress, so I had to just use a lot of temporary wiring for power supply, JAMMA harness, and video out. I let the opening run for awhile, and watched the demo fights for a bit.

I did have an issue with a small screen "jump" or a random horizontal line "slice" with it up and running. It was quite frequent before adding resistance to the video output. It settled down a bit after that. I also reseated the A and B boards on the CPS2 unit. Not sure if that specifically helped, but it seemed like those artifacts were almost completely gone the last time I fired it up before beginning work on the Supergun.

So the short answer to your question is - Haven't really played it just yet.

[Fudoh]

According to MAME CPS-2 runs at 59.63 Hz which is closer to NTSC specs than the MVS boards.

[Artemio]

Does anyone know how the Mini handles CPS2 games? I'm wondering if the refresh-rate is off like the MVS, and how does it handle the wider screen resolution?

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 47#p753347 It is form January though... haven't used the mini and the SuperGUN recently...

[Konsolkongen]

Thanks all of you for your help. I guess it should work just fine

[danholo]

Hi, new member here. I've been looking into playing PS2 on a LED (LG something something) monitor and it's been real tough to find out information on this - until I found "shmups" and Fudoh's website. I just ordered the HD BOX PRO because this is in my price range for the moment. I want to play FFXII (my backwards compatible PS3 YLODded on me a few years ago) but seems that the HDBOXPRO won't do the best job at what I want. Further research has made me conclude that this Framemeister would be the best unit to pick up when funds allow. What's up with that RGB IN? I found out it's some sort of "DIN" connector (reminds me of old mouse and keyboard connectors.) How do I connect a PS2, SNES etc into it? Use an original scart and then a scart to din connector? Which one?

Thanks for this website. You guys have saved me with your enthusiasm.

[BuckoA51]

Just noticed this on Fudoh's page:-

"The Wii's signal is really bad and it doesn't look to great on most processors. Micomsoft obviously fine-tuned the Frameister to look fine with the Wii, so if you play a lot of Wii games, the Framemeister should be your choice. "

What's the secret to getting that to work then? because I can't get the Wii looking anything other than poor on the Framemeister and the XRGB3 (as a transcoder) to DVDO edge looks way better.