XRGB-mini Framemeister

[Fudoh]

Does the transcoding help you with the quality ? The Wii's complicated. For some titles I prefer the DVDO, for others the XRGB and for others again the Optoma (or something else). I won't revisit this until I get the Wii U, but once the U's here, I'll do cross check between the Wii and the Wii U with different processor. So hang in there for a few more weeks.

[pyrotek85]

I'm hoping the Wii U does a good job of upscaling Wii titles too. This way I can just use my Gamecube with component out for GC games and the Wii U for Wii games.

The Wii output looked OK for me once I adjusted the scanline density, but I'm not as sensitive to video quality as some others are.

[BuckoA51]

Okay, the transcoding basically just makes the Edge process the signal with more sharpness I believe, as it seems to do with anything connected to the RGBHV inputs. The Wii really is weird, I took mine round a friends and he hooked it into his Panasonic LCD and it looked fantastic.. seems to be a lottery as to what it looks good on and what makes it look all bad and washed out.

Also I can confirm I have that moving checkerboard effect crazy crazy bad with my PS2 RGB and the Mini, I mean hideously, it makes it look like composite almost on some screens (especially blue backgrounds) going to try one of those Wolfsoft cables I think. Going directly into the DVDO Edge there is no issue whatsoever though.

[Artemio]

I'm hoping the Wii U does a good job of upscaling Wii titles too. This way I can just use my Gamecube with component out for GC games and the Wii U for Wii games.

The Wii U does no upscaling of Wii games. As a matter of fact, you enter a mode which simulates the Wii completely. It does support RGB, most probably only in some regions though. And most probably 240p in the same ways the Wii does.

[pyrotek85]

I'm hoping the Wii U does a good job of upscaling Wii titles too. This way I can just use my Gamecube with component out for GC games and the Wii U for Wii games.

The Wii U does no upscaling of Wii games. As a matter of fact, you enter a mode which simulates the Wii completely. It does support RGB, most probably only in some regions though. And most probably 240p in the same ways the Wii does.

Really? I could have sworn I read otherwise. Hmm I wonder if it's going to emulate the flaky output too lol

[BuckoA51]

Well there must be some sort of conversion going on for the HDMI output, right? We can still hope for better quality picture output than the Wii manages!

[Konsolkongen]

It's very unfortunate, but not surprising at all, that the Wii U doesn't at least upscale the 480p to 1080p for some pixelperfect goodness

[speedlolita]

480p wouldn't scale to 1080p perfectly though!

[Konsolkongen]

Better than nothing at least. My Panasonic has terrible scaling from 480p to 1080p

[Fudoh]

using the right scaling engine, it certainly would. Where does this misconception of scaling come from, in which people think that only straight integer line-multiplications work ? What do you think stand alone scalers do ?

[anticipating]

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?

There is an RGB21 to mini-din adapter included with the unit. You can't connect a european scart cable directly to it but you can rewire one, or you can buy a third party adapter. All the relevant information is in this thread, search for "minidin8"

[danholo]

Cool, thanks. Can't wait to get my hands onto one of these. Sadly it seems that if I'd get a new TV/Monitor, the XRGB would double the price of improving display options. Seems like a "good" investment in the long run.

[anticipating]

Since the mini requires 5V and 2.3A, is it possible to use a 2.1A USB wall plug and a USB to DC connector cable to power it? It would mean I can do away with the ugly stepdown converter. Or, does it need the full 2.3A?

[Fudoh]

You can get a 5V/3A PSU for about 10 EUR.

[Frerix]

Fudoh, which RGB mod do you recommend for PC Engine (with XRGB compatibility in mind).
Would there be any difference in doing the mod on the PCE or the Interface unit?

[grumly54]

Fudoh, which RGB mod do you recommend for PC Engine (with XRGB compatibility in mind).
Would there be any difference in doing the mod on the PCE or the Interface unit?

Same question for a duo-r please

[anticipating]

You can get a 5V/3A PSU for about 10 EUR.

It's as easy as buying a domestic psu? I had thought there would be issue with the 240V AC supply? My knowledge of how electricity works is sadly limited, but if I'd known you could just buy a cheap psu I would've done that when I first got the mini!

[speedlolita]

The PSU would accept 240v and output 5v.

It's that simple yes. The "PSU" transforms the voltage.

[Fudoh]

I have a transistor-based RGB mod/booster in both my PCE interfaces. With the 1.07a FW compatibility isn't an issue, but quality might be. I get visible HF-noise on both units (one's running with a classic white PCE, the other one with a Core Grafx 2). On the earlier FWs quality was better, but both units tend to produce dropouts (Core less than the white one).

It doesn't matter if composite video or raw sync is used. Dropouts and noise aside, quality's perfect. If you run the interface combos through an external sync stripper (sync strike or XSync-1), then the dropouts on the earlier FW are gone and so is the noise on the latest FW. Of course we tried adding a internal stripper, but - surprise, surprise - that didn't work.

Duo-R units are completely hassle-free. Any mod will do and there won't be any quality or compatibility issues.

Would there be any difference in doing the mod on the PCE or the Interface unit?

I can't imagine that it would make a difference. Doing it in the interface is much easier of course and you don't have to run seperate audio cables.

[speedlolita]

http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/sh ... .php?42435

Might be of use in future..

[grumly54]

Duo-R units are completely hassle-free. Any mod will do and there won't be any quality or compatibility issues.

Great news thank you

[Fudoh]

On the assembler thread user keropi says that the transistor-based booster he had installed before wasn't optimal. I can't confirm this. Might be an issue with the particular LCD screen he's using. He also posted screenshots where the use of composite video for sync causes checkerboard patterns (look at that tree in Wonderboy). That's also not the case on any PCE mod I've ever seen or used.

The raw quality of the RGB signal on the PCE is abnsolutely top notch, right up there with a Saturn or MVS. Eventually it really doesn't matter which kind of mod you use and the transistor based ones are still very easy and cheap to do.

I would still be grateful though, if anybody solved the sync mystery on the PCE (and why an external strippers solves all problems, while an internal LM1881 does not).

[Frerix]

Thanks for the info everyone!

I plan to use the modded PC Engine with an external sync stripper. So that would be fine

[RGB32E]

http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/sh ... .php?42435

Might be of use in future..

As far as picture quality goes, the 2SC1815 amps work fine, but they don't look as good as an NJM based buffer with the NEC systems. I'm building a THS amp with AC-biased input for RGB and hope to share the results soon! Also, might have a solution for using CSYNC without a sync stripper. The Hu chip also outputs luma (Y), so perhaps buffering this signal would be an alternative to Cv or CSYNC.

@Fudoh - Did you replace the 3 channel NJM amp in your Duo with a 2SC1815 amp?

[Shining]

Any incoming impressions of playing Wii games on a Wii U using a FM, perhaps?

[RGB32E]

Any incoming impressions of playing Wii games on a Wii U using a FM, perhaps?

The Wii U scales up Wii games to 1080p. I cant quite judge the quality of the scaling by the Wii U due the TV I'm trying it on. There might be a benefit to setting the Wii U to 480p and scaling with the mini, but might be a hassle (switching 480p/1080p).

[Fudoh]

Much more interesting: try a game which does NOT support native 480p, but 480i only and see how the video turns out. Or try a VC game in 240p mode and see how that looks upscaled. 10 days to go till the european launch....

[RGB32E]

Much more interesting: try a game which does NOT support native 480p, but 480i only and see how the video turns out. Or try a VC game in 240p mode and see how that looks upscaled. 10 days to go till the european launch....

I'll try that out later today. Not sure about 240p. I'll see if it's possbile to set HDMI output to 480i, but I wonder if the system will even output 240p via HDMI. If it can, I doubt my TV will support it, but I seem to recall you were able to get a device to output 240p via HDMI? Was it via a component to HDMI converter? The mini will accept 240p HDMI, right?

[Fudoh]

Was through some component to HDMI converters, yes. And yes, the Mini will accept 240p via HDMI.

I'm 100% sure that Wii U won't output 240p, but testing a 480i title is a much better benchmark for the internal scaling system than using a title which supports native 480p. Same as with the old PS2-compatible PS3 systems.

[Konsolkongen]

Does anyone have experience with using the Framemeister with a Samsung TV? I recently got a Panasonic ST50 plasma which works perfectly with everything I throw at it (MVS, NGCD), but I can't stand the awful vertical banding these sets suffer badly from this year.
I'm now considering swapping it for a Samsung E6500 plasma, which is about the same price-range, but has much better screen uniformity.

The Panasonic works well with these problematic systems with weird refresh-rates like the MVS at roughly 59.18Hz andthe Neo Geo CD at 59,6Hz with sync mode set to auto. The MVS stutters a tiny bit, but amazingly the NGCD is completely stutter-free.
I'm fairly sure these systems will work on any TV if I set the sync mode to Off, but then it will most likely stutter like crazy because of the framerate conversion.
What I'm much more worried about though, is if systems like the Saturn and Mega Drive (59.93Hz) and NES and SNES (60.08Hz) will be able to perform stutter-free for sure, as these are the ones I use the most! I believe PS2, Wii, GCN and Xbox lies somewhere in between, pretty close to the standards anyway, they should be good.