Cloning the Gamecube component cable

[darcagn]

Are there any plans on fixing the XRGB-mini issues? Arethey that bad anyway? I haven't installed this mod yet, but I use the XRGB-mini via S-video right now, and I use the zoom setting to make Game Boy games zoomed in to take up the whole screen.

Edit: or, alternatively, I might just use it on my BVM CRT monitor with the overscan setting turned on like someone else mentioned recently on this board... with that case, should I have any concerns with lag using an HDMI-to-Component converter, or can I just buy a cheap $40-$50 one from Monoprice?

Thanks.

[Unseen]

Are there any plans on fixing the XRGB-mini issues?

They might get fixed as a side-effect of something else I'm (very slowly) working on.

Arethey that bad anyway?

Since you can just bypass the mini and connect to the DVI/HDMI input of your display directly (or via a switcher) I would say that they do not matter much. The Mini's HDMI inputs don't seem to be that well-though-out anyway because even in passthrough mode the image gets shifted by a few pixels.

Edit: or, alternatively, I might just use it on my BVM CRT monitor with the overscan setting turned on like someone else mentioned recently on this board... with that case, should I have any concerns with lag using an HDMI-to-Component converter, or can I just buy a cheap $40-$50 one from Monoprice?

If you really were concerned about lag, you wouldn't run the signal through the XRGB mini anyway =)

I have no experience with HDMI-to-component converters, but if it is just a simple one that does not support any scaling of the signal, I don't see why it would need to introduce a delay of more than a few pixels. There would be no technical reason and building a device with enough RAM for buffering one or more frames is more expensive than building one without RAM.

[darcagn]

Are there any plans on fixing the XRGB-mini issues?

They might get fixed as a side-effect of something else I'm (very slowly) working on.

Great to hear.

Since you can just bypass the mini and connect to the DVI/HDMI input of your display directly (or via a switcher) I would say that they do not matter much. The Mini's HDMI inputs don't seem to be that well-though-out anyway because even in passthrough mode the image gets shifted by a few pixels.

And I have no problem with a direct connection for Gamecube titles, but I plan to use this also as a consolized Game Boy Advance, and for that I'd like a little more control over the video (e.g. zoom, etc.).

If you really were concerned about lag, you wouldn't run the signal through the XRGB mini anyway =)

Well, they both have their uses. The BVM is used for games that are heavy on timing and for light gun titles. It's only 14" and sits in my office for when I want to goof off on the clock. The XRGB-mini is for games that aren't timing critical (I find its lag very minimal and acceptable) and especially for multiplayer gaming since it's hooked up to the 51".

I have no experience with HDMI-to-component converters, but if it is just a simple one that does not support any scaling of the signal, I don't see why it would need to introduce a delay of more than a few pixels. There would be no technical reason and building a device with enough RAM for buffering one or more frames is more expensive than building one without RAM.

That's what I figured, just wanted to check before I spent the money. Thanks. Anyone else have first-hand experience with these?

[BazookaBen]

That's what I figured, just wanted to check before I spent the money. Thanks. Anyone else have first-hand experience with these?

I can vouch for the quality of the HDFury adapters. Most of them output component, all them output RGBHV. I went from playing WipeoutHD in 480i via component on a 15hz CRT to 1080p via HDMI>HDFury on a PC CRT, and it felt exactly the same. The designers made lag a priority for sure.

[BuckoA51]

Indeed, I tested a HD Fury 2 with Leo's Lag Tester and found it to be completely lag free according to the numbers I was seeing.

[RGB32E]

Are there any plans on fixing the XRGB-mini issues?

They might get fixed as a side-effect of something else I'm (very slowly) working on.

Upscaling to 2160p, even if it's only YUV 4:2:0?

[Unseen]

Upscaling to 2160p, even if it's only YUV 4:2:0? :twisted:

That would require a different FPGA board with a price you may not want to pay =)

[BadWolf]

Hi everyone! I've been researching alternate ways to get a 480p signal out of my trusty old 'cube since I don't own the now ridiculously-priced official component cable (They've been going for close to $300 now! That's insane!) and I happened to stumble across this thread. This mod looks really interesting, and I would love to do this to my Gamecube, but it is waaaay over my head as I have never even used a soldering iron in my entire life. I looked through the repository and it was like reading a foreign language. I don't even know where to begin

Oh, and one more thing: Would it be possible to do this mod on a DOL-101 motherboard? I know the Digital-Out port isn't present, but are the connections still there? Also, would it be possible to route those connections through the Analog-Out port and use a Nintendo A/V cable modded for component? I think I saw someone mention something like this earlier on...

[darcagn]

Well, I got the board in on Thursday and got the mod installed this morning. As of right now, I haven't done S/PDIF yet (don't quite understand the buffer schematic...), and I just reassembled my GameCube without the back panel and with the Pluto board hanging out until I decide how I want to integrate the board into the GameCube.

As you and others have stated, ChipQuik is definitely the best way to desolder the DV port. It was easy to use a Hakko 808 to desolder the smaller data pins, but the ground pins weren't having any of it. Blobbing ChipQuik over the contacts and pulling from the bottom with a pair of pliers did the trick. Though my warning to others is to be careful you don't accidentally tilt the board while pulling with the pliers--at one point I made this mistake, and molten ChipQuik ran across the entire motherboard including the CPU/GPU area. I thought my dumb ass had just ruined the board, but once it solidified, the entire length of solder came off as one single piece, and the board was just fine.

Hooking the GCVideo-DVI directly to my Samsung 51" plasma works great. 240p mode requires line doubling, but 480i and 480p work fine. Unfortunately the Samsung added these annoying/distracting grey bars to the sides of 4:3 sources, and you can't set them to black. I never realized this before as I never input 4:3 directly to the TV, but it's really quite absurd because your eyes can never adjust to the darkness of the video with these pillars of light stabbing at your eyes. I hate stretching 4:3 content to 16:9, but that's the only way games are actually playable on this television. So I really hope that the XRGB-mini issues get worked out.

Either way, I want to thank you so much for your contribution to this community, Unseen. You've done some great work and released something that GameCube fans have long been dying for.

As an aside, I couldn't get the RS232 programmer to work on my only computer with an RS232 port (my employer-provided business class laptop). It kept giving me timeout and verification errors. The documentation recommended using the RS232/MAX programmer instead when this happens on laptop serial ports, but that programmer is $40 and out of stock. I ended up getting this RS232-to-USB adapter from Best Buy, and despite hearing bad things about USB serial adapters, it worked perfectly on the first shot.

If I have any other issues, I'll be sure to report them here.

[bobrocks95]

I'm curious to see how you integrate it into the Gamecube. My one gripe about the Pluto was flashing it, but that cable looks like a good solution and is relatively cheap (and there's probably cheaper ones at places other than Best Buy). Since it's the smallest FPGA board I've seen with an HDMI output, it seems the most viable to cram into the Gamecube (did someone in the thread already do this? Starting to forget at this point).

[darcagn]

3. The controller pin on the gamecube mainboard is quite tricky to solder to being very small, I dropped a blob of solder on it first then pressed a tinned bit of wire onto it with the tip of my iron.

This was actually really damn easy for me compared to other tiny points I've soldered to (Xbox's d0 point for a modchip, Dreamcast BIOS pin 44's via for region free BIOS, etc.). I took 30awg wire-wrapping wire, stripped the end, inserted it directly into the via (it slid right inside) without tinning it, leaving some wire exposed to solder to. I tinned the fine-point tip of my soldering iron, marked the joint with a flux pen, then pressed the tinned soldering iron tip against the exposed wire. The fluxed joint sucked up the solder on the first try without a problem.

I'm curious to see how you integrate it into the Gamecube. My one gripe about the Pluto was flashing it, but that cable looks like a good solution and is relatively cheap (and there's probably cheaper ones at places other than Best Buy). Since it's the smallest FPGA board I've seen with an HDMI output, it seems the most viable to cram into the Gamecube (did someone in the thread already do this? Starting to forget at this point).

Yeah, lev11 did it here a few pages back, but he had to cut the case's opening for the DV port a little wider because there was a capacitor in the way of the board. I'm thinking of moving that capacitor so that the board lines up with the DV port without having to cut the case, but if I have to cut the case, that's probably what I'll do.

The only problems I see with this is that there's no obvious way I see the mount the board securely inside the case, so unplugging/replugging the HDMI cable over time might cause some issues; potential heat issues being right up against the GC's heatsink (I don't know how hot the GC gets inside); and the HDMI port will be sort of recessed compared to the hole in the case, which might make it hard to insert some HDMI cables.

Another thought I had was to use a small HDMI extension cable (like the one on the bottom of this picture that comes with the Amazon Fire TV Stick, which I have laying around my house already). I could insert the extension cable into the Pluto board and secure the extension cable to the case some kind of way (glue?). I'd have a little tiny cable hanging off the back of the GC, so it will be obvious it's modded, but it wouldn't look as bad as holes cut up in the case, and would allow me to plug/unplug the HDMI cable without putting stress on the Pluto board itself.

Edit: Regarding the USB to Serial adapter, it's based on the Prolific PL-2302 chipset, so I'd imagine any adapters that use that chipset would be good to go.

[Unseen]

I've found a device that is incompatible with the spdif output: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/390685768725
I was hoping to capture and record some digital streams, the device is ok as it works fine on my TVs spdif output.

Congratulations, that thing has even stricter "copy control" than my Sony Minidisc recorder. There is a bit in the SPDIF channel status that defines if the signal may be copied freely or if other bits must be parsed to check for copy restrictions. For simplicity, I had set this bit to 0 (because all the other bits in the channel status are also 0) and my MD recorder had no problem recording audio from the Gamecube, but it seems that Realtek is stricter than Sony.

GCVideo-DVI 1.3 (and GCVideo-Lite which should probably get a version number) now sets this bit to 1 to signal "no copy restrictions" and the Realtek USB audio chip is happy.

Sorry for the delay, I had a little accident with my Pluto board which killed its FPGA, so it took a few days to get a new chip and replace the dead one. Next patient on the desk: Triax HMX Analyzer with a blown voltage regulator chip. =(

[Josh128]

Hooking the GCVideo-DVI directly to my Samsung 51" plasma works great. 240p mode requires line doubling, but 480i and 480p work fine. Unfortunately the Samsung added these annoying/distracting grey bars to the sides of 4:3 sources, and you can't set them to black. I never realized this before as I never input 4:3 directly to the TV, but it's really quite absurd because your eyes can never adjust to the darkness of the video with these pillars of light stabbing at your eyes. I hate stretching 4:3 content to 16:9, but that's the only way games are actually playable on this television. So I really hope that the XRGB-mini issues get worked out.

What model Samsung plasma do you have? The 2013 and 2014 models (all of them) allow you to change the gray sidebars to pure black if you wish-- hit:

Menu>>Screen Burn Protection>> Side Gray

You can choose Dark or Light. Dark makes the sidebars completely black.

[Josh128]

As for the 4:3 ratio itself-- earlier in this thread we discussed the SD Media Launcher. I bought one and used it to load Swiss on the GC and tried Skies of Arcadia Legends with it-- Skies doesnt support progressive OR widescreen natively, but does both via Swiss and it looks fabulous! I havent played around much with it other than running SOA:L and GenPlus GX, both of which work great. Ive attached some screenshots showing SOA in widescreen progressive-- it doesnt quite fill the entire screen horizontally, but aside from that seems near perfect.

One other cool and fun feature is that you can force most GC games to 240p (!). Pretty weird yet fun to play with and see if you are using a 15KHz CRT. Works great, and is especially useful for emulators.

Below are some SOA pics I took:

[darcagn]

What model Samsung plasma do you have? The 2013 and 2014 models (all of them) allow you to change the gray sidebars to pure black if you wish-- hit:

Menu>>Screen Burn Protection>> Side Gray

You can choose Dark or Light. Dark makes the sidebars completely black.

I have an older model, purchased in 2011 or 2012 or so. That option is there, but "Light" is equivalent to pure white laser beams pointed directly at your retinas and "Dark" is equivalent to the flash on a camera turned on in perpetuity. I'm 100% positive that there's nothing that can be done about it unless there's a hidden/secret service menu somewhere.



In the mean time, I have been playing with Swiss forcing games into progressive 16:9 as you are suggesting.

[Josh128]

What model Samsung plasma do you have? The 2013 and 2014 models (all of them) allow you to change the gray sidebars to pure black if you wish-- hit:

Menu>>Screen Burn Protection>> Side Gray

You can choose Dark or Light. Dark makes the sidebars completely black.

I have an older model, purchased in 2011 or 2012 or so. That option is there, but "Light" is equivalent to pure white laser beams pointed directly at your retinas and "Dark" is equivalent to the flash on a camera turned on in perpetuity. I'm 100% positive that there's nothing that can be done about it unless there's a hidden/secret service menu somewhere.



In the mean time, I have been playing with Swiss forcing games into progressive 16:9 as you are suggesting.

Probably a longshot, but have you tried the latest available firmware for your set? If its possible to update the firmware as it is with the F4500 and F5300, that might well fix the sidebar issue. Very strange that you get bright white sidebars no matter what, that does kind of suck. On the F4500 and F5300, when you change it to "Light", the bars become a light shade of gray that darken on the fly as the APL changes, when you change it to "Dark" they become completely black and stay that way no matter what.

Its possible a later firmware, if produced, might change how your set handles the sidebars to match how the newer sets do.

[darcagn]

Probably a longshot, but have you tried the latest available firmware for your set?

There were never any updates made available for this set, even though it does support updating.

Very strange that you get bright white sidebars no matter what, that does kind of suck.

Other people have complained on the internet about this issue; Samsung support's response has been that it's necessary to prevent burn in and there's nothing that can be done.

Perhaps something is different about the later Plasma panels that make a difference in burn in, but I'd wager they just gave into allowing it in later models seeing as other manufacturers have always allowed it.

[lev11]

GCVideo-DVI 1.3 (and GCVideo-Lite which should probably get a version number) now sets this bit to 1 to signal "no copy restrictions" and the Realtek USB audio chip is happy.

Brilliant, thanks. Now working a treat. Good luck with your next repair job!
Is it a Realtek chip re-branded as Cmedia, or are they both coincidently doing the same 'copy restriction'?

[Unseen]

Is it a Realtek chip re-branded as Cmedia, or are they both coincidently doing the same 'copy restriction'?

That was just me confusing those two companies.

[lev11]

Skies doesnt support progressive OR widescreen natively, but does both via Swiss

So were some games developed in widescreen but the option never implemented? Is there more to see in those images compared to the 4:3 version os same as they don't looked stretched sideways.

[bobrocks95]

So were some games developed in widescreen but the option never implemented? Is there more to see in those images compared to the 4:3 version os same as they don't looked stretched sideways.

No; what Swiss does is it modifies render values (I would assume on-the-fly) in order to make the game render a wider viewing angle. There is more to see, but since it's anamorphic widescreen, the same rendering area/output resolution is used (720x480), so a minor quality loss occurs.

This looks great, but doesn't work in some games- either the automated method of modifying values doesn't find what it needs to so the view is still the width of the default 4:3 image, or certain models (character, objects, etc.) are cut off near the edges of the screen as in Wind Waker (I forget the technical term for this, but it stops the GPU from rendering 3D objects that can't be seen to help with performance, and to avoid objects popping in, models will do so just outside of what would normally be the 4:3 viewing area)- or maybe the game will just refuse to run.

[lev11]

Would it be possible to do this mod on a DOL-101 motherboard?

Doesn't look like the connectors are there on a DOL-101, they reused the board space for the power-supply to cut costs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-9xuuFrvoY

[lev11]

No; what Swiss does is it modifies render values (I would assume on-the-fly) in order to make the game render a wider viewing angle. There is more to see, but since it's anamorphic widescreen, the same rendering area/output resolution is used (720x480), so a minor quality loss occurs.

Wow, that is quite an impressive achievement from Swiss, thanks for the info.

[bobrocks95]

Minor edit since there's not actually access to the game's source code in any form, it's just hex values that are being edited in the running execution code. And I'm still probably oversimplifying or getting something wrong, but the main point is that yeah, it's really impressive stuff and I'm glad people in the community can come up with and take the time to create all these tools we have to improve older games.

[lev11]

I've (finally) got round to fitting the fpga board inside my cube: http://imgur.com/a/NKKkn

Finding M2 screws to fit through the mount holes proved tricky, they are plastic but all four together are holding the board quite rigid. The screw heads don't interfere with the DVD drive mount at all, although I didn't refit 2 of the 6 DVD drive mount screws.

Has a bit of a disaster with the spdif port, remember the old saying 'measure twice, cut once', well I measured no times and was very surprised with how much the back panel recesses into case. Not to worry, I think only hot-glue can save me now. Yes the hdmi port is quite recessed, but there's plenty of room for connecting to it.

I know my cube now looks butchered, a carefully planned second attempt on another would produce a much cleaner fit. Hope this gives other ideas to improve on.

[lev11]

inserted it directly into the via

I tried that, but with one strand of a multi-stand wire, I got it in ok but then snapped it off testing its strength!
If you want to get your board inside there is space to hang it off the underside of the drive mount cage, just need some M2 screws, nuts and spacers.

[bobrocks95]

Would it be possible to line up the HDMI board with the existing Digital Port's hole by mounting it on the metal shield further over? Or is there a tiny HDMI extender (M to F) someone makes that you could hot-glue in right where the digital port is, then mount the board sideways? Maybe it's too long for that though...

EDIT: Something like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/HDMI-male-to-Fe ... 1180456144 or this: http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=1 ... 1&format=2???

[Ed Oscuro]

certain models (character, objects, etc.) are cut off near the edges of the screen as in Wind Waker (I forget the technical term for this, but it stops the GPU from rendering 3D objects that can't be seen to help with performance, and to avoid objects popping in, models will do so just outside of what would normally be the 4:3 viewing area)

Known as culling (frustum culling, if you want to be super precise; the frustum is just a pyramid with the top lopped off for the view window). Performance limits on drawing appear all the time in graphics, in drawing particles for example, and there are a lot of ways to combat it.

[lev11]

mount the board sideways?

Yeah it is too long for that, the heatsink would be in the way.

Yes you could line it up with the existing port, you'd just need to relocate one of the caps. I suspect though that you'd need a particularly slimline moulding around the hdmi lead to then get it through the existing case hole without having to open it up a little.

There are potentially other interesting places to mount it within the cube, then run to a bulkhead mount hdmi such as the one you linked to, but I didn't check for fit. Maybe in the lower section with the power supply board, or next to the drive on the side opposite the fan.

I'm sure someone with a bit more art and craft about them could make it look cool. I just need to make it safe for handling for those in my house who'd take less care than me.

[darcagn]

Great idea hanging it off of the DVD drive cage with spacers and screws. This weekend I'm going to run to the hardware store and pick up some M2 screws and see what I can do. Thinking about whether or not I should try to relocate that capacitor too...