Questions that do not deserve a thread

[Bassa-Bassa]

but if you really wanted to play on a CRT, you could run a PS4/PS5 into a DAC and connect it to a CRT and there you go.

Guessing here he'll feel pretty miserable if he ends up doing that.

[Steven]

but if you really wanted to play on a CRT, you could run a PS4/PS5 into a DAC and connect it to a CRT and there you go.

Guessing here he'll feel pretty miserable if he ends up doing that.

lol yeah. After I got my PS5 I never got rid of my PS4s. A friend broke the HDMI out on one of them somehow, but the other works fine. I saw someone connect a Dreamcast to an Astro City once, so I thought about putting the functional PS4 in my Astro City just because it would be cool, but after looking into how to do it "lol no" was what I decided.

[ldeveraux]

I have a handful of those 9x individually switched outlet bars, so ~9 devices per bar, each individually switched. I can't remember where I got them, but they hold up well. Similar to these:

www.amazon.com/PDU-Power-Strip-Surge-Pr ... B00BQO5S0G

What are you using for wall warts? UL-listed short extension cords, or something else?

Yeah that's exactly what I do. Used to fight against it until I realized each console should probably be switched off when not in use.

[bobrocks95]

I have a handful of those 9x individually switched outlet bars, so ~9 devices per bar, each individually switched. I can't remember where I got them, but they hold up well. Similar to these:

www.amazon.com/PDU-Power-Strip-Surge-Pr ... B00BQO5S0G

What are you using for wall warts? UL-listed short extension cords, or something else?

Yeah that's exactly what I do. Used to fight against it until I realized each console should probably be switched off when not in use.

I measured idle wattage on the consoles I could get to the power plug for and came up with these readings:

- Dreamcast - 0
- Saturn - 0
- Xbox 360 Slim - 0.5W
- GameCube - 0.8W
- N64 - 1.2W
- Xbox - 1.2W
- PS3 Slim - 1.6W
- Wii (launch unit) - 1.6W
- SNES brick - 1.6W
- NES AC-AC brick - 2.1W

Nothing's quite egregious enough to base the whole setup around switching them off, though I will probably get Triads for the NES and SNES. So I think I'm just going to go for some of those long TrippLite bars behind everything.

In the future maybe add a pack of those individual smart plugs? I kind of don't want to have to deal with an app on my phone though...

[Lemnear]

Considering that Arcade Archives and M2 ShotTriggers are all emulation anyway, it's all the same shit. CRTs are pretty nice, but they aren't necessary anymore because nice modern PC monitors have CRT-like input lag and are way smaller, lighter, more convenient to use, and have sufficient vertical resolutions to make having to rotate them for 3:4 games completely unnecessary (which is really annoying and potentially dangerous without help from someone else if you have a big, heavy 29 inch CRT monitor that weighs ~45 kilos), but if you really wanted to play on a CRT, you could run a PS4/PS5 into a DAC and connect it to a CRT and there you go.

M2 ShotTriggers supposedly stays in sync with the PCBs perfectly and have all sorts of shit that's not on the PCBs, like arrange modes, training modes, new soundtracks, and autofire (lol), so if you're playing M2 ShotTriggers already, you are already playing the best versions of those games. I asked Battle Garegga world record holder Kamui about PS4 Garegga recently and she said that it compares flawlessly to the PCB, so yeah.

Ah...wow.
Is Hamster that accurate too?
Ok ok...I get it seems like a rabbit hole anyway, really the best solution is a CTR or CTR-like effect at least, Hamster is equipped on that front at least.
Maybe it's the combination of things that gives that different feeling? If the difference is imperceptible...then I don't understand anything about monitor-input-lag...in fact I hadn't even thought about it.

Some of these listings are Neo Geo MVS cartridges, which is basically the "game as cartridge for a fixed base system" idea that was common in home consoles but as an arcade system, so you would need not just the game but also an MVS to plug it into. The MVS itself has an almost-but-not-quite JAMMA-style edge connector, so you can treat the combination basically like any other JAMMA arcade PCB.

NeoGeo cartridges seem pretty common here...if they're not SNK they're Capcom/Namco stuff or smaller manufacturers like NMK/Jaleco.

Another issue in dealing with arcade pcbs is, the potential of "static electricity discharge" to kill a perfectly 100% working pcb -- always wear an "anti-static wrist strap" is the best way to protect those expensive and rare arcade pcbs when handling them.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Eeee hahaha, the way I wanted to do it then it wouldn't last a second...

Oh well, I think I'll just get a converter then, from HDMI to Scart/RGB/Composite, better if it's a good model though, if it all boils down to a single component, let it be quality at least.
Step 2 I think is to change the arcade stick stick with one of those super renowned ones, and maybe even the buttons. With these two things I should basically have a nice retro-arcade setup .

[ldeveraux]

Instead of holding on to my old 3D 4K non-HDR TV, I was thinking of upgrading. I still use 3D for blurays and some online content. I was recommended the HDFURY X4 which would display 3D content on a non-capable TV. Is this still the best method, or has something HDFURY or any other company makes better?

[jd213]

Dunno about online stuff but most 3D Blu-rays already include a 2D version on a separate disc or menu option, right?

[bobrocks95]

They're trying to play the 3D content, just on a 2D display. Can't remember what other solutions people have mentioned here before though.

[Steven]

Considering that Arcade Archives and M2 ShotTriggers are all emulation anyway, it's all the same shit. CRTs are pretty nice, but they aren't necessary anymore because nice modern PC monitors have CRT-like input lag and are way smaller, lighter, more convenient to use, and have sufficient vertical resolutions to make having to rotate them for 3:4 games completely unnecessary (which is really annoying and potentially dangerous without help from someone else if you have a big, heavy 29 inch CRT monitor that weighs ~45 kilos), but if you really wanted to play on a CRT, you could run a PS4/PS5 into a DAC and connect it to a CRT and there you go.

M2 ShotTriggers supposedly stays in sync with the PCBs perfectly and have all sorts of shit that's not on the PCBs, like arrange modes, training modes, new soundtracks, and autofire (lol), so if you're playing M2 ShotTriggers already, you are already playing the best versions of those games. I asked Battle Garegga world record holder Kamui about PS4 Garegga recently and she said that it compares flawlessly to the PCB, so yeah.

Ah...wow.
Is Hamster that accurate too?

It depends on the game. Some use the arcade refresh rates. Some don't. Some have the option to select either original refresh rate or 59.94whateverHz, but some (most?) don't.

Ok ok...I get it seems like a rabbit hole anyway, really the best solution is a CTR or CTR-like effect at least, Hamster is equipped on that front at least.
Maybe it's the combination of things that gives that different feeling? If the difference is imperceptible...then I don't understand anything about monitor-input-lag...in fact I hadn't even thought about it.

Display input lag by itself might not kill the experience if it's just a frame or two. Unless you have a really bad display with a lot of input lag, with the definition of "a lot of input lag" being up to the individual, what's really going to matter is the native lag of the game itself plus the combination of all of the things that add lag: controller, the emulator in case of poorly emulated games (lol Shitty Connection), the display, and anything you have in your connection chain between the game system and the display.

Honestly, it's an expensive, space-taking pain to get PCBs and CRTs and old game systems and stuff, no matter how cool they are (and, for the record, they are indeed cool), and for people in Europe and some parts of Asia there is also that whole 50Hz thing going on so if you want to play games from Japan or other places that didn't use 50Hz you might have some difficulty getting them to work on a European CRT because of the refresh rate mismatch. I'm not from Europe and I don't know anything about that stuff, so I'm definitely not the guy to ask.

[ldeveraux]

They're trying to play the 3D content, just on a 2D display. Can't remember what other solutions people have mentioned here before though.

Yup this, I don't even remember who recommended the HDFury X4 to me

[jd213]

Sorry, I'm not understanding. Assuming you also have the 2D version of a movie, why would you want to play the 3D version on a 2D display? Is it for something like Titanic where the 3D version is open matte?

edit: Oh, I see, I guess the HD Fury X4 is able to force the display to show all of the frames for 3D viewing. Interesting.

[vol.2]

Can someone tell me why Sony is so excited about the viewing angles on their fanciest Trimaster? I can't figure out how they are measuring the FOV at a claimed 45 degrees. It's obviously something different from the normal way that manufacturers state viewing angle, but I can't figure it out.

https://pro.sony/en_GB/products/broadca ... bvm-hx3110

[Fudoh]

On consumer displays manufacturers state the viewing angle from which you're still able to see ANYTHING. That's how you end up with those 178° angle statements.
LCD VA displays show strong color drift when you're sitting off axis. Just watch any Sony mini LED TV review on Youtube.

Sony Pro here is stating 90° (which means +/- 45° from the 0° position) for color accurate representation without brightness drops which is pretty impressive.

[Steven]

Is it normal for a Raiden DX PCB to make a very short somewhat high-pitched sound when powering off?

[Bassa-Bassa]

Why some PS2 games make the CRT TV resume the RGB input? It's particurly noticeable on Super Fantasy Zone, though I haven't tested it extensively - you run the game, you get an input changed notification from the TV just before the Fantasy Zone Collection title screen (which will leave the TV in 16:9 mode if you haven't disabled the option via service menu, and that's if there's one) like when you boot the console, when you pick Super Fantasy Zone the TV does it again right before its title screen or intro and if you let the demo run, it'll happen again when the title/intro sequence appears.

Other games do it as well, but it usually? stops soon after booting the game, though I'm sure I'm missing many cases. Tried it with different Trinitron TVs, with different cables (sync on luma, on composite video), none has any pin killed, but I wonder how you people deal with it other than that, and if the cause is known, as it totally seems to be software-related.

[SavagePencil]

Why some PS2 games make the CRT TV resume the RGB input? It's particurly noticeable on Super Fantasy Zone, though I haven't tested it extensively - you run the game, you get an input changed notification from the TV just before the Fantasy Zone Collection title screen (which will leave the TV in 16:9 mode if you haven't disabled the option via service menu, and that's if there's one) like when you boot the console, when you pick Super Fantasy Zone the TV does it again right before its title screen or intro and if you let the demo run, it'll happen again when the title/intro sequence appears.

Other games do it as well, but it usually? stops soon after booting the game, though I'm sure I'm missing many cases. Tried it with different Trinitron TVs, with different cables (sync on luma, on composite video), none has any pin killed, but I wonder how you people deal with it other than that, and if the cause is known, as it totally seems to be software-related.

The game could be soft rebooting or switching to a new executable.

[Bassa-Bassa]

Something happens at software level that makes my SCART manager's auto switching mode go crazy depending on the game, but turns out it solves in my case if I disable the auto switching mode. The only system I have that does it, whatever it is.

[vol.2]

Something happens at software level that makes my SCART manager's auto switching mode go crazy depending on the game, but turns out it solves in my case if I disable the auto switching mode. The only system I have that does it, whatever it is.

It's switching back and forth between different refresh rates. The SNES does it on some games, and so does the original Playstation.

My guess is that you are just only playing games that do that on your PS2. If you went out of your way to test it on a different system, you would probably see the issue.

I think the Capcom RE games and Dino Crisis do it when they go between the character menus and the gameplay IIRC; put the conditions back the way they were, and try one of those games on the OG PS.

[Bassa-Bassa]

I really don't know, but that doesn't seem to be the case here as it doesn't happen when game switches refresh - Super Fantasy Zone (at 240p) once the game demo is up and running, it shouldn't be any refresh or resolution change there as it's an emulation of the MD. Or maybe this is just the odd one. Other systems like the Saturn, never happens and I don't remember the PS1 or the SNES doing it ever, either. But again, it could be just that because other than Super Fantasy Zone, the rest of PS2 games doing it it's just at the game boot.

[orange808]

Fun article out there in interweb land.

If you stumble onto it, the king of lag (the slowest) for 240p capable programmable downscalers? That's the Aurora Dido Jr.

Keep experimenting, though. You'll get a complete list of machines eventually and know the specs.

[Bassa-Bassa]

Something happens at software level that makes my SCART manager's auto switching mode go crazy depending on the game, but turns out it solves in my case if I disable the auto switching mode. The only system I have that does it, whatever it is.

It's switching back and forth between different refresh rates. The SNES does it on some games, and so does the original Playstation.

My guess is that you are just only playing games that do that on your PS2. If you went out of your way to test it on a different system, you would probably see the issue.

I think the Capcom RE games and Dino Crisis do it when they go between the character menus and the gameplay IIRC; put the conditions back the way they were, and try one of those games on the OG PS.

To further add to this - the DC indeed does it very eventually and only when booting, though I only tested a few games. The weird thing here is that my 240p PC never does it, and it's the system which changes refresh rates the most, as it's natural. Furthermore, the PS2 directly connected to a Trinitron TV with the BE3D chassis causes the same "signal lost" moments than with the SCART manager as well, though other Trinitrons are fine.

[vol.2]

To further add to this - the DC indeed does it very eventually and only when booting, though I only tested a few games. The weird thing here is that my 240p PC never does it, and it's the system which changes refresh rates the most, as it's natural. Furthermore, the PS2 directly connected to a Trinitron TV with the BE3D chassis causes the same "signal lost" moments than with the SCART manager as well, though other Trinitrons are fine.

I think Fudoh (if he sees your comment) could probably cut through it and give you a straight answer as to why a specific game is behaving weird. I know for example that there are various repackagings of arcade classics on both the PS2 and Xbox/360, and they do not all operate at their original output refresh rates, though I couldn't immediately recall what does what.

As for the BE3D, it could be the fault of the design that it doesn't quickly switch modes. I looked a bit at the schematic, but I'm not sure exactly what the signal path is for the mode selection. It looks like it's all taken care of by the jungle IC (CXA207Q-TL), but there is also a microcontroller responsible for the OSD information and switching in and out of 16:9 mode. It is possible that the particular jungle IC used is a bit slow, or that the added deflection function of the 16:9 mode somehow complicates the way it syncs. Would be interesting to know if other BE3D users had similar issues with refresh rate switching, but we don't have those in the US.

[Bassa-Bassa]

Thanks for checking anyway. I'm not sure it has to do with refresh or even resolution switching, as it (also) happens when neither of those happen (and doesn't happen with other sources which do switch), and the PS2 theoretically only refeshes at a fixed rate. But well, there it is.

[kitty666cats]

Fun article out there in interweb land.

If you stumble onto it, the king of lag (the slowest) for 240p capable programmable downscalers? That's the Aurora Dido Jr.

Keep experimenting, though. You'll get a complete list of machines eventually and know the specs.

Hey now don’t forget the Dido LT - like the Jr, but doesn’t even have the rotate option, lol.

It’s still fun to bust out, though - I’ve chained it after GBS-Control for 1024x768 (‘native’ aka highest 4:3 60Hz resolution on my presentation monitor) PlayStation 2 shit and I dug it. Example below -

https://www.instagram.com/p/CRK8NWtlRl3 ... NieWhhZHJz


I was surprised to see this site seems to have been updated with some actual cool non-outdated pages:


https://www.retrorgb.com/downscaling.html


Some of these may be new to even *you*, orange


EDIT: actually, probably only those non-Emotia / non-stupid RGB interface not-even-240p Extrons & the Analog Way.

There’s definitely way more scalers out there capable of 240p that nobody has tested. I would assume damn near any with programmable resolutions

[vol.2]

What's the simplest solution to taking 15kHz RBGHV and getting composite video in as HQ as possible?



I live for soldering PCBs and stuff, so I'd prefer to go down that route, especially if it's got a better result.

[vol.2]

So I couldn't find a good answer to this and I started making an RGB to S-Video and Composite adapter in KiCad based on the Sony CXA2075M, and then I stumbled across someone who already did a simple implementation based on the datasheet that actually works with 4 other (more or less) drop-in ICs.

If anyone wants something that can do this, it's exactly what I was thinking of. Basic use-case is for a TV that only accepts s-video or composite, and one of three thrings:

1) An older microcomputer that only outputs RGB

2) Part of a signal chain that starts with a console or PC that doesn't have an analog output (ie, console->HDMI to VGA->GBSControl->This Thing->Svideo capable TV)

3) Any older console or microcomputer with subpar composite or s-video output that you can get higher quality RGB out of and then send through this thing. The CXA2075M has much higher quality than the CXA1145 in the Sega or Amiga for example

[orange808]

Some of these may be new to even *you*, orange

Hey, the Vio made the list. I'm impressed. I don't recall ever sharing that one. Nice.

Although, I still think the OSSC Pro with analog out is going to be the king of downscalers. Really no reason to buy anything else.

[mimylovesjapan]

Hi everyone !
I just bought an Extron 203 Rxi to get 480i downscale on some PS2 and DC games !

I have an issue : I cannot even get sync from my console to the PVM through the Extron...
I am using a RGBHV -> VGA cable, and I connect the C sync on the H cable. I think it is the issue. But I don't know why, as VGA has C sync on the same wire than the H... I am thinking to buy a sync strike, but it should also send the signal to the H wire, no ?

[Dochartaigh]

I just bought an Extron 203 Rxi to get 480i downscale on some PS2 and DC games !

I have an issue : I cannot even get sync from my console to the PVM through the Extron...
I am using a RGBHV -> VGA cable, and I connect the C sync on the H cable. I think it is the issue. But I don't know why, as VGA has C sync on the same wire than the H... I am thinking to buy a sync strike, but it should also send the signal to the H wire, no ?

Just to confirm, you're using Fudoh's trick with the dipswitches on the RGB 203 Rxi to turn 480i into 240p, correct? (as the 203 isn't a downscaler per say - it's a sync combiner/converter, and this is simply an untended trick the 203 can do).

So then, yes, RGBS usually runs its sync through the H(orizontal) line. PS2 will need a sync stripper as that's not clean C Sync which the RGB 203 Rxi requires. Also, which cable are you running from the PS2 to get to DB15/VGA from that? PS2's are usually only Component or SCART... If you're not using an industry-standard RGBHV/BNC to DB15/VGA cable (i.e. something like an Extron cable) I would definitely use a multimeter to make sure it's going to the correct pins.

Dreamcast should be fine as-is... so if the 203 isn't working on that, the 203 might be broke (or perhaps somebody might have fiddled with the INTERNAL dipswitches perhaps? I forget what those are even for, but know there are hidden dipswitches inside the unit so thought I'd mention them).

Also to note, the 240p trick with these has never looked good to my eyes no matter what... also looks even worse if your 480i source "isn't a linedoubled 240p title, but a true hi-res game" per Fudoh's article... so YMMV all around in this application...

[mimylovesjapan]

Thanks for your help !
Yes, I would like to try the Fudoh trick. I will also use it to clean Sync for JVC monitor in the future.

But for a first test, I can’t even get a correct sync for a 240p passthrough with a megadrive…
RGB of the cable are ok, because I tried component connection with PS2, and it worked. The BNC VGA cable is japanese, but, VGA pin should be the same in all the world, no ?