XRGB-mini Framemeister

[FBX]

What I also found that when the output is set to 720p, when using scanlines on 480i games, you can lower the INT SMOOTH below 115. That terrible screen flicker only appears to affect 1080p. Weird.

I'm sure that several on here already know this, but I discovered today that under a profile, it can store different settings depending upon the resolution. Meaning - that I can have one PS2 profile with scanlines enabled. It has one set for 480i games, and another for 480p. Very convenient as it means I won't have to store and flip through an extra profile.

FBX - not sure if you knew that or not. If you didn't, it might allow you to condense your profiles and make it easier for end users. It looks like you could get away with just having one Gamecube profile (two with the unique F-Zero one) that would apply the correct IMAGE_MODE setting (Natural or Picture) depending upon if the game was 480i or 480p.

I'm not exactly sure how it works. Sometimes it does that for me, sometimes not. I'll look into it though.

[jdawg131]

I'm not exactly sure how it works. Sometimes it does that for me, sometimes not. I'll look into it though.

I did some more testing with the Wii (using one of your GC profiles as the base). It stores completely different settings for 240p (VC), 480i, and 480p. It's actually pretty cool. The one thing that I haven't tested yet is output resolution. I'm going to try to test that out later today for the Saturn and N64; I have a couple 480i (hi-res mode) games for each system. It would be awesome if it'd keep 1080p for the 240p games, and then automatically switch to 720p output for the 480i games.

I must say, it's been a fun weekend tweaking and learning more about how the XRGB Mini works. Pretty thrilled actually. It's great to finally be satisfied with my 2D Capcom / SNK games on the PS2. Switching it to 720p for good scanlines really enhances them. By the way, the sharpness / clarity drop isn't too significant compared to 1080p. I initially had the screen set to Normal 2 which stretched the picture and made it look a lot blurrier. Switching it Normal restored most of sharpness. Knowledge is power. LOL.

[austin532]

austin532 - I've finally settled on your 70 / 96 settings. I was using 40 /81, but I found the picture to be too dark. Became even more obvious after my scanline tweaking this weekend. I've said it several times already, but I really do appreciate your work for the forum.

Thanks. I really do appreciate it.

[jdawg131]

Thanks. I really do appreciate it.

You're welcome.

I verified that output resolution is global to that profile. You can't set it via source resolution.

[austin532]

If you are talking about how Component keeps track of different settings on different resolutions, that was discovered years ago. I keep hoping that they fix that with RGB input.

[jdawg131]

If you are talking about how Component keeps track of different settings on different resolutions, that was discovered years ago. I keep hoping that they fix that with RGB input.

Tracking. Now it makes sense that my Wii profile (Component) does, but I couldn't get the Saturn (RGB) one to do the same.

[FBX]

I spent the night fine-tuning all the Game Boy Player and GBI profiles. The previous settings were causing a lot of ringing on some pixel edges, so I reworked the sharpness and scaler settings to avoid this. Also increased the saturation a little bit, and fixed the GBA5X profile's width to closer match square pixels.

http://www.firebrandx.com/downloads/fra ... 7-2016.zip

That said, I've been messing around with GBI.LL quite a bit now, and my only complaint is the regular Game Boy/Color mode doesn't use square pixels on the horizontal axis. This ends up causing 'sizzle' when scrolling to the left or right, which can be easily seen in Metroid II for example on the semi-background graphics at the beginning of the game. The coder for GBI apparently used internal aspect correction instead of letting users correct the AR externally with the Framemeister. I asked if he would consider using square pixels instead of AR and he didn't seem too particularly interested. It's a shame because the sizzle is permanent as a result. Thankfully Game Boy Advance mode does use square pixels, so no problems there.

[Thomago]

Can't retest that right now due to having sold my Framemeister, but if I remember correctly, this gbi.cli gave me square pixels for GB and GBA games alike:

--aspect=3:2
--offset=1:2
--zoom=3
--scan-mode=progressive

Of course the aspect ratio all wrong, but that's nothing the Framemeister can't handle.

Settings in action (with Framemeister aspect ratio correction):

[FBX]

I was hoping to stick with GBI.LL since it's the lowest latency that will still work with NTSC + Framemeister setups. But yeah, it's just unfortunate the LL version doesn't have options to change the AR. From what I understand, it's possible to fix in the regular GBI using arguments (as listed on the first page of the coder's thread topic), but LL doesn't support arguments. That's why I was hoping to convince him to set the LL at square pixels. No luck though.

[Guspaz]

Setting LL like that would be a better experience for people using a scaling box like the framemeister, and a worse experience for everybody else who uses GBI directly on their display. Considering that this "sizzle" issue seems to be invisible to me (I've been unable to spot it in Mario games), I think that's the right choice.

EDIT: I'm not saying it's not there, just that I can't see the impact of the internal scaling even when I'm specifically looking for it, so it doesn't seem worth messing up the aspect ratio for most people.

[Shuco13]

@FBX
You might wanna try goomba (color) on a GBA flashcart. Running those GBC games in GBA mode will probably give you square pixels. But then again...you might have a personal problem with emulation, although, admittedly compatibility is really good.

[FBX]

EDIT: I'm not saying it's not there, just that I can't see the impact of the internal scaling even when I'm specifically looking for it, so it doesn't seem worth messing up the aspect ratio for most people.

It's definitely there. As I said, easiest way to spot it is Metroid II. Start a new game and scroll to the right. Look at the background weeds. You can also see it when enemy sprites are moving around, they 'wobble' in size due to the randomly sized pixel widths caused by AR.

[Guspaz]

I don't have a copy of that game. I've not spotted the issue on my PVM, in any of the games that I do have, which leads me to believe that it's a very difficult to notice effect, and certainly not worth making things worse for everybody who doesn't own or use a framemeister just so that framemeister users can make a manual correction themselves.

[FBX]

I don't have a copy of that game. I've not spotted the issue on my PVM, in any of the games that I do have, which leads me to believe that it's a very difficult to notice effect, and certainly not worth making things worse for everybody who doesn't own or use a framemeister just so that framemeister users can make a manual correction themselves.

I'll just make a video of it. And honestly I don't see square pixels from Game Boy being any worse for everyone else. I believe the original Gameboy's pixels were pretty much square as it is, so AR is likely subjective anyway.

I'll post a link to the video when it's uploaded.

[Guspaz]

Aspect ratio isn't subjective, it's the physical width of the screen versus the physical height of the screen. If you try to do a 1:1 mapping to a different display that doesn't have the same pixel shape, none of the shapes in the game are going to be as intended. It's similar to the SNES: the image is meant to be displayed on a 4:3 television (1.33 ratio), but if you draw out the pixels 1:1, you're going to get a 1.14 aspect ratio.

[FBX]

Aspect ratio isn't subjective, it's the physical width of the screen versus the physical height of the screen. If you try to do a 1:1 mapping to a different display that doesn't have the same pixel shape, none of the shapes in the game are going to be as intended. It's similar to the SNES: the image is meant to be displayed on a 4:3 television (1.33 ratio), but if you draw out the pixels 1:1, you're going to get a 1.14 aspect ratio.

I meant subjective in terms of deciding the AR of the Game Boy in particular. Obviously in the case of the SNES, using square pixels will result in a very narrow looking image on most displays. In the case of the original Game Boy hardware, the pixels were very close to square to begin with.

At any rate, I made a video using my 7X profile, but my capture device only handles 30fps, so it drops half the frames. It makes it harder to spot the sizzle effect, but I can still make it out. near the end of the video is a sprite example, where you can see the 'wobble' caused by the misshapen pixels as it moves left and right. Keep in mind this wobble isn't coming from the Framemeister, but rather the internal AR set by the GBI.LL software. The Framemeister prevents wobble and sizzle by averaging via interpolating (like bi-linear filters) the AR over all the pixels, which is why it's never razor sharp on the horizontal axis.

http://filetrip.net/dl?FZmURp8aeu

[Guspaz]

I really just can't see it... I tried stepping over two sections frame-by-frame, the initial running part, and then the monster moving left to right and back again, and I just can't see anything out of the ordinary... So if there is an effect there, it's so subtle that I just can't see it, which makes me think it's really not worth doing anything about...

I'm going to try to take screencaps of the sprite as it moves across the screen (at least when it's in the same animation frame), and put it into an animated gif, if there's anything happening, that's definitely going to make it apparent.

EDIT: Here, as best as I can tell, this is what you're talking about:



So, when I keep it fixed in place, I can see what's happening. It's definitely there. But I maintain that, in practice, while playing, I just can't see it. The thing (or background) is moving around, which masks the problem completely for me.

[RGB32E]

The Framemeister prevents wobble and sizzle by averaging via interpolating (like bi-linear filters) the AR over all the pixels, which is why it's never razor sharp on the horizontal axis.

No, it sounds like you're describing the chroma subsampling (4:4:4 -> 4:2:2) artifacts of the XRGB-mini, not bilinear filtering like shenanigans. As an experiment, you should try dropping the color setting on your TV to get a B/W image, and play 240p a side scrolling game to demonstrate shimmer with non-uniform pixel sizes! The conversion to 4:2:2 also explains why peak colors (full red/green/blue) are not maintained on output.

[FBX]

EDIT: Here, as best as I can tell, this is what you're talking about:

Excellent demonstration! Sorry about the poor video. In live gameplay, it much easier to see in background graphics as well. It jumped out at me and I was like "what the heck is that shimmer?"

But yeah, it only shows up on regular Game Boy/color mode of GBI.LL. Since I've never seen it do that before with any other consoles, and GBA mode doesn't have any sort of wobble like that, I figured it must be something to do with the GBI Game Boy driver itself. Extrems did appear to acknowledge it wasn't set to square pixels when I asked him about it, so I put 2 and 2 together and figured that was the problem.

[bonzo.bits]

I'm after some help updating the firmwar. I've saved the unzipped XRGBmini folder and all its contents to the root of the SD card I use to store FM profiles. Done the whole unplug power cable > insert SD card > replug power cable, but I never get the flashing lights.

I've deleted all other files from the SD card (FAT32 format), factory reset the FM. I'm not sure what else to try.....?

What is the likelihood that the SD card is fine for profile storage but not FW updating?

[rtw]

I'm after some help updating the firmwar. I've saved the unzipped XRGBmini folder and all its contents to the root of the SD card I use to store FM profiles. Done the whole unplug power cable > insert SD card > replug power cable, but I never get the flashing lights.

I've deleted all other files from the SD card (FAT32 format), factory reset the FM. I'm not sure what else to try.....?

Check if you have a partition on your card ...

[FBX]

I'm after some help updating the firmwar. I've saved the unzipped XRGBmini folder and all its contents to the root of the SD card I use to store FM profiles. Done the whole unplug power cable > insert SD card > replug power cable, but I never get the flashing lights.

I've deleted all other files from the SD card (FAT32 format), factory reset the FM. I'm not sure what else to try.....?

What is the likelihood that the SD card is fine for profile storage but not FW updating?

What firmware on you on now? I forget which one added the feature, but you can actually command the Framemeister to update the firmware from the menu.

At any rate, what you see on the root directory of the card should be this:

XRGBmini

Then when you open that folder, you should see this:

EDID
EEPData (this is where your profiles are stored)
invdata
Update

So if your card isn't laid out like that after you've unzipped the firmware to it, that might cause issues with updating.

[bonzo.bits]

What firmware on you on now? I forget which one added the feature, but you can actually command the Framemeister to update the firmware from the menu.

At any rate, what you see on the root directory of the card should be this:

XRGBmini

Then when you open that folder, you should see this:

EDID
EEPData (this is where your profiles are stored)
invdata
Update

So if your card isn't laid out like that after you've unzipped the firmware to it, that might cause issues with updating.

Currently on 2.00. The files are exactly as you've laid out in your message. There are no other files or folders on the card. I've reformatted the card and re-added the files but still no result.

Perhaps the card is incompatible... It's a generic card that I received FOC with a SD2SNES.

I also tried to update via USB but the SD card was still inserted so maybe this caused the FM to not check for update files via USB. I'll try that again tonight but with the card removed.

@RTW. Wha are the implications of the partition status? I know the FM can read/write to the SD card as it loads/saves profiles with no problem.

[FBX]

Currently on 2.00. The files are exactly as you've laid out in your message.

Okay check and see in the Framemeister menu if there's an option under "DATA" that reads "CPU_UPDATE". If there is, turn that on (provided you have the card insterted with the latest firmware), and then see if that works to update it when you power off the Framemeister.

[rtw]

@RTW. Wha are the implications of the partition status? I know the FM can read/write to the SD card as it loads/saves profiles with no problem.

On some systems an existing partition table might confuse a boot-loader (u-boot) but when the main OS is loaded (Linux) it will have no issues.

u-boot and Linux are just examples, I have no idea what kind of firmware the FM uses ... yet

What kind of card are you using ?

[tusecsy]

What firmware on you on now? I forget which one added the feature, but you can actually command the Framemeister to update the firmware from the menu.

At any rate, what you see on the root directory of the card should be this:

XRGBmini

Then when you open that folder, you should see this:

EDID
EEPData (this is where your profiles are stored)
invdata
Update

So if your card isn't laid out like that after you've unzipped the firmware to it, that might cause issues with updating.

Currently on 2.00. The files are exactly as you've laid out in your message. There are no other files or folders on the card. I've reformatted the card and re-added the files but still no result.

Perhaps the card is incompatible... It's a generic card that I received FOC with a SD2SNES.

I also tried to update via USB but the SD card was still inserted so maybe this caused the FM to not check for update files via USB. I'll try that again tonight but with the card removed.

@RTW. Wha are the implications of the partition status? I know the FM can read/write to the SD card as it loads/saves profiles with no problem.

The problem is the card, they're cheap, try another one. Could be you aren't getting the folder structure correct also. The root needs to be x:\XRGBmini\(system folders).

[bonzo.bits]

Okay check and see in the Framemeister menu if there's an option under "DATA" that reads "CPU_UPDATE". If there is, turn that on (provided you have the card insterted with the latest firmware), and then see if that works to update it when you power off the Framemeister.

No luck with this. Nor with updating via USB. I'm not entirely certain of the correct process for USB updating.

The problem is the card, they're cheap, try another one. Could be you aren't getting the folder structure correct also. The root needs to be x:\XRGBmini\(system folders).

The more failures that occur, the more certain I am that it is the card. Unless both Windows and Android OS' are unable to access the root of the SD card, then the structure is correct.

The SD card slot on my laptop is busted so I've ordered a replacement USB card reader. Once that arrives I'll poke around in command prompt and make sure that the root as it is shown in Windows and Android is the actual root.

[Blair]

The only logical reason to say emulators are better is if you can't afford a proper xrgb setup. And in that case, gtfo of this thread?

W...T...F...? When did I say emulators were better than original hardware? I've said that emulators are great contributions for the sake of availability. Not everyone is keen on buying a PC-Engine CD for a ton of money that barely works either.

Actually, these days emulators can be about as good as the original hardware and even sometimes better.

Cycle accurate emulation is a great option, and with that there's basically no difference between the electrical signals of the emulator or the original console hardware (it's detectable in some edge cases but for actual gameplay it doesn't really matter in the slightest). most of the main systems before the PlayStation era have cycle accurate emulation available, and some software-based PlayStation emulators are getting very close to cycle accurate. (Saturn is still a little ways off)

Emulation also has a few other benefits as well, enhancements to load times, sound output, and video quality. (as it's a pure digital signal that's not being converted to analog and then back to digital again). (especially on the sound front of things as great quality DACs are finally affordable for all).

For instance, recent developments in PlayStation emulation have led to an innovation called "GTE accuracy", which improves the texture and polygon warping of polygon-based games, I always found this Sony engineered defect distracting, even when playing the games on actual hardware when they were released originally. (Saturn and N64 also have this problem but not to the same degree as the PlayStation)

This almost completely eliminates the warping effect and allows for a much higher resolution, image (similar to PC games from around that time) some very slight warping still exists because of the way some of the games were designed but it's almost unnoticeable, and this technique is being further enhanced with floating-point extensions to completely eliminate warping at any resolution (currently, there is absolutely no warping if you output at the original resolution and very little warping up to 1080p).

So that's all very exciting. so much so that I probably won't play polygon-based PlayStation games on original hardware ever again (unless I have to because of some weird compatibility error, but those are extremely rare these days) pure 2-D games though are still probably better on original hardware unless you have a very fast PC, because of the way frame buffer effects can work.

Bonus, many games can have true widescreen now, most 3-D games and all 2-D games can have a perfect 16:9 aspect ratio without stretching.

another reason I prefer emulation over original hardware when it comes to Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis ( and a few other systems) is the elimination of dithering effects, before only viable with a blurry composite video connection you can get full RGB quality video and have real transparency and blending effects in games where they didn't exist before (they just faked them with a bad video connection). (especially amazing on Genesis games) (technically you can also do this with some video processors on real hardware but it's a bit of a convoluted process, and adds some input lag)

when set up properly the multisystem emulator "RetroArch" with its various emulation cores and effects shaders you can have a pretty wonderful experience that rivals and even surpasses the original hardware.

you can even get the perfect look of a high resolution BVM or PVM with a fairly lightweight shader it looks fantastic on a good LCD or even CRT screen. the video output quality will definitely surpass anything that the framemeister or even the amazing OSSC can achieve thanks to integer scaling (if you want that sharp pixel perfect look) and the video driver tweak that eliminates almost all leg from the video card side of the equation ( you still have to deal with the leg of your own display but those are getting much better these days)

sorry if that was a bit of a rant. and even though I really appreciate emulation I still sometimes play my actual systems hooked up via RGB with various video upscalers and CRTs (just because I can, and it's nice to have something to compare to).

overall the goal is just to have fun, but I like to have fun with the best possible video and sound quality I could achieve. it's wonderful that we have all of these avenues available to us now (high-quality video processors or high-quality emulation, or even a mix of both).

[tusecsy]

Hey FBX, why can't I use your profiles in 720p? They seem to work fine. Or do you mean I have to use a 1080p display specifically and 720p mode is fine in the rgbx.

[FBX]

Hey FBX, why can't I use your profiles in 720p? They seem to work fine. Or do you mean I have to use a 1080p display specifically and 720p mode is fine in the rgbx.

Well the zoom settings most important to the profiles were designed for 1080p output, so I really can't see them being useful for 720p mode.