upscalers

[evil_ash_xero]

http://retrogaming.hazard-city.de/

Was wondering about some of these items. Does anyone have hands on experience with these?

I'm mostly curious about making PS2 games and such look good on LCD.

Also, has anything come up with the "lag" problem of an LCD or Plasma? I read on an IGN article about 4 years ago that DVDO would clear that up, but I can't find anything on it.

[undamned]

Fudoh (the author), posts on here. He's obviously had experience w/ all those units he tested for that article. If you have specific questions that weren't answered there, I imagine he'd answer them here
-ud

[Fudoh]

I would second that. Shoot ahead with any questions.

In terms of "as little extra lag as possible" you can either get a XRGB machine (if you only want linedoubling) or a DVDO Edge (6ms for processing including upscaling).

Unfortunately "PS2" hardly covers everything there is. There are games which run in 240p, the majority is 480i and some are 480p. All those signals would require different processors and handling to achieve the best possible. If you want 480i deinterlaced properly you HAVE to accept a lag of at least 2 frames (~35ms). The Edge and the XRGB don't have proper 480i deinterlacing. The Edge will deinterlace is if you turn the gamemode off, but it's slow then (55ms), the XRGB does it a different way. It tries to simulate a CRT display with only 240 lines per 1/60 second. To fill up the remaining 240 lines (to get to 480p) the lines are doubled or filled up with black (your choice). It's quite effective for LCDs and Plasmas, but it bears the same problems CRTs have, combing and flickering to name the common problems.....

[5tranger]

gonna borrow your thread
hey fudoh, just curious about your opinion on d-terminal vs rgb cart for ps2 on the xrbg (3 in particular)?
this forum has got me itching for a xrgb

[evil_ash_xero]

Well, one question that comes to mind is...

Does the lag that is caused by the upscalers add to the lag that is already on the tv?

[em0ti0n]

Well, one question that comes to mind is...

Does the lag that is caused by the upscalers add to the lag that is already on the tv?

Yes

[cyrano]

Fudoh, I am sorry for following you in every thread, but since you are a mine of knowledge, it's very hard to resist.

short story first:
I played FFXII (PS2, i believe 480i) mostly on a LCD screen, and because the game is quite pretty, i thought it looked pretty nice. I had gotten used to playing my ps2 on this (i also played on a low-end projector, which, while kickass because of the size of the image), was pretty blurry). For reasons which are a bit long to explain, I got to briefly try the game on a high quality CRT, a pretty large Bang and Olufsen (I don't really know if they are good quality, but they certainly are very expensive..). I thought the image was phenomenal. While the text looked very crisp and sharp, it didn't look 'pixel'-y either. It was like great anti-aliasing, without the bluriness. I have been wondering how to recreate this kind of image on a LCD, mostly because I am curious about why the difference truly is (perhaps all in my head ). Let's suppose for a second that I didn't care whatsoever about lag, what would be the best way to recreate this kind of high quality image?
(without emulating through a PC and increasing the resolution, of course..!)

[evil_ash_xero]

Well, one question that comes to mind is...

Does the lag that is caused by the upscalers add to the lag that is already on the tv?

Yes

So, there's no way you can get rid of lag and make older systems look good on your TV?

[em0ti0n]

So, there's no way you can get rid of lag and make older systems look good on your TV?

If you connect older systems using XRGB-3 in B1 mode/XRGB2(+) connected via VGA with your TV, you will experience lag of your TV only

[Fudoh]

So, there's no way you can get rid of lag and make older systems look good on your TV?

of course you cannot get below the lag already introduced by your TV set - that isn't rocket science. There are LCDs and Plasmas out there which have a very reasonable lag around or under 1 frame in Gamemode setting. That's pretty acceptable and if you add an upscaler without significant lag by itself, you'll be fine.

[Fudoh]

hey fudoh, just curious about your opinion on d-terminal vs rgb cart for ps2 on the xrbg (3 in particular)?

Using a component or D-Terminal cable isn't ideal. There's usually visible background noise using component from a PS2.

The 3rd alternative is the best though: component signal over a Scart cable. It's not neccessarily RGB vs. component that introduces the noise, but the cables themselves. Use a RGB Scart cable, but leave the PS2 set to component. Best quality plus the possibility to use 480p from games which support it.

[Fudoh]

I played FFXII (PS2, i believe 480i) mostly on a LCD screen....

A CRT doesn't need deinterlacing and it doesn't need scaling, so you were able to feed the untempered 15khz signal and the CRT displayed it. On a LCD first need the deinterlacing (15 to 31khz, 480i to 480p) and then maybe scaling to the screen's native resolution. If you really need a scaler depends on the screen's internal scaling engine (many are fine). For 480i output you need a good deinterlacer. If you don't mind a bit of lag there are many starting quite cheap. Using the right hardware a LCD image will surpass the CRT display in terms of detail, stability and color recreation. Deinterlacing on "slow" games like FFXII isn't hard either. Good deinterlacers have been doing this for years. The problems always start when you need super-fast deinterlacing like in a shmup.

[em0ti0n]

The 3rd alternative is the best though: component signal over a Scart cable. It's not neccessarily RGB vs. component that introduces the noise, but the cables themselves. Use a RGB Scart cable, but leave the PS2 set to component. Best quality plus the possibility to use 480p from games which support it.

I use official Sony RGB SCART cable SCPH-1050 and there is no noise when PS2 set to RGB as I expected..
But when PS2 is set to YUV (and XRGB3 Scart input is set to YUV mode instead of default RGB) I got a lot of noise which is almost impossible to be eliminated.

[Sabishii Hito]

hey fudoh, just curious about your opinion on d-terminal vs rgb cart for ps2 on the xrbg (3 in particular)?

Using a component or D-Terminal cable isn't ideal. There's usually visible background noise using component from a PS2.

The 3rd alternative is the best though: component signal over a Scart cable. It's not neccessarily RGB vs. component that introduces the noise, but the cables themselves. Use a RGB Scart cable, but leave the PS2 set to component. Best quality plus the possibility to use 480p from games which support it.

That's interesting. I can't say I've noticed any "noise" using my official Sony component cables going into the XRGB-3. I have a 3rd-party JPN RGB cable I've done some testing with. I didn't know you could still send the YUV signal over the RGB cable; I must try that.

[Fudoh]

That's interesting. I can't say I've noticed any "noise" using my official Sony component cables going into the XRGB-3.

the noise is filtered by using the LPF filter. If you turn off the LPF filter you should be able to notice it. It's visible in dark matte colors, e.g. the dark brown screen when ESPGaluda boots up. Since you have to turn off the LPF on progressive signals, it's also a problem on 480p games. If you have the OutRun2SP selection screen with the grey background, it's quite "noisy".

I've used several different PS2 revisions, with both older and newer original Sony YUV cables and it's the same on all combinations.

I didn't know you could still send the YUV signal over the RGB cable; I must try that.

you have to set the 21-pin front input to component of course (menu point 7.2). After that it works fine.

[Fudoh]

One important clarification:

So, there's no way you can get rid of lag and make older systems look good on your TV?

Most TVs have different lags depending on the input and the signal. If you feed 240p or 480i (which are 15khz signals) the signal has to run through the TVs deinterlacing, scaling and postprocessing engine which usually means a delay of ~ 3 frames. The Gamemode can't change anything about that since the signal has to be upconverted one way or the other.

If you feed a progressive or already upscaled signal many TVs behave differently. Add a progressive feed to a TV's gamemode setting and you have already reduced the lag to possible 1-frame or less. Add a lag-free upscaler like the XRGB to this and you'll stay noticeably under the processing time your TV would usually take to process a - let's say - PS2 signal.

So, if the question is: "can I reduce the minimum lag of my TV (= 1080p signal + gamemode)", then the answer is NO, you can't.
But if the question is: "can I reduce the processing time my TV takes when fed with a 240p/480i from a PS2", then the answer is YES, most likely you can.

[evil_ash_xero]

Thanks for the info. This is all very complicated.

[DC906270]

just use an xrgb, i dont understand how it works but it does