Emulation vs Framemeister a few questions

[wyvernshill]

First time posting here. I'm not going to talk about anything illegal here but i have a few things that keeps nagging me.

I lived trough the era of the commodore,NES,SNES, Megadrive and all the other classics, unfortunately i never had the money to buy a SNES when i was little. I did own a Sega Megadrive 1 (an asian model Pal-D, i can't even find any info on it, it's like it never existed. It has an rf connection plus ext slot and a round connector at the back with multiple pins. I tried connecting it again trough RF but barely got any picture at all.)

Well a few years ago i bit the bullet and bought myself a second hand SNES (european model) modded for RGB and 50/60hz switchless mod and bought myself a bunch of classics. The thing worked great and i had it connected to an old JVC CRT monitor 28", it was a beauty to watch.

I moved, had to get rid of the big CRT and replaced it with an LED Sony 40HX850 TV. it is gorgeous for anything in HD and even just SD material but once you try to connect the SNES to it trough RGB it is god ugly. So i tried Bsnes (emulator), got a usb/snes gamepad converter to connect my SNES gamepad to it and everything worked great.
The image being passed to the tv is excellent and input lag to me is almost non existent if i set my tv to gamemode.

But ... i keep wanting to play on my real SNES ...

So i have a few questions :

1.) How does image quality compare between an image passed by Bsnes or any other good emulator at 1920*1080 (i adjust it to 4:3) and a framemeister trough SNES RGB ? Is it worth it or is the image far worse than an emulator, are there issues with the frameister ?

2.) Is there a seller on ebay that you recommend from which multiple people have bought the framemeister, it's a ton of money and i do not want to be ripped off.

3.) The snes RGB cable i got works perfectly, but the audio passed trough it produces a hissing sound when the image gets brighter, can you recommend me a cable on ebay that doesnt have that problem ?

[IrishNinja]

they're not perfect, but I want my RGB has some comparisons:

http://www.chrismcovell.com/gotRGB/screenshots.html

i don't mess with BSNES much but ill say this for the mini - like anything, it's subjective but i feel im seeing a more authentic look; emus are cleaner, but kinda sterile in some places too. you already trade some dithering effects for genesis/etc games by leaving composhit, but emulation trades off even more...here's a better example:

emulated



OG



you're always making tradeoffs with IQ, to varying degrees...but me, i'm happiest with the latter (though it does come from a CRT, where i upscale on a plasma).

*apologies for screenshot size

[HydrogLox]

2.) Is there a seller on ebay that you recommend from which multiple people have bought the framemeister, it's a ton of money and i do not want to be ripped off.

Why not use Solaris-Japan instead?

[blizzz]

I second Solaris-Japan, there's also a $5 voucher for their site. Not that $5 matter much with the XRGB prices But they offer a short warranty, which might safe you some trouble.

The quality of the Framemeister depends on the quality of your console's output. Early SNES consoles output a soft image, later models are sharp but may have vertical bars. And then there are hardware revisions between that that have a lot of video noise and look just ugly on a LCD. If your console is modded the usual way, you don't have one of the sharp (1CHIP) consoles.

For SNES emulation I can recommend retroarch with the bsnes core. You can use shaders to make it look more like it's supposed to be (with crt-geom-flat for example). There's not much difference with input-lag between an original console and a Framemeister and a good emulator, so I don't really bother with the Framemeister.

Original console + Framemeister is more plug-n-play like in the 90s. Emulators take a bit away from the console feeling, but offer better image quality (on a LCD) and can use filters.

[wyvernshill]

@IrishNinja

That is ... quite a difference, i have to be honest i got used to the look of clean pixels and i didnt expect the framemeister to blend the pixels so hard (ok its a zoomed in screenshot but still).
is there a way to get the framemeister to display an image closer to the one you took in an emulator or is it always going to be so blended (it looks to me like a biliniar filter was put on top of it).

@hydrolox and blizzz, i just found out about Solaris-japan by searching the other threads and it looks interesting. It is strange that they sell it far cheaper than anything you find on ebay.

@blizz i do use retroarch with the bsnes accuracy/balanced core and it works great, what i fail to see is what the advantage is for retroarch, why use retroarch when i can do the same thing through the command line of a specific emulator. or does retroarch have other advantages that i ignore ?

For now i rather keep a folder for bsnes with retroarch in it and another folder with a separate retroarch install for let's say sega genesis and another with a separate folder retroarch for psx etc ...
I suppose you can all do it trough config files in one install folder but i like to keep things separated, if i screw up a retroarch folder the others aren't affected.

[Fudoh]

The lower screenshot is from a direct connection to a TV set. Framemeister in 1080p mode (with a good SNES unit) will look like the upper screenshot.

[wyvernshill]

Thanks Fudoh for the clarification, i was already panicking lol.

[IrishNinja]

ah, did i mislabel them? my bad; was pretty tired.

[Fudoh]

no, you didn't.

[darcagn]

If you want to see footage of the SNES on the XRGB-mini, check out my video of Zelda: LTTP. It's a direct capture from the XRGB-mini in 720p mode, so make sure you set the video to 720p while you watch. The SNES is a 1CHIP-03 which is known to be the best quality RGB video output SNES model. It looks fantastic and I couldn't imagine it looking better. 240p RGB sources are jaw-dropping on the mini.

[wyvernshill]

IrishNinja, no you didn't mislabel, i just misinterpreted it.

[gray117]

3.) The snes RGB cable i got works perfectly, but the audio passed trough it produces a hissing sound when the image gets brighter, can you recommend me a cable on ebay that doesnt have that problem ?

Sounds (haha-sorry) like the shielding on the cable maybe a bit off unless someone can advise if it might depend upon a specific snes model or something

UK side the fairly solid recommendation is http://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk/
If you're not a euro guy perhaps someone can recommend something more specific depending upon your location?

[wyvernshill]

I'm having a hard time deciding if it is worth buying it.

I love to play retro games from time to time, i love to play them on the real thing instead of an emulator and i love to test it out on the framemeister. But the damn thing costs +- 300 € shipping included. (SolarisJapan)

That is not really the problem, the problem is that customs here is really strict and when i informed myself they told me it would be at least 400€ to get it to me. They charge 25% extra minimum ! (Europe)

The fact that i will not know how much it will be in the end and that i'm not able to see how well the framemeister works for ps2 and snes makes it a very tough cookie...

Those who own a framemeister : do you game almost exclusively on the retro consoles or is it also just from time to time. Also is the framemeister only interesting for old gaming consoles or are there other applications you use it for ?

[ZellSF]

I use real hardware+framemeister because it results in slightly less input lag than emulators.

I only use it for older consoles, I don't use it for any 480i/480p material.

Image quality depends on console, but you won't notice that clean RGB-SCART signals look worse than emulators. There's some analog fuzziness of course, but nothing distracting. Of course the problem is that many consoles don't output that good RGB-SCART, so you need to think about the consoles you want specifically. SNES varies by console revision (if you post serial number someone might be able to figure out yours).

If you order from Solaris-Japan there's also some options if you want to avoid customs, nothing certain of course.

Don't waste a lot of money on something you're not sure you want.

[Thomago]

i'm not able to see how well the framemeister works for ps2 and snes makes it a very tough cookie...

The Framemeister works great for PS2; I use it mainly for that system. However it has problems with games that frequently switch modes (e. g. 240p <> 480i or 288p <> 576i- every time somethinig like this happens you'll get a picture dropout. Luckily you will encounter this fairly seldom.) and you'll need to buy a special SCART lead (like this one: http://www.wolfsoft.de/shop/product_inf ... mized.html) or mod your console to get perfect picture quality out of PAL games. Alternatively you could go the Component route (adds easy 480p compatibilty btw), but neither the Framemeister nor the PS2 offer optimal picture quality there.

Also is the framemeister only interesting for old gaming consoles or are there other applications you use it for ?

Apart from gaming needs the Framemeister is a fairly competent movie deinterlacer; if you don't mind fiddling with picture settings (aspect ratio - the Framemeister's Auto setting doesn't work and 50/60 Hz) every now and then it works great if you use it for something like a digital TV settop box or good DVD player. I have an Oppo DV-983H - the Framemeister's deinterlacing is better imho.

Don't waste a lot of money on something you're not sure you want.

I second that.

[darcagn]

Those who own a framemeister : do you game almost exclusively on the retro consoles or is it also just from time to time. Also is the framemeister only interesting for old gaming consoles or are there other applications you use it for ?

The Framemeister is great for deinterlacing, upscaling, scanline-generation, fine-tuning your tv picture (if for some reason you would want to zoom/stretch/crop an input source), and it's small and sleek enough that I have it sitting on the table in front of my TV as a nice little breakout box for plugging in random sources of all types, including RGB/SCART. It's definitely better than plugging anything directly into my TV or receiver, or probably any other consumer hardware, so if you have a lot of hardware from the pre-HD days, it's great to have around.

The real reason why I got it, though, is because I'm disappointed in modern game consoles to the point that I doubt I'll be interested in playing them much in the future, and I have a very high interest in going back and playing all the titles from the 80s to the early 00s that I didn't get around to playing for whatever reason on as a child/teen. So I figured I'd want to go back and play those games in the best possible way: to get the true experience, on real hardware, via RGB, on a CRT. But alas, a CRT is too much of a pain to deal with, and I want to game in my living room where I have a 51" plasma, so I figured I'd go with the Framemeister. Even though it cost me well over $400, it was well worth it and I don't even want a CRT at all. This setup's perfect.

[bulbousbeard]

A G-Sync monitor will run at the refresh rate of any game from 30hz - 144hz, and it doesn't use V-Sync, so there's no additional input lag.

It also opens up the possibility to insert black frames to eliminate ghosting, which you can't do on any normal LCD setup.

I wouldn't bother with Framemeister. HLSL scanlines look better than it anyway.

[ZellSF]

A G-Sync monitor will run at the refresh rate of any game from 30hz - 144hz, and it doesn't use V-Sync, so there's no additional input lag.

Emulation input lag doesn't only come from v-sync, if that's what you're implying.

[BuckoA51]

I'd imagine the actual amounts of input lag in emulators varies widely and depends on a huge number of factors.

HLSL and whatnot are not available for every system either.

Also have there actually been any gsync enabled builds of MAME or other emulators yet?

a CRT is too much of a pain to deal with

Unless you're planning on moving it around a lot I'd say a CRT is a lot less hassle than the Framemeister. Not trying to put anyone off getting one they are good units, just consider all your options.

[Ed Oscuro]

A G-Sync monitor will run at the refresh rate of any game from 30hz - 144hz, and it doesn't use V-Sync, so there's no additional input lag.

Emulation input lag doesn't only come from v-sync, if that's what you're implying.

No, but the upscaling is at issue. I think that at least some emulators (basically anything that is not CPU-limited) draw frames much faster than the original hardware, so with modern systems you can upscale the screen and ready the image for a fast transport to the display - in this case over G-SYNC - at the point in the input chain where a Framemeister would just be getting the image. So in other words you would cut out that source of lag entirely by already having upscaled the image.

[evil_ash_xero]

emulated

Use a filter, man! Scanlines as well. Good lord, it's like looking at Legos!
I still don't know why people do this, and find it acceptable. Bizarre. It looks horrible.

[Thomago]

I still don't know why people do this, and find it acceptable. Bizarre. It looks horrible.

Looks like what I'm used to from MS-DOS gaming. I wouldn't want it any other way.

[wyvernshill]

@Thomago,

I agree, i also like the clean looking blocky pixels. I guess it's also from the old dos days
For now i'll keep on using the emulation side for the snes (Higan !) the PS2 will have to wait until i have some cash to burn.

[Fudoh]

Looks like what I'm used to from MS-DOS gaming. I wouldn't want it any other way.

there's a lot in between a blurry upsampled image (as above) and a 1080p pixel perfect rendering of low-res signals. 640x400p70 (DOS games) look way different from both. If you remember your 400p CRT images to look like 1080p LCD images, then you're memory's fooling you.

[Sixfortyfive]

I still don't know why people do this, and find it acceptable. Bizarre. It looks horrible.

For starters, I don't normally play video games with my face pressed against the monitor.

[Thomago]

If you remember your 400p CRT images to look like 1080p LCD images, then you're memory's fooling you.

It was 2009 that I replaced my 2005 Samsung Syncmaster CRT with my current LCD monitor and I don't remember massive differences in the looks of DOS games. But to be honest, I never did a side-by-side comparison.

[evil_ash_xero]

Looks like what I'm used to from MS-DOS gaming. I wouldn't want it any other way.

there's a lot in between a blurry upsampled image (as above) and a 1080p pixel perfect rendering of low-res signals. 640x400p70 (DOS games) look way different from both. If you remember your 400p CRT images to look like 1080p LCD images, then you're memory's fooling you.

I have LCDs hooked up, as well as CRTs. And I'm quite sure Fudoh has the same going on as well.
And trust us, it does not look like that.

That's called a "pixelated mess". It seems like a lot of PC users are down with this, but it's not even close to accurate. It's like some kind of alternate version of the game's looks.

And especially when there's stuff like Blargg's NTSC (RGB) filter available for SNES emulators, there's no need for this atrocity.

It's kind of like wanting to see all the jaggies and whatnot in PS1 games. "Man, I love that shit!".

[bulbousbeard]

Just to clear some things up: MAME running without v-sync doesn't have any input lag. It's not a hunch or a guess. It's been tested with high framerate cameras. When you run MAME with vsync off, it's rendering so many extra frames that any lag is completely eliminated. Just as an example, when you run MAME with vsync off and have a decent computer, it's polling inputs at like 700hz-1400hz depending on the complexity of the hardware you're emulating. It's throttling so many extra frames that any emulation input lag is completely compensated for. Coincidentally, this is why you want to use the sleep 0 option when you play games in MAME with vsync off or a G-Sync monitor. I don't want to get into it too much, but this is also why it's essential to play games in MAME using Windows and a good keyboard encoder like the I-PAC. You need keyboard inputs and Windows, because the Windows version of MAME uses raw input for keyboard inputs, and this is the lowest latency input method available for computers right now. SDL MAME has measurable lag by comparison. You do not want to use some USB X-Input joystick. It's been tested, and it does have more latency than keyboard raw input.

Frankly, I can't believe that the posters on this site are so flaccid about G-Sync. It's absolutely amazing for retro gamers. In fact, I'd argue that G-Sync benefits emulators more than it benefits new games. G-Sync monitors are so awesome with MAME. It's all the advantages of v-sync off and all the advantages of v-sync on with none of the disadvantages of either. You don't need a special version of MAME for G-Sync monitors. It just works. You turn off vsync, triple buffering, etc. in your MAME config, set mame.exe to use G-Sync, and you're done. Every game runs at its native refresh rate with no tearing, no stuttering.

Last thing: those shitty shots of emulators do not represent what a well-configured MAME setup looks like at all. You pretty much have to use HLSL at this point if you want a nice image. Here's an example of MAME running on a 2560x1440 LCD with artwork for a widescreen bezel and HLSL.

http://i.imgur.com/oEn1g2d.jpg

This is better than a Framemeister is ever going to be for multiple reasons:

* More pure scanlines
* No input lag
* The option to insert ANY widescreen artwork you want into any game; I've created many 4k resolution bezels for MAME, and they look absolutely gorgeous.

The purists will nay say, but I think it looks better than any CRT is going to look, too--especially when you factor in that virtually every arcade monitor left on the planet is defective in some way. I like the sharpness of a PC monitor and pretty much only want the scanlines.

[Ed Oscuro]

Did that lagless MAME setup get tested with HLSL? The GPU rendering time can or does take some milliseconds, so on a system with a weak GPU might see fewer frames going through.

There also needs to be some testing on switching to high precision timers found on modern (post-2005) motherboards, or Invariant TSC, and the impact on stability / lag (if any). (Note this is probably already set optimally by Windows for day-to-day performance tasks, but you might want to alter it in order to give Windows more of a real-time performance setting. Of course it should be even better to rethink the problem and look into realtime Linux.)

I also wonder about power usage and system heating with completely unthrottled MAME going - of course if a player doesn't leave MAME on 24/7 and then it isn't a big deal. It probably won't spin up the

I agree about G-SYNC 100%, as you know. AMD's lazy adaptive vsync promise isn't the same. Edit: At the same time, Mantle might have some use for MAME. However if I had to choose, G-SYNC is the no-brainer.

[Thomago]

I have LCDs hooked up, as well as CRTs.

These CRTs you are speaking of... are these video monitors / TV sets or PC CRTs?