Rad2x, retrotink and all that stuff

[FinalBaton]

You can't setup your CRT to display all consoles equally well since they all have completely different screen areas they use. All these systems vary widely, it's either overscan garbled stuff / borders or missing image.

i display them all just fine using one size setting. What do you think people where doing in the '80s and '90s?

[ASDR]

You can't setup your CRT to display all consoles equally well since they all have completely different screen areas they use. All these systems vary widely, it's either overscan garbled stuff / borders or missing image.

i display them all just fine using one size setting. What do you think people where doing in the '80s and '90s?

If you can live with having either parts of the image cut off or have borders, potentially filled with garbled graphics around the image, then you can of course use only one size. That's what people in the 80s and 90s did. Whether that is 'just fine' is kind of up to you. Some people feel the need to have fine tuned profile for each system on the OSSC, others think a single generic profile looks just fine.

[FinalBaton]

yeah that's what I'm saying : you don't have to go gung-go about overscan and the picture moving left or right a bit and feeling the need to have it perfectly centered.
one screen size/position for all can work really well.
everything doesn't have to be perfect. and a bit of overscan is okay too.

I'm not attacking your setup, I'm just giving a thumbs up and a recommendation to the setup of consoles -> consumer crt.

It's an alternative that can be really liberating when you don't wannna have to tweak image position and size(let alone upscaling parameters) because just using one setup on there works out well.

[RIP-Felix]

Lol...this is the Nintendo 64 for you! Emulation is the only way to experience N64 in a way that would look like an analog product.

If you just want sharp, then emulate.

Untrue. Here is a shot from my ultrahdmi at 720p:

https://i.imgur.com/WrnAQkM.jpg

https://imgur.com/r6nTJ7O

Some context missing there. I said the choice is between "sharp + Dither" or "Soft". Back up to the opening dialog box when peach is talking. With VI deblur on and the APS patch (gameshark code) you'll see the dither that made the dialog box appear translucent. Another good example is monopoly. The dither is everywhere. Maybe a 720p screen can fake sharpness by hiding softness in a lack of resolution. I can't tell from your screenshots if both passes of AA are removed, you didn't say. Judging from the wall texture, I'd guess only VI deblur is applied. It looks a bit soft. I'm guessing the 1st pass of AA is hiding the dither and your lack of resolution is hiding the softness. I'm not disputing the effect is pleasant.

But you're right, yes it can look good. N64 looks best on a CRT (IMO), even with composite! The lack of resolution and manner of rendering the content on screen can give the game a flattering look. That's what it's designed to look like after all. But that's not really what people are buying in stores anymore, and buying a 720p TV off e-bay is sketchy and hit or miss.

[neorichieb1971]

Ok, it seems there is some confusion on my story and wants so I'm going to illustrate with pictures.

This is some peoples game room design -


1 TV, multiple consoles. This is what I have now. The negative of this design is that you need a switch box with multiple inputs to run that many systems into 1 TV. You can only play one system at a time on that TV. If some of it is static display only, you have to go and find the cables, adaptors, power leads and such and this to me is just BS.


This is what I envision for my game room -



This way, most consoles are plugged in and I just have to switch one on in a blink of an eye. The upscalers will be prefixed to ge the best from each console. I can have multiple games running at the same time (at moderate volumes of course). I only have 1 CRT, the rest will be wired through an upscaler on a flat screen. Hence the requirement for multiple upscalers.


Back to my story.

I bought a N64 on ebay for £50. It was premodded. A bit of ghetto console actually as it had an NTSC engine with a PAL European base. Apparently the modder thought the NTSC under base bit with the feet was a bit tatty looking so he replaced it for a Euro base which apparently fits fine. This caused confusion because when I played my games on it I just got a colour pattern display. I thought perhaps it was a PAL machine and my NTSC carts were not compatible. It was sold as an NTSC machine where PAL carts were incompatible.

At this point I investigated other modders and found one willing to indulge in long conversations. I eventually agreed to send off my GREEN N64 to him for a Tim Worthington mod. The ebay seller of the other machine gladly accepted a return for a fix for free so I sent both machines off at the post office.

4 days later I received both the Green N64 with the Tim worthington mod and the return unit I bought on ebay in the same delivery (nice) -

It turns out it was a NTSC machine and some solder got into the cartridge slot somehow. That was the modders explanation, but he fixed it for free and when I got it the 2nd time the games played but there was much noise in the picture. I waited 2 or 3 months for the Rad2x to sample all this so a long wait and not very good results. He said this was a Borti mod (Whatever that is). The machine never showed any sign of the effect I am about to tell about on the Green machine.

So I switched over to the Tim Worthington Green modded machine and at first it looked amazing on Marios face upon booting up Mario 64. Not only was there no noise but the colours were popping (especially reds) and it looked glossy and beautiful. However, when I started playing Mario exhibited a rather bizarre silhouette around his right side body when standing (running or just standing still). If he sat down or went to sleep the issue went completely away. So at this point I am thinking WTF?

Here is an example of Mario 64 via Tim Worthington mod going into a Rad2x -



The Tim Worthington Modder was contacted and he said that using a CRT and OSSC, this never happened and its all he has to test with since his Rad2x cable was on back order.
So at this point I was a little pissed because i'm getting noise and weird artifacting from the TW mod. The modder for the TW was very sympathetic and even showed a resounding notion that he was also upset I was not happy and wanted to fix it. So last week I sent both the Green machine, the grey machine (from the other modder/ebay) to him along with my own Rad2x.


The timeline is now up to last week just after I posted this thread. Both machines are enroute to me.

The modder undone everything on the grey machine. He said the soldering was not that great on the original mod and he redone everything from scratch using his own PCB or whatever. He said its much improved and he hopes I like the improvements. His words "I will throw this in for free, just call it our R+D credit".

As for the TW mod. His modding forums found that the sensor on the Rad2x which determines if its pulling a composite or RGB signal is creating some crossover interference. The only way to fix it is to cut the composite line on the main board of the console. I authorized this so long as Svideo still worked.

This is the pic that the modder sent to me using the TW mod through the Rad2x I sent him after the composite line was cut -




To summarize this experience its been a bit of a learning curve. None of the rad2x reviews on youtube say anything about TW mods and problems. None say the picture is soft. I looked at the retrotink and the scanline option looks so bad the reviewers show about 3 seconds of it. So I'm not investing in that.

Due to the feedback here and the modder that done everything for me of which I am very grateful to have found such a enthusiastic and helpful person to help me through this I am going to buy an OSSC.
Even if I am not happy with it, it seems it is the diamond of upscalers. So if I am not happy with it, I am going to praise the lord anyway because I have the best.

As a result of my feedbacks the modders community has agreed that the retrotink and rad2x is just selling on its plug n play capability. It really needs 720p output for it to reach my lowest good expectations.

I am a bit disappointed that all reviewers of the Rad2x and Retrotink all followed the bandwagon of praising it full heartedly. Not even 1 iota of a bad comment or anything. Usually when you see something online it looks better when you get it home. For me the reverse is true. Even using the SFC I have it looked terribly soft on a 24" monitor and looked like shite on my 55" TV because it was just so big.

So there you go.. I cannot endorse these products I am afraid. Maybe you will like them. But there is a gap in the market for a cheap upscaler that fits somewhere between this and the OSSC for plug n play.

It just doesn't exist yet. But it should.. thats my 2 cents.

Have a nice day.

[ASDR]

I get where you're coming from. For instance I never understand people that leave their consoles unplugged. Heck, I refuse to even unplug the controllers. Everything needs to be ready to play. If I have to start assembling something, I don't even want to play anymore. My main OSSC setup has manual switchers for SCART, component, HDMI, optical audio etc., but it takes me like 3 seconds to select a system and turn everything on. It's click, clack, pling, ka-chunk, pickup controller, sit down, done. Some people here like IIRC Dirk Swizzler have all their switchers automatic, auto SCART, auto HDMI, OSSC on auto-input etc., so this can be done as well. So just saying that you can have a perfectly hassle free single-OSSC, single-screen setup with 20 consoles, if you want.

The thing with having other people mod your consoles is that it can be quite expensive and you have to ship it to them, often far way, they might not have time, you have to ship it back and forth etc. And then you need somebody you really trust, especially if you're not experienced enough to actually evaluate their work, to know how it should look on the inside and to really know which defects and issues are just inherent to the console and what is shoddy work. I really think in this hobby you have to either have a lot of disposable income or get quite technical yourself.

[strayan]

FYI borti’s N64 advanced mod has a lineX3 mode which outputs 720p: https://www.retrorgb.com/720p-mode-adde ... oject.html

The remaining softness you are complaining about is a result of the mismatch between 480p (the resolution you get from the rad2x) and the native resolution of your display (probably much higher than this) because most TVs (I’d say all) scale 480p to their native resolution using a bilinear algorithm. It is not just about the size of the TV. See here for alternatives to bilinear interpolation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compariso ... algorithms

Note that the OSSC uses nearest neighbour interpolation so your content will resemble the respective image in the link above. There will still be some softness though because your TV will almost certainly still try and scale the OSSC to its native resolution using a bilinear algorithm (fine for video, not so good for retro games although, and I’ll never understand it, some ppl prefer the blurriness of bilinear filtering.)

[neorichieb1971]

The thing with having other people mod your consoles is that it can be quite expensive and you have to ship it to them, often far way, they might not have time, you have to ship it back and forth etc. And then you need somebody you really trust, especially if you're not experienced enough to actually evaluate their work, to know how it should look on the inside and to really know which defects and issues are just inherent to the console and what is shoddy work. I really think in this hobby you have to either have a lot of disposable income or get quite technical yourself.

Well this is it isn't it? You can get a product from a modder and its what it is. You might get completely different results to someone else. Even on this forum, I read and I don't understand much of it, but I do get the feeling a lot of it is experimental. Even the OSSC is a point of experimental exercises that distorts what was possible back in the day to something that is acceptable in the present.

Me personally, I wish the TV manufacturers would chime in. They are the experts and instead of all this experimentation we could of had a plug n play flat screen years ago that gamers would flock to. The OSSC could be implemented into a screen that is compatible with all resolutions and your hardest judgement would be screen placement. I came up with a theory that instead of fix pixel displays we should have a TV that actually builds blobs that mimic the resolution of the source material and so you just get a display that is always at the resolution you want with 1-1 pixel/blob mapping. No TV has built in scanline solutions and that cannot be hard to implement. There is no shortage of people that would invest in such technology since gamers quite often have deep pockets to buy 1000's of games. TV's are currently selling features that are not exactly worth the investment like 8k and yet they defy the world by not adding 240p compatibility.

Why doesn't Nintendo just release another N64 with HDMI output? The N64 mini seems out of the question so why not just let people play carts on a HDMI official console?

All these options would take the experimental factor out of the equation and people would be able to enjoy yesteryear without fear of repercussions.

Going a bit off topic I know.. But even Sony who hasn't changed their joypads much in over 20 years will not provide backward compatibility on joypads, only on games. The PS2 was perfect it did joypads, memory cards and Ps1 games. But since then it all went a bit "Lets make it all incompatible to milk another $50+ on new joypads". If you play an old game on a new joypad any new features are lost on it.

Gaming is one area the EU should enforce a level of decency with their powers. Making sure that just like plug sockets, chargers, light bulbs that everything is uniform and fits a standard. Rather than alienating the previous generation of tools in the nextgen.


Anyway, I will receive my consoles tomorrow in the mail. 3rd time lucky I guess. I don't think I will hate the N64 this time around since both consoles should have clean graphics and the blurriness of the Rad2x 480p signal will be masked by the already blurry output of the N64. The Silouhette is gone and I'm guessing the overall picture quality will be enhanced at least by a little since no crossover interference will be encountered.

Fingers crossed.

[ASDR]

Me personally, I wish the TV manufacturers would chime in. They are the experts and instead of all this experimentation

Hard disagree. The community are the experts. I wouldn't be surprised if marqs of OSSC fame knows more about analog gaming console signals than anybody working at, say, LG. byuu, principal author of the bsnes/higan emulator and kevtris, developer of the Analogue FPGA consoles probably both know more about the SNES than anybody currently working at Nintendo. Products and solution from the community routinely stand heads and shoulders above the shoddy things releases by big, famous companies. If you're looking at Sony, Nintendo, Samsung & LG to provide you with better solutions for these niche needs, you're barking up the wrong tree. These people have neither the expertise nor the interest to acquire it. Absolutely zero chance of this happening.

There is no shortage of people that would invest in such technology since gamers quite often have deep pockets to buy 1000's of games. TV's are currently selling features that are not exactly worth the investment like 8k and yet they defy the world by not adding 240p compatibility.

I think you vastly overestimate the number of people are

a.) Interested in playing on decades old hardware on modern displays
b.) Care enough or even notice lag, bad image quality that they would buy a special TV for that

The number of people that care about 8k outnumber the people that care about 240p but a very, very large margin.

Why doesn't Nintendo just release another N64 with HDMI output? The N64 mini seems out of the question so why not just let people play carts on a HDMI official console?

Why would they possibly want to do that? They want to bring you into their new ecosystem, make you sign up for a subscription etc. They have zero interest in making a a product like this. The casual impulse buy crowd is more than happy with a cheap emulation box, anybody else gets a few free SNES games with their Switch online service. An HDMI N64 is a niche product that would be made by smaller players like Analogue.

All these options would take the out of the equation and people would be able to enjoy yesteryear without fear of repercussions.

I don't understand why you would believe that a Sony retrogaming TV or a Nintendo retro console would be any good or even better than what the community and a number of smaller players have come up with. Those big players have shown again and again that they either don't have the expertise to get things right or just cater to a casual crowd that doesn't care about lag or scaling or accuracy.

[strayan]

If I was trying to run a bunch of modern displays with independent console hook-ups, I would definitely go with GBS-C for economy.

I think the OP is better off with a GBS-C than a rad2x or OSSC. The first batch of GBS-C AIO is in production apparently https://www.gbscaio.com/

[ldeveraux]

If I was trying to run a bunch of modern displays with independent console hook-ups, I would definitely go with GBS-C for economy.

I think the OP is better off with a GBS-C than a rad2x or OSSC. The first batch of GBS-C AIO is in production apparently https://www.gbscaio.com/

I've never even heard of that thing, it looks like a cheap OSSC.

[ASDR]

If I was trying to run a bunch of modern displays with independent console hook-ups, I would definitely go with GBS-C for economy.

I think the OP is better off with a GBS-C than a rad2x or OSSC. The first batch of GBS-C AIO is in production apparently https://www.gbscaio.com/

I've never even heard of that thing, it looks like a cheap OSSC.

There's a thread here on the forum and a video by RetroRGB on the project https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmfR0XI5czI

It's neat!

[nmalinoski]

If I was trying to run a bunch of modern displays with independent console hook-ups, I would definitely go with GBS-C for economy.

I think the OP is better off with a GBS-C than a rad2x or OSSC. The first batch of GBS-C AIO is in production apparently https://www.gbscaio.com/

I've never even heard of that thing, it looks like a cheap OSSC.

It's more like a DIY Framemeister--it has an actual scaler and can deinterlace.

The huge downside is that they don't come premade--at the very least, you have to source a compatible version of a GBS board, mod it, and then figure out what to do for a case. So far, no one has stepped up to prepackage them.

[mario64]

May I ask a related question?
For PS2 games, which of the Retrotink products provides the best picture quality? I have access to the RAD2x cable, an original 2x and a 2x Pro. Thanks

[makar1]

May I ask a related question?
For PS2 games, which of the Retrotink products provides the best picture quality? I have access to the RAD2x cable, an original 2x and a 2x Pro. Thanks

The 2X-Multiformat would give the best PS2 picture quality as it can pass through 480p.

https://www.retrotink.com/post/introduc ... lti-format

[Fudoh]

The 2X-Multiformat would give the best PS2 picture quality as it can pass through 480p.

the earlier FW on the 2X-Multiformat converts any 480p input to 4:2:2. 4:4:4 was added recently, BUT I didn't have any luck with this: neither my Sony TV nor any of my go-to processors would show a signal using the updated firmware. And with 4:2:2 the output quality is obviously considerably worse than using any other cheap YUV to HDMI converter that will keep the chroma resolution untouched.

[neorichieb1971]

I got both N64's back today. Both tested positively with the Rad2x.

That's to say the image is better than it was. The interference is gone on the grey machine and the green one looks very slightly better to my eyes but I can't see side by side so they might even be the same.


I'm in a much better place than I was a week or so ago.

[mario64]

May I ask a related question?
For PS2 games, which of the Retrotink products provides the best picture quality? I have access to the RAD2x cable, an original 2x and a 2x Pro. Thanks

The 2X-Multiformat would give the best PS2 picture quality as it can pass through 480p.

https://www.retrotink.com/post/introduc ... lti-format

Unfortunately I don't have the cash for the multiformat right now so I'm trying to evaluate which of my existing Retrotink products would give me the best quality. Thank you though.

[earthprime]

I also have an OSSC. [Setup being used]: Everdrive 64 with Poregon's patches -> RGB Modded N64 (Voultar's 7374 amp) -> HDretrovision YPbPr multi-out cables -> GComp Switch -> OSSC 5x optimized using FirebrandX's timings -> B9 OLED.

First - thanks to everyone in this thread - it contains a ton of great information.

I have a question about the above quoted post. Why aren't you using a SCART cable to send RGB directly into the OSSC? I think the HDretrovision YPbPr cables conducts a conversion (RGB to YPbPr) and then the OSSC conducts a second conversion (YPbPr to digital), so the video on the screen is it's best translation of a twice-processed signal. RetroRoundTable discusses this around the 45-minute mark in the following video and compares it to converting English to French, and then the French to German (the final result doesn't have the original English meaning):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWp-WH5Bj2c

I feel like the GComp Switch in the quoted setup is just being used because its easy to connect multiple systems into the GComp switch (and save time from re-connection different cables for different systems), so the HDretrovision cables are just a method to easily include the N64 into the switch-setup. Maybe I should get both cables to compare ('SCART' and 'HDretrovision YPbPr'). If you eliminate the GComp switch from the setup - am I wrong that a SCART cable would provide the purest picture (RGB > OSSC) compared to first trying to convert RGC to YPbPr?