Nice set up

[Joe Redifer]

The Genesis, NeoGeo AES, and Master Systems original composite is shity enough to actually full on warrant putting in extra effort to get RGB

why putting extra effort in these, when they putting out RGB natively?

The Neo Geo needs help.  It's native RGB output kind of sucks and therefore needs an RGB bypass.  The Neo Geo is not very well made, but at least it has RGB.  Also, the RGB out of the Genesis and SMS look different.  I can't recall, but I think the SMS is either brighter or darker than the Genesis for some reason (which looks perfect in RGB), so you'd have to correct for that with either an amp or a few resistors.

[Ji-L87]

Is there anything in the service menu that might fix that? The thing's pretty old now, its going to have some drift.

Can't say for sure as I've been unsuccessful in my attempts to enter service mode : |

[SuperDeadite]

Prof's shots are playable, but yeah the lack of scanlines makes everything look icky imo.

[Ji-L87]

Prof's shots are playable, but yeah the lack of scanlines makes everything look icky imo.

I must be the only one on the planet that doesn't like scanlines. Raw sprites are the way to go Scanlines are just in the way of what I want to see plus, they darken the image.

[Joe Redifer]

Scanlines, real ones anyway, offer a bit of free anti-aliasing and it helps make the picture look less jagged and blocky.  I like scanlines myself but if someone else wants to play old games on their LCD or Plasma, more power to them.  Real scanlines don't darken the image.  Scalers that add them?  I can't say because I've never used one.

[Frank_fjs]

Scanlines are part of the retro gaming experience for me. Not to mention that images move more smoothly on a CRT TV (something which no screenshot can capture) and colours often look better. I also enjoy using light phasers and 3D glasses so I simply can't live without a gaming CRT.

My Master System via RGB on a CRT TV:



^ That right there is how it's meant to be played! No darkening at all, the scanlines look gorgeous (better to the naked eye) and you can count each and every pixel.

I can get a great picture on my Plasma TV via component but it still doesn't look quite right to me:

[Ji-L87]

Scanlines, real ones anyway, offer a bit of free anti-aliasing and it helps make the picture look less jagged and blocky.

I don't mind it looking jagged and blocky. That's what pixels are - sharp & blocky. Playing games through emulators sold me on the look, I guess...even though I of course grew up playing on a CRT like everybody else.

Scanlines are part of the retro gaming experience for me. Not to mention that images move more smoothly on a CRT TV (something which no screenshot can capture) and colours often look better. I also enjoy using light phasers and 3D glasses so I simply can't live without a gaming CRT.

Yeah, that's something I'll really miss   Except I have a gun, but no games.

[SignOfZeta]

Re: scanlines "darkening" the images. Its more accurate to say that removing the scan lines brightens the image. Scanlines are a part of the overall gamma of the image. When you lose them the image becomes brighter. The original colors were all designed/chosen with scan lines in mind. To me the dithering and shading just doesn't look right when they are taken out.

Another thing, you guys with LCDs/plasmas, do the flicker effects actually work properly? Like, KOF shadows, for example? With the TV's I've seen you have one guy with a full black shadow and one guy with no shadow most of the time instead of both guys with alternating fields of black sprite/no sprite to make a transparency.

[Ji-L87]

Another thing, you guys with LCDs/plasmas, do the flicker effects actually work properly? Like, KOF shadows, for example? With the TV's I've seen you have one guy with a full black shadow and one guy with no shadow most of the time instead of both guys with alternating fields of black sprite/no sprite to make a transparency.

That depends on a great many things.
I've had problems with such effects not working properly on LCD, yes. In fact, my first post on this very forum was about image problems with Yuna 2 running on an LCD where a transparency effect utilizing horizontal lines didn't look right and led to horrible artefacts when in motion.
I just got a VP30 scaler with a de-interlacing card and in one of the two game-modes those flicker effects actually work. In the other game mode, they look like they did on my LCD set. As in, doesn't always flicker, becoming distorted when in motion etc.

[Frank_fjs]

Another thing, you guys with LCDs/plasmas, do the flicker effects actually work properly? Like, KOF shadows, for example? With the TV's I've seen you have one guy with a full black shadow and one guy with no shadow most of the time instead of both guys with alternating fields of black sprite/no sprite to make a transparency.

Many effects are lost with LCD/Plasma TV's. If you have a Mega Drive, check out the waterfall areas of Sonic where they used dithering - it looks off on an LCD.

[Tatsujin]

scalines are the most important factor to enjoy any oldskool games. that's also why I never went into pc gaming back then, since everything in VGA etc. looked so awful blocky 'n' pixled. hated it like nothing else.

today gaming old games on a superduper HD TV set, a good upscaler is an absolute mandatory for me.

[PCEngineHell]

Another thing, you guys with LCDs/plasmas, do the flicker effects actually work properly? Like, KOF shadows, for example? With the TV's I've seen you have one guy with a full black shadow and one guy with no shadow most of the time instead of both guys with alternating fields of black sprite/no sprite to make a transparency.

This hasn't been a issue for me thankfully. I've run PCE, Neo CD, Genesis, Snes, Nes, PS1, and N64 on mine via composite or Svideo without issues. I don't get the dreaded lag issue either. Some lcd's though just have poor game modes, or no game mode at all, so problems are going to vary from set to set. Really you just have to research your set some before you buy it to make sure its the one for you.

[PunkCryborg]

i let my friend borrow a pce and lords of thunder and I almost barfed when I saw him playing it on his huge vizeo LCD with the image stretched

[Arkhan Asylum]

I use the composite with my upscaler, and fiddle around a bit and get a really nice picture even through composite


going straight into my TV, it doesn't go as nice.   The PCE looked fine.   The NES looked fuckin mental.

Admittedly though, I haven't messed with the TV composite mode settings too much.   VGA and HDMI worked great so I just got an XRGB3. 

I have a friend who's got a panasonic plasma TV.    All his shit, including Atari 2600, look fine.  It's an interesting TV.

[roflmao]

Another thing, you guys with LCDs/plasmas, do the flicker effects actually work properly? Like, KOF shadows, for example? With the TV's I've seen you have one guy with a full black shadow and one guy with no shadow most of the time instead of both guys with alternating fields of black sprite/no sprite to make a transparency.

I've tried in the past to hook up my TG-16 to my living room 46" Olevia LCD (not a top of the line TV and the company went out of business here in the States a couple years ago) and had all sorts of issues.  It looked really crummy, and sometimes the screen would go blank and I'd get a "No Signal" message.

Well I found out today that my receiver (3-4 year old Onkyo 700 series) was trying to upscale the image to 1080P before passing it to my TV.  I set that video input to 480P today and now everything works great!  Still, there are no scanlines, and the pixels aren't super crisp (it's still being scaled to 1080P by the TV now and we're talking about a composite image) but the flicker transparency works flawlessly and there isn't any noticeable delay.  I made it to the final boss in Spriggan on normal mode in one credit, which is about as good as I usually do on a CRT.  And I played some Final Soldier and all of the on-screen messages (which use the flicker-transparency effect) displayed perfectly. Also, the LCD displays a 4:3 image; I can't stand a stretched image.

So now I have one system hooked up to my CRT and one system set up in the living room.  If I want the old-school nostalgic feeling, I can play on the CRT and if I want the comfort of my living room couch and a much better sound system, I'll sacrifice a little bit of video quality and play in the living room.  Thanks to the Tennokoe Card I can swap saves between the systems as well.  Life is good. 

[CrackTiger]

The Neo Geo needs help.  It's native RGB output kind of sucks and therefore needs an RGB bypass.  The Neo Geo is not very well made, but at least it has RGB.  Also, the RGB out of the Genesis and SMS look different.  I can't recall, but I think the SMS is either brighter or darker than the Genesis for some reason (which looks perfect in RGB), so you'd have to correct for that with either an amp or a few resistors.

I've found slight differences between different Genesis systems and different SMS systems (not just between models). Depending on personal taste, it's either unnoticeable or enough to make you pick a particular console over another. Before I noticed the difference in sound between Genesis systems, I stuck to a model 2, as it was sharper than the model 1's I tried, which had produced more faint lines with my XMD-3, but seemed to have slightly nicer color (for my taste). Once I finally got a setup to display component, the slight differences were still noticeable, but evened out more without the faint lines from the XMD-3. Different SMS systems produced slightly different images as well, but I haven't bothered comparing them in component, since they'd require an audio out mod to play with sound that way. Mark III SMS, Gam*Boy and from what I've heard, regular Mark III consoles all have too weak of an RGB signal to work with the XMD-3 or RGB/component transcoders. There is a mod description online that is supposed to fix it, so I'm guessing that they don't even work with crt's that accept RGB straight in.

[Frank_fjs]

Different SMS systems produced slightly different images as well, but I haven't bothered comparing them in component, since they'd require an audio out mod to play with sound that way.

You mean because of the encoder not having audio outputs? If so, grab a breakout box:

[PikachuWarrior]

I use the same component box as in your picture. Works great, you can also get scart cables that have audio leads coming out of the plug. Same thing.

Here's a youtube video comparing composite vs component on the JVC X'EYE that I made. The difference is night and day. Not only is composite inherently blurry, when looking at component, it's like a whole new, cleaner image!

[munchiaz]

^ is there like a how to guide to all this composite component scart stuff. I would like to start learning about this and modding my consoles

[Frank_fjs]

^ is there like a how to guide to all this composite component scart stuff. I would like to start learning about this and modding my consoles

Which consoles in particular? Many consoles have native RGB output and don't need to be modded, you just need to grab an appropriate scart cable.

The following consoles all output an RGB signal as per standard:

- Master System
- Mega Drive
- 32X
- Saturn
- Dreamcast (can also output VGA via an external box)
- SNES
- Neo Geo AES/CD
- PS1/ PS2
- Probably a few others I'm forgetting

Many consoles also have an RGB signal but it just needs to be amplified, such as the PCE.

[munchiaz]

^ is there like a how to guide to all this composite component scart stuff. I would like to start learning about this and modding my consoles

Which consoles in particular? Many consoles have native RGB output and don't need to be modded, you just need to grab an appropriate scart cable.

The following consoles all output an RGB signal as per standard:

- Master System
- Mega Drive
- 32X
- Saturn
- Dreamcast (can also output VGA via an external box)
- SNES
- Neo Geo AES/CD
- PS1/ PS2
- Probably a few others I'm forgetting

Many consoles also have an RGB signal but it just needs to be amplified, such as the PCE.

def would like to do this with my SNES, PC duo r and jvc xeye

[Ji-L87]

Different SMS systems produced slightly different images as well, but I haven't bothered comparing them in component, since they'd require an audio out mod to play with sound that way.

You mean because of the encoder not having audio outputs? If so, grab a breakout box:

I just ordered that scart -> component converter. Didn't think about the audio. Need to get me some one of those breakout boxes.

[Frank_fjs]

The scart -> component converters work very well, I have the CSY-2100. Why they neglected to provide audio outputs is beyond me, but the breakout box is a simple and effective solution.

[Nando]

I have a friend who's got a panasonic plasma TV.    All his shit, including Atari 2600, look fine.  It's an interesting TV.

I was wondering about that. How were the systems connected, and do you remember the brand?

[CrackTiger]

I stumbled upon this gallery of that room-

http://acidcow.com/pics/32612-cool-gamer-room-17-pics.html


Apparently the owner is proud of his Turbo/PCE stuff.

[Tatsujin]

I can't really see any proudness of his turbo/pce stuff, nor a complete jpn saturn collection.

[SuperDeadite]

Rainbow colored PS2s?  Looks like sparky's place.

[Tatsujin]

[PunkCryborg]

Seeing the IFU exposed to the elements without the cover and all that dust and impurities from being next to those unworthy consoles makes me sick

[Frank_fjs]

I can vouch for Panasonic plasma TV's. They do tend to have the nicest picture quality and good gaming modes. Samsung is the worst that I've come across re retro gaming, they really don't handle 240p signals well.

[Nando]

Seeing the IFU exposed to the elements without the cover and all that dust and impurities from being next to those unworthy consoles makes me sick

LMAO!!

I can vouch for Panasonic plasma TV's. They do tend to have the nicest picture quality and good gaming modes. Samsung is the worst that I've come across re retro gaming, they really don't handle 240p signals well.

Cool, I was actually looking at a few Panasonics awhile back. No bigger than the 42" range either. I wouldn't have the space. I think Plasma will be the way I go in the future. Oh and my CRT isn't going anywhere. That thing might weight a ton and a half but the picture is SO CLEAR!

[PikachuWarrior]

^ is there like a how to guide to all this composite component scart stuff. I would like to start learning about this and modding my consoles

Which consoles in particular? Many consoles have native RGB output and don't need to be modded, you just need to grab an appropriate scart cable.

The following consoles all output an RGB signal as per standard:

- Master System
- Mega Drive
- 32X
- Saturn
- Dreamcast (can also output VGA via an external box)
- SNES
- Neo Geo AES/CD
- PS1/ PS2
- Probably a few others I'm forgetting

Many consoles also have an RGB signal but it just needs to be amplified, such as the PCE.

JVC X'EYE can be added to the list for native RGB support, at least the US version. I use a Genesis 2 (model 2) scart cable and it works great!