• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Upscalers, CRTs, PVMs & RGB: Retro gaming done right!

Status
Not open for further replies.

Mega

Banned
^Yeah, that's a bummer. At least it's nice knowing Panasonic wasn't resting on its ass and continued improving between 2012 and 2013, despite the 2012 models reviewing well already.

Found something (second part is pretty much what Madao said):

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/144-nintendo/849231-wii-edtva-480p-resolution.html#/enter

The Wii internaly renders to 640x480 (or more commonly 640x448), and pastes the final frame into a 720x480 buffer for the TV-out conversion, adding black bars where necessary to make up for the pixel disparity (just as the PS2, GCN, and Xbox do).

Additionally, regardless of wether the end result is supposed to be 4:3 or 16:9, the Wii renders to a 4:3 frame. The decision to render to 16:9 is made really early in the rendering pipeline and as such geometry is set up to be horizontally compressed, knowing that the end result will be stretched.
 

televator

Member
Using a checkerboard pattern in the 240p test suite on a softmodded vWii (virtual Wii on the Wii U) makes it quite apparent that the Wii U is always scaling/smoothing the image for Wii mode, with resultant artifacts. I tried every resolution AND every overscan setting.

Because of this I no longer use my Wii U to play Wii or Gamecube games. Exception: Bomberman '94 five-player multi on the big screen when friends are over.

Beer, I take exception of your claim when it comes to 480p Wii and GC games on WiiU.

For one, I don't get the same artifacting that Mega has. Secondly, the 240p test suite does not cover 480p. It only does 240p or 240p upscaled to 480i test patterns. Setting the WiiU to output a native resolution is not covered by such testing methods.
 

theclaw135

Banned
Conventional uses of 480p are meant to always provide a roughly 4:3 frame.
That I'm aware of, square-pixel 854x480 is not defined as a television standard.
 

Mega

Banned
^Yeah, I got mixed up by confused posts I found in online searches. Wii doesn't output anything at 854x480.

Beer, I take exception of your claim when it comes to 480p Wii and GC games on WiiU.

For one, I don't get the same artifacting that Mega has. Secondly, the 240p test suite does not cover 480p. It only does 240p or 240p upscaled to 480i test patterns. Setting the WiiU to output a native resolution is not covered by such testing methods.

240p test suite has progressive moves for Wii, GC and Dreamcast.

A homebrew software suite for video game consoles developed to help in the evaluation of upscalers, upscan converters, line doublers and of course TV processing of 240p video. The Wii, Dreamcast and GameCube versions have modes for 480i, 288p, 576i and 480p evaluation as well.

I have the Homebrew Channel on my Wii U. Think I'll put in the suite and give it a try to see how it looks.
 

Mega

Banned
It has a mode called 480p (scaled 240p assets). It's greyed out until you enable it in the options.

Here's something weird. In regular 240p mode, graphical elements had that uneven wavy, slurry look like in the Klonoa tests. I switched to 480p and everything has nicely scaled pixels! What???

This is most evident in the scroll test, which looked like it had a nasty Super Eagle filter but now looks like a raw pixel perfect emulator. I need to figure out how to get this to happen when Wii games are running!
 
Beer, I take exception of your claim when it comes to 480p Wii and GC games on WiiU.

For one, I don't get the same artifacting that Mega has. Secondly, the 240p test suite does not cover 480p. It only does 240p or 240p upscaled to 480i test patterns. Setting the WiiU to output a native resolution is not covered by such testing methods.

The 240p suite can do 240p->480p with scanlines, where it simply paints every other line black. This makes it quite apparent how the Wii U scales the image regardless of setting. Just toss up a checkerboard or horizontal line pattern and you will see it.

When I discovered this, to account for the possibility of there being bugs in the test suite, I then judiciously compared Super Mario World on both the Wii and the Wii U at 480p. Sure enough, it was quite easy to find the artifacts (averaged scanlines) proving scaling on my broadcast monitor which has a very fine pitch and focus. These artifacts are only present on the Wii U at 480p, they are not present on the Wii.

The Wii U is scaling the image after it is rendered by the vWii. Of that I am 100% certain.
 

televator

Member
I just downloaded the latest version. Okay, I see 240p/480p mixed material. I looked at the checker pattern and yes the message pops up saying "...Unfortunately this device is incapable of rendering this patter correctly." I see what you mean now. This is interesting. Looks like I need to get my GC moded sooner rather than latter. lol As for Wii games, I still prefer how they look on WiiU set to 480p on my TV.
 

Madao

Member
i hope that someone that is deep into Wii U hacking can look into what happens internally with vWii scaling. maybe they can fix it somehow with homebrew, like some of the VC fixes.
 
On a related note, you can't get a 1:1 scaled image with Darkstalkers Resurrection on 360. Not sure about Third Strike. But that's the developer, not the console.
 

televator

Member
i hope that someone that is deep into Wii U hacking can look into what happens internally with vWii scaling. maybe they can fix it somehow with homebrew, like some of the VC fixes.

That's entirely possible. Hacking Nintendo products have the backing of the good folks at GCForever. I believe it was some of those crazy people that fixed GBA playback on GameCube's GBA Player.

It would only be a plus that WiiU properly vertical scale Wii games.
 
been struggling with getting Metal Slug Anthology to look as I like. There's obnoxious artifacting or something on the vertical axis. what's should be a clear block of pixels gives 2 different tones with half tones on top and bottom of that area. Don't know how else to articulate. Can blur it with slightly off scaler settings, but then it's a tad blurry. Obnoxious.

The game apparently looks perfect with 240p though, so I've got an entirely new reason to get homebrew of some sort running on my unit. Might just order some DVD-Rs and make an editted backup with a hex editor.
 
been struggling with getting Metal Slug Anthology to look as I like. There's obnoxious artifacting or something on the vertical axis. what's should be a clear block of pixels gives 2 different tones with half tones on top and bottom of that area. Don't know how else to articulate. Can blur it with slightly off scaler settings, but then it's a tad blurry. Obnoxious.

If you are talking Wii U, that is exactly the scan line averaging (artifacts from scaling on the Y axis) that is present when playing everything in Wii mode on the Wii U.

Fiddling with the overscan getting in the Wii U control panel will mitigate it somewhat but will not eliminate it.
 
If you are talking Wii U, that is exactly the scan line averaging (artifacts from scaling on the Y axis) that is present when playing everything in Wii mode on the Wii U.

Fiddling with the overscan getting in the Wii U control panel will mitigate it somewhat but will not eliminate it.

Talking PS2, actually.
 

Timu

Member
been struggling with getting Metal Slug Anthology to look as I like. There's obnoxious artifacting or something on the vertical axis. what's should be a clear block of pixels gives 2 different tones with half tones on top and bottom of that area. Don't know how else to articulate. Can blur it with slightly off scaler settings, but then it's a tad blurry. Obnoxious.
That's probably interlacing, which is god awful for 2D/240p games.
 

Mega

Banned
BpKIt28.jpg

Look at the battery life indicator for players 2-4. The Ps have different thicknesses and widths, same for the lines that make up the battery icon. I ran through all the settings and every Wii U res has this unmistakeable distortion, except 480p at 4:3 aspect ratio where it's not as severe. I don't get the extra image of 720x480 and I have to set the TV to 4:3 so it won't stretch the picture... but this is the best I've been able to get it. It looks pretty good tbh.

 
The lack of proper/affordable 240p ports of the Metal Slug series is a crying shame to this day.

Buy the roms in a shitty collection then inject them into Wii VC.

Look at the battery life indicator for players 2-4. The Ps have different thicknesses and widths, same for the lines that make up the battery icon. I ran through all the settings and every Wii U res has this unmistakeable distortion, except 480p at 4:3 aspect ratio where it's not as severe. I don't get the extra image of 720x480 and I have to set the TV to 4:3 so it won't stretch the picture... but this is the best I've been able to get it.

Thanks for helping to validate what I've been saying forever.

It looks pretty good tbh.

Thing is, you can't run it through a scanliner without creating a flippin' mess. If you are going to run 480p through a scanliner to get a 240p-like image, the original 480p image has to have been integer scaled 2:1. The Wii U does not permit this. The Wii does.
 

asa

Member
I bet this has been asked million times but how do I get NES to hooked up on my TV?

I have the almost same model as Thepenguin55:

RGB is out of the question, but could I get composite image easily with those inputs?

Could I just buy this and plug the NES into line A?


I've been mostly playing Jaguar and Sega megadrive on the monitor through scart to bnc cable, but today I felt like playing some Mario, regardless of Image quality. :)
 
Yes, the RCA to BNC adapters like the one pictured above cost about a buck each and are fine for any composite signal. It's still composite but your monitor will help clean up the picture at least slightly just because it's a pro grade. My AV Famicom and NES are both hooked up to a PVM this way.
 

Conezays

Member
Ordered a SCART splitter/switch box. It arrived today and I was excited to try it....and it's a complete dud (there's audio, but no picture). All my cables work fine without using it, etc. Anyone have a recommendation for one online that they use? Cheers.
 
Ordered a SCART splitter/switch box. It arrived today and I was excited to try it....and it's a complete dud (there's audio, but no picture). All my cables work fine without using it, etc. Anyone have a recommendation for one online that they use? Cheers.
Well, yes, but you're probably not gonna like it.

I use the gscartsw. 8 SCART inputs, 1 SCART output, and even one VGA/2.5mm output if I should choose to use it. Automatic switching, too.

The catch? Set me back $200. But, y'know, you get what you pay for...

Didn't come with a power cable, either, but a stock Model 1 Genesis/Model 2 Sega CD power cable fits the requirements.
 

Conezays

Member
Well, yes, but you're probably not gonna like it.

I use the gscartsw. 8 SCART inputs, 1 SCART output, and even one VGA/2.5mm output if I should choose to use it. Automatic switching, too.

The catch? Set me back $200. But, y'know, you get what you pay for...

Didn't come with a power cable, either, but a stock Model 1 Genesis/Model 2 Sega CD power cable fits the requirements.

Hah, I took at some pictures and it looks glorious; congrats on owning! Price seems even higher than that at the moment unfortunately ($225 plus shipping), so I may hold off for now.
 
The exact price (now that I've taken some time to check it) was $215 + $17 S&H, so it didn't increase by that much. Maybe the extra $10 gets you a power adapter included this time around, I dunno.
 

Morfeo

The Chuck Norris of Peace
Yeah I recently ordered the gscartsw for next patch as well, really looking forward to getting it so all my systems can be hooked up at once (well except one).
 

Conezays

Member
The exact price (now that I've taken some time to check it) was $215 + $17 S&H, so it didn't increase by that much. Maybe the extra $10 gets you a power adapter included this time around, I dunno.

I take it me ordering a two-way one for $6 CDN should've been a giveaway that it might be faulty :p Got a refund at least.
 

Khaz

Member
Can anyone confirm that the gscartsw will switch even when only RGBS are present? And that it makes the correct signal for pin 8 and 16 regardless?
 

dubc35

Member
If anyone is looking for a 13-14" PVM at a pretty good price, quote my post. Seller ships outside the US, which can double the price but it still comes out lower than a lot of the other options out there.


Fuck it, finally got my tax return back so I bought one, ha! Thanks for posting it! Now to figure all the other stuff I need (cables, etc).

Edit, so Genesis is the "easiest" correct? I think I will start there. I have a model 1 so I should be able to buy this cable (sync on composite is the only option, is that what I want?) and then I need a SCART to Component converter and BNC connectors to connect to the PVM? What SCART-Component converter are people using? Bah, too much information needed! I purposely have avoided learning all the connection hookups for PVM/BVM's because I thought I would never buy one.
 

Mega

Banned
^Genesis and SNES are among the easiest. That's the right cable. Small correction: that cable has composite sync (CSync, pure sync, etc), which is exactly what you want. This is different from Sync on Composite/Composite Video Sync. See: https://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk/composite-video-vs-composite-sync

The PVM has RGB support so you don't need a Component converter box. These monitors don't have Scart inputs so you will need a female Scart-to-BNC adapter cable to make use of your new Genesis scart cable.

But it's better if you get a Scart switch to have several systems connected and ready to go at once. In that setup you would instead purchase a male Scart-to-BNC cable to connect the switch itself to the PVM.

Ordered a SCART splitter/switch box. It arrived today and I was excited to try it....and it's a complete dud (there's audio, but no picture). All my cables work fine without using it, etc. Anyone have a recommendation for one online that they use? Cheers.

This seller from the Netherlands has the Bandridge 5-input manual switch for about $23.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/252412710833

You can chain two of these and have more inputs than the gscartsw. Shipping kills the deal if you order multiple on ebay, but I contacted the seller and he mentioned ordering from their site and the shipping came out to a lot less (www.retrogameking.com, English tab on the top right). I took a gamble going outside of ebay but I had no problems and everything arrived perfectly. I got three switches and in total it all came out to about $122.
 

dubc35

Member
^Genesis and SNES are among the easiest. That's the correct cable. Small correction: that cable has composite sync (CSync, pure sync, etc), which is exactly what you want. This is different from Sync on Composite/Composite Video Sync. See: https://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk/composite-video-vs-composite-sync

The PVM has RGB support so you don't need a Component converter box. These monitors don't have Scart inputs so you will need a female Scart-to-BNC adapter cable to make use of your new Genesis scart cable.

But it's better if you get Scart switch to have several systems connected and ready to go at once. In that setup you would purchase a male Scart-to-BNC cable to connect the switch itself to the PVM.

Great, thank you! I still have a lot to learn about this!
 

Conezays

Member
^Genesis and SNES are among the easiest. That's the right cable. Small correction: that cable has composite sync (CSync, pure sync, etc), which is exactly what you want. This is different from Sync on Composite/Composite Video Sync. See: https://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk/composite-video-vs-composite-sync

The PVM has RGB support so you don't need a Component converter box. These monitors don't have Scart inputs so you will need a female Scart-to-BNC adapter cable to make use of your new Genesis scart cable.

But it's better if you get a Scart switch to have several systems connected and ready to go at once. In that setup you would instead purchase a male Scart-to-BNC cable to connect the switch itself to the PVM.



This seller from the Netherlands has the Bandridge 5-input manual switch for about $23.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/252412710833

You can chain two of these and have more inputs than the gscartsw. Shipping kills the deal if you order multiple on ebay, but I contacted the seller and he mentioned ordering from their site and the shipping came out to a lot less (www.retrogameking.com, English tab on the top right). I took a gamble going outside of ebay but I had no problems and everything arrived perfectly. I got three switches and in total it all came out to about $122.

Great, thank you! Does that one require a power source?
 
pics or it didn't happen
I can take a few no problem. I'll edit this post. I haven't used my capture card since moving to W10 so hopefully nothing's broken lol.
**
Disc i had burned is no longer being read. Fuck oofofoffooffffffofofofoff

getting disc read errors out the ass now. Gonna let it sit a while.
 
Got a guide for this? I would love to try it on the megamam/mmx collections !

It's very trivial. You basically just replace some values in a hex editor. MMX should work well. Original megaman collection I think has filtering, which this doesn't solve.


Actually according to his list, MMX is true 240p, so doesn't even need this.
 
Alright boys we in there. I've been on an adventure.

Shout outs to speedlolita for inadvertently giving me the only working copy of uLaunchElf on the internet. Installed FMCB and OPL from that. No more need for dicking with DVDs any more.

Screen shots for Metal Slug Anthology now on the way. Which games would you guys like to see? I'm shit at these games so don't ask for something at the end game LOL
Is this possible on the PSP version with TV out?
I think you'd probably have to go about it a different way. I think the PSP version's IQ is good though? Pretty sure it should give you pixel perfect 480p when video out? Not positive.

Here's the comparison album: http://imgur.com/a/EIi27
240p
zsREIoz.png
03BzAj6.png

480i
UvU0TUm.png
39WF1Ip.png
 
I think you'd probably have to go about it a different way. I think the PSP version's IQ is good though? Pretty sure it should give you pixel perfect 480p when video out? Not positive.

240p/240i on PSP TV out is basically just for PS1 games. PSP games are windowboxed with black borders.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom