The one I intended to buy has a metal body with two screws on the front. The good people at the shmups forum said it’s not advisable to run the switch with everything selected but I haven’t seen any ill effects. If it does something dumb I’ll report back.
Wow. Good eye man, I did not see that.
Yeah, run it through some tests (PLAY VIDEO GAMES), if you have a Madcatz one maybe see if it stacks well? I know it’s another type of switch people use (people like me).
I wasn’t sure whether I should make a new thread or not but obviously I decided not to. I’ve decided to make the jump over to the Framemeister from what I understand not only will it allow older consoles be picked up by a modern day capture card through HDMI it is virtually lagless and the best option in every conceivable way, frankly the cheap scaler setup isn’t that great, it’s oftentimes blurry kinda has it’s moods on when it will look good or not not to mention the screen not filling a 4:3 ratio depending on the game and those tiny buttons I need to access so frequently (you get what you pay for) and I really just don’t wanna deal with it anymore.
In short: I’m looking to update the guide to get detailed Framemeister instructions up because I don’t see one anywhere and frankly the Shmups thread is kinda dead.
So let’s go through the checklist:
RGB SCART: Needs an adapter, I’ve been told to not use the one it comes with under any circumstances, no idea what to get then.
Component: Needs to be converted to D-terminal someone recommended: http://www.solarisjapan.com/products/D%2dTerminal-to-Component-Adapter-Cable-(Female).html
but I found some cheaper options (though no one backed my find up): http://global.rakuten.com/en/category/electronics/other_tvs/av_cables/d_terminal_component_cable/
Dreamcast: No VGA port. Options?
Composite: For people without access to the complex NES RGB mod they’re stuck with composite for the NES is it really that awful or will it just look like an NES on an older TV in the US?
Stuff from the “cheapo” setup: I know the scaler is as good as sold but is there a point in keeping the sync strike around? Does it do anything for me? I’m thinking not because it’d end in VGA and there’s no support for that.
Don’t you still need a Sync Cleaner for some systems?
I forget I ended up purchasing a RGB CRT so I don’t have to fake the funk anymore
Don’t use SCART because it’s wired for 21 pin Japanese RGB, which uses the same connector found in SCART but with a different pinout. You can get (entirely passive) adapters that put the SCART RGB signals into the right place. Or you can buy JRGB cables. Or you can open your SCART cable and move the signals around so that it follows the JRGB pinout.
Can’t hurt to hold onto your sync stripper either, they can come in handy. It “ending in VGA” is just your RGB signals in a VGA connector but not a VGA signal. You’d need an adapter to put it back to JRGB I guess, or use the screw terminals to hardwire the end of a JRGB-wired cable.
For your DC, either get a RGB cable and use it in 480i/240p into the Frame Meister, or just let your TV handle its 480p VGA and call it good. The DC being progressive and in higher resolution helps a lot in avoiding what scalers try to solve (interlacing, 240p).
What did you end up getting? I use a SCART RGB-to-YPbPR convertor to my CRT, since finding an RGB crt tv seemed futile.
By some stroke of luck I stumbled across an older French gentlemen that had brought a Scart RGB Sony Tirnitron 25 inch crt over from France ten years so ago and was moving back so he was getting rid of excess baggage and let it go for $15
He was like why do you want this heavy beast for? I was like for the games man there’s nothing better8-)
It was in great shape with remote and even the box. I had to pick up a transformer that cost more than the set but it was so worth it
have you looked into getting a Sony PVM there probably even better and you can put them on their side for shmups the cage they put them in makes it nice
You do have to make a scart adapter for RGB as it has 4 individual plugs on the back of the set, but its not difficult the prices do vary a lot thought it really depends on if the person know what they have.
For sure. I looked around for smaller ones, but the price + shipping just made it seem kind of ridiculous. Ended up getting a late model Toshiba 14" CRT for the low price of free from Craigslist. Flat glass, component and s-video, stereo speakers on the sides, and it’s a giant silver square, so tate mode is bonus get! Plus: easy to get to service menu for that perfect geometry adjustment. The purists would probably scoff, but I have my nerd limits of how far I’m willing to go.
I’m so jealous. But faking the funk seems much better with space, future proofing and not having to have 2 capture cards. Also, I’m a very “all in one” kinda guy.
(Translation: I wish I could find a place for a CRT.)
Ok, so maybe there’s a cable that’ll be one end VGA and one end the correct SCART pinout for the Framemeister so I can put all the systems through the sync strike? It’s all lagless so I have no issue keeping it around.
There’s no better solution for the Dreamcast? I figure if I’d spend 300$ on a video box every old system ever would have a way to get in there.
Was I right about component? Just get any of those cables I linked to and it’s all kosher?
How about composite? Will it look serviceable for NES? I know it’s gonna look the worst of the bunch but the NES mod is too expensive right now.
I don’t know for sure if the Frame Meister will or won’t take in the DC VGA, I just wrote the above assuming it won’t. Dunno how it’ll treat the NES, maybe it has filtering capabilities.
I use s-video to my FM for DC, since the VGA won’t output 240p, which is what I want when playing 3S or Last Blade 2 or whatever.
I’m wondering if its possible to make a vga to scart cable specifically for the DC since added a switch to my DC VGA box to that forces the signal from 30MHz to 15MHz for some non vga titles but there may still be an issue with sync I’ll have to do some poking around
There has to be a way to get the full 480p out of the Framemeister, I don’t see why we’d be trying to get anything less, is there anything we can convert VGA to that would be accepted by the Framemeister? We already need to change component over to THIS… THING so I’m sure there’s something we can do.
Can you do a lag test? I’m getting conflicting reports, one guy on Shmups Hardware says it adds 2 frames to everything and a post here from a while back (I’m not digging that up) and a few others I’ve found elsewhere says it’s under 1 frame. Maybe the guy on Shmups has a bad TV? I don’t know.
Maybe this would be where the Sync Strike would come in handy?
It does do 480p current lcd’s do not accept less they just do a shitty job of scaling while the FM does it as perfect as possible
just get a scart cable for the DC and do the same as with the other consoles
Also where have you seen a Fm for $300 I thought they were retailing for at least $400
I meant in relation to the DC only, the ending signal will probably be 720p (I think I read the firmware got better for 1080p) How can we get the 640 X 480 given to us from DC’s VGA mode over to the FM? Unless you’re saying that the FM is SO awesome that if we give it a 240p signal and have the FM do its magic it won’t matter if what the DC gives it 240p or 640 X 480.
different games output different resolution on the DC 2d fighters mostly 240 while 3d stuff 480
the Fm will either auto adjust or you press the button to switch but it accepts a lot of different input signals
so where are you getting one for $300
You can do 720p or 1080p output in 4:3, right? I’m thinking the higher resolution it outputs the less your TV does which is much better. This guys seems to love 720p mode.
I was told it’s in the 300-400 ballpark by someone I spoke to from Japan, I like to use the lower number. Makes me feel less spendy.
That does not make any sense I thought you would have better grasp on how this stuff works by now
I was thinking $400 was on the low end $500 being high
Sometimes I’m a slow learner, 90% of what I know is from that review I linked you to, that guy plays in 720p mode. I think we’re having a misunderstanding though, what I’m saying is the actual FM out to the TV should be 720p or 1080p, what goes in can range (for our purposes because we can put anything in there) from 240p (example SNES) to 480p (Wii) now from my understanding of things a TV will generally take an image that isn’t its native resolution (which is usually 1080p) and blow it up resulting in more lag the more its blown up. What I thought the FM did was take these lower resolutions that the TV would generally make lag like hell and make look crappy and basically resolve the whole issue by doing all the upscaling work and outputting an HD resolution so the TV won’t need to scale it much or at all.
Am I even close with this? I’ve been doing a shitton of reading.