フレームマイスター Framemister Xrgb mini/ English firmware/39000 yen shipped

XRGB-mini CPU Ver 1.10 (English Version) | micomsoft.co.jp

 

Interesting. Not of much use but it's good to see Micomsoft are still working on improving their hardware. Bit of a bummer for me as I now have to update the Framemeisters I sell. Customers like to have the latest firmware and and software

 

Yakumo, can you please translate some of the fixes/upgrades (there's no info about the changes in the english fw *.zip)?
v1.08 > v1.10 at least sounds like a huge step.

 

Okay, heard this community was pretty knowledgeable about the X-RGB mini, so I've come here with a question or two.

Is Yakumo still the best person to get one of these gizmos from? Been looking for the cheapest possible price and it seems his asking price has yet to be beaten, unless things have changed a lot lately.

Also, I have this situation where I possess this lovely switchless-modded white Japanese Model 2 Sega Saturn and am using it on UK TVs (I live in the UK). The one big issue I've come across is the "NTSC-50" clash. I wish to still use 50Hz mode for PAL games (mainly because I have no control over screen sizing/adjusting, which I'll get to in a moment), and this Jap model at least appears to have real difficulty handling 50Hz properly. I've tested it with a few HDTVs of various make and size and I've seen varying results such as the screen being in permanent monochrome, or the display constantly flickering enough to give me a lot of bluescreen back-and-forth (on TVs which do bluescreen of course), and/or occasionally very washed-out colours. An attempt to see if a SCART-to-HDMI converter box would deal with this issue ended unsuccessfully, and said converter box was promptly sent back to Amazon for a refund.

So I'm wondering: considering the X-RGB mini is evidently so much more compared to a random £40 converter box, will it be able to deal with "NTSC-50" gracefully? I hate to think that the only other alternative is to perform surgery on a SCART cable or on the Saturn itself.

My other main concern/reason/interest is how it deals with 'overscan'. This concerns (hopefully I'm correct with this one) how the display is positioned and sized on one's TV and one of my pet peeves is any part of the top or bottom of the screen being cut off, including corners. I've tried various output methods like HDMI, SCART, component etc but I haven't been able to find any one TV (out of the ones available in my house) that gives me absolute control over the screen. HDMI I now know gives you zero control and doesn't even let you disable stretching in case you want to have a classic 4:3 display for once (this for another thing was what prompted me to go back to a component cable for my Wii after some time trying out the Wii2HDMI stick). It probably doesn't help though that my main testing Saturn game in regards to overscan was - of all things - an obscure homebrew attempt at Super Mario Bros. that utilities the very, *very* top of the screen for the score/lives/etc display (I tested this in SSF and Yabause to confirm), so it's no wonder I've found it very difficult to come up with a satisfactory hardware combination (and I guess I'm quite a fussy bastard).

Anyhow, I'm going to assume that the mini provides plenty of flexibility over positioning and sizing and that I'll be able to see every single pixel through it?


All in all, there's only one other question I can think of, and that's 'which SCART-to-mini converters and universal AC adapters would you recommend?'.

Thanks!

 

Are you trying to use a PAL version SCART cable? That might not work right. NTSC consoles have sync instead, on the pin that PAL consoles set to 9 volt DC.

Also make sure the cable is in fact RGB. NTSC color encoding at 50hz has little support.

 

Considering I've bought various SCART cables for the Saturn over the years, the most recent being this one from a couple of months ago, it's probably safe to say I've tried them all.

Like I said, I really hope the only solution doesn't involve opening cables or intricate console parts up to fix a display incompatibility issue, especially if there any side-effects as a result.

 

Of course I'm the best person to buy one from Seriously though, I've sold over 30 units to members here alone without one single complaint.

I'd like to help you out about your Saturn 50 / 60 htz problem but I don't really know. The Framemeister has NTSC and PAL HD output settings. These are chosen manually depending on what type of TV you are using.

As for over-scan, well you'll be very happy to know that there is no over-scan at all on the Sega Saturn or Dreamcast, Mega Drive or Super Famicom (other consoles I couldn't say but I doubt it). I'm another person that doesn't like missing parts of the image being off screen.

OK, about the update:

Basically they've added a new zoom function that can be accessed via the remote. The old zoom function was sort of limited so this new one should be able to allow you to display a boxed game at full screen. I was reading this at 3am mind you.

 

Oh nice! Would you be able to take pics or video of it scaling PSP games to fullscreen? The only reason I haven't bought the Mini yet is because there's not a lot of material showing off how well it works for PSP games, and that's primarily what I want it for.

Also just found out that apparently the PSP has official D-Terminal cables, would that produce a much better image then component-to-D Terminal (I'm not sure if anything would be lost in the conversion, though I assume so)?

 

Sounds like RGB switching voltage is a factor. After all RGB means raw colors, no such thing as NTSC or PAL.

 

So what is the easiest solution to this? And it's definitely something the mini can't magically fix itself???

 

It should as long as the console or cable aren't defective. Mini only accepts RGB from that din input.

 

I'm afraid not. I don't own a PSP. I could run a SFC game that plays in a box such as Star Fox or Vortex and scale that up. I will need to update my own Framemeister first though.

Probably not but it would be better to use just one cable over two. Basically Component and the D-Terminal are the same thing. Just that the west use component ports while the Japanese combined them in to the D-Terminal. The bad thing about the D-Terminal is that it doesn't carry sound AFAIK.

 

Well I already have several SCART cables for the console so hopefully at least one of them will be good enough. All I need is a SCART-to-mini cable, right? Which one is often deemed the best?

And I sure hope it's not the console itself at fault. Bought it off ConsolePassion four years ago and it's still performing well as far as I can see. It's only the NTSC and 50Hz clash that's a problem atm.

 

Might as well ask, does Yakumo (and/or anyone else) know how long on average it would take to ship a Framemeister to the UK?

Could be ideal for Christmas and I wouldn't want to leave it for too late...

 

I know for sure. From Japan to the UK takes 2 to 3 days via EMS. Add another day or two for the sorting office in the UK to get it to your house. Of course these times are not for the Christmas period but if you order now you'll still get one within a week.

The shipping is as follows.

1. Day 1 - I take it to my local post office.
2. Day 2 - the parcel is in Osaka airport.
3. Day 3 - it should be in the UK sorting office in London.
4. Day 3 or 4 - The parcel will then be flew or sent by truck to the city of destination.
5. Day 4 or 5 - The local sorting office will deliver it.

 

Well colour me interested. I take it I would have to buy a SCART-to-mini adapter seperately right? Any decent ones for a decent price?

 

Sure, http://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk/ do the Euro framemesiter RGB cable for a good price. I bought one myself a few months back when I only had a Euro Dreamcast RGB cable.

 

Cool. The one with an additional 'sync stripper' (here) sounds pretty important. Is it worth the extra few pounds, ya reckon?

 

I think it depends upon your TV. I bough the normal one and it worked just fine for me. Maybe send a mail to the guys at the site about it. I'm sure they could give you a reason why you would need t or not. I found them to be pretty good when it came to customer service.

 

I am looking for suggestions on a scart selector/splitter to use with my Framemeister. I have read and seen that the Mad Catz Scart selector and Keene Scart Commander are highly recommended. However, they are both extremely difficult to find. So any recommendations would be highly appreciated.