Game Gear and RGB mod- fixing GG image size?

When one uses the RGB mod on Game Gear, playing SMS shows full screen but GG games are reduced on the screen. This can look funny if you swapped the original LCD for a nice newer and sharper LCD with composite or RGB input.

Could there be a way to "upscale" Game Gear video to fill in the whole screen? Since Game Gear already switches internally between Game Gear's lower resolution and SMS's higher resolution so it always filled GG's stock LCD.

It should be possible to simply tap the GG line on the cart connector so when it's in GG mode, it upscales and discard the wasteful border and if it's in SMS mode, leave it unchanged since it'd be full screen already.

Can that be done? It would be nice to be able to play GG games on modern LCD at full 3.5" size and not reduced to postage stamp sized.

 

Hi,

From what I understand of the Game Gear, the resolution (160x144 pixels) is a bit tricky: it's a partial render from the video chip (like some kind of cropping of the render or something).
The SMS's video signal (256×192) is compressed to fit in the screen.
If you are using the GGTV, there's no higher resolution nor upscale: it's disabling the compressed signal for SMS' games. But since the GG games' signal is not compressed, and since you don't make the weird traitement of the GG's video chip, you have the wasteful borders (160x144 into 256x192).Set the signal compressed or uncompressed won't change the display of the GG games, but won't display a SMS game with the compression enabled.

I'm not really sure, but tapping the GG line won't change anything. The main problem is the weird video chip of the Game Gear itself and the games in 160*140px.
Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what I understood. I hope someone can confirm here.


The only solution I've read it's to find a 3.5" LCD with a "zoom" option, but I haven't saw those on eBay since a long time.
or to find a way make the same tricks that the GG's video chip.

 

I asked the creator of GGTV, he said zoom function couldn't be added or it would have been done already. So the zoom function would have to be added somewhere else between GGTV and LCD or built into the LCD.

 

And good luck finding a small lcd screen with "zoom". I fitted an lcd screen to a gg that was listed as zoom ended up being widescreen vs standard lol!

 

Yeah I remember reading this. (was it here or on Sega-16 forums?).

 

The Japanese modder who made that crazy consolized GG in the shape of a SMS used some external upscaler to have the GG display full screen.
Maybe a framemeister of something could help?

Also, I know it is possible to do a nice upscaling job. There is the AD adapter that plays GBA games on the TV and this thing has SUPERB upscaling. It is much better than the GameCube GB player. It magages to output perfect 240p on my CRT with no ugly artifacts and reshaping pixel. If there was a similar quality upscale for the GG it would be wonderful.

 

Of course it can be done, but it can't be done well or with minimal effort.

You'd have to replace the tiny CPLD with a tiny FPGA (much more engineering effort).

The GG's resolution can't be scaled very well to 240p, but it could be to 480i or 480p.