I've be redefining my setup lately, and I want the best output from every system I have on my TV. After looking at VGA box prices, and other alternatives they're still rather expensive. I didn't have balls to chop up my DC for VGA either, so I ordered this cable from eBay. The set comes with a L and R audio splitter to 2.5mm jack, which fits into my PC speaker setup I have connected to my TV. Sound wasn't everything to me, as the DC was already through the sound system. Therefore no improvement. I've only tried one game with the VGA cable and it was Vigilante 8 2nd Offense. The game looks very sharp in 640x480, I really thought it wouldn't make a difference but it looks fantastic. I could read the signs in the levels, and certain details on the cars such as badges and mudflap labels. So far so good, the cable is around $12-$13 might be less depending where you're from. It's well constructed and I haven't noticed any noise on the picture. There's my rough review on the cable, I'll add some preview images if people want them.
Did you have to force the VGA for V8:2nd Offense? Whenever my sister and I recently played it I had to force it for it to go through. I do agree it looks great, though. The only caveat is the draw distance, which is more noticeable in 640x480. I believe my VGA cord is very similar to yours, no specific brand markings but different designs for the plugs.
Mine didn't come with a splitter, so it's just L-R RCA, but we seem to have an identical cable. It's pretty good, tried it on a couple of monitors, but I should note that it wouldn't work on one of my TV-Monitors. It's a Samsung T240HD and it wouldn't detect the signal, which is an utter shame as I really love this monitor and use it on my main PC. The price is right though and it does improve on the SCART significantly!
I just bought one off eBay, because a) your review means it's not a turd, and b) my VGA box won't work 80% of the time.
Well it should come with a splitter and a gender converter. No idea where these cables are produced or who makes them. Surprisingly they're pretty good. Samsung monitors are bit odd, along with their smart TVs. They hate games for some reason through anything but HDMI.
I strongly recommend getting a proper made cable. Some of those Chinese clones are simply dangerous for the DC (shorted pins) and most are unbuffered (reduced xompatibility with monitors, especially non-crt ones). I suggest either any commercial ones or cabou's cables that go for a decent price (37 €) and with the connectors you want. Tell him FG referred you. You could also build one yourself, or modify the Chinese one you got to turn it into a proper one if you want. FG
http://www.ebay.com/itm/VGA-High-De...NTSC-for-SEGA-Dreamcast-Console-/131024285218 I bought this cable a while back - works ok but haven't tested extensively. What do you mean by "unbuffered"?
This is what I have, there are probably clones of it knocking around: Spoiler RCA, VGA swithcable with two headphone sockets for some reason. I think it has S-VIDEO too, though I haven't had it out in a while (Running RGB SCART at the moment). I had this since it came out.
Mine came (only took 6 days from China, which is pretty great), and it looks great on my TV (a 2010 Dynex LCD with a crapload of ports). It seems to fit better than my Pelican box does, and it works a lot better too.
Ordered a cheap VGA cable a year ago, Mine came from Poland (alot less hassle than ordering out of the EU). The description said that it uses higher quality parts than the chinese ones. Haven't had a single problem with it minus the odd game not being VGA compatible but 99% of those can be patched to support it, I think only the Acclaim WWF games were the only ones that couldn't be patched
That's a problem with some games, supposedly with a VGA box you could manually switch it from RCA to VGA and trick it into displaying with it (though I never could with the box I have), and it would work, others wouldn't work at all.
BangaiO can't be patched to work with VGA. Neither can some of the SNK releases like DM99 and Evo. Plasma Sword can't as well as others.
For most of the games that don't support VGA, including the ones you mentioned, it's because they output 240p instead. For those games you need a display or a scaler that can accept 240p. In my current setup, I have the DC connected to a monitor over VGA most of the time (since most of the games I play support VGA), and I manually switch to a SCART cable connected to my PVM for games that don't support VGA. There aren't very many of those games compared to the rest of the DC's library.
You can trick the majority of games, even without the VGA box. Pretty sure one you can't at all is The Last Blade 2. I have a simple VGA cord similar to HEX1GON's and if you plug it in just at the right moment after you boot the DC, it skips the video output check. Some original NTSC games I have that don't natively run in VGA are NFL Blitz 2000, Hydro Thunder and Vigilante 8: Second Offense. While this practice isn't recommended due to overuse of the port, it works in a pinch. I try to only do it on one of my DCs.
Good design include a 74HCT244 octal buffer that increases compatibility with monitors and yields increased transmission. Like this: Bad designs are straight wired like this: Cheap cables might "just work" but the monitor compatibility and signal strength might not be good. Also since VGA is analogous the image quality can be sub-optimal on cheap unshielded wires.
