RGB>VGA upscaling converter

I'm thinking about buying a box to encase the scaler then covering that with copper shield tape.

It's going to be ugly.

 

Well, that is a eventually what I ended up doing....more or less.

All the shielding is on the inside.

 

Awesome. Where did you get the case?

 

Can we get images of all sides? The insides?

 

You can check out a post I did about it here.

http://www.pixelissimo.com/gbsnabox.html

Unfortunately I don't have any pics of the insides and am not in a position to take one. Will post some later. The project box came from RadioShack and was a good fit for all the components needed to fit inside.

 

Does this work for RGB and C-Sync, or just RGB and H Y sync?

In my experience, RGB is different on PAL and NTSC, although RGB shouldn't be; so the card you mentioned, is that just NTSC and is there a PAL one?

 

There is no NTSC or PAL when using RGB.

Therefore there cant be a NTSC one or a PAL one.

 

I know that's the normal viewpoint, however if RGB was the same if PAL or NTSC then a PSone screen in RGB input would be happy with taking RGB off a PAL console or NTSC console, and it isn't; use a different format to the screen and you get a scrolling image that's compressed vertically; so there has to be a difference between RGB regions.

If I remember too, if I use RGB on an NTSC console on an old PAL television that doesn't like NTSC, then you get a B&W image on the screen, like any other NTSC signal.

 

Thats to do with 50/60hz, not NTSC or PAL.

You can still have 50hz and 60hz with RGB.

PSone thing you are talking about is the same thing - 50/60hz issue.

You seem to be confusing 2 different issues.

 

Ok, that's no issues.

PAL and NTSC work at different resolutions as well as frequency, as we know. Modern televisions can take NTSC and PAL and no issues on frequency, however if you've got for example a PSone screen that is 50Mhz and RGB at 60Mhz (ie from NTSC console), you're saying that is the entire reason for the scrolling? (that would make sense).

 

Yes, you have got it.

Refresh rate is separate from the colour encoding used (PAL/NTSC) (or not used in the case of RGB).

So if the display device doesnt support 60hz (like a PAL psone screen) its still not going to work via RGB - but its not directly related to NTSC or PAL.

This isnt a huge issue in the UK - almost all recent tv's support 60hz (as we have PAL60 now too). Most support NTSC too as well, but long as your TV supports PAL 50/60hz, you can just use RGB on any imports.

 

I just bought the gbs 8820 and a scart cable. Im going to do this on my n64. How do I wire everything on the upscaler. I cant find any guides. I connect from the Scart cable to the 8 pin rgbs input. Then I hook up the audio pins from scart to some RCAs? I feel like it will make a lot more sense once i have everything in front of me. I have an ntsc lcd.

 

http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/console/other/rgb2vga.htm

 

I just modded my n64 to output RGB, but I got a dark picture, so I will have to build that amp circuit before uploading some comparision pics.

EDIT: Also I got a PAL gamecube off ebay to use with RGB as well, anyone know if I'll need to add a 50/60hz switch to have a proper speed, or these issue no longer exist in newer consoles?

 

A lot of GameCube games already have just a 60Hz mode available.
Should a game start in 50Hz by default, you can change the display mode to 60Hz by pressing and holding the "b" button while the GC logo is being displayed. I'm not 100% sure if the setting is saved as default for all games, but I think it is.


I've got one of those RGB2VGA boards as well, really great device for its price. I've soldered a scanline generator directly to the second VGA output, works great. The picture is fantastic, even for slightly newer systems like the Dreamcast.

 

Nice to know!

But if I use NTSC games on a PAL GC:they will boot in 60hz, give me the option by pressing B or some will work in 60hz and other just 50hz?

 

It's pretty much the same.
You can use the b-button switch for most games, to force them to display in 60Hz.

I think there are a few early PAL games that don't have a 60Hz mode at all, so of course it won't work for them and they'll only run in 50Hz.

 

Nice to know, I will run the older games on my wii them