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vga box
muffinman943 - Sep 27, 2003
  muffinman943 Sep 27, 2003
is there a such thing as a saturn vga box? if so, can u use it with the monitor itself? or does the monitor have 2 be connected to the pc

 antime Sep 27, 2003
No, there is no such thing. You can use generic upscan converters, but the resulting picture quality is usually not too good.

 stack99 Sep 29, 2003
Damn I wanted to get one, if they made such a thing.. oh well.

 gameboy900 Sep 29, 2003
The problem is that no other console other than the DC is capable of outputing a REAL VGA signal that can be used with a VGA box. The Xbox and GC are possible but unlikely. All other consoles are forced to use upscan convertors which basically take the regular TV signal and make it VGA compatible. This of course doesn't produce the same quality boost. Even if you used a straight RGB signal as the source.

 antime Sep 29, 2003
The PS2 can (and does better than VGA), but normally it's used only by the Linux kit. IIRC there's some bootdisc that can force some games to use VGA but naturally it doesn't work with all games. The Gamecube can do close-enough-to-VGA with a modified component cable, and should work with all games that support progressive scan (so no PAL games, boo!) and the XBox hardware definitely can do VGA... but I have no idea if any games can be coerced to work with these modes. Heck, even the Saturn can do something which may or may not be VGA even though in practice it's limited to displaying high-res bitmaps.

 Scared0o0Rabbit Sep 29, 2003
Some xbox bios's allow vga output I hear. Also you can get an xrgb2 those things are supposed to be pretty spiffy, but are really pricey.

Edit: any console that can output 480p (progressive) video on rgb can do vga.

 Stephen_Ri Sep 29, 2003
antime, what do you mean by "the PS2 can (and does better than VGA)"? Better than 640x480? Via a special cable?

Scared0o0Rabbit, any console that can output 480p via RGB rather than color difference(component) is capable, but which consoles can? I mean in-game, isn't the dreamcast the only one?

 antime Sep 29, 2003

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by Stephen_Ri@Sep 30, 2003 @ 02:49 AM



antime, what do you mean by "the PS2 can (and does better than VGA)"? Better than 640x480? Via a special cable?


Yes, here's a pic.... According to the FAQ the highest resolution available is 1280x1024.


  
	
	

		
		

			Scared0o0Rabbit, any console that can output 480p via RGB rather than color difference(component) is capable, but which consoles can? I mean in-game, isn't the dreamcast the only one?


At least the Gamecube can.

 Tagrineth Sep 30, 2003
Um... PS2 can do that high a res in 2D, but the GS isn't capable of exceeding 1024x768 in 3D due to memory limitation. Realistically though you can't use that res unless you have very few or very small textures...

Anyway, no, commercial games will always max at 640x480 output, period.

There is a VGA adapter called 'Blaze VGA Adapter' which can force "Progressive scan" in VGA mode in nearly all PS2 games, though, and looks OK in a few of them (but has big problems in many games).

 Scared0o0Rabbit Sep 30, 2003
well following the logic of 480p rgb is vga, then 480p component transcoded to rgb would be nearly as good as vga, and quite possibly the best you could do short of an hdtv or an actual vga connection.

 Stephen_Ri Sep 30, 2003
OK. I didn't think they'd devised a way to get straight RGB out of the next gen consoles yet. Transcoders are a pain at $150, plus a little signal is lost

(negligible, but mentionable when we're talking big bucks for image quality). I still cannot understand why they didn't follow the DC's example and give us straight RGB as an option on the next gens.

 Tagrineth Oct 1, 2003
GameCube's "Hi-definition" output is actually a digital out similar to Dreamcast's... but the problem is most games don't use it natively, and the console always boots in 480i on the main RCA out port... and not all games use 480p at all.

Any game that outputs 480p goes through digital-out... and a chip on the component cable itself converts the format to RGB for the TV's sake.

Modded component cables just take that chip and modify its signal and detection slightly so that the RGB signal can be understood by a monitor... but it isn't perfect.

The monitor needs to support a very low horizontal refresh (15kHz) and IIRC also sync-on-green, but not sure on that one. Thus it DOES support a "VGA" signal but it isn't full PC-compatible standard.

 Scared0o0Rabbit Oct 1, 2003
Gamesx.com has guides on seperating the sync and stuff, and it probably has something to do with the fact that component as I understand it supports things like macrovision and other fun stuff, while rgb doesn't... so various groups (MPAA anyone?) have really pushed component over rgb to help protect their IP. Of course the side effect is that new tv's in the us have component in instead of rgb, which then means that consoles need to support component out not rgb out, which is an unpleasant side effect of what's been done.

 ExCyber Oct 1, 2003

  
	
	

		
		

			it probably has something to do with the fact that component as I understand it supports things like macrovision and other fun stuff, while rgb doesn't... so various groups (MPAA anyone?) have really pushed component over rgb to help protect their IP.


That and MPEG-2 natively decodes to YUV rather than RGB, so with "component video" (RGB is component too, really) there's no need to do a colorspace conversion in the video encoder.


  
	
	

		
		

			GameCube's "Hi-definition" output is actually a digital out similar to Dreamcast's...


What are you talking about? Dreamcast has no digital video outputs (unless you count the separate sync as being digital). Nor do Gamecube, Xbox, or PS2, unless someone's been hiding something very important from me.

 Scared0o0Rabbit Oct 2, 2003
Gamecubes port on the back is labelled digital out, or digital video out, that's all I know about it really, though the mod to make the cable rgb instead of component is done to the cable itself so it is possible it's digital, lots of info was on the old gamesx board before it got moved over ot the new one.

 ExCyber Oct 2, 2003

  
	
	

		
		

			the mod to make the cable rgb instead of component is done to the cable itself so it is possible it's digital


There are probably presence detect pins on the connector, as on Xbox and Dreamcast (a while ago I modded my Dreamcast VGA cable to switch between VGA and TV RGB modes, since I have a monitor capable of both). Most systems that can switch between YUV and RGB output use the same pins for both signals. Nintendo does claim a digital output capacity, but I can't find any information on a way to actually use it.

 Tagrineth Oct 2, 2003
If you wanted to use the digital out yourself you'd have to create your own cable and ASIC for decoding the signal. Hence no documentation - nobody's bothered yet because it isn't needed for anything, really.

 ExCyber Oct 2, 2003
Hmm... there are some claims that it's TMDS, but the connector doesn't seem to have enough pins for that.

edit: actually, if they use the outer shield as ground, it might be possible...

 Arakon Oct 2, 2003
the GC YUV cable can be modified (chip pin to GND) to decode to analog RGB instead of YUV.. that's how import GC rgb cables are made. sync from the analog AV port, RGB from the digital port via the decoder cable.