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Sega Saturn VGA output

croft - Nov 10, 2003

		croft		Nov 10, 2003
			Hi, I have read that the Sega staurn can do VGA output to a monotor etc. Has anybody actually tryed this, I have used the XBOX and Dreamcast VGE but never the Saturn. Radiant silver gun would "ROCK" :devil Any thoughts greatly apreshiated

		antime		Nov 10, 2003
			Even if the "31kHz mode" really is VGA or VGA-compatible, you need special software support for it. Furthermore, due to the strain on the video chipset only a subset of the features are available and some of the available ones are slightly modified (for instance, sprites are displayed using double-sized pixels meaning you still have an effective resolution of 320*200). (Ps. please leave the "funny pics" in your signature, that's what it's there for.)

		croft		Nov 10, 2003
			Thanks Antime, Would be nice to get the VGA from the Saturn but it looks like it will be difficult. I guess you could use the converter boxes on the market but they will probably degrade the quality in some way. The xbox converter i used was really rubbish. Shame Sega didnt utilise the machines output to the max...........

		Scared0o0Rabbit		Nov 10, 2003
			if you want vga out of a saturn the xrgb2+ or whatever is the only way to go.

		croft		Nov 10, 2003
			HI scared Rabbit, Will check them out, Many Thanks. :thumbs-up:

		Tagrineth		Nov 11, 2003
			No, Saturn does not output a VGA-compatible signal... but like all video, yes, you can get a transcoder. But don't be surprised if the quality is pretty bad.

		antime		Nov 11, 2003
			Do you know anyone who has actually tried the monitor modes?

		gameboy900		Nov 11, 2003
			Saturn can do full HDTV compatible video (obviously with reduced features) and VGA. The problem is that: 1. Alot of advanced features can't be used in these modes. 2. The video encoder chip doesn't play along with the signals for these types of resolutions and frequencies.

		Alexvrb		Nov 11, 2003
			You can get true VGA out of an xbox, but it takes a little work. They had a schematic on the xboxhacker forums a while back, and apparently this Ken guy builds adapters on request. If you really wanted VGA on Xbox, this would be better than using an upscan converter.

		croft		Nov 11, 2003
			Hi Alexvrb. Thanks for the info, Wow, That sounds really cool. I got the xbox working on my monitor but the coulours were slightly out of sink. I would be very interested in finding the info you mentioned. I heard that the xbox has vga internaly but looses it when the signal reaches the output terminal. Any info would be greatly apreshiated, Thanks, Ian :flamethrower:

		Darklegion		Nov 11, 2003
			The tv out encoder on all the older xboxes(before v1.5 i beleive) use a conexent tv encoder that is exactly the same as the one used in many pc graphics cards(my geforce 4 ti4200 for one) so it has vga output.Microsoft removed the code for vga for some reason though,so you'll need a hacked vga bios to get it to work,plus a modified cable/connector as well,to enable vga mode.The new xboxes have a focus tv encoder which is a bit different,and I am not sure if this supports vga or not.www.xbox-scene.com... would have the answer for that somwhere probably. would be interesting to get true vga out of the saturn,wouldn't use it much as my vga monitor is shit,but it still be interesting to see.

		Alexvrb		Nov 12, 2003
			As Antime said, even if you can get VGA out of the Saturn, you couldn't get existing software to support it. It'd take custom software. So its basically useless. With an Xbox, most software would work with VGA, like the DC. It just takes more work, since they sure as heck don't have a lot of true "VGA boxes" for it, most of what you'll see advertised is just upscan. As darklegion said, the conexant chip does lots of nifty things. I don't know about the focus chip either. But they have proven that at the very least the conexent models can produce a true VGA signal.