I bought the complete (Japanese) guidebook. It does not include any of the indie foreign releases or any releases post 2007. Or the US/PAL library huff huff. It is a big thick book that has every single Japanese release in it. They also cover just about every VMU. I don’t think there is a page for every controller color or for arcade sticks but there are tons of perpherials. It is full of love and every game gets multiple screenshots and exact release dates. They also cover that there are a lot of games that got minor revisions including a seperate section for “best of” releases.
Let me know if there is something y’all want me to pull from it.
But Japan was celebrating the Dreamcast release. Wow 1998! We waited almost a year to get it in the states. Of course the lineup sucked for Japan and was incredible in America. I won’t bother you with how I can get pretty damn close to listing all 23 launch games.
IGN Japan did a fun “Dreamcast Mini” list. It made me go “Dreamcast Mini would rule.” Bad dpad and springy triggers and all. I say that as a guy that has a beautiful Dreamcast in his closet. Bought a dreamcast game THIS WEEK.
Damn, a Dreamcast mini would rule so much, especially if they could get the licenses for the Crazy Taxi songs back. I would carry it around with me just for that.
God this anniversary makes me feel effing old, like every anniversary.
I also wanted to celebrate over the past week or so, but the controller hurts my hands so I got a PS1 to DC converter and tried the NeGcon with it, which it treated as a standard steering wheel, interpreting the twisting action as steering the taxi, and it ended up working out okay.
Except when I tried to unplug the NeGcon to use a regular dual shock the oversized/weird Namco plug was hanging on to the port with a death grip and I nearly broke the thing trying to get it out. So I guess that particular NeGcon-converter pair will stay joined together forever if I want to play a game with steering controls.
the DC controller is automatically good because I broke the analog stick one time and was able to open the thing up and glue the bit that snapped off back on and it worked like brand new and I don’t think I can say that of any other modern controller
i had saved up to buy this thing and was on work experience at the time, called in sick and went into town to pick it up
didn’t have enough cash to get an rgb cable or vmu on day one so played sonic with smeary video and no saves for a couple of weeks
DC only recently started going through a bigger number of games for the system. Apart from the ones I played almost half generation after it was released. Friends had it because of a strong Sega presence in portugal.
But that was after blowing up one, gutting another, ending up with a pretty modded one.
Interesting thing… I have a VGA mod, and that coupled with a line doubler (i.e. ossc), reveals an interesting artifact on the graphical output. Dithering on some “in between” tones.
If you zoom this picture to the max, you can see the big pixels from the TV around the character.
I see 3 reasons why this happens.
First the VGA mod I did sucks, and doesn’t get out the entire range of colour that it should.
Second OSSC VGA input only gets that many colours, and compensates with dithering.
Third is more complex. Like many consoles and graphics boards in history, they are capable of many more colours than they can show at one given time on screen. But now translate for graphics of that time, pre PS2 and early GL versions. Maybe the console process 32bit graphics internally, but only outputs a 16bit screen texture.
The first is probably the reason why it happens, and the second I really see it happening.
However if the third reason is true, this is… well… the conclusion of a cool… thing.
Come on, not that interesting >_< but it gives a few interesting tips about correct design options when porting or designing for the console. D=
You mentioned in your other thread that those hdmi out mods are doing something wrong which I agree just on a gut level. You can get various dongle to output 1080p from a dreamcast. The reviews say it looks good. It really looks pixelated and awful to me.
I have one of those HDMI boxes and it looked…okay to me but there are diamond shaped artifacts (like bad aliasing/jaggies) that you can see on some edges. But I was also getting these diamonds through SCART and a cheap upscaler, so it might be something my TV is doing to the DC’s output.
Might be something with the RGB signals. I’m not 100% sure but I don’t think they change through different versions. But… Sync? noooooooo… ok.
HDMI boxes (RGB > Digital), SCART + Upscaler (RGB > I would guess… digital?)
[10min later]
Ok, this guy [RetroRGB] has a ton of info about how to get the best picture out of a ton of consoles, that have, or are capable (NES not have but capable if modded). Most of them expensive, but a few not at all.
(Had to give a proper intro to the guy cause I use his site a load-fuck-of-a-ton).
On the Dreamcast page of the site you can find the answer to almost “why?” both of those didn’t work. Right on the following
QUOTE
Yeah… I’m betting you had a go at those 2 bad scenarios @zombieman000.
As to really why, I think why those specific jagged edges. Sync.
You have to connect a few pins on the output to a ground, specifically both RGB and VGA pins (I kid and say that is how Sega logic goes, VGA is an RGB format so… needs RGB ON).
Otherwise you don’t have the proper sync signal coming for both Horizontal and Vertical syncs (only RGB format that needs 2 syncs).
I did this mod because it was cheap overall, and I didn’t even installed a switch. I can only output VGA and not other RGBs.
But the switchable analogue cable can have a VGA output, and have that mod (almost exactly I think) somewhere on the cable.
@Rudie, I haven’t heard of that mod for the Dreamcast before you mentioned. Even now that RetroRGB guy doesn’t mention it. So that must be really fresh for sale.
But yeah, also big post there. But basically the mod exports 3 modes apparently.
480p - or clean resolution, dunno how it works with 240i, 240p, and 480i only games).
weird resolution that didn’t fit entirely the 1080p, but worked under 1080p because the TV was getting that signal.
1080p - the top and bottom of the game picture touch the top and bottom of the screen.
What smelled wrong was both latest modes. Weird is weird, and you can multiply 480 for an integer and have 1080.
And 2 wrongs made a possible right.
There’s basically 2 types of… “getting better digital picture out of old console RGB outputs”.
Up Scalers and Line Doublers.
Up Scaller Boring Explanation
Up Scalers you can end up with any resolution you want. The frame converted to digital pixels, kept around in chips, made a scale just like in photoshop, and then streamed to HDMI just the way it likes. One notable bad example of such are those Ali Express PS2 HDMI Converters.
They have a ton of lag, and they scale through hardware and always apply anti-aliasing bad blurness, because otherwise the aliasing would drive epileptics mad around the planet.
But some very good and expensive scalers can reduce that to a very bearable minimum.
Line Doubler Boring Explanation
Line Doublers are a different type of tech. What they do is convert the analogue signal to digital line only, and then send it 2 times. In fact it can send X times. That means that a resolution of 240p (genesis, psx, some dc, n64, nes) will be 480p @ x2, 720p @ x3, 960p @ x4, 1200 @ x5.
Consoles at 480p (dc, ps2, gc, xbox) go 960p @ x2, 1440p @ x3.
This means the lag is 1/100 the time of one frame. And no anti-aliasing, VERY pixelated. Lines of pixels.
The downside is that it has to export acceptable resolutions, and not all multiplications work without cutting out lines. 240p on ossc can go to 5x, with the hardware cutting a few lines on the top and bottom. But 480p can only do x2 and have the TV deal with 960p signal (acceptable, even in 2k TVs).
These machines are the best you can get for a bunch of machines, but they are VERY EXPENSIVE. Two options is OSSC and Framemeister.
That mod can be both. First converts analogue signal to digital and stores it. Then if the mode 1 sends the digital line, clean. If mode 2 it sends it 2 times, if mode 3 stores it till it gets the frame. Then finally scales it to pretty 1080p.
Mode 2 seems very much to be 960p under 1080p resolution, that area at least, from @Rudie video. It can be doubling the line under 1080p, which would be a bit awesome. But most likely it a 2x clean zoom, pasted on a 1080p frame, and sent to the TV.
Which in truth, would create an unpleasant sharp feeling because it is scaling without aliasing. Dunno if full screen has aliasing, but if it doesn’t have then pixels will fly on the screen.
I can see full screen being 480p x3 ( = 1440p - 1080p = 360 / 3 = ) with less 120 lines… O__o… no… maybe? not really?
DAMMIT… forgot the most important.
My Gamecube has an HDMI mod. That one actually only does line doubling.
But still having a 720x480px resolution @60fps, no interlaced, it’s amazing.
The mod is simple, and straightforward. You can get sound out of it, but I would advise getting it from the analogue output.
An incredibly crazy effect the mod creates is reveal (or add, dunno) that the GC does like a dozen of dithering grades between 2 colours the console can produce.
My thread on modding consoles has plenty of GC photos, both TV sucky photos where you can see big pixels, and photos of the mod itself.
HDMI adaptor out there is the same thing (even the menu is the same), but on the outside. It gives a few problems, but you don’t need to open the console.
