The best cables; Sega Saturn Console

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NotBlaine
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Post by NotBlaine »

nateup2 wrote:would the arcade monitor show expose all the pixelization on saturn or would it look similar to arcade versions of street fighter alpha?
Not sure how to answer that, because I'm not sure what you mean.

We'll start with this. All 2D games are 'pixelized'.

It's because they're made of pixels. Some games have smaller pixels than others (Say Guilty Gear vs Street Fighter II) but they still have pixels. Most people notice this at the edges of graphics, call them 'jaggies'. When talking about 3D graphics, 'jaggies' represent a lack of anti-aliasing. This is because a pixel is either on or off. There is no inbetween. What 'anti-aliasing' works on is pixels, making a smoother transition between pixels. Edge anti-aliasing uses the background color behind the edge for the smoothing.

Modern graphics support translucency, or alpha blending, so that the edges can be anti-aliased and you can fake a pixel being 'half on'.

A traditional, or older 2D game, when displayed in it's purest form (such as an RGB arcade monitor) will have 'jaggies'. It's supposed to. If you were to run a video signal through your standard composite cable, the video signal gets garbled and the edges get soft. This, although some people think it looks better, is actually wrong. You can get other imperfections, such as artifacting or dot crawl which can affect the picture as well.

Moving on from that, provided the Saturn version of the game doesn't have smaller sprites (which I don't believe it does) than the arcade version, it'll look the same as the arcade.

But as I mentioned, in the arcade, it does look pixelated.
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Majors
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Post by Majors »

original hardware on HDTV via XRGB
Image

PS3 on HDTV
Image

I rip'd this from a thread on Wedoca forum, I'm still tring to figure out if "Original Hardware" means CPS2 or not.
Majors -=- Wedoca '22
panzeroceania
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Re: The best cables; Sega Saturn Console

Post by panzeroceania »

NotBlaine,

a few questions,

Where might one find that multi-sync arcade display for sale?

How do SCART and VGA compare?

When seeking the best picture quality would it be smart to get the japanese saturn SCART cable? or would it be better to go with the VGA mod option.
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elvis
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Re: The best cables; Sega Saturn Console

Post by elvis »

Majors wrote:I'm still tring to figure out if "Original Hardware" means CPS2 or not.
CPS2 original hardware was 288 lines progressive scan. That image certainly looks like a progressive scan image, although it's hard to tell when an XRGB is upscaling, as it can combine interlaced fields into a single frame, upscale and add scanlines in for you. Neat trick to simulate a much better picture. I couldn't really tell unless I saw it in action with the naked eye.
gamingmatrix wrote:I personally have never seen a NTSC TV with a RGB SCART input.
There are plenty about. Generally speaking they are better quality TVs that cost quite a lot more. RGB/SCART was always considered the domain of the "enthusiast" movie buff or video professional in the US, and thus attracted the high price tag. Ironically in France, SCART was the standard for quite some time. :)
gamingmatrix wrote:Is it possible to modify a Saturn console to emit a signal via a Component Input? Would that even be worth it? Would it improve the picture quality?
Component (YUV, or YPrPb) can be created from RGB via a number of converter units. I haven't checked inside a Saturn recently, but there might be a way to get it directly off the onboard encoder chip as well. If you don't have access to an RGB TV or arcade/broadcast monitor, it could be a way of getting a slightly better picture than S-Video.
panzeroceania wrote:How do SCART and VGA compare?
SCART is 15KHz RGB. VGA is 31KHz RGB.

You can't compare them from an image quality standpoint because they require different input frequencies.
panzeroceania wrote:When seeking the best picture quality would it be smart to get the japanese saturn SCART cable? or would it be better to go with the VGA mod option.
There is no VGA mod for Saturn. The Dreamcast supports native VGA out, and it is definitely recommended for all 3D games (and Guilty Gear, which AFAIK is the only native 480p 2D game on Dreamcast).

Simply put, RGB/SCART is the best image quality you can get out of your Saturn.
panzeroceania
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Re: The best cables; Sega Saturn Console

Post by panzeroceania »

so the only RGB option for the saturn is a scart cable? there is no internal modifications to allow any other RGB cable? what other RGB cables are there out there? VGA? BNC?

again, I am talking about with the assistance of internal mods. It'd be nice to get better than SCART or S-Video as the Saturn can output better picture as long as you have a monitor that can output 15khz or have a way to upconvert the signal.

would it be possible to mod a saturn to output RGB video to a 5 connector BNC cable? I have a monitor that accepts 5 connector BNC.

so the main issue is that the saturn outputs at 15khz and most monitors cannot output at this. If I cannot find a monitor that outputs this what are some good upscalers or encoders, I have found

XRGB-3 http://www.micomsoft.co.jp/xrgb-3.htm
XPC-4 http://www.micomsoft.co.jp/xpc-4.htm
DVDO iScan VP50PRO http://www.anchorbaytech.com/products/s ... p50pro.php

on the side of upscalers, where can I find encoders?

also once I had one of these machines that could convert a15khz signal up to a more managable one, what cable would I have coming from the saturn to the upscaler? is it possbile to make a saturn 15khz vga cable?
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Inazuma
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Re: The best cables; Sega Saturn Console

Post by Inazuma »

panzeroceania wrote:so the only RGB option for the saturn is a scart cable? there is no internal modifications to allow any other RGB cable? what other RGB cables are there out there? VGA? BNC?

again, I am talking about with the assistance of internal mods. It'd be nice to get better than SCART or S-Video as the Saturn can output better picture as long as you have a monitor that can output 15khz or have a way to upconvert the signal.

would it be possible to mod a saturn to output RGB video to a 5 connector BNC cable? I have a monitor that accepts 5 connector BNC.

so the main issue is that the saturn outputs at 15khz and most monitors cannot output at this. If I cannot find a monitor that outputs this what are some good upscalers or encoders, I have found

XRGB-3 http://www.micomsoft.co.jp/xrgb-3.htm
XPC-4 http://www.micomsoft.co.jp/xpc-4.htm
DVDO iScan VP50PRO http://www.anchorbaytech.com/products/s ... p50pro.php

on the side of upscalers, where can I find encoders?

also once I had one of these machines that could convert a15khz signal up to a more managable one, what cable would I have coming from the saturn to the upscaler? is it possbile to make a saturn 15khz vga cable?
I use an official Japanese Saturn RGB cable with the XRGB-3 and it looks completely fantastic. Highly recommended if you absolutely have to have the highest quality images from your consoles.
panzeroceania
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Re: The best cables; Sega Saturn Console

Post by panzeroceania »

cool, I see they have them at playasia.com

ah I see so it is a japanese RGB21 cable but I can use the converter you mentioned to use it on my tv. Cool!

does anyone know where to buy the XRGB-3?
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Inazuma
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Re: The best cables; Sega Saturn Console

Post by Inazuma »

panzeroceania wrote:cool, I see they have them at playasia.com

ah I see so it is a japanese RGB21 cable but I can use the converter you mentioned to use it on my tv. Cool!

does anyone know where to buy the XRGB-3?
http://www.solaris-japan.com/index.php/ ... lt/?q=xrgb
panzeroceania
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Re: The best cables; Sega Saturn Console

Post by panzeroceania »

Thank you so much for this helpful information Inazuma!

I found 3rd party japanese RGB cables but was wondering if you knew where to find any 1st party official sega japanese RGB cables if there were any left.

Thank you so much again this has been really helpful!
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Inazuma
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Re: The best cables; Sega Saturn Console

Post by Inazuma »

panzeroceania wrote:Thank you so much for this helpful information Inazuma!

I found 3rd party japanese RGB cables but was wondering if you knew where to find any 1st party official sega japanese RGB cables if there were any left.

Thank you so much again this has been really helpful!
I just bought one from Ebay a few weeks ago. It's pretty rare I think, so keep an eye out for it.

You know what I do sometimes when I want to buy a rare item from Ebay? I will do a search for it and then bookmark the results page and add it to my bookmarks toolbar in Firefox. Everyday I click "Open all in tabs" to visit my usual websites, and that Ebay search will be included. This way, I can keep en eye on any new listings. Thanks to this method, I was able to quickly snatch up an RGB modded Wondermega that had just been listed. Good luck.
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