The Joys of Dreamcast VGA

I finally tracked down a Performance VGA adaptor for my DC. I can now have my PC and my DC hooked up to the same monitor without any cable swapping. In fact, I even have my DC hooked up through my Klipsch Star Wars Limited Edition speaker set as well. With that combination, I can make the subwoofer shake my computer desk while I play some 640x480, crisp JGR goodness. :D

I wish I had gotten into DC VGA sooner, but doing it now has given my DC a second life. Now I need to reacquire a lot of the games I thought I was forever done with. The fact that I now essentially have three gaming rooms (pre-32-bit, 32-bit and newer, and the PC/DC) lets me partake of gaming bliss no matter what room the Mrs. is in. What a concept.

Didn't you have that option with two gaming rooms?

What kind of monitor do you have? I've always been reluctant to go VGA because I don't want to trade screen size for resolution.

That, and because my DC freaking died.

You haven't lived until you've played Ikaruga and Rez in VGA, with a kick-ass sound setup.

Utter bliss.

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Originally posted by burgundy
Didn't you have that option with two gaming rooms?

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Wives have the uncanny knack for being in two rooms at once. ;)

I still need to get a cheap monitor just for my DC.

it's a crime that the new systems aren't VGA-ready..

playing Halo on my 19-inch 15 year old panasonic is painful.. the DC spoiled me.. :(

I need to get VGA adaptor for my DC one of these days. I looked on Ebay, and they had ton of them. Which one should I go with?

You want one that looks like this:
http://ebay1.ipixmedia.com/abc/M28/_...cce7a9/i-1.JPG

Well, maybe not that one, but one with an actual box at the end, not those cables that run rampant on eBay. :D

I have a BLAZE brand VGA myself, and it works wonders :)

VGA really is awesome. PSO, Soul Calibur and Shenmue II in VGA were pretty incredible. 2D games don't like it at all, though - the DC has to reduce the resolution then double it to make it fit, so things look a little like lego land in some games (MotW!).

Shame you're only getting to it now that the DC's been surpassed graphically, so some of the impact has been lost. Hopefully, the next gen of systems will have true vga output.

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Originally posted by Despair
I need to get VGA adaptor for my DC one of these days. I looked on Ebay, and they had ton of them. Which one should I go with?

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if anything, avoid BLAZE VGA..
i've used one for a while, but then the connection started getting flaky on me, and you had to wiggle it a lot in its connection socket in order to not get a blue tint over the whole screen..
so much so that i just eventually stopped using it and switched to this other one i have (HAIS i think it is)..


the ideal one is the performance VGA because it lets you switch between your DC and PC without having to plug/unplug the monitor cable.. very cool, but also very rare now and expensive.

I've noticed alot of larger TV's with VGA inputs in them from companies like Mitsubishi and Philips. So, if you don't want to compromise screen size you can always look in that direction

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Originally posted by johnk_
it's a crime that the new systems aren't VGA-ready...

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no doubt...

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Originally posted by Captain Vegetable
Wives have the uncanny knack for being in two rooms at once. ;)

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Exactly.

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Originally posted by NGEFreek
You want one that looks like this:
http://ebay1.ipixmedia.com/abc/M28/_...cce7a9/i-1.JPG

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That's exactly the one I have.

While not being VGA friendly as Sega was with the DC, the Gamecube and XBox can be used for VGA. I recently purchased a modified component cable from Matt for VGA and it is just as good as the DC VGA box (I missed playing PSO in VGA goodness...) As long as the GC game has progressive scan support, you are good to go!

As far as the XBox, I haven't made the plunge yet, but there are two aftermarket VGA Boxes out there, the XBox D-X VGA Box from Germany and XBox VGA from the US. Basically, these two boxes are modified High Definition Packs to produce a VGA signal (duh!) I will be making the plunge in two weeks to prepare for VGA goodness with the Xbox version of PSO when it comes out next month (plus some high res Halo doesn't sound too bad either!) so I can post impressions if needed.

yoshi....you must see Guilty Gear thru VGA.....its breathtaking.

$70 for an xbox VGA and $55 for matt's GC vga is a bit much for me right now..

i think i'll just save up for an HDTV

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Originally posted by NGEFreek
You want one that looks like this:
http://ebay1.ipixmedia.com/abc/M28/_...cce7a9/i-1.JPG

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I have that VGA Box as well, but all of a sudden (a year or two ago) it died. The orange power light turned off and never worked again. :/

It's a very sweet product

I need a DC VGA box. I've tried it a couple of times, and it looked amazing. Now that I have a nice speaker setup and a spare monitor lying around...

Oh, and I've heard something about a hack in the works that will make the 'Box display in native VGA, for all that it matters.

It really pisses me off that MS made the decision to not support vga from the start due "not wanting to make thier machine too much like a pc". (but a friend of mine managed to make me a hacked vga box)

I've had my DC vga box since I first got my dc and the games look brilliant. VGA should have been a standard after this as far as I'm concerned.

The first day I saw Soul Calibur in vga made me piss my pants. And yeah Not all 2d games were designed with a 640 x 480 resolution so that rules out any capcom games from looking as good as GGX does with vga. Don't blame the vga box though, blame capcom for not upgrading thier graphics (whether in arcade or home ports) to a higher resolution.

Non-2d capcom fighting games like powerstone look sweet though. Those extra pixels = extra detail and accuracy in seeing distance objects/small tiny details. So it's not a gimmick like others (who haven't bothered to try it for themselves) want you to believe.

In the old days of low res 8 bit systems and shitty graphics this may not have had a big effect, (actually a bad effect when you consider the stretching low res games go through to fit 640x480 screen image) but having all those little details appearing as they were meant to appear, (in the majority of today's games) only enhances the experience. (you can make out distant signs, see the delicate texturing on the armour, or roughness of the surfaces of objects that probably get blurred out on other displays) Plus games take on this really bright candy-coated appearance (like gamefan pics :D) and don't look so dull. You don't get bleeding or mixing of colours together, you only get the pure colours appearing. In the past, tvs have had this effect of making things really dim because of all the colours getting squashed up (like mixing paint - it get darker the more you mix) in the general area rather than in the exact spot, and this gives it the dirty non-crisp look.

Alright, I dredged up this thread because I'm hoping someone can help me out.

I want a device that lets me have both my PC and my Dreamcast hooked up to my sole VGA monitor at the same time, so as to be both more convenient and to cut down wear on all connectors involved.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Go to local computer shop. Purchase an AB switch and an extra VGA cable.

A lot fancier than what you're looking for, but it should do the job and come in handy if you ever get another PC and don't want to buy another monitor with it:

http://www2.warehouse.com/product.as...o&BCID=7405377

I'll be getting 2 of these in here at work this week. I'll try and let you know what the users think of them.

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Originally Posted by burgundy

What kind of monitor do you have? I've always been reluctant to go VGA because I don't want to trade screen size for resolution.

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i dont understand your logic......

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Originally Posted by Dragonmaster Dyne

i dont understand your logic......

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he doesnt want to go from playing say on a 42 inch tv to a 19 inch monitor just to go from standard tv res to say 480p

which i wouldnt want to do either

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Originally Posted by Wolffen

A lot fancier than what you're looking for, but it should do the job and come in handy if you ever get another PC and don't want to buy another monitor with it:

http://www2.warehouse.com/product.as...o&BCID=7405377

I'll be getting 2 of these in here at work this week. I'll try and let you know what the users think of them.

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Thanks for the heads up. I went over to Comp USA earlier looking for something similar, but couldn't find anything. The people working at that store are the most unhelpful ingrates ever.

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I want a device that lets me have both my PC and my Dreamcast hooked up to my sole VGA monitor at the same time

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"Performance" by Interact is the one I use.

It basically has the pc/dc switch for convenience and when you turn on your pc or dc (depending on how you've set it) when both are on, it will default to the one you want. So if you're looking at a movelist on the computer and turn on the dc the screen will change to the dc.

Don't know where you can go to get them anymore though.
A review of the product here:
http://edition.cnn.com/1999/TECH/com...box/index.html

Click here:

http://www.cablewholesale.com/specs/40h1-03602.htm

There's also a 4-way model if you want to plug in even more VGA devices.

(Thanks to SSBomberman for the link!)

Matt, that device is perfect. Much thanks. And dirt cheap, too.

Mr. GameHED: At one point I owned that VGA box, but it gives off nasty interference compared to the Sega VGA box I have, so I ditched it. Maybe I had a defective one, maybe not, but the picture quality was icky, so it went.

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Originally Posted by Baron

You haven't lived until you've played Ikaruga and Rez in VGA, with a kick-ass sound setup.

Utter bliss.

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HELL YEAH.

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Originally Posted by Baron

Thanks for the heads up. I went over to Comp USA earlier looking for something similar, but couldn't find anything. The people working at that store are the most unhelpful ingrates ever.

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Well, you're better off. You probably would have paid $100+ at CompUSA for an inferior product. Hurray for the internet!

You might also want to get a low grade HDTV like the Zenith 27 inch. It has a VGA HD input that supports DC, and GC games in progressive, etc. You can always just run your Xbox through HD component input on it to get 480p or 1080i.

I have the Naki box and it works great and lets you output via s-video as well, so you could run 3-D stuff in 480p and low-res through s-vid on the TV if you wanted (but what you should really do is just make a dedicated RGB setup for the DC because almost ever game works in RGB).

Thanks for the suggestions, ssbomberman, and believe me, I'd love to get an inexpensive HDTV like the ones you mentioned, but money is not on my side right now. I graduated from college into the worst job market in decades, so unfortunately things like a new TV will have to wait.

This VGA switchox will let me have both my PC (which I use daily) and my Dreamcast (which I'd like to use daily ;)) hooked up at the same time. This'll tide me over until I can get a nicer TV, for sure.

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Originally Posted by Baron

Thanks for the suggestions, ssbomberman, and believe me, I'd love to get an inexpensive HDTV like the ones you mentioned, but money is not on my side right now. I graduated from college into the worst job market in decades, so unfortunately things like a new TV will have to wait.

This VGA switchox will let me have both my PC (which I use daily) and my Dreamcast (which I'd like to use daily ;)) hooked up at the same time. This'll tide me over until I can get a nicer TV, for sure.

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Yeah, I'm truly sorry for you guys just getting out of college, I beat the slump by just a couple years...but it really sucks...are you going back to school? That seems to be the trick, stay in school as long as possible, milk the system if you can by being a TA or in an assistantship until you have the almighty Ph.D. and you can get a job no problem (atleast in education, anyway).

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Mr. GameHED: At one point I owned that VGA box, but it gives off nasty interference compared to the Sega VGA box I have, so I ditched it. Maybe I had a defective one, maybe not, but the picture quality was icky, so it went.

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A friend of mine said he kept seeing lines across the screen with his. Was that the problem you got? He thought it was the DC itself. Damn Interact.

GameHED:

The interference was varied - sometimes there were lines across the screen, and sometimes there was a very fluid moving interference, kind of like floaters in your eye. I knew it was the VGA box itself, because the interference occurred with both the Dreamcast and PC VGA outputs.

And yes, it was the Interact "Performance" VGA box mentioned, with the pass-thru.



and ssbomberman - I'm actually four years your senior, heh, I just took my time going to school. And yes, staying in school as long as possible is a good idea right now. If only I'd known that two years ago, I would have maneuvered my way straight into a Master's program right from my BA. As it is, I'm workin' on it... :noob:

Well, my VGA switchbox from that company Matt linked to above arrived today via FedEx, and while it works just fine, the signal from my PC winds up at my monitor at a noticeably poorer quality than pre-switchbox. I was afraid of something like this - this text I'm typing has a ghosted-like outline around it. Anyone else out there use a setup like this willing to share their results?

Or rather, is this signal degradation an inherent, unavoidable by-product of using an A-B switchbox, or should I try buying some nice shielded, gold-pronged VGA cables and see if that helps?

*sniff*

I discovered today that my Performance box is busted. Both passthroughs work fine, but I don't get a signal on my monitor and the little orange light blinks instead of staying steady. The last time I saw it working was right before some bastard yanked the a/v cable out of a lcd projector.

Any of you hardware geeks have a suggestion on how I might go about fixing it?

you may want to switch monitors to make sure it's working properly. I've got 3 and one of them pulls this.

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Originally Posted by Baron

Well, my VGA switchbox from that company Matt linked to above arrived today via FedEx, and while it works just fine, the signal from my PC winds up at my monitor at a noticeably poorer quality than pre-switchbox. I was afraid of something like this - this text I'm typing has a ghosted-like outline around it. Anyone else out there use a setup like this willing to share their results?

Or rather, is this signal degradation an inherent, unavoidable by-product of using an A-B switchbox, or should I try buying some nice shielded, gold-pronged VGA cables and see if that helps?

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I use a switchbox that's almost the same, and although the picture looks fine on my setup, I find that there's a very slight buzz in the sound (which I've also routed through the switcher).

Chances are, a more expensive switchbox would probably give better results, but using nice-quality VGA cables could help also. I found that linking too many extension cables together when running the signal through the switchbox gave me some ghosting in the image, like you've described. Mind you, the problem might just be caused by a cheap switch, so better cables could be a waste.

Sorry for the dud link, BTW - I didn't think there'd be that much of a problem :(

I just wanted to add that the problems you had with the Performance VGA box must have meant you had a defective unit, Baron. If you get one that's working normally, there is no visible degradation or interference, at least to my eyes.

Your best solution may be to track down a Performance box in good working order.

Well I have a swtichbox setup for my RGB setup and I honestly can't notice any signal loss, and I'm pretty anal about picture quality. I have the console cables (which are short) attached the extension cables which are attached to a 4 way swtichbox which is outputted to the RGB input on my Sony monitor. Now even with all this routing, the signal is crisp and clean, I've asked others too if they could notice a signal loss, and they couldn't either. And all the switching supplies only cost me 20 bucks or so total.

Does it have something to do with the VGA aspect of things?

BTW, you can also split a consoles RGB output between 2 monitors (to create the back to back feel of Japanese tournament) -- there IS signal loss when you do this, but it does work (it's just too much power for the small console to handle). Both screens just loss some brightness. I prefer to just stick with composite switching for now, but it's cool to know that the systems can run dual RGB monitor as well (thanks to Matt's work once again!)

ssb

so whats the best, but affordable VGA for dreamcast? im thinking about buying one.

I got the cheapest one I could find. It was $15 when I bought it.

It works just fine.