In short, yes.

The question is, how much money are you willing to spend?

As much as it takes.

[edit]

Thought it was simpler than this, but ive found this:

http://www.kupindo.com/Graficke-kartice/10870 … CANOPUS-MVR4400

Seeing that i will need professional hardware, not something simple, im starting to rethink the whole thing 😀

Epiphan makes a line of external VGA -> USB frame grabbers that can be had for $100 to $200 on eBay. I've never used them but they look pretty cool and might be worth a try. I think the VGA2USB LR model would probably suit your purposes.

I've posted alot of this information before here on Vogons.

But basically you have three options:

1. Cheapest (if you have the equipment already):
Shoot directly from a high quality LCD/LED monitor with a HD camera. This provides general better quality than s-video from a VGA converter. S-video output directly from the video card is about equal. I did this in my Creative 3D Blaster VLB video as my VGA card did not want to sync with the strange refresh rates the card outputs.
2. Buy an VGA to S-video converter or use a card with S-video output. Can be bought on Ebay for 12 dollars (including shipping). Quality is not the very best and you get interlace problems as well.
3. Buy an VGA HD capture card. They start at around 100 dollars. I have one of the cheapest models, the Avermedia Gamebroadcaster HD. It can be a bit picky on non standard resolutions and refresh rates, but generally it works (problem cards are Voodoo 1&2 in 800x600, NV1 in DOS mode and the 3D Blaster VLB). I've read there are better VGA cards out there. For instance the professional card elandia owns which costs 800 dollars give noticeable better capture quality. Check out my youtube channel link in my sig for the general quality of the Avermedia. For instance my Wipeout ATICIF video show a bit of everything: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG3hd1humM0

Having a VGA capture card you really see which cards have the best signal output quality and that is another reason why I love the Matrox cards so much.

Awesome, thanks for the explanation! 😁
I will not rush into it just yet. I will wait for some cheaper deals to appear. But I'm definitely interested.

You can have a look here: ftp://78.46.141.148/videos/
Rove and Diablo3 Videos are done with a Gamebroadcaster HD
C64 stuff is captured with a BT878 based card and all other stuff is with the Epiphan card.

I have Game Broadcaster HD as well. It works alright but as Vetz says it does not like resolutions below 640x480 and it can be troublesome with syncing to some cards in VGA.

Since my videos are on Youtube and the bitrate is pretty low compared to the original files, I've uploaded the Avermedia Gamebroadcaster HD capture of Ultimate Race on PowerVR. I saw Elianda had the same game and resolution of 800x600 from his Ephipan card. Now it's easier to make a comparison:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/57506833/Shared/20120629093051.mpg
7 minutes, 1.5GB

Mau1wulf1977 asked me to capture some DOS footage from the DVI output and capture through the HDMI port on my Avermedia card. Here is the result:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/57506833/files/doom.mp4
Some Doom footage, then DOS prompt, then I restart and go into BIOS, POST screen. All captured with the Avermedia software (VLC or Virtualdub is an option). Footage from my 440BX machine.

I did some high bitrate 60 fps uploads too over in my still born anti aliasing thread that nobody cared about
GPU anti-aliasing captures

YouTube is not really useful I've decided. They don't run enough bitrate and the scaling is poor and unavoidable. It's certainly useless for comparing anti aliasing.

swaaye wrote:

I did some high bitrate 60 fps uploads too over in my still born anti aliasing thread that nobody cared about
GPU anti-aliasing captures

What kind of cards gave you problems?

Here is my list over problem cards/games:
- Voodoo 1&2 in 800x600. Allows you to capture in 800x600 @ 75hz, but image is misaligned and the quality is not top notch. See my POD/Mechwarrior 2 video to see it in action. FIX: Capture with a Voodoo 3/4/5.
- NV1 in Battle Arena Toshinden. Picture is misaligned. FIX: No fix that I know of.
- Destruction Derby for S3 Virge. Will not sync to the strange hertz the game is running on in 512x386 resolution. FIX: Use a S3 Virge GX2 and/or the patch released by Diamond to change hertz.
- All games except Actua Soccer on the Creative 3D Blaster VLB. FIX: No fix that I know of.
- All AWARD BIOS POST screens: Picture is misaligned when using VGA. FIX: Capture with DVI & HDMI.

Beside this no cards or games have given me issues that I haven't been able to solve. No DOS games running in software mode have given me issues (but I haven't tested very strange resolution games). I'm not saying the card is perfect or anything, there are lots to wish for, but as one of the cheapest VGA/HDMI High Definition capture card out there I gotta use what I got 😀 I wish someone else would buy one of the other cheap cards and test it out for retro 3D graphics captures.

Sometimes I get flickering and blur that is caused by the hsync pixel width of the video card. Elianda pointed this out. I've had some luck fixing it with Powerstrip or the video card's control panel if it supports adjustment (some drivers don't). Of course you need to be able to see something to tweak settings! Tweak on another monitor initially perhaps.

Indeed the old proprietary 3D APIs are trouble with this card. Locked refresh rate other than 60Hz, or sub 480p resolution, are bad news. And there's no manual output tweaking.

swaaye wrote:

Indeed the old proprietary 3D APIs are trouble with this card. Locked refresh rate other than 60Hz, or sub 480p resolution, are bad news.

I don't entirely agree with that. With all the different games, cards and API's I've captured for my Youtube videos the list of problems I would say is pretty small all things considered and many of the points on the list can easily be solved. Manual output tweaking would have been nice though.

Sure it's great for the price but it is also the most troublesome VGA device I've used. Still, I've never bought a $150 monitor.... 😀

I had some problems with DVI once too but I don't remember what card it was. Maybe Radeon 8500 which has poor DVI compliance.

Well, I would like to update:

Capture directly from DVI from a Voodoo5 5500 PCI at 1600x1200 at 75 Hz. (24 bit RGB, encoded at 8000 kBit/s with x264 two pass)
ftp://78.46.141.148/videos/DVI_Capture/Voodoo … 600x1200x75.mkv
Just as a note, VLC 2.0.7 playback on a 60 Hz TFT shows considerable stuttering while f.e. Media Player Classic plays fluently.

Two other Video available soon:
ftp://78.46.141.148/videos/DVI_Capture/Chaos_Theory.mkv
ftp://78.46.141.148/videos/DVI_Capture/fr-025 … opular_Demo.mkv
captured at 1920x1200 60 Hz from DVI.