havli wrote:I presume the $20 ones are not the VisionRGB-E1, but something older? The cheapest one I can see on ebay is $50 + another $50 shipping.
Anyway if I understand it right, the VisionRGB-E1 can capture resolution 1280x1024 / 1600x1200 / 1920x1080 / 1920x1200 at 60 fps using DVI or VGA? If so, it seems like a good deal even for $100 total.
Probably cards vvbee mentioned might be single-channel VisionRGB Pros, I think, they're VGA only for PCI bus and tend to be cheaper than E1 as well seen as they're much older models. Most Datapath cards are either single or dual channels, meaning they can capture from one or two independent sources.
Tech specs from manufacturers is rarely of help and often is incomplete. They tend to list most common modern resolutions and their tech support is often unaware that cards can go lower. Just keep in mind that 320x200 will be listed as 640x400 instead, line doubling and all that. Default DOS text mode is 720x400. If a card specifies those two then most likely it'll handle most low resolutions. Refresh rate is another spec to look at, 70+hz listed might also be an indication of lowres support.
appiah4 wrote:I’ve actually read the second half of this thread over again last night and today I am no wiser for it. 30 pages and no good cheap way of capturing dos gaming footage - mind boggling.
Yep, the mind boggling variety of hardware pc has, various transition periods where standards gone through changes, and then some hardware don't play by the rules. The wider period you'll want to cover the more variety there will be. On top of that mess the late period has early digital video output support on certain cards where they either ignore EDID and do their own thing completely or force ugly interpolation and smoothing, ignoring aspect ratio. Last but not the least is software too, some of which did wacky stuff, then there are svga vesa/non-vesa modes. So yeah, it's pretty tricky, not easy to find capture card capable of doing it all. I have various cards and personally I think it boils down to Epiphan DVI2PCIe or Datapath VisionRGB (be it Ex(S) series for PCIe or earlier VGA-only Pro for PCI bus) cards. I also have Yuan-Tech cards (seem to be OEM for various models that StarTech, Micomsoft and few others produce) and resuls there vary depending on drivers, settings and so on, not really worth it compared to aforementioned two.
If you'll want to capture digital video there's another benefit to Datapath E1(S) cards and that is built-in EDID editor where you can change preferred resolution forcing scaler on Nvidia cards to scale image to what you want, which includes 1600x1200. Granted this will not affect built-in scaler interpolation, but at least it's something. On the other hand something like Number Nine's versions of S3 Savage4 with DVI output simply ignore EDID completely and output whatever generic resolution that would fit in original image.
Anyway if you have specific questions feel free to ask. I'm sure folks here who had got their recording setups can share their setups too.
appiah4 wrote:Someone needs to get on top of this an fpga capture unit that can handle low res vga signals shouldnt be that hard..
Well, there's Micomsoft XPC-4, but it's a quirky product. Sure, you'll get decent results, in fact better than scalers like old Startech's VGA2HDMIPro, and then you can capture scaled digital video (1080p with black bars or 1600x1200 with correct aspect ratio) with most common digital-only capture cards. But it is a very expensive unit and there's no english translation (it is entirely in japaneese). I have it but don't have much use of nowadays for plain DOS machine, I suppose it's more useful for those japaneese nec/sharp PCs for which it was primarily made and their quirks to handle.
Unlike most retro setups people have here I actually don't have good ol' CRT and my primary display (ASUS PG279Q) doesn't handle VGA either, so I have to route video to capture card anyway. And after dealing with a few initial setup hurdles it had become pretty convinient, retro box is just another window on my screen while keyboard/mouse handled via basic KVM with PS/2 and USB ins and outs. Kind like best of the worlds, in my personal opinion, no emulation and real hardware.