I've had good results with an Epiphan DVI2USB capture device. (Expect to have to do some fine tweaking of the timing settings to get a good quality picture.)

In my experience with OSSC it's not very useful for capture purposes. It can't convert framerate, and I think most HDMI capture devices you can find will have a problem with 70hz input from VGA 320x200. Only one of my monitors could handle its HDMI output for this case, and it wasn't useful to me because that monitor already had a VGA input I could use. Sounds like a few people use OSSC + a Datapath capture device?

I've heard of other capture devices from Magewell or Datapath that can handle low resolution VGA. (Maybe Startech too?) I don't have direct experience with them. I've also heard of upscaling framerate converters like the iScan Duo that might give easily capturable HDMI output, but they seem very expensive and are also going to be compromising the video by doing that conversion. (In general, capture devices that can handle this stuff seem a little more pricey than common modern HDMI capture devices.)

rainwarrior wrote on 2023-01-25, 20:09:

I've had good results with an Epiphan DVI2USB capture device. (Expect to have to do some fine tweaking of the timing settings to get a good quality picture.)

In my experience with OSSC it's not very useful for capture purposes. It can't convert framerate, and I think most HDMI capture devices you can find will have a problem with 70hz input from VGA 320x200. Only one of my monitors could handle its HDMI output for this case, and it wasn't useful to me because that monitor already had a VGA input I could use. Sounds like a few people use OSSC + a Datapath capture device?

I've heard of other capture devices from Magewell or Datapath that can handle low resolution VGA. (Maybe Startech too?) I don't have direct experience with them. I've also heard of upscaling framerate converters like the iScan Duo that might give easily capturable HDMI output, but they seem very expensive and are also going to be compromising the video by doing that conversion. (In general, capture devices that can handle this stuff seem a little more pricey than common modern HDMI capture devices.)

OSSC + CamLink 4K works well for capture purposes at 70Hz .

VGA Capture Thread

HappyLemons wrote on 2023-01-24, 16:04:

Is there any consensus on what is a suitable device for upscaling DOS / Windows 9x VGA to HDMI for recording with another device? This thread has gotten pretty long, and there's a lot of different devices being tested so it's hard to know what the "right" device is.

I'd assume the OSSC 1.7 is the way to go, but it's out of stock.

I can vouch for the GBS control , somebody else is testing this option lately too Re: What are the best Vga to hdmi scalers or peripherals for MS-DOS games ?

just got an extron 300a.. kinda disappointed in the lag. its about 1/2 to 1 second. that could be down to my live gamer portable that the extron is going into.... but it shouldnt be...

hmmm strange. not sure if that lag can be reduced in any way.

BloodyCactus wrote on 2023-01-27, 17:44:

just got an extron 300a.. kinda disappointed in the lag. its about 1/2 to 1 second. that could be down to my live gamer portable that the extron is going into.... but it shouldnt be...

hmmm strange. not sure if that lag can be reduced in any way.

Yeah that's something else in your chain. The extron only adds 16ms

maxtherabbit wrote on 2023-01-27, 17:46:

BloodyCactus wrote on 2023-01-27, 17:44:

just got an extron 300a.. kinda disappointed in the lag. its about 1/2 to 1 second. that could be down to my live gamer portable that the extron is going into.... but it shouldnt be...

hmmm strange. not sure if that lag can be reduced in any way.

Yeah that's something else in your chain. The extron only adds 16ms

my current chain is pc->extron->lgp2+->pc.

I was testing capture via VLC just to see if the box worked, when I switched to capture via OBS, the lag reduced a lot. things are much much more workable now.

I'd like to present another possible solution for VGA capture, which is a new project of ours. Check out CRT Terminator Digital VGA Feature Card ISA DV1000

With CRT Terminator one can avoid analog signals altogether, when using an ISA VGA adapter that has a Feature Connector bus, and as result, bypass a lot of headache that VGA->HDMI converters can cause. Hope that sounds interesting!

Cool really but for PCI cards?
Like for example the Matrox g200

The current solution is aimed for ISA VGA adapters. There are so many parts to develop, and the PCI VGA adapter landscape brings more complexity, along with VAFC and VBE control, so we decided to focus the adapter development to solving ISA compatibility now (otherwise feature scope would likely have been too large for the initial undertaking).

clb wrote on 2023-02-05, 23:29:

The current solution is aimed for ISA VGA adapters. There are so many parts to develop, and the PCI VGA adapter landscape brings more complexity, along with VAFC and VBE control, so we decided to focus the adapter development to solving ISA compatibility now (otherwise feature scope would likely have been too large for the initial undertaking).

Well it's a good start that's for sure, i like what i'm reading, so i take it that even thought a PCI card like the matrox has a vga feature connector it will not work, right?

That's right. The PCI and ISA buses are separated from each other, which causes CRT Terminator to not be able to inter-operate as an ISA card with a PCI video adapter card. It will definitely be a great future direction to look into PCI if everything goes well with the ISA version of the card.

Well then i hope you the best for this product, isa GPUs are not realy my thing so i'm gonna wait in hope that i will one day see a PCI compatible one.

Thanks! I hope everything will go smooth so we'll get there 😀

clb wrote on 2023-02-05, 23:41:

That's right. The PCI and ISA buses are separated from each other, which causes CRT Terminator to not be able to inter-operate as an ISA card with a PCI video adapter card. It will definitely be a great future direction to look into PCI if everything goes well with the ISA version of the card.

That is really cool ! I hope a PCI compatible version is possible .

Can anyone who is using a Datapath VisionRGB check whether or not 640x480 gives you a complete picture? I was just setting up profiles and noted that no matter what, 640x480 is always missing a few pixels at the bottom. You can move the screen up, but it doesnt give you the missing pixels.
It's quite noticable in Duke Nukem 3D when you look at the health and ammo display which should have a few pixels below that.
This does not happen on 800x600 btw, only on 640x480. Tried on 2 different machines/graphics cards.
Also its not a VCS issue as it also happens with original drivers.
So either this is a generall issue with VisionRGB or one with my particular model

Edit:
Checked other messages in this thread again, and seems like I am not the only one:

imi wrote on 2022-02-06, 23:48:

question for anyone capturing with a datapath card, I've recently encountered an issue and so far haven't found a solution...

Edit 2: Tested a few cards now (with one and two connections but not a "pro" card), issue is on all of them

And another, but different datapath related issue:
What is your solution in setting the phase for higher resolutions? You cannot really move it completely out of the way, it seems like with will always leave some smudge.
In this video I am showing the problem:
https://youtu.be/_OEAfKZShmQ

The Datapath has a known bug in that at 640x480 @ 59.94Hz it will not display the bottom 2-3 lines correctly. The solution that worked for me was to set the refresh rate to 75Hz in Windows. Obviously that will not work in pure DOS but I am sure there is some solution which allows you to change the refresh rate, maybe to 70Hz.

That phase issue looks like the horizontal size is not being dialed in correctly, leading to sampling errors which the phase control cannot fix. I believe the correct horizontal size should be 800, not 797.

Kordanor wrote on 2023-02-28, 13:56:

Checked other messages in this thread again, and seems like I am not the only one:

I don't remember if I ever posted my solution in here but it's rather straightforward.
I just use an Extron RGB interface with "ADSP" in the capture chain, that fixes the sync issue.
https://www.extron.com/article/adsp

edit: I did indeed post it just a few posts down from my other one ^^

Great Hierophant wrote on 2023-02-28, 23:40:

The Datapath has a known bug in that at 640x480 @ 59.94Hz it will not display the bottom 2-3 lines correctly. The solution that worked for me was to set the refresh rate to 75Hz in Windows. Obviously that will not work in pure DOS but I am sure there is some solution which allows you to change the refresh rate, maybe to 70Hz.

That phase issue looks like the horizontal size is not being dialed in correctly, leading to sampling errors which the phase control cannot fix. I believe the correct horizontal size should be 800, not 797.

Thanks for the phase thing. That fixed it 😀

Regarding the Check on Windows, I will need to test. Had no windows installed so far, and no graphics drivers...and no CD drive...so...will take a bit ^^

imi wrote on 2023-03-01, 02:10:

I don't remember if I ever posted my solution in here but it's rather straightforward. I just use an Extron RGB interface with " […]
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Kordanor wrote on 2023-02-28, 13:56:

Checked other messages in this thread again, and seems like I am not the only one:

I don't remember if I ever posted my solution in here but it's rather straightforward.
I just use an Extron RGB interface with "ADSP" in the capture chain, that fixes the sync issue.
https://www.extron.com/article/adsp

edit: I did indeed post it just a few posts down from my other one ^^

So taht thing is basically doing what you do on your monitor or in the VCS Software, like adjusting where the pic is on the screen?
I found this:
https://www.ebay.de/itm/293993484806
But it only got a horizontal knob...which I guess is useless in that case? Anything to look out for? Which model did you get? The page lists a few, but just using the technology doesnt mean too much.