Interesting topic! 😎

But sadly I cannot help much with the specific question on low resolution capable devices.

I was looking for the same thing, and ended up buying a second-hand PCI framegrabber card somewhat 'cheap'....(normal price $1000!, or $1500 with local taxes, shipping etc) 🤑
Strangest time ever, actually finding it on ebay... just as I was preparing to find a regular retailer!

Was saving up for retail/new one, and may still go for the new PCI-e version(costs slightly less!), but... we'll see how the battle between sane economics and buying-too-much-computer-crap goes.

Haven't had time to actually test it with recording software, but shows a nice live picture of the output of the connected computer.

Wonder what capture software that would be best ?
Preferrably one that does not need any online activation or such crap.

"Streampix" looked promising (supports the card!), but at $1500(for software!) it is a bit too much, I think. Perhaps FRAPS will work ?

Any suggestions welcome. HD-like quality would be nice (I'm gunning for something virtually indistinguishable from the source/monitor action - games up to at least 1024x768).

*

PS: Here's one that looks ok, at 'only' $800, not much more than a maxed out graphics card:
http://www.epiphan.com/products/frame-grabbers/vga2pcie/

Oh, and this one is only $299, both supporting 'custom vga modes', whatever that means:
http://www.epiphan.com/products/frame-grabber … specifications/

Lower framrates though, but at lowres it would prob be ok(30ish) ?

Personally I'd hope that it supports DirectShow (the VGA2PCIe device is listed to) and then use VLC to transcode if recording is needed, or just live play it if that's what I'm doing.

My price range doesn't extend as high as these devices, however - I also don't have a free PCIe port (my only two are used for GPU and TV tuner).

I have an interesting little card by Creative that after much exhaustive research I've determined to be a rebadged Sigma Designs Hollywood Plus DVD/MPEG2 decoder. This has a VGA IN port, which is why it caught my eye in the first place. This device, after LOTS of searching through dead pages and obscure postings, is also known as a DXR3, and it would appear could do what I want via TV output and VGA input, fed into my TV tuner as composite.

This all sounds great, but there's the issue of drivers. This card was intended to allow machines in ~1999 to play DVDs without requiring then high-end hardware - i.e., 400Mhz P2 recommended, 133Mhz P1 possible. This is neat in and of itself, but it means that as CPUs grew more powerful and DVD playback became trivial, the device fell into obsolescence. There is a beta version of a Win2k/WinXP driver that works for most people, but I'm on Win7-64. I should be able to get it to function under Win7-32, but I'd prefer not to have to shift platforms just for this (though between this, other drivers, and DOS app support [DOSBox is great, but it pisses me off not to have access to utilities for floppy writing, etc.]).

Mind you, I know Windows inside and out and have tricked it and forced it in every way possible to get the driver accepted, and the best I could get was "This driver isn't intended for this platform." - a hard refusal with no workaround short of rewriting the driver.

There's also a Linux driver project that's been around since 2000 and as lately had activity as 2009. This can allow you to use this board under Linux x64, which is the closest thing I can find to what I want.

Compounding this issue further, I can't test the card before committing to any of this because I lack the cable necessary for DB15 VGA -> 9-pin DIN VGA input on the card. There's one on eBay with a cable that I'm planning to buy for this purpose, since it's not too expensive (and not in demand for obvious reasons).

Will post back with findings or ideas - until then any more input is appreciated.

A helpful page
http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/vga2tv/index.html

http://dosmame.mameworld.info/index.php/MAME_Displays

One solution that I know works is by using a video card that has TV-Out. Hoping you are using a AGP capable board? Any Nvidia with TV-Out will work.

Now VGA needs to be unplugged to get TV-Out under DOS. A USB S-Video capture device like a Compro (Has W7 drivers 64 bit) will do the job!

If your old machine is on ISA or VLB / PCI I don't know if there are video cards with V-Out.

Now the TV Quality is average. But it's a solution that is very very cheap and guaranteed to work!

you need to be sure that tv out supports 320x200 and 240 some dont and doesnt rely on windows drivers

Well if I were to going to go with making sure the box to be plugged in supports TV-out, for very old machines with pure CGA cards there's the composite out, which is actually nicer than the RGB out for games in many cases.

Anything newer will run fine on a VGA card (only CGA is picky about hardware afaik, no picky EGA games), and I have at least one AGP with composite out, and one PCI with AGP out (that I bought explicitly to use with a Pentium box I was using at the time for most of my DOS gaming - had forgotten about this). The only problem is when you get to Voodoo - there are Voodoo 2 cards with TV out, but I don't own one, and there's the Canopus Pure3D for Voodoo 1 with TV out. The problem is that both aren't the most common Voodoos around, but I suppose I can find one - nice thing is that either would also let me use any VGA card (hopefully) passing the VGA through and then out the Composite (can anyone confirm this? I'm worried it may just send the Glide stuff through composite and nothing else).

It would be preferable to have general VGA input so that I could hook *any* computer into mine for viewing (plus for quality), but I suppose that if I really need that I can always hook it into an alternate input on my monitor and deal without windowed mode.

Thanks for getting me to think about this option again.

Still looking for more ideas/information, however, if there's any out there we haven't heard.

Edit: Perhaps if the Voodoo Canopus *does* only show the glide stuff, I could mix the 2D card's tv out with the v1 card's tv out, hoping that the 2d will send nothing when glide is on, and vice versa.

The main problem with TV-Out is the resolution and refresh rate support.

f.e. ModeX is not so uncommon for DOS programs and usually TV-Out will just stop working. Also the different refresh rate is the source of alot of problems with programs that rely on v-retrace sync.
And you require to use a half way modern AGP card to get a good quality TV-signal.

I also had a look for VGA-In capable hardware for old PCs and it is very difficult. There are the remote control boxes with VGA to network (RDP/VNC etc.), but those are also working with certain resolutions only.
Real VGA Grabbers are damn expensive.

There is some VESA-Connector to DVI method around. Since this way the signal is digital it might be easier to grab somehow.

Well there are definitely universal TV outputs on some cards, I played numerous games and ran apps from my ATI PCI (Rage 3D iirc) card with TV out, but you're right, some will cut out at certain resolutions as well.

Could you elaborate or link to this VESA to DVI thing? I'm not familiar with a VESA connector.. I did find (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VESA_Enhanced_Video_Connector), of course, but I don't understand how it helps.

There are VGA to component / DVI or even HDMI convertors, but they never list DOS output or 320x 200 resolution.

They all list 640 x 480 or higher, but that's no good for DOS as most DOS games that I am interested run at 320 x 200 resolution.

Component and HDMI you could grab with a DVD recorder or PVR and then edit on the PC.

In reality 320x200 does not exist, it is just a scanline/pixel doubled mode of 640x400. And 640x400 is the common 80x25 Textmode.