schlang wrote:

unfortunately realtime x264 encoding with 60fps is requires quite potent hardware

You wouldn't encode in real-time.

What you do is capture in RAW format or a lossless video codec.

The files will end up huge, but that isn't an issue. HDDs have no issues writing the data (it's all sequential), as long as you have a separate HDD for the video project.

FRAPS does the same thing and captures Full HD 1080 @ fps with no issues.

e.g. with Fraps a 1280 x 720 recording @ 25fps ens up ~ 4GB for ~ 4 minutes.

It’s only after you have captured the video that you encode it into whatever format you require…

All the 60 Hz raw material seems to convert well. Though usual DOS modes are 720x400 at 70 Hz. The aspect ratio of 4:3 i.e. not quadratic pixels is not so much of a problem.
I can either leave the 720x400 and put the target video in a mkv container where I can set a 4:3 aspect ratio.
Or I let the codec rescale the image to 534:400 which is 4:3 as quadratic pixels. The downscale from 720 to 534 is not so much of an issue since the content from DOS graphics modes is usually not much more than 360x240.
A greater issue are the 70 fps of the source material. Usual TFT run at 60 Hz and thus will skip every 7th frame. The result with a framerate downconversion is also not very convincing and not much better than viewing the 70 fps material.

I did about 20 recordings of flying levels in Tyrian until my hands hurt 😉.
And an updated video of the extreme pinball video because I got now my VGA multiplier box and thus the gameplay is slightly better.

vga multiplier box?

simple but effective: http://www.aten.com/products/productItem.php? … 050222135634005

of course, vga splitters. I have a 4-port too, it feeds LCD-VGA, VGA-DVI converter and the VGA-PCIE 😀

So here some new content:
I did a recapturing of the Extreme Pinball / Rock Fantasy table gameplay.
The difference is that I captured lossless and encoded then with x264 2pass. Thus the file is smaller (63 MB), better quality and longer playtime (8 mins).
ftp://78.47.153.163/video/extreme.mkv
edit: Oh I forgot to mention, that I somehow made a rank 1 highscore here.

And then for our fans here of Tyrian, here are 26 levels of gameplay:
ftp://78.47.153.163/video/tyrian/
Earlier live XVID captures have xvid in it's filename, all others are captured like the extreme pinball video.
I know that some like FM music in Tyrian, here I used Roland Sound Canvas.
edit: Yeah I like this Quad Zica + Sonic Wave setup.

Okido! Thread revival 🤣

I have various VGA to HDMI converter boxes here. I got them cheap from eBay. Two don't seem to do anthing, no even from a modern notebook. But one shows some signs of life.

On the Retro PC it only shows the POST part where it tests the RAM and looks for the drives. Everything else is a no go.

On my notebook (VGA out) it works at 800 x 600 (fickers though) and 1024 x 768 (perfect image).

Now I would like to do some more testing with the Retro PC (Pentium 133 with AGP Geforce MX440 or AGP Radeon 7000 and heaps of other ISA VGA cards).

I tried all of them, and I can only see the POST. No 320 x 200 game works.

Now I need some help!

What I'm looking for is a DOS utility that allows me to run / test various resolutions and / or refresh rates.

This can be a game or a diagnostics utility, it doesn't matter. I remember some ATI tool that came with AGP video cards that allowed you to change the refresh rates and size and position of various graphic modes.

I will test W98 later, but now I want to focus on DOS.

Anything out there that might be useful?

Having some minor joy, but not much...

I can see why this PCIe card costs so much. It must be quite a challenge to capture a VGA signal in decent quality.

That one converter box that works, only likes 60 Hz. But at that refresh rate it works quite well. At 640 x 480 the image is a bit off to the left, but 800 x 600 and 1024 x 768 look fine.

Another thought I had. At what point did video cards come with DVI? Are there AGP cards with DVI that would work in a Super Socket PC?

Because DVI = HDMI though an adapter, right?

Here some pics at 1024 x 768:

And this is the PCIe capture card I have on my wish list:

http://www.avermedia.com/Product/ProductDetail.aspx?Id=530

It can capture composite, S-Video, Component and HDMI. I remember that a lot of Nvidia and ATI cards came with some form of Component adapter / breakout box or dongle. So that might be another option for recording Windows games...

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Another thought I had. At what point did video cards come with DVI? Are there AGP cards with DVI that would work in a Super Socket PC?

SS7? Unlikely to be the earliest, but how about a Matrox G450? Here's one. Win95 drivers are available for it, here.

Yea SS7 🤣

Matrox should be easy to source! No worries...

I think I will get the HDMI / Component capture card first and see if I can record from my desktop usin FreeDOS!

I know some Radeon 7x00s had DVI out. That's pretty early considering it was the year 2000

Sweet...

Are there AGP cards that won't work in my SS7 board? They are all keyed right (gaps in the PCB).

So as long as it fits, it should work?

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Sweet...

Are there AGP cards that won't work in my SS7 board? They are all keyed right (gaps in the PCB).

So as long as it fits, it should work?

AGP 4x/8x cards usually don't work in 1x/2x motherboards. There might be a handful of 4x cards that will work in 2x slots but those are the exception rather than the rule. There's also the voltages that you need to worry about. Later AGP cards used lower voltage than early ones and won't work in any board that doesn't supply the voltage they need.

i have a geforce4 ti4600 in my k6 board. it does not depend on the agp speed but on the voltage (3,3 vs. 5 volt)

No worries. The Geforce MX440 boots up with 8x in the POST screen. The W98 driver shows the same thing, so I should be fine...

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

On the Retro PC it only shows the POST part where it tests the RAM and looks for the drives. Everything else is a no go.

I tried all of them, and I can only see the POST. No 320 x 200 game works.

Now I need some help!

Well, my VGA capture card detects the DOS modes always as 720x400 at 70 Hz. The POST screen instead is 640x480 at 56 or 60 Hz. For me it looks like that the adapter either is limited to 60 Hz or 640x480 as minimal resolution.
So I would try this approach:
Use the game Quake, where you can set a lot of different modes. You can startup Quake for testing blindly, after you set a mode.
You will hear sound and see (or not) an image.
Use a DOS tool for a graphics card to set the refresh. For Cirrus Logic cards there is f.e. CLMODE. You might also try to force 60 Hz in DOS within Win98SE using Powerstrip. Maybe this way you get your converter to show DOS modes.
Compatibility may vary though, since some programs sync to the vertical refresh and you get a speed drop from 70 to 60 Hz.

Try also Tran/Timeless that uses 640x480 56 Hz.

To have an overview about the (real) capabilities of these VGA to HDMI converters would be nice.

I had one of those, too. but the problem was that the image was always positioned (horz + vert) wrong, e.g. the image had negative x or y coordinates

Thanks for input elianda!

I packed all the stuff away again because of the findings under W98.

Indeed, these cheap VGA > HDMI converters only work at 60 Hz. The manual however also lists 75 and 85 Hz. None of these worked however...

640 x 480, 800 x 600 and 1024 x 768 worked quite well. However when you use windows, you might as well use a video card with DVI / HDMI out and capture that signal directly.

When you have a card with DVI / HDMI output, does the card simply output everthing at 60Hz? Because that's what the LCD displays right? So the video card will do some kind of refresh rate conversion?

I don't have a TV with HDMI. Any chance someone here could test this?

Hook up a PC with DVI / HDMI into a TV with HDMI (through an adapter if needed). Can you see the POST screen? Can you play a DOS game?

Because if this works, so should HDMI capture cards...

I just downloaded just about every video you uploaded. Hope your server doesn't mind 😀
These look fantastic, I'm currently working on a retro gaming website whose goal will be to provide good example videos/images to encourage people to try them out and having videos made on the real hardware would be kind of nice, even though Dosbox is very accurate too. I might start looking for something like this too. Actually I already have a TV capture device (EyeTV 250 Plus) so I might be able to use that if I can figure out how to get an S-Video signal out of my PC.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

When you have a card with DVI / HDMI output, does the card simply output everthing at 60Hz? Because that's what the LCD displays right? So the video card will do some kind of refresh rate conversion?

On my main PC I use 2 Displays with DVI and the displays report 60 Hz. But I can add a custom mode and increase the refresh rate (as long as I am within the DVI transfer rate limits). So I can f.e. run my second display at 70 Hz to check the DOS videos.
So it is not limited by refresh rate but by transfer rate. On single DVI the maximum is 1920x1200 at 60 Hz afaik.

edit: I think I have this just uploaded to my Youtube channel, but it might be just as interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9HkUA9REHc
Number Nine GXiTC demo.