vvbee wrote:

It's off the cuff beta software the rights of mine to which I've decided not to sign away unnecessarily. It wouldn't be in line with that decision to upload it onto a 3rd party host whose terms of service I don't know.

Okay.

The terms of use for VOGONS were provided in a link to you when you registered: ucp.php?mode=terms

This is the privacy policy: ucp.php?mode=privacy

I believe both are stock for phpBB forums.

Stiletto wrote:

The terms of use for VOGONS were provided in a link to you when you registered: ucp.php?mode=terms
This is the privacy policy: ucp.php?mode=privacy

No doubt, and I would've read them not intending to use vogons as a file host. In any case I couldn't see a link to them for this occasion. Looking through them now, I'm not immediately alarmed, but whether I decide to upload is another matter. The potential userbase for vcs seems rather small and I don't think it's expected to grow much in the near future. The need for the program seems to have been fulfilled for now, and a new version probably comes up at some point anyway.

Tree Wyrm wrote:

@vvbee Yep, modified .vcp to default brightness/contrast values from rgbeasy. I have another question, perhaps you might know. There's VisionRGB configuration utility which provides some basic EDID editing, and I wonder if it's possible to modify it in such way not to tell preferred resolution to display adapter, I'd like to prevent graphics card from attempting to scale image by itself and try to force it to output original image. But frankly I don't know whether it can be done via EDID at all, just a theory. Another approach I think would be modifying graphics card BIOS to disable built-in scaler, but I reckon it would still output at preferred resolution with image centered and having black bars around.

No idea, sorry. Seems particular to the post-vga cards.

Figured out some sort of approach here. For DVI output built-in scaler in Nvidia cards can be disabled either by modifying BIOS or temporarily with NVSC. Use VisionRGB configuration utility to modify EDID, set custom preset and set preferred display resolution to a maximum resolution you intend to use at retro PC, for example 1024x768x70hz. When retro system boots run nvsc.com with argument 2 to disable scaler and output image at left top corner. In vvbee's VCS change input resolution to whichever current you actually have (720x400 for text-mode, 640x400 for 320x200 and so on) and output to what you actually want and whether you want to use filter in scaling.

A feature suggestion if I may have for vvbee's VCS is option to maintain selected input source aspect ratio, force it to specific (like 4:3) or maintain aspect ratio (current), similar to how it is in VisionRGB window program.

The dos vga capture card market looks either quite saturated or very small. A bunch of visionrgb-pro1 on ebay have been up for $20 each shipped for a while without seeing sales. I've been periodically checking the seller's listing for almost a year actually and he doesn't get a lot of business for his visionrgbs.

As for the vcs scaling, I've been wanting relative scaling in it in my own use for months but not enough to implement it. You'd need to introduce extra ui complexity etc. I can see about pushing out the source code if there's an actual developer willing to pick it up.

vvbee wrote:

The dos vga capture card market looks either quite saturated or very small. A bunch of visionrgb-pro1 on ebay have been up for $20 each shipped for a while without seeing sales. I've been periodically checking the seller's listing for almost a year actually and he doesn't get a lot of business for his visionrgbs.

As for the vcs scaling, I've been wanting relative scaling in it in my own use for months but not enough to implement it. You'd need to introduce extra ui complexity etc. I can see about pushing out the source code if there's an actual developer willing to pick it up.

Links to said item perhaps?

vvbee wrote:

The dos vga capture card market looks either quite saturated or very small. A bunch of visionrgb-pro1 on ebay have been up for $20 each shipped for a while without seeing sales. I've been periodically checking the seller's listing for almost a year actually and he doesn't get a lot of business for his visionrgbs.

Does this card actually has custom mode support?
If it can do only the modes listed in the manual a simple capture solution with VGA to DVI/HDMI converter can do the same.

Give me a program that enters the modes you want in dos and i'll see what the card does. Nothing that breaks the computer please, preferably something that has facilities for image calibration in each mode.

By the way, if I want a simple capture solution with a vga to hdmi converter for $20 shipped, where do I go?

appiah4 wrote:

Links to said item perhaps?

Just put visionrgb into us ebay, and correct any proposed alternate spellings.

One thing is content that changes modes while running, like Death Rally.

Then stuff with uncommon modes, like Kukoo2 The Flamoots at 640x560 55 Hz.
Ambience at 720x960 60 Hz
Copper / Surprise Production with 720x400 70Hz an horizontal sync offset shift per scanline.
DoWackaDo 640x960 55Hz
...

JROK's accurate clones of Pac-Man (Pac-Em) and Ms. Pac-Man (Ms. Pac-Em) run at what seems to be a scandoubled 288x224 mode at 56Hz if using the fullscreen option.

Ambience didn't run on the test machine, kukoo2 seemed to work based on the second I can bear to look at any hyperactive demo. The gist of the graphics were there but also some horizontal artefacting. Was running on a voodoo 3. The capture card's not good at switching resolutions automatically in dos, here it served 720x555 or so, I think it got the 55 hz right. Seemed to work just forcing it manually to 640x560 as well, but again, I turned it off having seen that something resembling an image was there.

I've been using Startech PCI-e capture. However since the actual VGA capture function doesn't like the 400-line VGA modes, I use HDMI capture and a VGA to HDMI converter that matches the VGA mode exactly to capture the 720x400 VGA output of the DOS prompt.

Lately I've been using AV.io USB capture cards because they work with Linux and I no longer have to boot into Windows 7 to use the Startech cards. They're pricey cards but they can take VGA, DVI, and HDMI. There's another model that can take 4K HDMI.

I do recommend the older Startech cards however because they are apparently able to capture the full 70Hz frame rate of the VGA source, where other cards will cap at 60Hz and drop frames to stay within the limit.

TheGreatCodeholio wrote:

Lately I've been using AV.io USB capture cards because they work with Linux and I no longer have to boot into Windows 7 to use the Startech cards.

I find my regular pci card with windows-only drivers to work via pci passthrough in a qemu virtual machine letting me do capture on the linux desktop.

I just bought the visionrgb card from ebay, could you please share the capture utility again so I can grab it already before I get the card? Pretty please?!

I rewrote the vcs output scaling to work solely on aspect ratio + relative magnification. Enlarge with the mouse wheel, etc. Was tested only briefly, so there may be issues. As always, it's a beta test release.
[old link, see later in the thread for a newer version]

Thank vvbee, this will be the first thing I try when I get the card.

I came up with a great idea: why not use my old VHS/DVD recorder and record on DVD ?
After all, DVD maximum quality is crappy enough to look like full HD on 320x200 games on DOS, sooo..... I plugged my 486 AST computer into my old Televiewer v2 to convert the VGA signal into S-Video and connected the S-Video in my DVD recorder, BUT.... I can't figure out how to record audio... I might need to plug the sound card into a laptop and record it separately with Audacity, or find some 3.5mm to RCA adapter of some sort...

But the DVD recording idea isn't that bad, after all I could record hours on a single DVD (even an 8GB one) and then archive them in one of those bags:

Elia1995 wrote:

I came up with a great idea: why not use my old VHS/DVD recorder and record on DVD ?
After all, DVD maximum quality is crappy enough to look like full HD on 320x200 games on DOS, sooo..... I plugged my 486 AST computer into my old Televiewer v2 to convert the VGA signal into S-Video and connected the S-Video in my DVD recorder, BUT.... I can't figure out how to record audio... I might need to plug the sound card into a laptop and record it separately with Audacity, or find some 3.5mm to RCA adapter of some sort...

I don't recommend it. Scan converters always seem to like to blur the picture and they underscan a bit too much. I didn't bother to record much prior to obtaining a proper capture card because 480i (even S-Video) tended to look so bad. I had no idea you could make 320x200 graphics modes look so bad until I started playing with scan converters and the TV output of most VGA cards.

I even have a converter from the mid-2000s that offers the same shitty 480i scan conversion to composite, S-Video, and component video!

We live in an era today where VGA capture cards can be had for 100-300 dollars and HDMI capture is just as widely available. Or you could get an HDMI capture card and a VGA to HDMI converter. Why bother with S-Video and composite anymore?

TheGreatCodeholio wrote:

We live in an era today where VGA capture cards can be had for 100-300 dollars

20 dollars.

Testing some low windows resolutions with the visionrgb-pro2. I'd noticed inconsistencies with these before.

Matrox millennium:
320 x 240 = seems as 16-bit the capture card wants to pick it up as interlaced and doesn't display it properly, as 8-bit the game switches to 400 x 300
400 x 300 = works
512 x 384 = works

Matrox g400:
320 x 240 = works but as 640 x 480
400 x 300 = works but as 800 x 600
512 x 384 = works

Ran delta force in windows 98 to test. The video cards used different vga cables and inputs on the capture card, so take those as confounding variables as well. Both cables have all pins but I haven't tested for continuity.

I updated the vcs beta with some performance improvements esp. at higher output resolutions, and added the ability to define alias input resolutions. On my system the capture card always wanted to initialize 512 x 384 to 516 x 388 which I found annoying, so now I can tell vcs to automatically force 512 x 384 when the card tries to set 516 x 388. Read the readme to find how to set these alias resolutions.
http://personal.inet.fi/muoti/eimuoti/vcs56.zip