I've just started working on NTSC artifact colours:

640x200 60Hz ega:

EGA text 640x350 60Hz:

CGA 640x200 60Hz:

VGA 640x480 60Hz:

These captures show a couple of the menus:

It's still a work in progress but I don't have any original MDA CGA or EGA cards, just a couple of 'universal' cards that can be switched to all resolutions with DIP switches so maybe someone would like to help out with testing that.

this is all very interesting, how can I build this to test? I've made some tests with the mce2vga adapter , you can read the thread here if you haven't already : MDA/CGA/EGA to VGA Converter Released! , if there is any way to contribute to testing do tell!
The profiles and proper scaling sound and look just awesome. 😎

Is it possible to add a scanlines effect as well?

keropi wrote:

this is all very interesting, how can I build this to test?

The PCB design and code are on github
This is my fork:
https://github.com/IanSB/RGBtoHDMI/tree/dev
This is hoglet's original (my changes are usually merged back in)
https://github.com/hoglet67/RGBtoHDMI/tree/dev
(All the current work is in the dev branch at the moment)

keropi wrote:

if there is any way to contribute to testing do tell!

Do you want to build one yourself? I still have a few prototype pcbs
Construction details here:
https://github.com/hoglet67/RGBtoHDMI/wiki/Bill-of-Materials

Note the current PCB was designed for the BBC micro which has composite sync and 3 bits RGB so had to be reworked slightly to connect the separate H and V sync and 6 bits RGB:

There will be a new pcb design sometime fairly soon which will be more universal.

keropi wrote:

Is it possible to add a scanlines effect as well?

Yes although it can interact with the integer scaling depending on monitor size and source resolution. In the case of CGA/EGA 640x200 on a 1080p monitor below, there are 2 LCD pixels of video and 3 pixels of black for each line pair: (Make sure to zoom to 100%)

If there are any unevenness issues with integer scaling and scanlines you can always switch on interpolation.

One other feature I forgot to mention is that it supports reprogramming of the output palette by displaying specific patterns of pixels which are unlikely to occur with normal operation as they look like random noise. (Although this feature can be disabled in case something triggers it accidentally)

This was primarily for use on the BBC micro to do things like change this:

Into this:

But a DOS command line tool could be written to change the palettes on old CGA games to something less garish.

For comparison, here's a closeup of scanlines with interpolation switched on to even out the 3:2 lines:

(The Pi can't screencap the interpolated output as that's done in hardware by the Pi's GPU)

looking good! I have to ask , what kind of latency is there with this adapter?
still very interested to test this, soldering/modifications are no issue 😀

keropi wrote:

looking good! I have to ask , what kind of latency is there with this adapter?

When the input and output frame rates match and they are genlocked together (e.g. CGA/EGA 60Hz to 1080p60), the phase relationship is arranged so that the source video is written to the Pi's frame buffer approx 1ms before it's read out by the Pi's display hardware so the inherent delay of the capture system is aroud one or two milliseconds. However, I'm not sure if there is any further delay introduced by the Pi's display hardware but that delay would affect anything running on a Pi in the same way.
If the input and output frame rates don't match or genlock is switched off then you can enable multiple buffering to eliminate tears but that does introduce a frame's delay for each buffer (normally this is not used).

I would also be interested in a prototype PCB. Just need BOM and instructions on how to mod it for EGA usage.

very good indeed then , looking forward to test this!

One caveat about the integer scaling: It only really works well on 1920x1080, 1920x1200 and 1600x1200 monitors as there have to be enough LCD pixels to fit the integer scaled output.
e.g. CGA and EGA lores scale from 640x200 to 1280x1000, EGA hires scales from 640x350 to 1280x1050, MDA scales from 720x350 to 1440x1050 and VGA scales from 640x480 to 1280x960 which all fit nicely into the above resolutions with minimal borders. Below those resolutions, integer scaling is less useful as you mostly end up with large borders and wrong aspect ratios.

You can make CGA/EGA lores work at 1280x1024 but there can be a problem because the text and graphics versions of some modes can shift horizontally by a few pixels so if you are configured to capture exactly 640 pixels one or the other will get a few pixels cut off. There are two ways around this, one is to capture more than 640 pixels such as 648 pixels but then the 2x integer scaling for that is 1296 so it won't fit and the other is to adjust the capture position each time there is a change from text to graphics and back again. I might add that adjustment to the existing built in auto calibration function.

keropi wrote:

what kind of latency is there with this adapter?

I just figured out a way to test this exactly:
I connected a HDMI to VGA converter lead to the HDMI output and then wrote a program to flash the screen briefly.
The VGA converter lead is just a simple D to A converter and doesn't introduce much delay itself.
I then looked at one of the RGB inputs (from the computer) and one of the RGB outputs from the HDMI to VGA lead on a scope and it shows the total delay is 2.4 milliseconds:
(Yellow is the computer RGB source, Cyan is the output of the converter)

I think roughly half of the delay is due to the capture side and the other half is the Pi's scaler.

that's a very nice and low latency - almost nothing considering the frameister has ~20ms of processing lag

I've added variable intensity scanlines from 0 - 15 with 0 = black and 15 = about 94% of full brightness. I also switched around the integer heights so there are 3 pixels of video and 2 pixels of scanline although that evens out if interpolation is switched on.

Here is the integer version with level set to 6:

Here's a closeup with interpolation switched on:

another great move, these scanlines are better looking IMHO!

looks great, i'd like to try it, will pm you !

Hello Ian,

Would that be possible to order a couple of these without going through stardot.org.uk?
I'm personalty not (yet) into Acorn, having started recently in vintage computers and still sticking to the PC area for now. So it'll be inappropriate to subscribe to that other forum just to order from you...

Vram is a N number of bytes of information can give any pixels at any frequencies, underststand this and in theory: emit any resolutions at any frequencies that how MCGA did to use VGA signal for example.

Ideal is capture the video output into ram and at same time shared bus with a modern GPU-like hardware without video timing and use this vram window at any timings to output letterboxed 1080p. This what dosbox does on modern PC in software.

Cheers,

Nice to see that there are a tread, specifically for the general version of the internal Amiga adaptor that I have. I honestly did not know that it is here on Vogons.

It would be great if this could work with SVGA too.

Would be fun to connect my retro PC's to my 55" 4K TV.

Who needs a PlayStation?

Very interested in this.