iraito wrote on 2023-11-29, 20:39:

anne wrote on 2023-11-29, 20:20:

iraito wrote on 2023-11-28, 16:17:

The question is, is it better to have an incredibly flexible but also expensive as all hell capture card or an incredibly flexible scaler (extron) with a good modern capture card that costs way less together than the datapath alone?

What modern, cost effective card would you recommend? 😀

Personally i'm loving the live gamer ultra from avermedia, nooooot really that cost effective but i had the luck to buy an almost unused one for 100€ it accepts any kind of refresh, color space, vsync up to 4k and it's portable (needed in my case)
But avermedia produces way less expensive cards that go max to 1080p but still have a lot of refresh etc. options and the same crisp and color correct quality.

That's very tempting...I have a similar setup to yours, and I've been agonizing over the capture. 😀

An Elgato - Cam Link 4K is less than 100 US$ (even less for a refurb) and can capture 70Hz (it is limited to YUV 422 at best, however, and apparently does not respond well to resolution changes while capturing).

Add an OSSC, and HDMI splitter and a monitor that can be forced into 4:3 mode and one has a zero latency gameplay and capture that is, IMHO, both reasonably functional and realtively affordable while using only modern display and capture HW.

anne wrote on 2023-11-29, 21:13:

iraito wrote on 2023-11-29, 20:39:

anne wrote on 2023-11-29, 20:20:

What modern, cost effective card would you recommend? 😀

Personally i'm loving the live gamer ultra from avermedia, nooooot really that cost effective but i had the luck to buy an almost unused one for 100€ it accepts any kind of refresh, color space, vsync up to 4k and it's portable (needed in my case)
But avermedia produces way less expensive cards that go max to 1080p but still have a lot of refresh etc. options and the same crisp and color correct quality.

That's very tempting...I have a similar setup to yours, and I've been agonizing over the capture. 😀

I can tell you that an extron sending the signal to a live gamer ultra gives off a crystal clear picture with rich colors plus sound, avermedia has really good products and on the retrotink discord they recommend avermedia in general, so i would go for it.

NightSprinter wrote on 2023-11-29, 20:45:

iraito wrote on 2023-11-29, 20:39:

anne wrote on 2023-11-29, 20:20:

What modern, cost effective card would you recommend? 😀

Personally i'm loving the live gamer ultra from avermedia, nooooot really that cost effective but i had the luck to buy an almost unused one for 100€ it accepts any kind of refresh, color space, vsync up to 4k and it's portable (needed in my case)
But avermedia produces way less expensive cards that go max to 1080p but still have a lot of refresh etc. options and the same crisp and color correct quality.

The important question is: how does it handle resolution switching? My EVGA XR1 Pro is almost Framemeister-levels of slow.

GBS control level of fast which i didn't expect, it takes 1 second maybe even less, seems to behave as if it has a framebuffer but i can't say for sure.

Here is Epos Vox latest video reviewing the RetroTink4K, and he actually tested it using DOS as well. Linked at the timestamp
https://youtu.be/_KUxCUtSiI4?t=1584

he ran into issues with games constantly switching resolution, but says its possible most likely to automatically do that if you create a custom profile for that game and its sub resoltions.

Am glad we could help him get some DOS material to use for that portion of the review.

The "switching resolutions" problem is an issue with high end frame grabbers too. The DVI2PCIe includes most of the common VESA modes as presets to deal with this. Besides 70Hz in DOS, it would be interesting to see how it handles 1024x768 interlaced (aka 8514/A mode). The OSSC fell flat on that one.

Kordanor wrote on 2023-12-14, 20:15:

Here is Epos Vox latest video reviewing the RetroTink4K, and he actually tested it using DOS as well. Linked at the timestamp
https://youtu.be/_KUxCUtSiI4?t=1584

he ran into issues with games constantly switching resolution, but says its possible most likely to automatically do that if you create a custom profile for that game and its sub resoltions.

amazing stuff, the crt emulation too. just the fixed output should be better, eg 4k scale with 70hz not possible?

the epic pinball 320x240 60hz, 320x200 70hz switching is nothing compared to a demoscene demo 😀 they use crazy modes and frequencies, it was really an art to capture them with the datapath (i wrote a capture tool for that). the ossc handles quite well these modes, but it depends on the video card too, how good is the output. i have to discover this part.

in the ossc i had go deep at the settings at some video cards to get the best quality (change phase, or input voltage, gain, etc), probably i will create a profile to my every favorite cards. i would be curious how the retrotink4k would behave with the various vga cards + special modes.

Am curious as to what this tool is.

NightSprinter wrote on 2023-12-15, 15:52:

Am curious as to what this tool is.

it i not a public tool, i suggest to use this: https://github.com/leikareipa/vcs

Is it possible to disable the ugly mode switching/blinking on the elgato usb devices?

Phil just put up a video where he reviews the RetroTink 4K connected to a DOS and Win98 system.

I'm a bit disappointed that the device doesn't (currently) support 1280x960 and 1600x1200 resolutions out of the box. Thankfully, Phil was able to fix that by using a custom EDID. However, for a scaler that boasts retro PC support, it really needs to handle this properly on its own. Hopefully, a future firmware update can rectify this.

Personally I wouldn't care for 1600x1200 and 1280x960 too much. Running games on these resolution you will be able to use DVI anyways. So at that point its purely about scaling (not capturing). Ofc it's still a shame if you want to use these for upscaling to your 4k screen and applying filters. But for VGA Capturing in itself, it sounds like a non-factor to me.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-02-02, 14:10:

Phil just put up a video where he reviews the RetroTink 4K connected to a DOS and Win98 system.

I'm a bit disappointed that the device doesn't (currently) support 1280x960 and 1600x1200 resolutions out of the box. Thankfully, Phil was able to fix that by using a custom EDID. However, for a scaler that boasts retro PC support, it really needs to handle this properly on its own. Hopefully, a future firmware update can rectify this.

It would have been more interesting with various dos modes, they are more challening than the windows with static resolution and dvi capable cards (i connect directly them to my oled). I use my analogue vgas until 1024x768, i created a simple dos tool to generate simple patterns to find the best output for ossc: positioning, phase, etc. It works wonderfully until this resolution, created profiles for my favorite cards.

I am sure, they will fix it.

I got a RT4K as well and it's incredible how well it's able to do resolution switching. Still it's not perfect but the dev is committed to actively pushing firmware updates that resolve these issues. I've been testing it on various old PCs and the results are pretty amazing.

I'm traveling right now, and I'm still building my new retro rig, but once I'm done I'll be capturing some retro video for sure.

One thing that there's definitely a shortage of is real video of old Macs. Sheepshaver is a pretty great emulator, but still, it'd be nice to have some captures from the real thing.

dada wrote on 2024-02-22, 01:05:

I got a RT4K as well and it's incredible how well it's able to do resolution switching. Still it's not perfect but the dev is committed to actively pushing firmware updates that resolve these issues. I've been testing it on various old PCs and the results are pretty amazing.

I'm traveling right now, and I'm still building my new retro rig, but once I'm done I'll be capturing some retro video for sure.

One thing that there's definitely a shortage of is real video of old Macs. Sheepshaver is a pretty great emulator, but still, it'd be nice to have some captures from the real thing.

I have a working Mac IIvx that I would experiment with and possibly capture (first time I ever set up a custom OSSC profile from scratch was for this machine, AFAICR) if I ever
a) get an ADB keyboard or converter (I do have a mouse)
b) replace the working but noisy SCSI HDD
c) optionally upgrade video RAM to max

I also need to keep in mind that this thing will need a re-cap at some point AND the floppy drive will likely need servicing (surprisingly, it still works).
BTW, the PRAM battery was removed long ago.

Does anyone have any experience with Magewell USB capture cards like the USB Capture HDMI? Right now it's more feasable for my setup than the PCIe card and cheaper to find used. I have an OSSC Pro so VGA -> HDMI isn't an issue but some of my machines refuse to be recognized by my current Avermedia card.

darkwitchclaire wrote on 2024-03-28, 23:12:

Does anyone have any experience with Magewell USB capture cards like the USB Capture HDMI? Right now it's more feasable for my setup than the PCIe card and cheaper to find used. I have an OSSC Pro so VGA -> HDMI isn't an issue but some of my machines refuse to be recognized by my current Avermedia card.

I've been wanting one for that very reason - whilst my Magewell HDMI Pro Capture is great, it's a bit clunky and a pain to move it around with it being a PCIe card. The Magewell USB devices are a bit too expensive to make one an impulse purchase, unlike the PCIe version which turned up for peanuts.

Also, in my use case, I'm not 100% sure of the driver situation for the USB devices in Linux, whereas the PCIe cards have a driver which (still) compiles nicely against current Linux kernel versions.

megatron-uk wrote on 2024-03-30, 09:07:

darkwitchclaire wrote on 2024-03-28, 23:12:

Does anyone have any experience with Magewell USB capture cards like the USB Capture HDMI? Right now it's more feasable for my setup than the PCIe card and cheaper to find used. I have an OSSC Pro so VGA -> HDMI isn't an issue but some of my machines refuse to be recognized by my current Avermedia card.

I've been wanting one for that very reason - whilst my Magewell HDMI Pro Capture is great, it's a bit clunky and a pain to move it around with it being a PCIe card. The Magewell USB devices are a bit too expensive to make one an impulse purchase, unlike the PCIe version which turned up for peanuts.

Also, in my use case, I'm not 100% sure of the driver situation for the USB devices in Linux, whereas the PCIe cards have a driver which (still) compiles nicely against current Linux kernel versions.

I could have sworn their USB devices (at least the Gen2 ones) were UVC, so no need for comoiling a driver.

NightSprinter wrote on 2024-03-30, 12:09:

megatron-uk wrote on 2024-03-30, 09:07:

darkwitchclaire wrote on 2024-03-28, 23:12:

Does anyone have any experience with Magewell USB capture cards like the USB Capture HDMI? Right now it's more feasable for my setup than the PCIe card and cheaper to find used. I have an OSSC Pro so VGA -> HDMI isn't an issue but some of my machines refuse to be recognized by my current Avermedia card.

I've been wanting one for that very reason - whilst my Magewell HDMI Pro Capture is great, it's a bit clunky and a pain to move it around with it being a PCIe card. The Magewell USB devices are a bit too expensive to make one an impulse purchase, unlike the PCIe version which turned up for peanuts.

Also, in my use case, I'm not 100% sure of the driver situation for the USB devices in Linux, whereas the PCIe cards have a driver which (still) compiles nicely against current Linux kernel versions.

I could have sworn their USB devices (at least the Gen2 ones) were UVC, so no need for comoiling a driver.

I have to admit to not looking to deeply in to it. The PCIe card works well (both hardware + software), but I suspect the driver is going to break at the change to kernel 6.x - it builds and installs nicely against 5.x, but this is always the problem when relying on manufacturer provided drivers (in both the Windows and Linux world). I looked at Black Magic Design as well as Datapath, but their Linux driver offerings were pretty awful at the time - at least the Magewell ones compile against relatively standard kernel source.

If the USB devices do indeed present themselves as UVC, then that would simplify things dramatically.