Spitz wrote on 2024-10-07, 19:09:

Hi Guys. I would like to small express my experience about VGA/SVGA grabbing. After so many things I bought and tried ... And as I was starting to be rly lost I tried a solution thatbcosted me 25EUR...
And the overall quality is just superb! What is more it is grabbing even 320x200! There is no latency, no loss quality of sound or video ....

And what is the name of that magic device?

Today I recorded an example of DOS 320x200 @ 70Hz video capture using a combo of CRT Terminator Digital VGA Feature Card ISA DV1000 and StarTech USB3HDCAP HDMI Capture Device:
- https://youtu.be/8o7cu9mYL10
- direct video download that avoids YouTube recompression: https://oummg.com/dump/commander_keen_foray_i … _terminator.mkv (this is an unconventional 70Hz video file, if you have a high refresh rate gaming display to view it)

Unfortunately USB3HDCAP is a lossy 4:2:0 Chroma capture device, so some softening is present.

The CRT Terminator user manual now contains a section to go over the video capture settings that were used.

Hmm, so it seems that some custom modes in DOS are being seen incorrectly by both Datapath cards. The fullscreen modes of the clone games PacPC2 and Ms. PacPC supposedly runs in a resolution of around 576x448p58.5, yet the capture card is reading just 640x480p59.97 and cuts off the top and bottom. Is there any way to fix this?

That sounds interesting. I took a recording of PacPC2 from my 80 MHZ Cyrix 486 PC with Cirrus Logic CL-GD5422 video card with CRT Terminator and StarTech USB HDMI Capture and OBS. It looks like the game has a separate "full screen" arcade cabinet mode, and a fallback 320x200 Mode 13h video mode.

Here is a recording of the test:

https://oummg.com/dump/PACPC2_486_Cirrus_Logic_5422.mkv

The high resolution is programmed as follows:

Whereas the compatible fallback resolution is programmed as follows:

(this is standard Mode 13h)

If your capture setup allows programming the video geometry numbers shown in the top right corner, you might be able to get a clean capture.

Sadly neither Datapath's own software, or VCS allows fine-tuning of vertical. Best I could do would be use my OSSC. Would need to swipe from living room to do so.

I guess the Datapath cards don't support custom modes? The Epiphan cards allow tweaking the vertical.

You had the same problem a year ago. The answer is that the VisionRGB-PRO captures the full board and the VisionRGB-E doesn't. The E isn't meant for DOS capture, but it can get by. Get a mini Windows 7 PC and put the PRO in there, good DOS capture box, if you're lucky.

There just had been the announcement for a new Retrotink4k Version, which is basically a "light" version of the "normal 4k" one. For DOS capture it shouldnt make much of a difference, but its much cheaper. Old one being at 750$ and new one at 475$ (ofc you would still need an RGB capable capture card in addition to the tink).
Announcement: https://www.retrotink.com/post/holiday-2024-s … -4k-ce-and-more

Kordanor wrote on 2024-12-31, 18:12:

There just had been the announcement for a new Retrotink4k Version, which is basically a "light" version of the "normal 4k" one. For DOS capture it shouldnt make much of a difference, but its much cheaper. Old one being at 750$ and new one at 475$ (ofc you would still need an RGB capable capture card in addition to the tink).

For $50 I'll consider it, if it exposes a programmable API that gives full low latency access to the frame buffer. But the fact that you need a separate capture card is a downer, if you only do VGA capture then you might as well use your PC for scaling etc.

I'm currently using datapath visionrgb e1s its pretty good for a grabber and streaming but has some quirks which are quite annoying. I always need to tinker with color correction because picture looks always too green and sometimes need to adjust screen size because of out of border and software forgetting settings. I wonder if there is any good alternative for this grabber i want only swap card rest of setup with direct vga/dvi connection is ok for me. I usually stream win9x and winxp machines.

Hacket wrote on 2025-08-12, 09:14:

I'm currently using datapath visionrgb e1s its pretty good for a grabber and streaming but has some quirks which are quite annoying. I always need to tinker with color correction because picture looks always too green and sometimes need to adjust screen size because of out of border and software forgetting settings. I wonder if there is any good alternative for this grabber i want only swap card rest of setup with direct vga/dvi connection is ok for me. I usually stream win9x and winxp machines.

In the end it's a bit down to software, I think the hardware itself is capable to do most stuff.
The official software is rather terrible and VCS (inofficial software) is no longer developed for Windows and it's last version for PC still had a few significant bugs.
I think the only inherent issue of the visionrgb hardware is that some pixel lines on 640x480 are cut off, this can be reduced via extron rgb adsp feature but I think it was still 1 remaining line missing.

For ease of use I am now using a retrotink4k which turns the signal into hdmi and then I just capture that. However that is quite expensive.
Since I swapped my graphics card and saving into AV1, which magnifies any grain, I am now also using VCS on top of that for its amazing pixel gate, a feature which does neither exist in Retrotink4k nor in OBS. I use this for 320x200 games, and it's especially noticable if you have big sections with the same color, which without pixel gate after compression looks like a wobbling cloudy mess.
So my setup in this specific case is: PC VGA->retrotink4k-(hdmi/dvi)->Datapath(->)VCS->Window Capture in OBS
Ofc the retrotink4k isn't super useful in this context. But I don't want to switch around everything. So in this case all I do is changing software "pipeline".
Otherwise I am using PC VGA->retrotink4k-(hdmi/dvi)->Datapath(->)RGBEasy Capture in OBS

I think I'm gonna sell my Epihphan Vga2PCIe now that I have a RetroTINK4k.

Kordanor wrote on 2025-08-12, 09:28:

The official software is rather terrible and VCS (inofficial software) is no longer developed for Windows

VCS isn't offered for any platform and won't be unless someone maintains a fork of old code. But I'd say using it is effectively unethical unless you support exploitative labor.

🤣 what