Tree Wyrm wrote:

Also when it comes to VGA2HDMIPro the quality just wasn't good imo, noticeable ringing around reds and I'm pretty sure it reduces colorspace. Though I was more annoyed with slow switching even when it's not resolution but merely refresh rate, some games did that, like automap in Descent and Jazz Jackrabbit.

Those are the trade-offs, yep. RGB 16-235 and mode switching time, hence why I only use it when I absolutely have to.

That said, my use case is streaming through OBS, not creating accurate captures for archival, so the reduced RGB space isn't as big of an issue for me.

It's definitely a consideration though, depending on what you want to accomplish.

vvbee wrote:

Those that want to beta test the new version of the vcs capture utility for datapath can do so with that

No immediate reports of inability to run, that's enough beta. I made a few changes and called it a 1.0. Put a download link in the releases subforum.

Very interesting thread. I must have read all (:

Reading all of the comment I ordered a Datapath DGC103C card from Ebay. I've checked the Datapath website and when I search for drivers, I only find one complete package for all capture cards they produce. With the latest driver being from late 2017. Pretty update. But....... will it contain the drivers I need for Windows 10 x64? I hope someone can tell me this.

Based on my brief testing the visionrgb-pro is supported up to windows 7. I use it in a virtual machine so it doesn't matter. I find it runs best with a win xp guest in kvm (linux, don't know about virtualization/passthrough on windows).

I will try windows 10 first. If that doesn’t work, I will know what to do. Thanks.

vvbee wrote:

vvbee wrote:

Those that want to beta test the new version of the vcs capture utility for datapath can do so with that

No immediate reports of inability to run, that's enough beta. I made a few changes and called it a 1.0. Put a download link in the releases subforum.

My E1S has finally arrived and it works very well with your software. Much better than the original, thank you for your work. 😀 I have a few questions though:

1. The fps counter that can be activated in the overlay section is showing fps of the capture card output... rather than framerate of the input signal, right? So if my videocard in the retro PC can do 20 fps when playing game, VCS still shows it as 60 (because running 60 Hz).
2. I know this is probably hardware related and cannot be adjusted via SW... but still. It seems there is inputlag when playing through the capture card compared to directly attached LCD. This was best visible on my Toshiba Satellite Pro 460CDT. It allows image clonning mode to use both internal LCD and VGA output simultaneously... and it is clearly visible the output in the capture windows is somewhat "rubber-ish" 🤣

Strange, while I don't have signal cloned to another display I haven't noticed any perceivable lag from my E1S. But I'll try to grab a display later to check it. As for FPS what you see in diagnostics is video mode rate, syncing up rates between card and display that's G-Sync/Freesync stuff. Neither display nor capture card acting as a display know what internal frame rate is, only the maximum set by display mode.

The fps display is the number of frames per second passing through the pipeline of being received from the capture card, scaled/processed, and drawn to screen. Technically the program could be written to count the number of unique frames it receives to estimate the redraw fps but it would work only variably. I wrote anti-tearing for vcs that does a similar thing but it only works (and only needs to work) when the frames change notably enough, accounting for analog noise etc.

I think you should shoot a quick cam video of the two screens to show how much lag there is.

Yeah, I'll set up two screens to clonning mode - one directly connected LCD and the other through the capture card. This utility should do the trick http://tft.vanity.dk/ Video won't show the difference most likely, the lag is not that big. Static photos should reveal how many miliseconds behind the captured image really is. You see, I'm rather sensitive to inputlag when gaming, so maybe it is low enough for most people, but not for me. 😀

Unfortunately the inputlag was the most visible on my DOS laptop and there are no lag testers working in DOS or win98 (that I know of). And I don't feel like writing my own. 😵 Still it is possible the display clonning is somehow broken on the 460CDT and the strong inputlag is only there and not on other machines... who knows how good is Chips & Technologies 65554 video card in screen clonning.

Currently I have GeForce 7800 GT PC at hand and that one should give reliable output.
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As for the frame counting - I think FCAT works like this - there is some kind of overlay mark added to each frame (on the source PC) and then the captured video is analyzed and real framerate is counted.

@vvbee: Finally got to try new version and got a few suggestions for vcs features.

1) something like a checkbox in output to fixed resolution, this is primarily for capturing by other software, seeing as most either handle windows size changing poorly or ignore at all.
2) allow to specify filtering per input resolution, this is chiefly for the case of text mode 720x400 being output in 4:3 where engaging even a linear filter would do fine since there's no feasible integer scaling for it to 4:3, but say reverting to none when switching to 640x400/640x480 which do integer scale to 1600x1200. Probably keep the global filtering option but allow for override on per-input basis, much like color/analog signal settings are.
3) per-input resolution cropping? sure it ain't particularly useful outside a few rare case scenarios, but here I happen to have one in form of S3 Savage4 DVI which outputs 720x400 in 1024x768 with black bars around so to get to actual image I'd need to crop it. Vision software that comes with drivers actually allow that and indeed their cropping settings are per-input.
4) configurable shortcuts perhaps, existing ones for manually switching input resolution are quite useful in case of a few video cards I have here which forgot to switch signal to 720x400 after 640x400.
5) seeing as you already mentioned some post-processing involved how about 2x2 pixel color sampling for line doubled input resolutions (given that 320x200 is line doubled into 640x400 so in the end each original pixel is doubled) and fill that 2x2 box with average color compensating analog noise a bit? Would also make analog phase easier to correct without screenshots and magnifying them.

Other than that a great update, was a bit confused at first at major UI change 😀 But has much welcome features added. Thank you.

The output (base) resolution override will force the size of the window to ignore changes in input resolution. I've been intending custom filtering where you can chain different filters and scalers and have them per resolution. For inspecting phase issues etc. a magnifying glass type thing when clicking on the capture window would be useful too (although the effect can be had with separate programs as well). Cropping should be pretty simple to add and shortcuts are under consideration.

Ok, it seems the inputlag is around 30ms at most. Good enough to play all games (even the very fast ones) directly throught the capture card.
The problem with Toshiba 460CDT must have been something else, not the E1S and neither the SW. 😀

With the new version of vcs use the decimate filter to average out doubled 640 x 400. I also added a filter to count the number of unique frames per second. You may find that it betrays various kinds of info like the update rate of an on-screen timer or the effectiveness of anti-tearing. The anti-tear isn't post-processing so much as buffer accumulation by the way.

Hi guys, new to the forum, I'm in a bit of a pickle. I'm trying to capture DOS games on my vintage pc which runs Windows 98 SE via my Xcapture-1 capture card via VGA, however, when I launch any DOS game I lose signal immediately. I think I should also point out that if it's a non-DOS game it captures fine for example Tomb Raider. I'm inclined to believe this is due to the refresh rate of DOS games. I've come to the conclusion that my Xcapture-1 is not up to the task, so I am here to ask if anyone knows a good capture card that can capture DOS games with ease? For reference, I am using a Matrox G400 for my graphics card.

On a side note I did want to try via S-Video so I bought an ATI Rage 3D II +DVD off eBay, however, I can't seem to get the card to work well on my rig, either the drivers aren't installing correctly or the card is damaged not really sure, it just shows a really blurry/dark image. Not sure if anyone here might be able to help me on this as it would be nice to have a PCI and AGP card that works on the rig.

I believe earlier in the thread, someone posted a TSR called VGA240 that could be used. It converts the 70Hz 320x200 modes into a 60Hz 240p set. I understand how you feel, as the MicomSoft and StarTech devices do not seem to accept the 70Hz signal for some reason. I believe someone said that a few select games that can utize a 350p EGa mode may look off.

Thank you for the information guess I need to hunt down this VGA240 thing and work out how to install and use it.

Side note: Don't want to sound dumb or anything but what does TSR mean?

ramunegaming wrote:

...what does TSR mean?

Terminate and Stay Resident programs stay in memory and return you to the command prompt after you load them e.g. a DOS mouse driver.

TheGreatCodeholio mentions that he found a good VGA to HDMI converter I wonder what it was. I don't have permissions to send PM on here yet, I wonder if someone could message him to ask?

ramunegaming wrote:

TheGreatCodeholio mentions that he found a good VGA to HDMI converter I wonder what it was. I don't have permissions to send PM on here yet, I wonder if someone could message him to ask?

Off topic but speaking of permissions, when does PM ability get instated?

airs wrote:

ramunegaming wrote:

I don't have permissions to send PM on here yet, I wonder if someone could message him to ask?

Off topic but speaking of permissions, when does PM ability get instated?

I believe we're not officially divulging that information for now, it's a relatively recent solution to an ongoing persistent problem. Keep posting decent info and/or questions and other posts, and it will eventually become enabled for you.