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Now that I finally got an LCD TV, I really want to get better video cables for my systems. I was looking into the Dreamcast VGA, but there is also the S-Video cables. Now I know you can't do 480p on the S-Video, but I was reading somewhere that the VGA doesn't support 16x9 and that the S-Video does... Is that true! Is it really that much better from the S-Video to the VGA?
VGA can be widescreen just the same as composite or svideo. It's all in how the monitor interprets the signal. The DC pretty much does video as 320x240 or 640x480. The assumed aspect ratio of the monitor is 4:3 (HDTV wasn't very prevalent when the DC was out), but some games will render into that resolution "squished" so that when you set your TV to stretch the signal to 16:9, it looks right. Think of it like anamorphic 16:9 video tapes.
And the VGA out on the DC blows away composite or svideo. It's a night-and-day difference. Especially for 640x480 mode - that has to be interlaced for composite or svideo, but with VGA, it's progressive (so no flicker).
I knew you were gonna say that!:cool:Quote:
Originally Posted by Chilly Willy
Well, when I was working on Doom for the DC, I got to play a lot of Doom on the DC in composite, svideo, and VGA, both low res and high res, so I can tell you exactly what the same game looks like in each mode. VGA rules! :)
Awesomeness! Thanks!Quote:
Originally Posted by Chilly Willy
How many DC games use dithering?
Any?
None? With thousands and millions of colors, who needs dithering? I'm sure there were a few ports of old games that used dithering because they were too cheap to update the graphics, but that would be about it.
Yeah, Dreamcast was the first console with 16/24/32-bit video so there was no reason to use dithering to increase the perceived number of colors on screen.
But let's assume that all Dreamcast games used dithering: It'd still be no competition because of the 480p (HD) vs 480i (SD) difference, let alone Y/C vs RGBHV.
480p vs 480i isn't always that big of a difference, especially when scaled on a LCD/Plasma display of substancially different native resolution. (on a CRT HDTV supporting 480p natively, that's not an issue though)
As long as the framerate doesn't exceed 30 Hz, there's very little differece other than the limitations of the coarser dot pitch of most SDTVs (and greater overscan -though some HD sets aren't much better and you can adjust that in the service menu).
Especially when in anamorphic mode, the compressed display looks considerably sharper.
For games that run at 60 fps is where 480p really makes a difference, 480/30p is kind of lame (only thing better is there's no de-interlacing on HD sets, same for 1080/30p vs 1080/60i -or 1080p-24 for that matter -though that's great for movies -the native framerate)
Then again, that's one advantage for 240p on SD sets, 60 Hz display. (also a good thing for HD CRTs supporting 540p mode -which I think allows you to watch 1080i as single feild/frame line doubled -unfiltered line doubling is almost always my perferred method of deinterlacing, 60 Hz with no loss of horizontal resolution -too bad it's not a standard option... especially since 1080i is so common for digital brodcasing and recording, let alone 480i SD stuff)
VGA on the Dreamcast rocks! My gf has a Dreamcast hooked up via VGA on a 50" DLP, looks amazing. Sadly, my LCD TV doesn't display the colors correctly :( I tried S-video but all the cables on eBay are crap (tried 3 different cables and gave up). I also tried using the S-video out on my VGA box but it still was washed out (worse than composite). Anyway, I use an old 17" CRT VGA monitor and it looks awesome. Too bad Sega didn't release a component cable for the DC.
I have a VGA box on my Dreamcast and I transcode that into component for my HDTV. Therefore I get to play the DC in 480p. Widescreen works just fine for the very few games that support it. However there are a couple of 240p-only games that do not work with the VGA box. Games must support 480i/p resolution to be output through the VGA box.
You don't have VGS input on your HDTV?
The Dreamcast internally upscales to 480p, so it doesn't matter whether the game actually is rendered at 320x240 or 640x480 pixels internally.Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Redifer
The reason some games don't work is that they are missing the VGA flag in the game's boot sector. Don't setting this flag acts as a lock-out mechanism, but most developers that didn't set the flag simply didn't care or forgot about it.
You can trick these games into VGA mode by using a boot disc (I am using DC-X by Blaze), or simply enable the flag yourself when using your personal backups.
I am not sure I understand. The difference between 480i and 480p is like night and day, especially when scaled on an LCD/Plasma.Quote:
Originally Posted by kool kitty89
The difference on my HD CRT is also night and day.
480p rapes, and 480i sucks.
Another huge advantage of VGA is that HDTV's will treat it as a PC video signal (which normally don't have any noise or compression artifacts, unlike TV or DVD signals) and therefore keep all the image processing filters turned off. That keeps the image quality absolutely pristine.
480p from my PS2 looks okay on my HDTV. If I turn off as many image filters as possible, carefully tweak brightness and contrast, and crank down the sharpness, then 480p looks about on par with RGB on a CRT TV. The VGA signal from my DC however, is even sharper and clearer, and looks on par with an emulator running on a PC.