Console hardware, upscalers and capture cards general. - Share gaming hardware reviews, information, hacks, softmods, etc.

[gameandgrill]

I'm making this thread to share reviews and general information on real hardware video games, upscalers, downscalers, capture cards, softmods, hardmods, the good, the bad, and the chink. For the OP I'll share my experience getting a setup going for streaming games from real PS2 hardware :

INB4​

Save up money to get retrotink 2x pro or better, it's expensive, it also looks like the best solution, you'll never need to upgrade from or deal with low quality products.
If you are a thirdworlder and that is unavailable to you or if it's prohibitively expensive to do so, I believe that chinkshit and this post can provide enough of acceptable solution.

Table of prices:
Cables:
- AV cables - $4,57
- Retrovision HD YPbPr(Component) - $29,99
Scaler:
- Mini AV-RCA to HDMI scaler(720p/1080p) - $5,98
- ODV-GBS-C - $59,90
- RetroScaler2x - $79,99
Capture card:
- EVGA XR1 Pro - $198,38


I AM DUMB, and also not a consumer, I have very little experience buying electronics online and what to look for as flags. I also wanted to stream some games from real PS2 hardware, so I embarked on this journey that would set me back way too much and now that I have suffered I will share my pain so other can point and laugh and maybe not suffer the same fate I did.
So what I'm about to do is go through my available setups and show you results, I'm going to point out some fun stuff I have noticed and learned, like for example:

Spoiler: Did you know PS2 games run at 60fps?

That said that doesn't mean frames per second, rather fields per second, when the ps2 release the commonly used resolution for games was 240p. A bit after it came out developers started using the higher solution of 480i.
The important difference being the letter on the end of their resolution, 'p' standing for progressive while 'i' is interlaced, while progressive resolutions spit the whole frame on screen, interlaced ones do half of the screen in one frame, and the other half on the next frame, which on old CRTs isn't very noticeable due to it being blurry and bleeding colors around. This will be important to note if you plan on streaming games, otherwise, high chances of modern tv/monitors handling de-interlacing for you.

For now, let's talk about my setup to get ready for comparisons​

Bitrrate: 20.000
Video encoder: x264
Encoder: veryfast
Output Resolution: 960x720
If I'm using AV cables, the PS2 output will be set to AV, if composite, YPbPr
Why those configurations? idk, I have no clue what I am doing, but it looks nice like that, good enough to compare.
Retroscaler2X is always using the 2X mode without the smoother. Not using it causes the shimmer to go away but also doesn't allow me to capture video from it.

Captures​

CABLE -> SCALER

Spoiler: AV -> AV-RCA to HDMI

Spoiler: AV -> RetroScaler2x

Spoiler: YPbPr(Component)-> RetroScaler2x

Spoiler: YPbPr(Component)-> ODV GBS-C(Default config)

Spoiler: Close-up of Toan's Poncho

Some obvious takeaways here are:
- AV cables look way blurrier than component
- They all output a slightly different aspect ratio ( this might have to do with capture card )
- ODV-GBS-C looks unsaturated/washed compared to the other ones, but the image quality also looks cleaner

Here are short videos comparing them in-motion, reminder that the retroscaler 2x is being captured at 2x mode which is adding shimmer to the image, if you don't intend on capturing footage it looses the shimmer if you don't use the 2x mode.

Spoiler: Walking around videos

Same order as images

Some not obvious takeaway:
Stay away from EVGA capture cards, I do not recommend it, the image I see on my monitor doesn't look half as dark as what it captures, and it does not offer good configuration, I tried getting in touch with them and I got thrown into a customer support loop of Indians copy pasting answers trying to make me give up getting either my capture card checked or a reimbursement.
The ODV-GBS-C can be configured, by default the image saturation is not great but it can be fixed by messing around in it's configurations, I'm considering a post only comparing some of my custom configuration with it's default.
The ODV-GBS-C supports de-interlacing which is why I believe the text looks way better when passed through it.
If you planning on streaming I believe all of the slightly different aspect ratios can be fixed by stretching the image back to it's original format, some kiwis might have more info if that will looks bad or not, I don't care too much about it, I just want to grill and game.
The ODV-GBS-C produces more noise when compared to the other solutions, or at least it's more noticeable because of the clearer output.

Some personal opinions and notes:
Component cable + ODV-GBS-C is my go-to setup, I made my setup to play some JRPGs and the neatly scaled and well defined text makes it very easy to read any size of text, not to mention the better definition on lines make it so you can squint out some text on background textures like book covers and posters that are non-important and not made to capture the player's attention.
If you plan on streaming on youtube, you can trigger a better compression method by using the output resolution of 1920x1440, I'm personally having a lot of trouble getting my image to look nice without crushed blacks.

 

[Merton J. Dingle]

Is the main use for this kind of stuff to play games that have serious problems with emulation?

 

[herefortheactualthreads]

for nintendo 3ds, psvita and nintendo wii softmods:

3DS Hacks Guide

A complete guide to 3DS custom firmware, from stock to boot9strap.

3ds.hacks.guide

https://vita.hacks.guide/

https://wii.hacks.guide/

for the ps vita i would recommend buying a SD2Vita card so you can have a micro sd card with assload of memory/storage.

and for the nintendo wii i would recommend buying a wii2hdmi adapter.

the xbox 360 is sort of "softmoddable" but you have to do it every time after you turn off your conole.

https://github.com/grimdoomer/Xbox360BadUpdate

 

[the rat]

https://github.com/grimdoomer/Xbox360BadUpdate

I wouldn't even bother with this considering the success rate is roughly 30%, just go for rgh3 if you can.

 

[i440BX]

It is a travesty the majority of LCD monitors and TVs don't support integer scaling at all, and use bilinear scaling as default. In late 1990s bilinear scaling was a premium feature present in new display adapters (Ati rage pro) and most laptops with cheap video adapters (Chips & Tech, etc) did neighbour scaling. Neighbour scaling is computationally simpler and less expensive than bilinear scaling

Now lcd monitors only support bilinear. The reason is lazyness and lack of demand from consumers. It is a travesty when using a 1080p or lower resolutions on a 4k monitor you get blurry image, even if it can be magnified 2 times by integer scaling.

RetroTink is the solution but it is very expensive and adds latecy to input. Fuck monitor companies. Thats a reason I still use CRT monitors for old computers.

 

[herefortheactualthreads]

I wouldn't even bother with this considering the success rate is roughly 30%, just go for rgh3 if you can.

i thought it deserved a small shout out because not everyone wants to fuck with their console by opening and possiblity fucking up a hole-drilling into their motherboard, or installing a modchip.

 

[gameandgrill]

Is the main use for this kind of stuff to play games that have serious problems with emulation?

My case yes, I wanted to have things run smoothly and not have problems with emulation mid stream, you can get into specifics and say input lag and "how the devs intended", I don't go that far with it, I just don't want to deal with technical problems.
If you plan on playing games with revived online servers like Resident Evil Outbreak, Monster Hunter or the recently revived Champions of Norrath, you will need to be running the emulator on Windows too, I don't think they ever made a online plug-in to connect online for Linux.

the xbox 360 is sort of "softmoddable" but you have to do it every time after you turn off your conole.

I wouldn't even bother with this considering the success rate is roughly 30%, just go for rgh3 if you can.

Do you know if you are able to run games from a flashdrive or internal storage on a hacked 360? either with that or a hardmod. I've been meaning to play Deadly Premonition and I've tried everything, followed multiple guides to get it to run with proton on steam, never even opened, multiple "this is all the fixes you need" on a windows machine, and that game kept crashing every 20~30 minutes or whenever exiting some specific buildings, emulating the PS3 version has issues with texture flickering(doesn't help that my PC isn't very powerful), I've been through hell trying to get it to work.

 

[Hermiöne Granger]

This is an interesting post, i have been looking into this for a while now. If you are gamer that wants to play your PS2, Xbox, Gamecube, Snes etc on your modern TV. Here is the upscalers worth looking into. These are the only ones i consider good enough, from cheap to costly.

Cheap: (its S-Video or Component, AV sucks ass on everything)
RAD2x HDMI Cables (RetroTINKx2 build into the cable)
ODV (more or less a RetroTINKx2 variation from ODV-GBS)
RetroScaler2x (Chinese copy&past RetroTINKx2)

Affordable:
ODV-GBS-C
RetroTINKx5

Expensive as hell:
OSSC Pro 4k
RetroTINK4k

Also take into consideration with games that run 4:3 native, a switch/option on the upscaler is preferred. If not some modern TVs will turn off game mode when you set the TV manually in 4:3 screen size. Also remember to use quality cables.

 

[the rat]

i thought it deserved a small shout out because not everyone wants to fuck with their console by opening and possiblity fucking up a hole-drilling into their motherboard, or installing a modchip.

It is actually useful for nand dumping but rgh3 itself is like two wires iirc.

 

[gameandgrill]

ODV GBS-C Review​

Here's my experience with this piece of shit, I'll try not to kill myself over not being able to afford importing a retrotink. Consider this a buyer's beware, even though out of the other options mentioned in the OP, I would take this any day of the week. I'll only touch on the component input for PS2 specifically.
The current setup is: PS2 -> HDRetrovision Component -> ODV GBS-C -> EVGA XR1 Pro

​

Out of the gate​

They send you the wrong power supply, I was given a 12V1A power supply and their manual says it should be powered by 12V2A, just recently notice it and bought an 12V2A power supply. I'm using 29a's Photo phorensics to check the image's noise patterns. The difference lies in the amount of noise generated on the final output:

Spoiler: 12V1A

Spoiler: 12V2A

Spoiler: RetroScaler 2x

It's safe to say the correct power supply diminished noise, The wave-y pattern is still there, but now I only notice it when editing captured images or when the screen is completely dark, on brighter colors it seems to go away, so that's a small plus.
Too bad you're paying for a power supply that doesn't output the hardware's best performance out of the gate.
Shout outs to this shmups thread that made me notice the issue, they mention you might only need 5V1A, but then I wouldn't get why I'm getting different results.

​

Color​

The default options are shit. For this test I'm grabbing 2 screenshots, one of pure white, and another of close to pure black, and to make sure I'm getting the correct values, I'll be comparing the captured image from my capture card to the PCSX2 emulation of a game.

Spoiler: Main screen white

Spoiler: FMV black

Now look at this, do you see it? it's this awful green tint the image has, I do not like it, not only that, if we inspect it closer we can see the color is off balance.
You can download the images and play along, but I'll just state the fact with not images to back it up. Of course I'm converting analog to digital, so some noise and changes are expected, so for the PS2 captured image I'll be taking a 3x3 pixel range and doing an average of that.
Emu white and black pixels values are: (255,255,255) and (20,20,20).
ODV white and black pixels values are: (196,198,196) and (14,20,17).
The darker the image the more noticeable it gets, specially horror games like Silent Hill 3 have it very noticeable from my experience, the lower than expected reds also take away from blood/rust colors.

Color editing​

Now, thankfully the ODV has a web-interface where you can edit some values to try and fix it, there are no pre-sets online that I could find, so I tried making my own.
Contrast goes from 0 to 255, Brightness/Red/Blue goes from -127 to 128. The dev output will not say the number is negative.
Here is what I think is the best settings I made, I made 2 others too, I'm uploading my settings in case anyone ends up having the same issue I'm having. It's the one called "480ColorContrast".

Spoiler: Emu VS MyCfg White

Spoiler: Emu VS MyCfg Black

Spoiler: Default VS MyCfg White

Spoiler: Default VS MyCfg Black

 

[Hermiöne Granger]

There is different version of the ODV GBS-C, so im a bit confused here, what of these did you test?

 

[gameandgrill]

There is different version of the ODV GBS-C, so im a bit confused here, what of these did you test?

The orange one, it's the only one for sale on their website. Do they have any substantial differences?

 

[Hermiöne Granger]

The orange one, it's the only one for sale on their website. Do they have any substantial differences?

Ok, the orange one comes with a 12V2A originally so they clearly fucked that up. Also the colors and stuff you must setup as you already found out, its not the best out of the box, so some fiddling with that is expected. If you use a scart connection it should give you brighter colors, component are always darker on the PS2. i never tested the blue GBS-C one.

 

[HexFag]

ODV GBS-C Review​

Here's my experience with this piece of shit, I'll try not to kill myself over not being able to afford importing a retrotink. Consider this a buyer's beware, even though out of the other options mentioned in the OP, I would take this any day of the week. I'll only touch on the component input for PS2 specifically.
The current setup is: PS2 -> HDRetrovision Component -> ODV GBS-C -> EVGA XR1 Pro

​

Out of the gate​

They send you the wrong power supply, I was given a 12V1A power supply and their manual says it should be powered by 12V2A, just recently notice it and bought an 12V2A power supply. I'm using 29a's Photo phorensics to check the image's noise patterns. The difference lies in the amount of noise generated on the final output:

Spoiler: 12V1A

Spoiler: 12V2A

Spoiler: RetroScaler 2x

It's safe to say the correct power supply diminished noise, The wave-y pattern is still there, but now I only notice it when editing captured images or when the screen is completely dark, on brighter colors it seems to go away, so that's a small plus.
Too bad you're paying for a power supply that doesn't output the hardware's best performance out of the gate.
Shout outs to this shmups thread that made me notice the issue, they mention you might only need 5V1A, but then I wouldn't get why I'm getting different results.

​

Color​

The default options are shit. For this test I'm grabbing 2 screenshots, one of pure white, and another of close to pure black, and to make sure I'm getting the correct values, I'll be comparing the captured image from my capture card to the PCSX2 emulation of a game.

Responding to this post to say thank you for the color preset options! I thought I was crazy when I saw the colors getting fucked on my GBS-C.

I've also started running into burn-in issues when using my GBS-C, have you had those problems too? Is it because I'm trying to use the scanlines on the GBS-C with bob deinterlacing instead of just using motion adaptive deinterlacing?

Also is there a way to zoom in the underscan with the GBS-C or do I just have to deal with the black bars on every side of my screen?

EDIT: Also profiles don't work between GBS-C profiles. Could you send your color correction settings?

 

[gameandgrill]

Could you send your color correction settings?

For whatever reason Pr/V doesn't show on info, so I lowered and added to it so it would print:
This is what I get when I press the info button:
------------
(Brightness)Y_OFFSET: 254
U_OFFSET: 3
V_OFFSET: 3
(Contrast)Y_GAIN: 146
USIN_GAIN: 0
(Pb/U)UCOS_GAIN: 25
Pr/V gain : 31

I'm not re-reading my own post, my b, but just re-iterating in case I didn't, if you have a capture card, capture it to OSB, right click the video feed, grab a screenshot and open that on paint or aseprite, then with the eyedropper tool you can easily see the balance, see a game with a completely white screen and completely black like I did, from those two extremes you will be able to get a good idea on how it's balanced, if it's too unsaturated, don't forget you can easily add saturation via the monitor's settings or via OSB filters if you plan on streaming.

I've also started running into burn-in issues when using my GBS-C, have you had those problems too?

No, but I don't use scanlines or bob-deinterlacing, I'm using adaptive as it doesn't shimmer when I capture footage off of it. What I did notice is, occasionally, one row of pixels will shift to the left or right for a frame or two, it's not all the time and it seems to fix itself after a while(either that or I just completely stop noticing it).

Also is there a way to zoom in the underscan with the GBS-C or do I just have to deal with the black bars on every side of my screen?

I think you can under picture control, which you might be able to access via clicking the menu key to open the menu on the video feed, I haven't messed with it because the way it does it is not by cropping the image, but by stretching the image to fill in the empty space iirc, you can check your monitor settings too, see if you can configure deeper blacks on it to make it less noticeable.