THE ULTIMATE SEGA DREAMCAST (Modding Journal)

[RIP-Felix]

Yes, but it's in storage and I don't feel like getting it out. 1080p is gooooood enough for me! There are 4K Extron scalers to be had, but I'm not dropping 3 grand to pick one up. I'm just waiting for the FPGA's powerful enough to handle 4K to get cheap enough to make it doable among the hobbyist community. The OSSC 4K will be on my wish list, but there's no such thing on the on the immediate horizon or likely to be for many years...And TV manufacturers are already talking up 8K. There's not even a video format for it yet. What are they going to call it? "Super Ultra HD" and release it on Laser disc sized "Ultra Violet Ray" discs...lol. More likely they're expecting streaming to take over and end physical ownership.

Regardless, I think 4K and 1800p are the sweet spots for integer scaling. I just wish that TV manufaturers would give more priority to proper upscaling of analog signals so we didn't need an external scaler to do it right.

[RIP-Felix]

I trust Voultar, but I don't know this guy. I think he goes a little overboard, but I think theres enough to confirm my suspicions about Kaico. Namely that they are yet another shady cash grab 3rd party Retro gaming company peddling other peoples hard work as their own. I hadn't heard of them prior to seeing the Dreamcast cable posted earlier in this tread, which I suspected was a clone of the Pound cable. I've heard anecdotal evidence that it's much better, but now I wonder if it's just a retrotink2x. I haven't seen any breakdowns of the internal chipset, but I'm damn suspicious now.

At $30 it's a tempting solution. Makers like Mike Chi and others contribute to the retro gaming scene and make it awesome. I just wish this kind of intellectual theft didn't hurt them. And shame on twitter for taking down photographic evidence of the theft! Enablers!

[tthurman]

What a shady bunch of dick wads!

What a load of BS:

https://www.reddit.com/r/retrogaming/comments/dryyqk/kaico_retroscaler2x_response/

They are off the shelf parts, but they clearly took Mike's design and just "slightly" modified it, and that's a stretch giving them that much credit.  It's a blatant lazy ass rip-off, and anyone can tell it.  I wouldn't give these idiots a penny!

 

[RIP-Felix]

 

These will be my preferred secondary output for the Dreamcast once they finally drop.

I have a dual output setup. Each console can output to both my OLED and CRT simultaneously. For Dreamcast, my primary output is still the DCDigital (formerly DCHDMI). However, I've been waiting for these to be my analog output to the CRT. I'm going to connect the HD retrovision YPbPr component cables to my Gcomp switch, which auto switches between 8 component sources to both my OSSC and CRT (just like an HDMI auto switch, but for component inputs). The OSSC outputs upscaled HDMI back to the OLED, but that's really only for the other consoles connected to the Gcomp switch (RGB Restored SNES mini, RGB modded N64, Genesis model 2, Sega Saturn, X-Box, PS2, WII, and a DVD-VCR). Since the Dreamcast is HDMI modded anyway, the real perk here is to get a high quality 480i signal to my CRT. This represents the cleanest Analog signal possible on North American TV sets (RGB Scart is very slightly better, but no consumer TVs in NA had it). That's why I originally decided on an all Component setup with the GCOMP switch instead of the GSCART switch. SCART to the OSSC is just a little cleaner than YPbPr, but I though that retaining compatibility with the CRT was more important to me. Of course, now that Mike Chi (maker of the RetroTINK) released the SCART2COMP transcoder, I kinda wish I had gone SCART to begin with. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20 and I'm committed now.

[RazorX]

for anyone interested there was a new theme added to my GDMenu Theme Manager


Download Here:
https://segaxtreme.net/threads/release-gdmenu-theme-manager-v0-8.24531/

[RazorX]

who here loves shenmue   ^

[RIP-Felix]

That theme looks clean. I never had it as a kid, just recently picked up a copy. I played about an hour in and decided to table it. It looked like it was going to be epic, and I didn't have the time to dig in. So I've been saving it for later. Actually my backlog of epic titles I've been meaning to play is getting pretty long. I suppose that's a good thing, but there so many games people love that I've never played! For example, Skies of Arcadia is another of my need to plays...lol! Man, I gotta get to these before I lose my cred!

[RazorX]

1 minute ago, RIP-Felix said:

That theme looks clean. I never had it as a kid, just recently picked up a copy. I played about an hour in and decided to table it. It looked like it was going to be epic, and I didn't have the time to dig in. So I've been saving it for later. Actually my backlog of epic titles I've been meaning to play is getting pretty long. I suppose that's a good thing, but there so many games people love that I've never played! For example, Skies of Arcadia is another of my need to plays...lol! Man, I gotta get to these before I lose my cred!

yeah shenmue is quite long, not something you can run through

[RazorX]

another theme in the bag for the gdemu, if you guys have any suggestions let me know

also i updated the app to 0.9 to fix a bug with compressing custom themes users design.

[nico7550]

Hi RIP-Felix,

I order a full premoded DC (sata/freebios/dchdmi...) on dragoncity (a french online shop) and I also order a lightconn, can you describe how the both can work together as the DCHDMI as a mini hdmi output and the lightconn need to be plug on a VGA cable ?

Thanks

 

[RIP-Felix]

On 9/20/2020 at 7:23 AM, nico7550 said:

Hi RIP-Felix,

I order a full premoded DC (sata/freebios/dchdmi...) on dragoncity (a french online shop) and I also order a lightconn, can you describe how the both can work together as the DCHDMI as a mini hdmi output and the lightconn need to be plug on a VGA cable?

The DCDigital (Formerly DCHDMI) doesn't interfere with analog/VGA output of the console. So it'll still output as normal. The lightconn plugs into the controller port for power and bluetooth, grabs sync from  a tiny wite running out of a VGA adapter, and a wii sensor bar provides the InfraRed light sources for triangulation of the wii sensor in the lightgun. If I remember correctly, the VGA just needs to be plugged into the console. I'm not sure if the other end needs to hooked up to a TV or not. I always have mine hooked up to my OSSC via VGA and from the DC Digital out port to my TV via HDMI.

That works, if you're far enough back from the TV for the IR camera to see the whole screen and calibrate. There is lag, just like a Wii remote. So don't expect a miracle. If you need a wider angle, you can use a cell phone wide angle lens. It affects accuracy, but allows you to get closer to the screen.

[legzrwheelz]

I have just started to buy parts for modding my dreamcast, I have only bought the brook Wingman DS, Noctua fan and the DreamPSU, then I found this post and you have altered my journey by journaling everything you have done. I have known about the DreamConn+ for years but had no idea he made a PSU that does what the DreamPort does, I have messaged him checking for availability and asking him if he is hirable to add XBOX One controller support as those are BT controllers as well. It will be a game changer if he does. Pun intended. Thank you for this journal!