Dreamcast VGA question

[SignOfZeta]

Yeah, but since LCDs have a native resolution, its going to have black bars all around...which actually isn't that bad at all, but what would suck is if it will only interpolate the full height giving you a blurry mess.

[nat]

Well I guess I'll find out.

EDIT: Hmmm... Googling around online it looks like most everyone with an HD LCD has had good results with their Dreamcast and VGA box. Definitely gonna go for it.

[Black Tiger]

I have a clear orange 3rd party VGA box that includes S-Video out and it works great both my my 720p LCD and my 480p DLP projector. The image looks better than progressive scan GC, PS2 or Xbox component out.

[SignOfZeta]

I have a clear orange 3rd party VGA box that includes S-Video out and it works great both my my 720p LCD and my 480p DLP projector. The image looks better than progressive scan GC, PS2 or Xbox component out.

Yeah, I have a thing from Audio Authority that makes progscan component into VGA, and even that pales compared to the DC's VGA. Its not the most popular feature of the DC, but I use it whenever I can. What's really killer is two DCs, each with a VGA display, system linked with VOOT and Twinsticks. I've only ever pulled this off once though. My friends and I had it set up for a few days like that.

[nat]

The Dreamcast becomes more and more awesome to me every day.

If I didn't have such a nostalgic attachment to the Turbo it would probably be my favorite system.

[m1savage]

I bought a vga box for my dreamcast years ago, took it home and tested it out. Went the next day and bought a new monitor just for it. I still have one of my dreamcasts hooked up to it today. Money well spent. 

[Hobo Xiphas]

I used one of these for years in college since I didn't want to lug around a TV just to play my Dreamcast.

Some games look great in it (Shenmue, Skies of Arcadia), but lots of them look like ass because they use low-res textures (Capcom fighting games, I'm looking at you!)

[GUTS]

I always wanted a Twinstick since it's nearly impossible to play VOOT with a regular controller to any level of proficiency.  I hated how they took the ability to rotate left and right with the triggers out of the game (completely unnecessarily since you could use that control scheme in the first one), I couldn't get used to playing on a pad without that feature since I'd spent countless hours playing the Saturn version that way.

[Hobo Xiphas]

I always thought that the DualShock would be good for Virtual On, but I never got around to playing Marz.

[guyjin]

marz is awful. avoid like the plague. it forces you to team up with a computer partner (you're not allowed to team up with player 2) and you're absolutely not allowed to go one-on-one.

As if that weren't enough of a problem, if the computer players are total f*cktards (thanks to the power of cell!) and you can't really give them instructions; they just do whatever the hell they wanna do, which is always to interfere with you. and that's just your partner.

[termis]

I always wanted a Twinstick since it's nearly impossible to play VOOT with a regular controller to any level of proficiency.  I hated how they took the ability to rotate left and right with the triggers out of the game (completely unnecessarily since you could use that control scheme in the first one), I couldn't get used to playing on a pad without that feature since I'd spent countless hours playing the Saturn version that way.

Yeah, the SS version plays fine with the standard pad, but it's a bit more problematic on the DC, as the lack of buttons compared to the SS pads really make it impossible to put a good setup.  (And to compound the problem,  R-turbo and L-turbo are used to do different things in VOOT -- I think even the standard saturn pad setup wouldn't work in VOOT because of this.)

[SignOfZeta]

Yeah, not enough buttons on DC.

VOOT is impossible to play without Twinsticks. You might be able to bumble through it, but only at the level of proficiency that would be similar to playing Street Fighter with no specials or supers. Once you get semi-good at VOOT with Twinsticks you'll understand that not only is the DC pad not even close to good enough, but the game is so much more advanced than Cyber Troopers was (mostly because of air dashing) that you'd never be able to rate even with the Saturn pad.

[nat]

so I finally got a chance to get the VGA box hooked up.

The TV seems to like the resolution just fine, it's just got the black bars on the sides. No big deal.

However, there is some kind of video artifact that is not fine. There are very narrow vertical stripes every three quarters of a centimeter or so across the whole image. They are very faint and are only visible with dark images on screen, such as the kinds of images displayed by Resident Evil: CV. This is present in all games, however, it's just more noticable in some than others. Resident Evil is so dark that they become distracting at times. What is this? Is there any fix or is this what I'm stuck with because of my LCD?  If that's the case that's a huge bummer because the image is so sharp I almost creamed my pants when I turned it on. Seriously.

The VGA box I have has a switch to toggle between SVIDEO and VGA. The SVIDEO actually looks really good, better than I thought it would on the LCD. The image is noticeably not as sharp as the VGA obviously, but the vertical stripes are absent.

[nat]

I took a pic of the screen. Check it out. The effect is more noticeable in person but check out the wall above the desk and the side of the desk to see what I'm talking about.

[SignOfZeta]

Well, without looking really close at it I would suspect that the artifacting is the result of the image being scaled up to match the max vertical area of your LCD. Unless your screen is an exact multiple of 640x480 (unlikely) then as I said before the choices are black bars all around, or scaling. Unfortunately you probably don't have a choice for black bars and it looks like the scaling left evidence.

This, BTW, its exactly why I still use old CRTs. From what I've seen and heard getting any flat panel display that doesn't have some inexcusably stupid problem (like yours) is impossible. While I'm sure PS3 games going through HDMI look great,  I *need* to be able to play low res consoles, laserdiscs, VHS and all that, and I'm sure I'd hate any set I bought.