New VGA box any good for PAL cubes

[malloc]

I'm trying to play my PAL Cube on my 17 inch CRT monitor. I've done a search and the general suggestion is that it only really works with NTSC Cubes with poor image quality on PAL Cubes.

However I was wondering if anyone knows anything about http://www.consoleplus.co.uk/catalog...roducts_id=461 3-in-1 Universal VGA Box which appears to be newish and hopefully better, well for PAL Cubes anyway.

Failing that is there any other cheap(ish) way of getting a PAL cube to work well on a monitor. This is due to having only one TV in a poor access place blah blah...

Thanks for any help.

[geldra]

Sorry i dont have any answers for you but if you do a search in this Section and type in vga you'll get about 4 pages worth of questions related to vga (boxes/leads some GC related/some not).

I know cos i was going to post exactly the same thing this afternoon.

PS...I might have to check that box out, I've not seen that one before.

[Papercut]

I'm trying to play my PAL Cube on my 17 inch CRT monitor. I've done a search and the general suggestion is that it only really works with NTSC Cubes with poor image quality on PAL Cubes.

However I was wondering if anyone knows anything about http://www.consoleplus.co.uk/catalog...roducts_id=461 3-in-1 Universal VGA Box which appears to be newish and hopefully better, well for PAL Cubes anyway.

Looks like another upscan converter/scan doubler, that will give you the 'poor iimage quality' you've heard about. The image will look blurry and slightly grainy, and may have some tearing.

That sort of vga box is probably your only choice though. There are probably better versions that that one too.

[malloc]

Yeah I've already done a search and found some useful info, which has so far prevented me from buying a VGA box.

However this seems to be a new product at a reasonable price and was wondering it was worth going for. Again, any opinions?

Also how bad exactly is the image quality? I've played on an NTSC Cube using a VGA box and that seemed acceptable, is the PAL version really that much of a lowering in standards? Any recommendations, other than buying another TV or NTSC Cube?

Thanks again.

[Magnakai]

Well, a PAL cube can't do progressive scan. So the nice crisp image that an NTSC cube would output will just be replaced by a nasty grainy one from a PAL cube.
BOO URNS.

[Papercut]

Also how bad exactly is the image quality? I've played on an NTSC Cube using a VGA box and that seemed acceptable, is the PAL version really that much of a lowering in standards? Any recommendations, other than buying another TV or NTSC Cube.

If you've played a ntsc cube using a vga box rather than a modded component cable, the image quality will be pretty much the same.

The only difference will be the refresh rate. Some vga upscan converters will convert the frame rate for a pal source, which will give you tearing/more blurriness depending on how its done.

[malloc]

My friend's Cube was using this VGA box http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?cat...ducts_id=1457&

I was going to get it myself, but it only supports NTSC Cubes, and of course I have a PAL Cube.

Is there any way that you can tell which is the best as there is a few VGA boxes out there, such as : http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?cat...ducts_id=3166& ?

[Papercut]

Is there any way that you can tell which is the best as there is a few VGA boxes out there, such as : http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?cat...ducts_id=3166& ?

Not really. You need to find opinions from people that have used them (can't remember which ones I've seen).

[tankplanker]

To be honest you need to spend a fair bit to get a decent VGA output from a console that doesn't nativtley support it. Something like the iScan Ultra (?600) would do a great job, and would give you VGA from all of your old consoles (you would need extra hardware for scart based consoles).

It would be cheaper to switch to a US console and replace all of your games.

[malloc]

Oh well, if I have to I suspose I could sell my Cube and buy another one, I'll look into that later. Although it's a hastle I was hoping to do without.

Has anyone had extensive use of VGA boxes on PAL Cubes? If so then some feedback would be nice.

BTW would a PCI TV card for my PC be a better option, or is that even worse than a VGA box?

I'll go off and cry now. /sob

Maybe I'll look into portable TVs...

[malloc]

A friend of mine may be selling his modded Jap/US Cube and I may see if he'll let me get it off him.

One thing, instead of replacing my games could I get an Action Replay and play my PAL games OK on the NTSC Cube, and would this output OK on my monitor via the VGA box? (I would buy his VGA box, which I linked to in a previous post in this thread from lik-sang) I know that his version of SSBM worked fine on my monitor but would my PAL games via Freeloader/AR be the same quality on the NTSC Cube?

Thanks again.

[tankplanker]

The game has to support progressive scan for that to work, and all of the UK games that I have seen had the progressive scan option taken out and a 60 Hz option added in as both methods use the B button on boot to set the alternate video mode.

This means that you have to replace all of your games as well

Rather than get the VGA box from lik-sang you would be much better off getting this cable:

http://sports.ngenres.com/editorials/44.html

as this would give you a proper VGA output for games that support progressive scan.

Saurian *might* make these.

Finally, you can take the S-Video input fromt the cube and stick it into a compatible video card. You would need to use something like Dscaler to get a decent image:

http://deinterlace.sourceforge.net/

but you need a pretty meaty PC to run this.

This would probably be the cheapest way of doing this (provided your PC was up to it) and should give you the best picture as you can increase the resolution to 800 by 600 or 1024 by 768 or even higher.

[Salsa Party Animal]

Why not buy a new TV and GC instead of worrying about VGA. If you need VGA graphics - buy a Dreamcast

I can't understand the obsession to get it working on VGA

[malloc]

Thanks for the info, not really what I wanted to hear, but atleast I now know.

Re: Legendary, the main problem is space, also the expense. I have a 21" TV and a 17" monitor, and I would have to fork out for a decent TV which I would only use for gaming......etc.

[Papercut]

Whats wrong with using the TV you have?