Today I was exploring some cheaper options for image scaling, and I started considering the GBS-8200. I went through some videos, and it seemed OKish.
I don't feel like spending tons of money on a Framemeister. I'd rather get some new arcade boards, or NeoSD's upcoming multi, or whatever it will be.
Why looking at GBS, I started looking at different videos and comparisons. I'm aware of OSSC, and I was considering it as well, but it doesn't offer S-Video scaling, but neither does Framemeister.
While looking at said videos and comparisons, I've noticed one dude comparing OSSC and XRGB mini, while playing his retro games in 16:9 instead of 4:3. Go figure.
This got me thinking. During the 8Bit era, RF and composite were the norm, and that picture was shit, especially the RF, but we played these games anyway. Arcades were RGB on CRT and looked clean, but let's not kid ourselves, arcade CRTs weren't of PVM quality, or the quality some higher end CRT TVs could offer.
Why are we chasing that emulator-esque pixel perfection? Sure, I agree that N64 upgrated with the HDMI module outputs an amazingly clean picture, but that's another $100+ purchase, plus some stunt-soldering.
Someone may say old games on LCDs look like shit, especially on bigger LCDs, but come to think of it, I started using RGB as a norm during the fifth generation.
I didn't have RGB cables for SNES and Megadrive. All of that came later. Living in Europe, I had the luxury of having SCART in almost all of my TVs. I even used a DVR, which had a SCART input, and HDMI output. It was lagless when not recording. Still is.
I guess what I'm trying to say here is: scalers suck. All of them. There's always something. No matter how much you pay, there are things that won't work. Be it Sonic 2 split-screen on Framemeister, or interlace issues on hi-res N64 games with OSSC. You'd pretty much have to own everything to have an OK setup.
The GBS alone won't cut it, either. I'd have to get Sync Strike as well. I've seen artifacts around sprites in some GBS videos, but none in others. The results people are getting are really inconsistent.
This is all really costly and confusing. Do we really need all of this? Isn't RGB to LCD and 4:3 mode enough?
I don't feel like spending tons of money on a Framemeister. I'd rather get some new arcade boards, or NeoSD's upcoming multi, or whatever it will be.
Why looking at GBS, I started looking at different videos and comparisons. I'm aware of OSSC, and I was considering it as well, but it doesn't offer S-Video scaling, but neither does Framemeister.
While looking at said videos and comparisons, I've noticed one dude comparing OSSC and XRGB mini, while playing his retro games in 16:9 instead of 4:3. Go figure.
This got me thinking. During the 8Bit era, RF and composite were the norm, and that picture was shit, especially the RF, but we played these games anyway. Arcades were RGB on CRT and looked clean, but let's not kid ourselves, arcade CRTs weren't of PVM quality, or the quality some higher end CRT TVs could offer.
Why are we chasing that emulator-esque pixel perfection? Sure, I agree that N64 upgrated with the HDMI module outputs an amazingly clean picture, but that's another $100+ purchase, plus some stunt-soldering.
Someone may say old games on LCDs look like shit, especially on bigger LCDs, but come to think of it, I started using RGB as a norm during the fifth generation.
I didn't have RGB cables for SNES and Megadrive. All of that came later. Living in Europe, I had the luxury of having SCART in almost all of my TVs. I even used a DVR, which had a SCART input, and HDMI output. It was lagless when not recording. Still is.
I guess what I'm trying to say here is: scalers suck. All of them. There's always something. No matter how much you pay, there are things that won't work. Be it Sonic 2 split-screen on Framemeister, or interlace issues on hi-res N64 games with OSSC. You'd pretty much have to own everything to have an OK setup.
The GBS alone won't cut it, either. I'd have to get Sync Strike as well. I've seen artifacts around sprites in some GBS videos, but none in others. The results people are getting are really inconsistent.
This is all really costly and confusing. Do we really need all of this? Isn't RGB to LCD and 4:3 mode enough?