Question: is my PC in RGB??

[stargate]

I read that PC monitors are RGB. So, basically my question is if emulated games on PC's run in RGB? I have no clue so thought I asked. For example, if I had a SNES emulator running on my PC and a RGB modded SNES running on a RGB monitor, would there be any difference in picture quality?

Thanks for any info...

[stargate]

where are all the RGB experts when you need them? :)

[Soviet Conscript]

i know i'm suprised to, usually ppl are all over RGB questions. i'm curiouse to the answer myself.

i'm no expert on it but i'll try as i know a little about this....i could be completely wrong though

PC's output VGA which is basicly RGB...but not quite. its either very slightly better or worse, can't remember. i think it has something to do with signal hertz or some crap. anyways following that logic i would assume that a system run through emulation would be shown on a pc monitor as pretty much RGB. though to be honest i never noticed any diffrence when playing a game on my PC. i never really compaired but i also never though "wow this game looks alot better then what i remember it being on me TV" which makes me wonder if it is RGB....

basicly i have no idea....hope someone knowledgeable answers this post. wheres Anthony when you acually need him.

[alec006]

In practice, there should be no difference in performance although there may be idiosyncrasies in the way two particular components behave such as the iScan versus your TV. RGB is theoretically better but at the same more expensive and was impractical for over the air broadcasting. RGB (which VGA is) is superior for computer data, but that only has to travel a few feet from PC to monitor. There is no common video source material, including HDTV, for which RGB will exhibit its superiority.

The reason why Y/Pb/Pr was invented was to save on bandwidth, only the Y (luminance) carries the full resolution while the Pb and Pr need only carry much less, it is half the resolution both horizontal and vertical for DVD, DTV and U.S. HDTV. Whereas video transmitted via RGB needs full resolution on all three lines/channels/cables. When the iScan delivers RGB output all three output lines must have the full bandwidth even though the input might have been S-video with
effectively 1/4 the resolution preserved on the incoming chroma line that later becomes the Pb and Pr.

Ultimately the video has to end up as RGB to feed the picture tube(s) or LCD panels. If the TV takes RGB, converts it to Y/Pb/Pr for intermediate processing (mine does ^@#%%$!) and then back to RGB, there is more of a chance there will be some idiosyncrasy compared with RGB straight to the picture tube that a regular computer monitor does.

Roughly speaking, if RGB is red, green, and blue, then Y/Pb/Pr is red, white, and blue.

Slightly more precisely,
R is 1.00 red plus 0.00 green plus 0.00 blue,
G is 0.00 red plus 1.00 green plus 0.00 blue,
B is 0.00 red plus 0.00 green plus 1.00 blue.

Y is 0.30 red plus 0.59 green plus 0.11 blue,
Pb and Pr are also blends, I don't recall the numbers. Subject to the bandwidth of the Pb and Pr and the preciseness of the blends, RGB can be regenerated perfectly from this.

Also of note, RGB comes in three flavors, RGsB sync on green, RGBS sync as a fourth line/cable, and RGBHV horizontal/vertical sync. on fourth and fifth lines. The iScan has some adjustment for this and needs to be set to match the TV. Y/Pb/Pr and S-video always has sync on Y."

From alot of research RGB is infact a slight bit better than Component Video,but its no better for regular video and HD video sources since all of them use YUV component video for encoding the data. Using RGB its just converting from a component source you can't increase the quality. RGB is better quality for a PC video card source since that is RGB originally. So it depends on the video source. Also unless you have a RGB native source you would need an expensive component to RGB transcoder and it still wouldn't give better quality for a native component source.

[Anthony1]

RGB for computers and RGB for old video game consoles is different. Different scanning rates. When we talk about RGB for consoles, we are essentially talking about 15kHz analog RGB. The SNES and Genesis put out a 15kHz analog RGB signal. Computer monitors normally don't sync with 15kHz (some old school ones do). Playing games on an Emulator is not going to give you the equivalent of a pure, native, analog 15kHz RGB signal from a console like a Genesis. One thing the emulators will do, is allow you to run the video in various special modes, to try to make it look better. I'm not going to sit here and say that you can't have emulators looking "almost" as good as true, native RGB, but it's just not the same thing. It's not the real McCoy.

Now, having said all of that, I understand that there is some special video card out there, that supposedly will give you true RGB, and it was meant to be used with MAME and stuff like that. I don't really know much about it, but I've heard bits and pieces of talk about it here and there.

There is this saying that we all know that goes like this....Ain't nothin like the real thing BABY!!!!!!......


I pretty much have to agree with that. True, native, 15kHz analog RGB on a monitor that can sync with that signal and display it properly can't be touched. For those of you that don't want to spend the money or the time to achieve that, and are happy running emulators and special video modes like SuperScale2X, then don't worry about it. Continue to enjoy what you are enjoying. I will admit that when it comes to the NES, I decided that I'm cool with emulation. Well that, and the fact that I haven't tracked down the right Playchoice PCB to get the chip that's needed for the NES rgb mod. So I've resigned myself to playing NES games on a Emulator, and I'm cool with that. I'm not that into NES any ways. But when it comes to SNES, Genny, TG-16, Sega CD and stuff like that, I gotta have the real thing BABY!

[stargate]

RGB for computers and RGB for old video game consoles is different. Different scanning rates. When we talk about RGB for consoles, we are essentially talking about 15kHz analog RGB. The SNES and Genesis put out a 15kHz analog RGB signal. Computer monitors normally don't sync with 15kHz (some old school ones do). Playing games on an Emulator is not going to give you the equivalent of a pure, native, analog 15kHz RGB signal from a console like a Genesis. One thing the emulators will do, is allow you to run the video in various special modes, to try to make it look better. I'm not going to sit here and say that you can't have emulators looking "almost" as good as true, native RGB, but it's just not the same thing. It's not the real McCoy.

Now, having said all of that, I understand that there is some special video card out there, that supposedly will give you true RGB, and it was meant to be used with MAME and stuff like that. I don't really know much about it, but I've heard bits and pieces of talk about it here and there.

There is this saying that we all know that goes like this....Ain't nothin like the real thing BABY!!!!!!......


I pretty much have to agree with that. True, native, 15kHz analog RGB on a monitor that can sync with that signal and display it properly can't be touched. For those of you that don't want to spend the money or the time to achieve that, and are happy running emulators and special video modes like SuperScale2X, then don't worry about it. Continue to enjoy what you are enjoying. I will admit that when it comes to the NES, I decided that I'm cool with emulation. Well that, and the fact that I haven't tracked down the right Playchoice PCB to get the chip that's needed for the NES rgb mod. So I've resigned myself to playing NES games on a Emulator, and I'm cool with that. I'm not that into NES any ways. But when it comes to SNES, Genny, TG-16, Sega CD and stuff like that, I gotta have the real thing BABY!

This is the answer I was looking for. Thanks much. Thanks to everyone who responded as well. Merry Christmas !!

[cyberfluxor]

Thanks for the nice read.

[Ze_ro]

Sort of off-topic, but do any video capture cards exist for PC's that will accept 15kHz RGB video signals? Do european video capture cards have SCART connectors on them that would be appropriate? If so, this could be a nice (and relatively cheap) solution for using RGB consoles on VGA monitors....

--Zero

[Ed Oscuro]

Ze_ro: I'm getting a $200+ capture box for 60/50Hz video, and there isn't a spot for a SCART connector. :P

I've seen VGA capture devices. They're pretty damn expensive because it's a small market (most people will do fine using FRAPS on their PC or will send the video signal to a video compositing device); $350 says Google. More depending what resolution you want to capture (1600x1200 is a LOT of pixels to grab).

15kHz capture cards are probably even more expensive, but if you get lucky you might find something obsolete on eBay. Good luck getting it to work though!

Anyway, here's some random Forum post (http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-27046.html) I found. I'd start with a '15kHz "capture card"' Google search. Again, a small-ish market, so if cards DO feature it, it'll probably be buried at the bottom of a long list of features.

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

The things that make emulated games look worse than they would on a console through RGB don't really have much to do with the difference between regular RGB and VGA RGB, it's other things.

Mostly resolution. Normal video cards aren't able to handle a resolution like 256x224, so instead they use 320x240 (or a multiple thereof) and either stretch the image which makes for lumpy pixels or the leave black bars around the side which means the picture won't have the proper 4:3 aspect like it would on a TV. Neither of those is satisfactory in my opinion or at least they certainly look worse than the image from a real console, whether you're using RGB cables or not.

Another problem which is apparently related to the resolution used by emulators is that no matter how many vsync and double buffering options you turn on, you'll always get some screen shearing and other emulation problems that obviously wouldn't show up on a real console.

If you were to eliminate the resolution issues (some video cards may be able to handle the odd resolutions most consoles use) the difference between console RGB and PC RGB would really only come down to whether the image is interlaced or progressive, which from the point of view of the person looking at the image means whether you have scanlines or no scanlines. That's really the only noticeable difference I think. The virtual scanlines most emulators offer aren't perfect, but they look okay (better in my opinion than things like 2xSai and Eagle filters).

So, if you're emulating for instance the Master System which uses 256x192 resolution which can be doubled or quadrupled by the emulator to produce a standard resolution of 512x384 or 1024x768 that any video card should be able to handle and if you turn on virtual scanlines, you wouldn't see much difference between the output from the emulator and from a real console through RGB. Same would go for newer consoles like the Playstation, N64 or Dreamcast which most often use standard PC resolutions. There's going to be differences of course, but those would mostly be due to the differences between the computer monitor and the RGB monitor you're looking at the images on, not the signals themselves. Which one looks better would definitely be a matter of personal opinion anyway. Some people may even prefer the image with no scanlines, whether virtual or real.


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