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View Full Version : Anyone using a Super Nintendo with a XRGB unit?



Anthony1
03-03-2007, 11:08 AM
I have a XRGB2+ unit that I love very much. It allows me to play games in RGB on anything that can accept a VGA signal, and with a VGA to component transcoder, I can play systems in RGB on any HDTV with component inputs.


Anywho, for whatever reason, no matter what I do, the picture just doesn't look quite right when I use my XRGB2+ with my Super Nintendo. For all my other gaming systems, the picture looks fantastic, but with the Super Nintendo, there is just something very "off" with the picture.


I've played around with the various settings in the menu. Brightness, Black Level, Gamma, Sharpness. No matter how I change them, I can't get it to look quite right. The main issue that I'm having is that there is a "blooming" in the contrast of foreground objects. Like your main character that is running around on screen, or various sprites that are running around on screen. Pretty much anything in the foreground plane. It's like the foreground plane has the contrast pumped way up. I have the Black Level down super low, but if I go any lower, the picture becomes too dark. So I can't go any lower. I've played around with the Gamma settings, and no matter what, I can't get a natural picture.

The thing that really sucks about it, is that everything else is absolutely beautiful. The colors, the details, all outstanding. But the over saturation in the contrast on foreground objects just becomes too damn distracting that I don't even use my SNES with the XRGB2+ anymore.

I was wondering if anybody else out there is using a SNES with the XRGB2+, and if you've noticed the same thing. If not, and if you have a great picture with your SNES, and none of this "blooming" in foreground objects and sprites, can you do me a huge favor? Could you write down your settings for Brightness, Black Level, Gamma and Sharpness? Just count how many individual clicks are on the screen in the various sections. Then I can try to duplicate the exact settings and see if I can get mine to look normal. It's a damn shame I can't get my SNES to look proper with my XRGB2+, cause it's such an awesome machine. Right now, I'm using my SNES in S-Video on my HDTV's instead. RGB looks vastly superior in terms of details and colors, but I just can't deal with the "blooming".

davidleeroth
03-03-2007, 12:25 PM
Do you have capacitors on the RGB lines? Some cables do but I found the picture to be somewhat better on my CRT when I removed them. Of course this would have an effect on the whole screen so I'm not really sure it's the problem here.

Gamereviewgod
03-03-2007, 02:48 PM
Not to go off topic, but I've been looking at one of these units since I got a new HD set. Is the difference worth the price? I'm satisfied with how well the set handles s-video, though I know how much better it could look. I hooked up my laptop to my TV via VGA and started playing some emulators and the difference was stunning.

For the price of this thing though... that's a lot of cash to drop.

Trebuken
03-03-2007, 05:28 PM
Are you using the older SNES model?

Sweater Fish Deluxe
03-04-2007, 04:02 PM
Actually, for an NTSC SNES, you *DO* need the capacitors (220uF according the The Hardware Book). PAL systems do not need them, though, and this fact that the NTSC and PAL SNESes have different RGB output has lead to a lot of misundertanding. Also, I've found that an NTSC SNES RGB output will look just fine on my 1084 monitor with no caps, but on my XRGB, I did need them, so it seems to vary depending on your monitor as well.

Anthony, the cable you have is probably an original PAL SNES SCART cable, so it doesn't have the caps since PAL SNESes don't need them, but you should be able to use a Gamecube SCART cable with your SNES and XRGB, since PAL Gamecube SCART cables do have the capacitors in them.


...word is bondage...