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Thread: XRGB Frame Meister Review

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    Default XRGB Frame Meister Review

    Fudoh/Tobias just reviewed the successor to the XRGB-3 upscaler, and it's supposed to be a significant improvement:

    http://retrogaming.hazard-city.de/

    I can't wait to try this out with my oldschool consoles, but the $500 price tag stings. Who else is getting this?

    ps - my XRGB-2+ is for sale if anyone wants a nice "beginner" upscaler at a reasonable (in comparison to the FM) price!
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    I considered picking one of these upscallers up.

    The problem being that I just can't see its worth in 500 bucks, from what I understand what these things convert the lower resolution signals from older consoles into a signal that newer TV's can read with clarity. In addition they can add effects like scan lines to the image to look as close to an older CRT as possible. Unless I'm missing something that about sums it up right?

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    Quote Originally Posted by substantial_snake View Post
    I considered picking one of these upscallers up.

    The problem being that I just can't see its worth in 500 bucks, from what I understand what these things convert the lower resolution signals from older consoles into a signal that newer TV's can read with clarity. In addition they can add effects like scan lines to the image to look as close to an older CRT as possible. Unless I'm missing something that about sums it up right?
    While I’m by no means the upscaler king (that would be Fudoh, the dude who wrote the review), upscalers take low-res content and make them pretty on high-res panels. Blu-Ray players such as PS3 upscale standard definition DVDs with generally great results from my experience (via HDMI, that is). The XRGB line gets considerable attention from classic gamers because it can make the picture “pretty” and produce a minimal, generally unnoticeable amount of latency due to the image processing.

    Lag sucks, and the XRGB line is great at minimizing it. According to what I’ve read the FM produces less than a frame of lag, which is outstanding—but still too much for Third Strike purists!
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    damn i was hoping this would be the one that finally gets marketed for those of us who dont have trustfunds or defense contracts with the us government


    i honestly thought with the whole "mini" thing this would be in the 200 dollar range, na fuck that, i cant justify 500 dollars on something i only plan on using with my saturn and ps1.....PASS
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    Kirby (Level 13) norkusa's Avatar
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    Some of the higher-end AV receivers will upscale standard def signals to HD too. I paid around $600 for my Onkyo receiver almost 2 years ago and PS1 & PS2 games look great on it. It's something to consider if you plan on dropping $500 on one of these dedicated upscalers.

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    Quote Originally Posted by norkusa View Post
    Some of the higher-end AV receivers will upscale standard def signals to HD too. I paid around $600 for my Onkyo receiver almost 2 years ago and PS1 & PS2 games look great on it. It's something to consider if you plan on dropping $500 on one of these dedicated upscalers.
    A lot of upscalers will make SD content look fabulous. But that's only one reason to get an XRGB unit. While I haven't tried every upscaler out there, XRGB (2+, 3, FM) is supposed to be the gold standard when it come to low latency gameplay.

    I have no idea what type of processing lag your Onkyo produces, but I'm willing to bet the newer XRGB devices are faster.
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    Quote Originally Posted by RCM View Post
    A lot of upscalers will make SD content look fabulous. But that's only one reason to get an XRGB unit. While I haven't tried every upscaler out there, XRGB (2+, 3, FM) is supposed to be the gold standard when it come to low latency gameplay.

    I have no idea what type of processing lag your Onkyo produces, but I'm willing to bet the newer XRGB devices are faster.
    Considering the price he paid and the time he bought it, most likely it's using the Silicon Optix Reon chip for video processing. It's a somewhat "scaled down", non-upgradeable by firmware version of the Realta processor. There's a Reon inside my Toshiba XA2 and the PQ results are quite nice when upscaling DVDs. I thought about going the receiver route for processing but you're locked into a generally non-upgradeable route with a very general purpose deinterlacing/scaling solution. Also the options for tweaking the image are very limited on the receivers vs. stand alone video processors. Having a separate modular unit in which you can choose a device for specific functions most important to you was the way I wanted to go.

    The Reon will lag more, but it wasn't designed with gamers in mind. It was geared for picture quality for tv, movies, etc. Also if it doesn't already have a "game mode" to reduce processing and shorten the lag, it cannot be upgraded via firmware to add a mode. Should be fine though for "casual gaming", but a problem if you're a hardcore fighting game guy who needs to precisely time frames for combos or a shmup fan.

    .
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    Quote Originally Posted by StealthLurker View Post

    The Reon will lag more, but it wasn't designed with gamers in mind. It was geared for picture quality for tv, movies, etc. Also if it doesn't already have a "game mode" to reduce processing and shorten the lag, it cannot be upgraded via firmware to add a mode. Should be fine though for "casual gaming", but a problem if you're a hardcore fighting game guy who needs to precisely time frames for combos or a shmup fan.

    .
    Good to know, but I imagine many of the people interested in stuff like this for classic consoles lean more to the "hardcore" side.

    I know you have experience w/ other upscalers and am wondering what you think of the FM and if you're going to get it.
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    Quote Originally Posted by RCM View Post
    Good to know, but I imagine many of the people interested in stuff like this for classic consoles lean more to the "hardcore" side.

    I know you have experience w/ other upscalers and am wondering what you think of the FM and if you're going to get it.
    From the latest posts at shmups, the FM sounds like THE device for gaming on a modern display with real hardware. I'm going to get it, but I'd like to see more people get it and talk about it for shits n giggles. Also I'd like to wait for a few iterations of the firmware to get upgraded.

    What's funny though is that I've talked to Tobias (Fudoh) a couple times over pm and we both favor emulation. You can spend all this time and money on gadgets such as these, but you'll never beat what can be done via emulation. Also for convenience I tend to fire the emulators up most of the time when playing on a modern display rather than the actual hardware. It's so convenient when there's a dedicated PC always on and ready to go by the HDTVs. Yeah I know... it's not the same. I do have all the hardware and games though lol.

    .

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    Quote Originally Posted by StealthLurker View Post
    From the latest posts at shmups, the FM sounds like THE device for gaming on a modern display with real hardware. I'm going to get it, but I'd like to see more people get it and talk about it for shits n giggles. Also I'd like to wait for a few iterations of the firmware to get upgraded.

    What's funny though is that I've talked to Tobias (Fudoh) a couple times over pm and we both favor emulation. You can spend all this time and money on gadgets such as these, but you'll never beat what can be done via emulation. Also for convenience I tend to fire the emulators up most of the time when playing on a modern display rather than the actual hardware. It's so convenient when there's a dedicated PC always on and ready to go by the HDTVs. Yeah I know... it's not the same. I do have all the hardware and games though lol.

    .

    .
    I purchased the FM tonight. I can't wait to see how it performs, especially in comparison to emulation.

    I really wish I wasn't a purist when it comes to playing real videogames on real hardware too. I have a modded Xbox hooked up via component and everything looks "perfect," but I can't get past the fact that it's NOT the real thing. Maybe I'll smarten up someday...
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    I got the Framemeister in the mail yesterday and am blown away. It works amazingly well with the older consoles I've tested (PC Engine DUO RX, Saturn, Genesis) via S-video, and "cleaned up" the Wii's video signal a bit too. It's going to take me a while to mess with all the different settings and modes, but I'm impressed.

    I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the FM to anyone interested in playing classic games on their HDTV. But you need acceptable cables and a TV with a minimal amount of lag to really take advantage.
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    Quote Originally Posted by RCM View Post
    I got the Framemeister in the mail yesterday and am blown away. It works amazingly well with the older consoles I've tested (PC Engine DUO RX, Saturn, Genesis) via S-video, and "cleaned up" the Wii's video signal a bit too. It's going to take me a while to mess with all the different settings and modes, but I'm impressed.

    I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the FM to anyone interested in playing classic games on their HDTV. But you need acceptable cables and a TV with a minimal amount of lag to really take advantage.
    Why would you need a TV with minimal lag to really take advantage of it?

    Doesn't the FM handle the deinterlacing and then scales it to the native resolution of your TV? Lag occurs when the deinterlacing and scaling of the TV's internal hardware takes noticeable amounts of time. Are you saying that the modes you have tried so far take enough processing time to create a lag (lag generated by the FM).... or is the output resolution you have selected coming out of the FM not the native resolution of your HDTV?

    If you are in fact feeding the native HD resolution from the FM to your HDTV, then your HDTV is doing zero processing and is not responsible for the lag. Note that if you feed a 720p signal to a HDTV with a 1080p based native res, there will be small amount of lag (might not be perceptible in most games... maybe in high level fighting games like 3rd strike where tiny frame differences are important for more complex combos/setups). In this example above it won't have to deinterlace, just scale which is a less costly step in most cases.

    .
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    ServBot (Level 11) kedawa's Avatar
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    I just took it to mean that it would be a waste to have this thing do super fast upscaling, only to have your monitor/TV delay the image with its own image processing.

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    Quote Originally Posted by kedawa View Post
    I just took it to mean that it would be a waste to have this thing do super fast upscaling, only to have your monitor/TV delay the image with its own image processing.
    @StealthLurker, see above. My point, which could have been phrased more eloquently, is that I encourage those who are interested to use or buy the best equipment they can to take advantage. Results may vary, and what I'm experiencing may not be the case for your setup or Kedawa's TV, for instance. I've had no issues with lag in several modes and output resolutions I've tried. But the suggestion also extends to the cables you decide to use. Is it wrong to assume a better screen in terms of image quality and performance provides a better chance of good performance?

    If I haven't said it in this thread or others like it, I'm by no means the XRGB God. Hell, they'd more than likely laugh at me over at Shmups for choosing S-video over RGB.
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    ServBot (Level 11) kedawa's Avatar
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    Does it support 1280x1024 through DVI?

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    I haven't tried using this through dvi, but I believe it supports it judging from the back of the box. I think the review mentions it supports typical pc resolutions too.

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    Quote Originally Posted by RCM View Post
    @StealthLurker, see above. My point, which could have been phrased more eloquently, is that I encourage those who are interested to use or buy the best equipment they can to take advantage. Results may vary, and what I'm experiencing may not be the case for your setup or Kedawa's TV, for instance. I've had no issues with lag in several modes and output resolutions I've tried. But the suggestion also extends to the cables you decide to use. Is it wrong to assume a better screen in terms of image quality and performance provides a better chance of good performance?

    If I haven't said it in this thread or others like it, I'm by no means the XRGB God. Hell, they'd more than likely laugh at me over at Shmups for choosing S-video over RGB.

    Well when I read Kedawa's reply I wondered if he really read my reply.

    1. No matter what HDTV you buy, as long as you feed it the native resolution signal for that TV, it will do ZERO processing on it.

    2. I'm sure the FM is capable of generating all the common resolutions.

    So given points 1 & 2 above, it shouldn't matter what gear you have prior to getting an FM. The only concern, which might be what your referring to..... is to tap RGB out of your retro consoles.

    .
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    Quote Originally Posted by StealthLurker View Post
    Well when I read Kedawa's reply I wondered if he really read my reply.

    1. No matter what HDTV you buy, as long as you feed it the native resolution signal for that TV, it will do ZERO processing on it.

    2. I'm sure the FM is capable of generating all the common resolutions.

    So given points 1 & 2 above, it shouldn't matter what gear you have prior to getting an FM. The only concern, which might be what your referring to..... is to tap RGB out of your retro consoles.

    .
    Yeah, but I thought there were issues with LCD tech in particular involving "high speed" images and response time even when you use the native res. If that's not an issue I stand corrected!
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    Quote Originally Posted by RCM View Post
    Yeah, but I thought there were issues with LCD tech in particular involving "high speed" images and response time even when you use the native res. If that's not an issue I stand corrected!
    Well there are other miscellaneous things in LCDs that can introduce additional processing, but I excluded that for simplicity.

    For example on most LCDs today with 120Hz, 240Hz etc there are the interpolation algorithms that generate "fake frames" for that ultra smooth animating picture. However, on every set like that I've encountered so far, you can dial it up/down or just turn it off completely.

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    Can someone point me to a proper SCART (or othe cable) to connect my unmodified 1991 US NTSC Super Nintendo up to an XRGB or XRGB mini framemeister?

    Would this work? http://www.ebay.com/itm/Super-Ninten...#ht_2376wt_922

    I have it hooked up with svideo right now, and that already is looking fantastic.

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