Dreamcast VGA

[Zorlon]

I won one a Dreamcast VGA Box (Atleast it looks like it has the box switch)

Anyway I'm wanting to know if there are any VGA fixes available

If so a location to aquire them from aswell

I only know of 1 fix so far that I found myself for Evil Dead - Hail to the King (only a bin patch Dreamcasters will know why thats bad)

Edit 2 others found one poinless as it's for bootloader aka utopia (pointless because I make all my games selfboot ) and one for Soul Calibur (yay cdi patch saves some messing unlike evil Dreamcast bin patches)

[Mikey_]

whats the difference between a dc vga box and a normal dc?

[polokitty]

you can hook your dc up to a monitor

[Hijuda]

Err... couldn't you just take the video cables, then hook them up to an adapter? Wouldn't that work just as well?

[Zorlon]

A VGB Box is not a Whole New Dreamcast or a Seperate Display device it's just well... read the FAQ

Just from that guide you should also be able to tell why I went for a box rather than a simple cable aswell

Anyway I'm still after information on this subject

I'm also wondering if the light gun info is true (I wonder if it will help me play lightgun games that are not ment for my region... that's if it's true that light gun works with VGA monitors) though I can quickly find that out once I obtain the VGA box.

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[Borman]

Did you get a cheap VGA box, or the official one?

[Zorlon]

Blaze DC VGA but it realy shouldn't make much difference acording to the above FAQ

It does have a switch to go between AV and VGA

This unit seems to do an acceptable job of outputting VGA video to most monitors.

Sadly though the units' build quality is poor. I couldn't get an S-Video cable to stay fitting in the S-Video jack, and only one of the RCA audio outputs worked.

The last straw was when I connected it to my Key Digital KT-VTCA3 / Clearcolor 3 VGA to Component Video adapter, so I could play Dreamcast in Progressive Scan/480p on my HDTV. The unit put out an overly pink image in INTERLACED format with lots of rippling on the picture. I used a Blaze VGA box in place of this one and I got beautiful clear video - so DO NOT BUY THIS IF YOU INTEND TO USE IT WITH A KT-VTCA3.

Go Figure there were also a few other complaints about the wires being faulty inside at Lik-San, it seems to be a common thing with the internal wires though obviously not everyone has the same bad luck

Fortionatly I can solder anyway if the Blaze Box has any wire problems like the official Box

Edit:- found some info that might help me if I find any games that don't support VGA at all or only work with the switch trick (I would rather not use a switch trick)

None VGA Self-boot games to VGA Seft-boot games
hex-edit the Self-Boot CD Image file.

1. Open the Self-Boot CD Image file in your favorite hex editor. And do a search for "KATANA".
2. Scroll down a little until you see the string "JUE"
3. Change the number string after "JUE" to "0799A10"
4. Save your new file.
5. Burn, and enjoy on your VGA box.

Sounds easy enough to me I can do a little Hex editing easy enough and I could create my own patches

I have personly done hex editing before on DC selfboot images so they work with my PAL DC through a RGB Scart but thats a little more complicated

Most Games do support VGA anyway but there are a good number that don't aswell

Think I will do seen as I only found 3 and one didn't support a self-boot image anyway

[Borman]

Some have ugly VGA, be warned of that

[Zorlon]

Obviously well to me anyway (Super Sharp = No bluring effect that TV's give so low res games will look pixelated)

I'm not that much a noob

LOL If I remove my glasses it will still look good even for lo res games

Though running through a VGA projector it would be spot on , running through a Scart projector would look way too blury on most

Edit:- Got my VGA box

VGA looks very nice it even brings out detail you can't normally see on a standard TV through RGB Scart, AV or S.Video (Can be a bad thing though aswell just not seen any evidence yet, e.g. show gfx errors you wouldn't normally notice on a TV).

Every game tested so far is 640x480 though (Not many yet).

Oh yeah Dreamcast Light Guns work with VGA and guess what it's region free now as I thought, the only reason that in TV mode they are not region free is because 50Hz and 60Hz on a TV display differently because 50Hz uses more lines than 60Hz does but in VGA Mode there the same.

[Borman]

Na, i meant some games have stretched sprites and stuff if i remember correctly (been a long time since i had a DC VGA adapter handy)

Glad you like it so far Try shenmue yet?

[Zorlon]

LOL if the aspect is out you just correct the Horizontal and Vertical setting on your Monitor, unless your talking about individual sprites being out :/ but I can only imagine seeing that on games that don't have VGA support and well there are not alot of them maybe through using the switch trick (I'm going to avoid using that trick though and just set the games to be able to boot directly in VGA or use the AV output for those games, I did notice on the guide I posted before that some games using the trick don't come out perfect).

Shenmue er might of been the first game I tested

I guess I'm lucky in a way because I have a spare monitor around aswell and it's hooked up to my TV aswell though the AV conections

[Borman]

http://dreamcast.ign.com/articles/163/163556p1.html

Has some parts about VGA resolution messing up sprites

[Zorlon]

Thanks Borman

Funny enough one of the games I played was Capcom vs SNK 2 and it was perfect but I'll look into those aswell but it doesn't sound like the problem you talked about but more the GFX are doubled from 320x240 to 640x480 and just looks horrible

... There is nothing there to say the GFX actually mess up at all just nasty looking to the fact that they mix 320x240 doubled to 640x480 forground GFX with 640x480 standard backdrops and you can tell, I could with the game above but can't say it looked all that bad, personly though I'm not into beat em ups at all anyway, maybe a quick play to pass the time, but there are plenty of good 3D beat em ups that are beter for a quick play anyway