RGB FTW
Posted: Sun Jun 10, 2012 12:43 am
It's been ages since I posted... Anyway, I did an RGB mod to one of my model 2 systems and ended up adding a VGA connector to it.
The mod's pretty simple - it's just decoupling capacitors and 75 ohm resistors. In theory, all you need is a VGA cable and a suitable monitor and you're good to go. But, it's almost impossible to find a modern VGA monitor that'll sync to 15Khz. Some TVs with VGA inputs might, but I haven't really tried. To get around this, I've gotten hold of an Extron DVS 204 video scaler (link). This will take pretty much anything in (including S-video, composite, and RGB) and output VGA or component.
This is the rig:
Connecting the regular composite output through it gives this:
However, connecting via the RGB gives this:
This is the same console, the same VGA scaler and the same monitor - only the choice of coupling from the Genesis to the scaler is different. The scaler is upscaling to 1024x768. Unfortunately, the scaler doesn't output the native resolution of my VGA flat panel, so it's getting scaled again. Regardless, it's a pretty major improvement and far better than anything I've seen on a TV.
Close-up (composite):
.. and RGB:
Hooray for RGB.
The mod's pretty simple - it's just decoupling capacitors and 75 ohm resistors. In theory, all you need is a VGA cable and a suitable monitor and you're good to go. But, it's almost impossible to find a modern VGA monitor that'll sync to 15Khz. Some TVs with VGA inputs might, but I haven't really tried. To get around this, I've gotten hold of an Extron DVS 204 video scaler (link). This will take pretty much anything in (including S-video, composite, and RGB) and output VGA or component.
This is the rig:
Connecting the regular composite output through it gives this:
However, connecting via the RGB gives this:
This is the same console, the same VGA scaler and the same monitor - only the choice of coupling from the Genesis to the scaler is different. The scaler is upscaling to 1024x768. Unfortunately, the scaler doesn't output the native resolution of my VGA flat panel, so it's getting scaled again. Regardless, it's a pretty major improvement and far better than anything I've seen on a TV.
Close-up (composite):
.. and RGB:
Hooray for RGB.
