Playing Dreamcast VGA box on a HD widescreen TV

mxz600 · Post by **mxz600** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 6:02 am

Has anybody done this sucessfully? I heard of problems with Other consoles on HD TV's with there lag time response from controller to Output on screen. But this is with Composite or RCA hookups. How does it look and play with VGA hookups? is the screen stretched to widescreen or blurry cus of the lower 640x480 res.

I want to hook up my DC when i eventually get one of these large TV's, Please share your experience with me along with the type and brand of TV u r using. thank.s

Sultan of Saturn · Post by **Sultan of Saturn** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 6:30 pm

That is a good question. However, my friends hooked up their genesis to play Gunstar Heroes on their high def tv, and they said it looked and played great.

Post by **Quzar** » Sun Aug 06, 2006 9:01 pm

Many people don't care about the aspect ratio on their TVs and watch everything in widescreen even if it's not supposed to be. Same for video games. There are a select few DC games (a list can be found by searching these forums) that support actual 16:9 output, other than those, you'll probably have to set your tv to "narrow" mode.

mxz600 · Post by **mxz600** » Mon Aug 07, 2006 9:10 am

thanks for your replies, but the real question is this, is there a lag between the controller and the output to the TV with the VGA setup like i have read about with the xbox 360 and PS2 when hooked up to these high def widescreen TVs. You see, these Tv's with there native resolution different than the output of the game machine, will need to do a lot of conversion and image manipulation to output it to its native resolution. which cause this lag effect. What I was wondering was if its using a VGA input to the high def TV, then there shouldn't be any processing involved, just force it through. I could be totally wrong here, thats why im asking does anybody have there Dreamcast hooked up to the TV with VGA inputs, thanks.

Post by **Quzar** » Mon Aug 07, 2006 11:41 am

With the DC as opposed to a PS2, you don't need a transcoder to get vga output, so compared to that at least, you'll get better resolution. The 360 though can output hdmi, which is a whole different beast from vga.

Smurph · Post by **Smurph** » Mon Aug 07, 2006 11:59 am

Quzar wrote:With the DC as opposed to a PS2, you don't need a transcoder to get vga output, so compared to that at least, you'll get better resolution. The 360 though can output hdmi, which is a whole different beast from vga.

Although VGA doesn't use any of the DRM crap that HDMI does.

Nick · Post by **Nick** » Mon Aug 07, 2006 2:45 pm

...360 can't output HDMI.

Post by **Quzar** » Mon Aug 07, 2006 10:43 pm

Oh god damn, I did that so many times cause people would come into compusa looking for one. Component or vga were the highest for it.

Sorry bout that. For the record though, the 360 is "supposed" to be able to output HDMI, MS just says that nobody wants it.

Sweater Fish · Post by **Sweater Fish** » Tue Aug 08, 2006 6:46 pm

mxz600 wrote:thanks for your replies, but the real question is this, is there a lag between the controller and the output to the TV with the VGA setup like i have read about with the xbox 360 and PS2 when hooked up to these high def widescreen TVs. You see, these Tv's with there native resolution different than the output of the game machine, will need to do a lot of conversion and image manipulation to output it to its native resolution. which cause this lag effect. What I was wondering was if its using a VGA input to the high def TV, then there shouldn't be any processing involved, just force it through. I could be totally wrong here, thats why im asking does anybody have there Dreamcast hooked up to the TV with VGA inputs, thanks.

If your TV has a VGA input, that means it can display VGA images with no processing, so there should be no lag when playing VGA dreamcast games.

I personally don't understand why HDTVs have this lag. Line doublers and upscan converters have been around for ages and have never caused lag. I used an upscan converter for gaming for years with no problem, but for some reason the converters built into HDTVs can't seem to do it. It's pretty weak. Makes getting an HDTV a hell of a lot less tempting for someone like me who still loves his Master System, Colecovision, etc.

...word is bondage...

Lyris · Post by **Lyris** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 10:35 am

Yep, I play my Dreamcast on my Sony KDL-32V2000 through VGA. No lag at all, and incredibly good quality. By default, the TV correctly borders the sides of the 4:3 picture to avoid stretching it.

In fact, when I had an HDTV without a VGA input, I used to use a VGA to Component (480p) transcoder to play it. Despite the conversion, there was still no lag.