Cloning the GameCube component cable

[Guilt]

@Admiralbeeyotch Yeah, it does sound over HDMI. I heard this is a pretty recent development actually, and I was actually unaware of it until I played with the settings. It only works if you turn on 'Enhanced DVI', which I can't see does anything else... I've heard that breaks compatibility for some TV's though. So if you want digital audio, work with the SPDIF output hole. Don't know anything about that. If you prefer analogue audio, then you can just plug a regular AV or SVid cable into the multi-out and use sound from that. It's in sync.

[Admiralbeeyotch]

@Guilt, thank you so much for the information. I did not realise you could still use the A/V cable for sound that makes it alot easier if it has problems with my screen. I am not sure how it will act, I game on a benq projector. Have there been any problems with the video on certain tv's/projectors? I might have to give this a try. I am excited to see your install so I know a little more of where to place the board and wires.

[bobrocks95]

I haven't heard about any specific brands or displays being more prone to not working. You have two backup methods though if the Enhanced DVI mode doesn't work for you.

[Admiralbeeyotch]

If enhanced DVI mode does not work what are the other two options?

[bobrocks95]

Analog audio through the multi-out or connecting an SPDIF buffer/connector for digital audio.

[Guilt]

If Admiralbeeyotch is still kicking around here, I finally updated those pictures. Lemme know if anything should be explained in greater detail.

[Admiralbeeyotch]

Looks good. In one of the pictures I see a bunch of red wires. In another they look grey. What is up with that? Also where does the board sit?

[Guilt]

The wires are white in one picture because it's my first attempt. I initially tried doing the wiring without removing the stock DVI port, and while I did get it to work this way, the wires were frustratingly delicate and I couldn't safely keep them anywhere without a lot of gymnastics. I then removed all those wires and did it a second time with the DVI port removed and using much thicker wires. The swap is detailed in my first and second points.
As for where the board sits, that's #5. I couldn't get a good picture of the board in place because it's so tight. You can see a pic of the gap I put it into though, and if you follow the wires in the last pic in the post you can sort of infer the spot its in.

Basically if you take off your Gamecube's outer casing and feel along the back you'll find a slot that is ALMOST big enough to fit a Pluto. Chop a support beam and remove the Pluto's serial interface and it's a perfect fit.
This might help:

Spoiler

Show

[Admiralbeeyotch]

If I remove the Digital port on the GC can I use 20 awg wire for most everything?

[Guilt]

That's what I did. If you have any ability to desolder then you'd be doing yourself a favor by removing the digital port. It's a lot easier than the desoldering involved in, say, installing evil tim's NESRGB.

he only different wire I used was a 30 awg (radioshack calls it wrapping wire) line from the Pluto to the controller data. You'll be hard pressed to use anything larger on account of the VERY small amount of space you're working with.

[Hoodyracoon]

Just a thought, not sure if its been said or done(just found this and havent looked at the board view yet not to mention the forks) but wouldn't it be possible to turn this into a two part board in place of the connector and use something like hdmi pins(or just solder on the pads) to get a connection? That would make the whole thing external. It definitely seems possible since the port looks more then wide enough to fit a pcb into

[bobrocks95]

An external version will be out from Badassconsoles eventually.

[Guilt]

@Hoodyracoon If I'm correct, that's actually an ongoing project nicknamed Shuriken. I don't know too much more about it than that though. I believe that people have already created models for injection-molded plastic to mimic the authentic cable, but I think they're yet to be mass-produced.

[Unseen]

GCVideo-DVI 2.2, now with:

• Infrared remote support (alternative to Pad)
• Wii support (don't even think about it unless you found that soldering the Paddata-Via on the Cube was really easy)

Oh, and no - I don't have any videos or screenshots available and I can't make them any time soon because my Dev-Wii is a wiring mess and the board is currently on the Cube for the final "did I break anything"-checks.

[JohnSmith1882]

GCVideo-DVI 2.2, now with:

• Infrared remote support (alternative to Pad)
• Wii support (don't even think about it unless you found that soldering the Paddata-Via on the Cube was really easy)

Oh, and no - I don't have any videos or screenshots available and I can't make them any time soon because my Dev-Wii is a wiring mess and the board is currently on the Cube for the final "did I break anything"-checks.

We're not worthy!

[meneerbeer]

Interesting change for the PadReader. Out of curiousity, why does it allow for the use of the LUTs as shift registers now?

[Unseen]

Interesting change for the PadReader. Out of curiousity, why does it allow for the use of the LUTs as shift registers now?

Using LUT as a shift register only works if you have strict serial in, serial out - the previous code also used parallel read when the data packet was complete, so the synthesis software had to use a flipflop for each bit.

[tesla246]

Ah, Wii support was only a matter of time , very nice work indeed.

On another note, I do have a feature request regarding gcvideo. It may come across as whining as I have asked it previously already, please forgive me for doing so .

I have been thinking about the option to toggle the 80 horizontal active pixels in the 720x480 video standard to either on or off. Disabling the 80 active pixels would result in an evenly scaled image across both the x-axis and y-axis. 480 would fit 2.25 * in 1080. And 640 would scale similar to 1440 (which is basically 4:3 full hd and would fit cleanly 3 times in 1920, or 16:9 full hd when stretched for games with a 16: 9 aspect ratio in a 640x480 image). This would mean an even scaling of the pixels as you would see them on a 4:3 crt which doesn't show the active pixels either way. Also, it would result in perfect scaling of 640x480 games on 8k tv's though we might only benefit of that in the future.

What I believe now happens (on HDTV's anyway) is the 720x480 image appears slightly squashed in 4:3 mode as the image with the 80 horizontal black pixels is horizontally squashed to accommodate those extra active pixels iside the 2.25 scaling (thus consisting of a 1440x1080 4:3 picture). When selecting widescreen the stretched screen also appears squashed because of the 80 active pixels which are now 2.25*80= 180 wide, plus the stretching when setting the TV mode to 16:9 resulting in 1920/1440*180=240 black pixels. Those 240 pixels represent the black bars, 120 on either side which scale along with the image, if that makes sense. Recently I was playing ocarina of time on the collectors disc and noticed the lack of black bars on either side despite it being a full 640x480 game, which led me to believe some games disable the 80 pixels by default. This results to a lack of black bars (on HDTV's), and, indeed a cleaner, sharper picture overall, with potentially a better possibility of preserving the original aspect ratio.

Now, I do not know if the code would still fit on the fpga or it may be too bothersome to implement, and I would understand. I may also be off in my analysis in which case don't bother with this post. However, if there is any truth to it I ask thee humbly to consider it adding into a future release if those are still to come, of course! Thanks for reading and sorry for your troubles. Have a nice day everyone

[Unseen]

I have been thinking about the option to toggle the 80 horizontal active pixels in the 720x480 video standard to either on or off.

That would result in a non-standard video timing though - real 640x480 needs a different pixel clock.

Recently I was playing ocarina of time on the collectors disc and noticed the lack of black bars on either side despite it being a full 640x480 game, which led me to believe some games disable the 80 pixels by default.

Ocarina of Time outputs a 704x240 image, check the OSD - it should still have small black bars. =)

This results to a lack of black bars (on HDTV's), and, indeed a cleaner, sharper picture overall, with a potentially better preservation of the original aspect ratio.

For quite a few games it would cut off parts of the image, for example Mario Kart outputs 666 active pixels horizontally. There is also the question which aspect ratio is really the correct one - the Gamecube apparently was designed for CEA timings, which use 720 non-square pixels horizontally. Of course there are some games which have elements which apparently were (incorrectly) designed for square pixels, e.g. the "magic circle" in the menu screen of Phantasy Star Online.

[tesla246]

That would result in a non-standard video timing though - real 640x480 needs a different pixel clock.

Ah so it wouldn't be as easy as to flag them as inactive.

Ocarina of Time outputs a 704x240 image, check the OSD - it should still have small black bars. =)

So I was wrong there. Truth is, I don't have gcvideo dvi yet, as I'm still waiting for badassconsoles to sell them . I was just going off of the "forced swiss compatibility" in the wiki. Was just speculating.

For quite a few games it would cut off parts of the image, for example Mario Kart outputs 666 active pixels horizontally. There is also the question which aspect ratio is really the correct one - the Gamecube apparently was designed for CEA timings, which use 720 non-square pixels horizontally. Of course there are some games which have elements which apparently were (incorrectly) designed for square pixels, e.g. the "magic circle" in the menu screen of Phantasy Star Online.

Yes, I am aware of only a handful games rendering in 640x480, and it would only benefit those. But I thought if we can get clean scaling for those games, we can theoretically alter the aspect ratio with camera codes to maintain proper aspect ratio (even with square pixels on HDTV's as opposed to wide pixels on crt's) while improving image quality for those select few 640x480 games, correct?

[Unseen]

Yes, I am aware of only a handful games rendering in 640x480, and it would only benefit those. But I thought if we can get clean scaling for those games, we can theoretically alter the aspect ratio with camera codes to maintain proper aspect ratio (even with square pixels on HDTV's as opposed to wide pixels on crt's) while improving image quality for those select few 640x480 games, correct?

In theory, yes. I actually thought about implementing a "original resolution bypass" that just passes on the original image without adding the borders to make it 720x480 (or whatever), but decided to leave it out because it lowers compatibility and is a pain to describe properly in the documentation.

[tesla246]

Ah, fair enough Unseen. Though if it would be manually toggled (and by default it would be 720x480, instead of auto-detecting) would it still have lower compatibility? Is it compatibility on a game per game basis or does it have something to do with the software code? Anyway, I understand and thanks for clarifying and taking your time to answer, and who knows, maybe we might see it in some form in the future . Have a nice day Unseen.

[Unseen]

Ah, fair enough Unseen. Though if it would be manually toggled (and by default it would be 720x480, instead of auto-detecting) would it still have lower compatibility?

No, the problem is that some displays don't like non-standard resolutions/timings.

Is it compatibility on a game per game basis or does it have something to do with the software code?

Basically it's per game and display - for example I have a portable 10" screen with HDMI in that locks out its aspect options when it receiceives a non-standard resolution and always forces it to fit the screen.

[Extrems]

I was just going off of the "forced swiss compatibility" in the wiki. Was just speculating.

The resolution in the wiki is the resolution before scaling. It'd be useless data otherwise.

[tesla246]

The resolution in the wiki is the resolution before scaling. It'd be useless data otherwise.

Yes I was going off the zelda master quests resolution which notes 640x480 so I thought the same was true for the collectors edition ocarina of time. Though that could be for menus only