racketboy.com

So about a week ago I decided that the checkerboard patter on Lunar 2 was simply unacceptable, and it was time to get an upscaler. I did some digging, found a fantastic review site, and decided on the XRGB-3. It definately seemed to give you the best bang for your buck (comperable units ran closer to $1k, while the XRGB sells for $300), so then the task became finding a place to buy it.

As a service to the community, I now provide a link to a shop that sells them:

http://www.solaris-japan.com/index.php/ ... lt/?q=xrgb

I ordered mine on Friday, and it arrived today. I just finished hooking it up and tweaking the settings and I'm loving it. A word of warning, though, all the menus are in Japanese, so you'll need a good translation guide (I used the one at http://retrogaming.hazard-city.de/, which was the same site that had the reviews of upscalers).

I've been meaning to get something like this for awhile but I've always been hesitant. What kind of connections do you hook up from the system to the XRGB-3? Do they need to be modded for component to get the best results?

So here's the connections you get on an XRGB3

AV1, AV2, SVid1, SVid2 (all four have their own audio connectors) are the four basic ones. There's a JP scart (which you CANNOT use a PAL scart on without a converter due to different pinouts), and then finally there are three Dsub connectors. Dsub is literally just component, so you can get a component to dsub converter to plug in component. The XRGB comes with one component to dsub converter, and you should be able to pick up a couple more on ebay for cheap. The system outputs either VGA or DVI and if you're using the audio it outputs the audio over a standard 3.5mm stereo connection. It also can do DVI and VGA, but using VGA means you cannot use one of the dsub terminals.

You'll also need a USB A to B cable, not the mini cable that you likely have, to connect it to your computer for firmware updates.

A little off topic but I thought to post it anyway,
From the same manufacturer- Micomsoft, I have the XMD-3 unit for getting s-video quality from the Genesis/Sega CD/32x
Works pretty well and it's definately a step up from the crappy composite connection.




Top pic below is via composite and the 2nd pic via the XMD s-video unit. The game is 'Flashback' for the Sega CD.

I've heard that the X-RGB3 adds a small upconversion lag as it uses a digital upconverter compared to the X-RGB2's completely analog one.

By the way: Flashback!

On B0 mode (full processing) you get a couple frames of lag, but on B1 mode (linedoubling) you get maybe a frame, and it is hard to see. I was able to successfully play Guitar Hero with no lag calibration on B1 mode. The really nice thing about the XRGB is that it outputs the signal through the VGA connector, which means that most TVs will act as a computer monitor, i.e. no post-processing and image scaling consists of having each pixal appear multiple times as needed, which is blazing fast.