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Post by zyrobs on Oct 25, 2021 0:28:36 GMT
Says who? Plus, even if you couldn't perceive it, that's 16 to 32 ms added onto your own reactions, which could easily be the difference between reacting to something and missing it. Average human reaction is 2-300ms. If you are some hardcore Quake player, then it can get as low as ~80ms (this was analysed here: blurbusters.com/human-reflex-input-lag-and-the-limits-of-human-reaction-time/). Two frames adds so little to that time that you could barely perceive the difference, plus at that level things like predicting the required input is far more important (for ex. in a rhythm game, you'd know when to hit the next key and compensate to any lag, or in a competitive game, you could predict the movement of an enemy and react to it better). If we were talking 5 or 10 frames, then sure, I'd concur. But 1-2 frames is nothing. Or perhaps you have conducted some double blind tests to prove this otherwise?
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Post by zyrobs on Oct 24, 2021 16:01:41 GMT
1-2 frames of lag is not something you'd be able to perceive.
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Post by zyrobs on Oct 24, 2021 15:23:56 GMT
Yeah, that's literally nothing.
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Post by zyrobs on Oct 23, 2021 14:38:24 GMT
Of course, I have taken some pictures to show you the actual crystal, you can see the crystal as it comes and after I bend the legs down. photos.app.goo.gl/MxoHxWycaPT9MJvRAThe listing on ebay is titled x300 pcs **NEW** ACT HC49US-SMX 17.734MHz, Crystal Oscillator, Smd So the part number is ACT HC49US-SMX. I'd be happy to send if you needed any and we're happy with needing to bend the legs. Ah, it's an SMT part then. If you can confirm that the pins fit through the hole properly once bent, then I'll take a dozen.
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Post by zyrobs on Oct 23, 2021 12:47:13 GMT
it halfs the input lag though, so yeah, it's just not a good TV for gaming at all I think. I never noticed any input lag in my Panasonic plasma, and I never used game mode.
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Post by zyrobs on Oct 23, 2021 0:19:46 GMT
That shouldn't be a problem, they are the surface mount form factor but the legs can be bent straight to fit perfectly. If you want them I would be more than happy to send them to you. Er, what do you mean by that? Surface mount crystals don't have any legs whatsoever. Can you give a part number, or a product link to wherever you bought it from?
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Post by zyrobs on Oct 22, 2021 22:12:55 GMT
If you can send to mainland Europe, I'll take a dozen.
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Post by zyrobs on Oct 22, 2021 21:47:48 GMT
The X1 and X2 component footprints on the board are electrically the same as far as the board is concerned, so if you ever need to perform a replacement getting one in either form factor will work. Note that this is only true for VA9 motherboards!
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Post by zyrobs on Oct 22, 2021 20:05:37 GMT
My parents old Panasonic plasma won't let you change aspect ratio if you're using game mode, ugh! My Panasonic plasma does just that too, but the game mode oversaturates the display too much so I never use it.
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Post by zyrobs on Oct 22, 2021 20:03:13 GMT
That's the thing that makes this problem difficult to diagnose, once you played with the console for some minutes or hours, the problem starts to "fade" away, it'll start crashing less often, then none at all. I have a VA9 unit that when I tested last week or so, it crashed nonstop. When I tested it earlier today, it crashed only once and played fine after that.
I don't know how to describe that other than that it needs to "warm up". The heat from the soldering also probably helped with that.
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Post by zyrobs on Oct 22, 2021 16:55:32 GMT
I do not recommend trying to switch the PLL, they are very fragile chips and there's a good chance the heat from the soldering work will destroy them. Instead try putting spare caps of increasing capacitance values on the board for the positions marked CE 106 to CE 111. If there's any noise on the 5V rail, then putting caps there should help things, but without a scope we don't know if there's any noise, or what's the frequency of the noise (and therefore what caps would best filter them). So you have to try doing a crapshoot to see if it helps. They are all VA9 boards, but I'm not sure if that's because the VA9 is prone to this or if its just because they were so common in the PAL region. VA9 was almost exclusive to PAL consoles. In NTSC ones it only saw limited release in Hi-Saturns and V-Saturns. It was also a "universal" board where you could switch pal/ntsc setup with just a few discrete components (a crystal and some jumpers). And yeah, those can have this issue too, but I don't know how severe, the only NTSC VA9 I had worked mostly fine. I recall people mentioning that other model 2 boards had similar problems, but as NTSC boards used several different board types, and because import costs are ridiculously high, I can't really test them. The closest in board layout would be the VA8 OCU, which uses nearly all the same parts except for substituting the main SDRAM with SGRAM. But it uses a different PLL - they started using a different chip from VA6+, VA9 was the only one still using the old part, probably because it is compatible with both PAL and NTSC modles. And no, the new PLL isn't a drop-in replacement, since it doesn't handle PAL clocks and uses a different form factor.
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Post by zyrobs on Oct 22, 2021 13:02:51 GMT
I have an old VA9 board I was considering swapping the PLL from but realised that the VA9 uses a different PLL so that plan is out. I'm curious as to how that is possible, since to my knowledge all VA0-5 variants, VA9, and VA7 PAL use the same PLL chip: Hitachi HD49422 315-5746. Unfortunately the chip is extremely fragile, you'll most likely destroy it if you try moving it from one console to the other. There's no known source for good chips either. The only other idea I have is populating the unused capacitor slots (CE 101 to 113), but for that we need someone with a scope to measure the noise on the rail that we have to filter out.
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Post by zyrobs on Oct 20, 2021 21:01:08 GMT
Yikes!!! I'd get rid of that before I'd use it. My CRTs are 4:3 so it isn't an issue for me. It was a 4:3 CRT, but it had a widescreen switch. I can only assume it was for compatibility with anamorphic DVDs.
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Post by zyrobs on Oct 20, 2021 9:43:46 GMT
He may not have a choice in the aspect ratio, some TVs won't allow you to change whatever aspect the SCART cable sets, and the NTSC Saturns don't provide a high enough voltage output on the a/v out to set the aspect selection pin to 4:3. This depends on the TV, but I've seen ones where you couldn't change the aspect back to 4:3.
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Post by zyrobs on Oct 19, 2021 20:34:24 GMT
So, thanks for the feedback. FWIW I just tested the scart adapter on my digital TV and got a colour image (sorry for not trying this before I started the thread). So it's clear to me that my Matsui CRT does not accept whatever is being output by those cables, presumably an RGB signal, and it only has one scart port. As for Zyrobs, I don't know what you mean by native scart cable would be. I meant using a scart cable that connects the Saturn to your TV without any converters or dongles. The converter you used just wires up the composite video to the SCART socket. It's the same as if you connected composite video to the TV, just in a different shaped connector. Composite video is the yellow plug on those RCA jacks, and it's called composite because it carries color and gamma all in one cable. It has the color signal encoded to it in either PAL or NTSC format, and if your TV can't decode that, you will get black and white color (black and white is just gamma information, and it's the same between both signals, notwithstanding the line count and frame rate). SCART connector can carry both composite video signal and RGB signal. Since RGB is the direct color information, it doesn't need to be decoded, TVs can use it directly more or less. So even if a TV can't decode NTSC encoded color, they may still be able to use RGB color even at NTSC framerates. A "native" SCART cable would mean a cable that connects the native RGB output of a device to the RGB pins of the SCART connector, and therefore it could get color screen regardless whether your TV can decode PAL or NTSC. At that point the only limit would be whether your PAL TV can understand 60hz 480i signal, but if you get a black and white signal then we can already say that it can do that. Also note that the a/v pinout is different between PAL and NTSC Saturns, and SCART cables for NTSC saturns only exist in aftermarket form, SCART cables for PAL Saturns won't work reliably (it's a toss up and depends on the screen). So you need a Saturn SCART cable wired for NTSC consoles. They should be marked clearly in stores.
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