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Atari 2600 RGB mod


Yurkie

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Hello everyone. Im an avid retro gamer. Ij started collecting a couple of years ago and own a Genesis Famicom Super famicom Snes jr Saturn and pc engine duo. The first system I played was the 2600 at age 5 in 1988 so I also have some nostalgia for it . I want tlo play these in gb like I do with al my other systems. I couldnt find any rgb modded systems on ebay. I looked for both the 2600 and the colecovision which Im also interested in. Xoes anyone on the forum sell such systems or know where I can get them?

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

I am just checking because of the two button reset mod sounds nice: do these mods still allow a Sega Genesis pad to work properly? Do the timing issues with warlords go away when you switch back to RF?

The RF on mine sucks but I also don't ever use it. No reason to. If I flip over to the CRT I use s-video.

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  • 6 months later...

I just did this mod on my 6 switcher nonheavy. I seem to have some compatibility issues with Ghostbusters blue label in any mode(svideo or rgb), it won't get past a few music notes at the start. Battle zone will not stay stable when connected with rgb though my xrgb mini but worked fine with svideo to my Sony wega. Ghostbusters works fine on my stock 2600 Jr and sear model vcs. Any guesses? Thanks

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  • 2 months later...

Hi,

 

I pulled my Atari Light Sixer apart today to install this mod but there is a tall capacitor where the adapter board needs to go in the way. I read the tutorial and he mentions using the small chiclet capacitor included with the kit but I wanted to make sure before I did that as the C204 part is 100V .22uf and the chiclet with the kit is 100nf which didn't seem like it would replace that. It's pretty tall and can't really be bent over so I'm not sure what do about it yet. Any suggestions?

 

Thanks,

 

- Dustin

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I've been out of the loop for a while a decided to look into finally buying one of these.

 

Unfortunately looks like they out if stock indefinitely on Tim's site? Am I SOL? 

 

The 7800GD should help me play most of the library in RGB, but seems like I need real hardware to play some of the more advanced homebrew like Stella's Stocking.

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The 2600RGB isn't a silver bullet as more than a few 2600 games don't have a stable scan line count. When connected through the 2600RGB to a converter/display this manifests itself as the display losing sync for a moment and the picture blacking out for a brief moment. At least it does for me and it is a bit inconvenient.

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1 hour ago, robbievgb said:

The 7800GD should help me play most of the library in RGB, but seems like I need real hardware to play some of the more advanced homebrew like Stella's Stocking.

I believe the 7800GD only reproduces the Maria (7800) graphics so it's not an RGB solution for 2600 games.

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3 hours ago, john_q_atari said:

The 2600RGB isn't a silver bullet as more than a few 2600 games don't have a stable scan line count. When connected through the 2600RGB to a converter/display this manifests itself as the display losing sync for a moment and the picture blacking out for a brief moment.

The RetroTINK 5X-Pro triple buffers and survives 2600 video sync issues better than any previous device. It was developed with 480i/480p transitions in mind and tends to work with the 2600 games with the strangest video signals too.

 

Or, poke around AtariAge and you’ll find new fixed ROM files for most old games that suffered from dynamic line count and they’ll work with Framemeiser, OSSC, or RetroTINK 2X.

 

This isn’t specific to RGB and true of composite or S-Video from a UAV as well.

 

Or, of course, stay old school and get an analog display with a picture tube! That’s what the video was designed for.

 

3 hours ago, john_q_atari said:

I believe the 7800GD only reproduces the Maria (7800) graphics so it's not an RGB solution for 2600 games.

RGB from 7800GD works with most 2600 games as it also reproduces TIA, with some caveats. Once you play a 7800 game, it’s locked in 7800 mode until you power cycle, and same for 2600 games/2600 mode. But there may be some compatibility issues when using the 7800GD RGB with some 2600 games at least when it first ships, as there was a glitch here and there on a recent RetroRGB preview.

 

Lastly, 2600 CDFJ/CDFJ+/Melody ARM-augmented games don’t look to be in mind at all. I would guess the ARM is beyond the capabilities of the FPGA to emulate. It does seem to support DPC games like Pitfall II, which they played in the above RetroRGB preview.

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2 hours ago, MrZarniwoop said:

Or, poke around AtariAge and you’ll find new fixed ROM files for most old games that suffered from dynamic line count and they’ll work with Framemeiser, OSSC, or RetroTINK 2X.

 

This isn’t specific to RGB and true of composite or S-Video from a UAV as well.

 

Or, of course, stay old school and get an analog display with a picture tube! That’s what the video was designed for.

I don't think the display issue has manifested for me over svideo for the game I noticed it on, but I may be wrong. Unfortunately as far as I know, Assembloids, the game that the screen blanking manifests itself on, hasn't been patched. I actually own the Framemeister, OSSC, and retrotink 2X. I might look into the 5X sometime in the future. If i can ever find a quality tube at a good price I may go that route as well. I used to have a 27" I got rid of years ago as space is an issue for me.

Edited by john_q_atari
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9 hours ago, MrZarniwoop said:

The RetroTINK 5X-Pro triple buffers and survives 2600 video sync issues better than any previous device. It was developed with 480i/480p transitions in mind and tends to work with the 2600 games with the strangest video signals too.

This is good to know, I'd been thinking of finally pulling the trigger on the RetroTink for its other capabilities and it sounds like it's pretty on par with Framemeister these days. Is there a list of the games with weird sync timings compiled anywhere? The only one I can recall at the moment is Warlords. 

9 hours ago, MrZarniwoop said:

Or, of course, stay old school and get an analog display with a picture tube! That’s what the video was designed for.

I have a few very nice tube tvs! But I really want to start a tradition if playing the Christmas games in the living room on our main TV with the family (Stella's Stocking, The Byte Before Christmas, etc) and those I believe all use extra chips and/or are not available in rom form, so seems to me like my only option is real hardware.

9 hours ago, MrZarniwoop said:

Lastly, 2600 CDFJ/CDFJ+/Melody ARM-augmented games don’t look to be in mind at all. I would guess the ARM is beyond the capabilities of the FPGA to emulate. It does seem to support DPC games like Pitfall II, which they played in the above RetroRGB preview.

Yeah this was my understanding as well, it already sounds like an amazing device that can do a lot, so no complaints from me.

 

I have been tempted to do an s-video mod and run that through an upscaler, as it still produces decent quality (this is what I do for my CD-i) but I've heard really mixed results and honestly haven't had time to research - is UAV s-video pretty well regarded?

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3 minutes ago, robbievgb said:

I have been tempted to do an s-video mod and run that through an upscaler, as it still produces decent quality (this is what I do for my CD-i) but I've heard really mixed results and honestly haven't had time to research - is UAV s-video pretty well regarded?

I think so based on the number of them I've installed over the years, but I will let others that own consoles with UAVs in them chime in on that and their experiences since it is likely to be different for everyone. That is simply due to the equipment they might be using to convert or use the signals from the UAV vs another person.

 

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21 hours ago, robbievgb said:

This is good to know, I'd been thinking of finally pulling the trigger on the RetroTink for its other capabilities and it sounds like it's pretty on par with Framemeister these days.

It's not only on par, the RetroTINK-5X Pro is much better than a Framemeister XRGB-Mini. I have both and RetroTINK 5X-Pro can handle way more, and do more, with a better interface and better features. And most of the time, just works right out of the box. Plus, it's still in active development with new features showing up now and then!

 

The only feature the Framemeister has that the RetroTINK-5X Pro does not is the Framemeister's 2x HDMI input ports. Some things like zooming and panning are perhaps a bit easier to turn on with the Framemeister, but you can achieve similar results tweaking settings on the RetroTINK 5X-Pro.

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On 7/18/2023 at 8:57 AM, john_q_atari said:

The 2600RGB isn't a silver bullet as more than a few 2600 games don't have a stable scan line count. When connected through the 2600RGB to a converter/display this manifests itself as the display losing sync for a moment and the picture blacking out for a brief moment. At least it does for me and it is a bit inconvenient.

There are even more problems: the sync signals are the original ones and those are not perfect either. Also the FPGA has a problem in some corner cases, triggering a register change too late, when being accessed using STA $ZP,X.

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I have an RGB modded vader unit (PAL), with a RetroTINK 5X I had quite a lot of issues with sync problems across my 2600 library.

 

I switched it out for an OSSC and it has been 100% stable with the problem games (admittedly I have not played Assembloids) I have tried it with - although I try to use the fixed roms when I can - but I am playing original NTSC and PAL carts that can cause issues (Battlezone, ESB etc) with no problem...

 

I did do a whole bunch of tinkering with settings to get a stable profile, but it has been just fine for me.

 

YMMV I understand...

 

sTeVE

Edited by Jetboot Jack
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  • 1 month later...

I saw the announcement on Tim's website, how is the mod not economically viable to produce anymore? People weren't buying it at 80AUD anymore?

Also, technical question, does this use an FPGA just like the NESRGB or is it different? And if so, does it need the TIA to generate video signals or it does all of it independently?

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13 hours ago, M-S said:

I saw the announcement on Tim's website, how is the mod not economically viable to produce anymore? People weren't buying it at 80AUD anymore?

Also, technical question, does this use an FPGA just like the NESRGB or is it different? And if so, does it need the TIA to generate video signals or it does all of it independently?

It was indeed using an FPGA just like his NESRGB does. And it still required the TIA sandwiched in the mix as I believe it took in the TIA video signals and used that create a new output based on that. But the TIA was also needed since it handles other functions on the console besides graphics and sound.

 

And to your question about the cost. I think what Tim means is that it isn't feasible for him to still be able to offer it at that price point given the rise in prices for FPGAs and other similar chips. So it was likely too cost prohibitive to keep making them as they would have to cost quite a bit more is my guess.

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It doesn't look like an FPGA, one of the chips is branded "Music Semi" and the other one only has a logo on it, I searched for most of the FPGA companies and I couldn't find anything similar to that, while the NESRGB has a very big Altera logo on it. But how would it take the video signals from the TIA to generate an image if there are no R/G/B pins on it? The best you could do would be S-Video then, the fact it is between them also is weird, I know the TIA also reads analog input signals from the controllers and the audio is just a passthrough, but I only wanted to know about the video signals.

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19 minutes ago, M-S said:

It doesn't look like an FPGA, one of the chips is branded "Music Semi" and the other one only has a logo on it, I searched for most of the FPGA companies and I couldn't find anything similar to that, while the NESRGB has a very big Altera logo on it. But how would it take the video signals from the TIA to generate an image if there are no R/G/B pins on it? The best you could do would be S-Video then, the fact it is between them also is weird, I know the TIA also reads analog input signals from the controllers and the audio is just a passthrough, but I only wanted to know about the video signals.

Well again the 2600 RGB sandwiches between the main board and the TIA as you you still have to plug that in to use it. I assume his board is converting the actual Lum and sync signals off the TIA pins to generate the converted image that it outputs? And his board provided RGB, composite, and s-video outputs along with other functions like palette options, can switch between PAL and NTSC, and also built in pause. Provided you had the extra buttons connected to do this anyway. There was also the small extra daughter board that allowed for component output using the RGB outputs it created. I thought it was a FPGA based but maybe it was a CPLD setup and not quite as full on FPGA.

 

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