What's a good adapter to use for retro consoles on modern TV's please?

truewraith

truewraith

truewraith

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i still have all of my retro consoles and until now i really wanna play them and i dont have any scart tvs :( and after looking on goog i still have no idea which ones are good to use, i have ps1/2 and og xbox and g,cube and others but just want to know if theres a good adapter i can use on a modern day tv that will be ok.
 
This is an absolute rabbit hole with tonnes of options. Two questions that may help:

1. How serious are you about retro gaming as a hobby? Would you give up part of your room for a CRT as you want that authentic retro feel (and amazing motion clarity, response time etc.)? Or do you just want to hook up some consoles for a bit, indulge in some nostalgia and put them away again for another year?

2. How much would you be willing to spend to do this?

At the most basic, get some composite to HDMI converter from the internet for a tenner.

At the other end, spend hundreds on scalers like retrotink 4K (OSSC is a bit dated now but still ok), buy premium cables, consider soldering in or paying for internal HDMI mods tapping into digital signals from the consoles….

Then there’s everything in between. I’ve tried lots of those solutions and in the end I kind of like using a CRT TV. I mostly play PS2 and Wii (usually GameCube or SNES emulators). But sometimes I use the analog-digital scaler in my AVR onto my 4K OLED and that’s not bad but I usually reach for games that support progressive scan as the deinterlacer isn’t great or fast. But this is where high end scalers can solve that.
 
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A lot of high end solutions for this are quite expensive.

I investigated it before and ended up buying an older 2010 ish Sony 28 inch LCD which has scart, VGA, component etc for substantially less. Just easier tbh.
 
rare said:
A lot of high end solutions for this are quite expensive.

I investigated it before and ended up buying an older 2010 ish Sony 28 inch LCD which has scart, VGA, component etc for substantially less. Just easier tbh.
Click to expand...
was that one a chunky tv? as i know from back then was kinda slim but not fully on huge!
 
alex24 said:
This is an absolute rabbit hole with tonnes of options. Two questions that may help:

1. How serious are you about retro gaming as a hobby? Would you give up part of your room for a CRT as you want that authentic retro feel (and amazing motion clarity, response time etc.)? Or do you just want to hook up some consoles for a bit, indulge in some nostalgia and put them away again for another year?

2. How much would you be willing to spend to do this?

At the most basic, get some composite to HDMI converter from the internet for a tenner.

At the other end, spend hundreds on scalers like retrotink 4K (OSSC is a bit dated now but still ok), buy premium cables, consider soldering in or paying for internal HDMI mods tapping into digital signals from the consoles….

Then there’s everything in between. I’ve tried lots of those solutions and in the end I kind of like using a CRT TV. I mostly play PS2 and Wii (usually GameCube or SNES emulators). But sometimes I use the analog-digital scaler in my AVR onto my 4K OLED and that’s not bad but I usually reach for games that support progressive scan as the deinterlacer isn’t great or fast. But this is where high end scalers can solve that.
Click to expand...
i have all my old skool consoles but never had the time and nowadays tech to plug them in so i can play them now and then but i dont wan them out just to put them back in a year, and i like the idea of these OSSC's which i have no idea which to buy but i would love to know what would be the best old CRT to look out for to get the maximum results from from whatever was the highest tech crt back then as i gather i think it was Sony Tvs wasnt it ?
 
truewraith said:
i have all my old skool consoles but never had the time and nowadays tech to plug them in so i can play them now and then but i dont wan them out just to put them back in a year, and i like the idea of these OSSC's which i have no idea which to buy but i would love to know what would be the best old CRT to look out for to get the maximum results from from whatever was the highest tech crt back then as i gather i think it was Sony Tvs wasnt it ?
Click to expand...
I have an OSSC v1.6 and its great. Current is v1.8 - basically anything 1.6 or above is what you need as this was when they introduced HDMI out.
1.7 has a better case, and power surge protection introduced due to them blowing up when connecting a Neo Geo MVS
1.8 just improves the power distribution a bit more.

Other than that there is retrotink or yes the old CRT route.
 
iamtheoneneo said:
I have an OSSC v1.6 and its great. Current is v1.8 - basically anything 1.6 or above is what you need as this was when they introduced HDMI out.
1.7 has a better case, and power surge protection introduced due to them blowing up when connecting a Neo Geo MVS
1.8 just improves the power distribution a bit more.

Other than that there is retrotink or yes the old CRT route.
Click to expand...
Just to add, 1.8 also adds x6 upscaling and lets you use firmware past v1. Older boards can be modded by lifting a resistor and running a bodge cable.
I wish I could pull the trigger on a Retro Tink 5x Pro. I've got the money but its difficult to justify to myself as the OSSC does a pretty good job. Anybody here think its worth trading in the OSSC for the 5x?
 
iamtheoneneo said:
I have an OSSC v1.6 and its great. Current is v1.8 - basically anything 1.6 or above is what you need as this was when they introduced HDMI out.
1.7 has a better case, and power surge protection introduced due to them blowing up when connecting a Neo Geo MVS
1.8 just improves the power distribution a bit more.

Other than that there is retrotink or yes the old CRT route.
Click to expand...

tribz said:
Just to add, 1.8 also adds x6 upscaling and lets you use firmware past v1. Older boards can be modded by lifting a resistor and running a bodge cable.
I wish I could pull the trigger on a Retro Tink 5x Pro. I've got the money but its difficult to justify to myself as the OSSC does a pretty good job. Anybody here think its worth trading in the OSSC for the 5x?
Click to expand...
I'm just looking into these now.

How do you connect multiple consoles to these? I've got a Wii, N64, PS2 and Mega Drive currently going through a joytech 540c. Would this connect to the OSSC and feed from there or do the consoles need to go direct?
 
tribz said:
I wish I could pull the trigger on a Retro Tink 5x Pro. I've got the money but its difficult to justify to myself as the OSSC does a pretty good job. Anybody here think its worth trading in the OSSC for the 5x?
Click to expand...

Haven't used an OSSC, but I'd say it's worth it just for motion adapative deinterlacing. It's so much better than bob deinterlacing (5x has multiple deinterlacing modes) and the latest experimental firmware for the 5x improved it even further (pretty sure it's a backport of the 4Ks better adaptive deinterlacing).

Kyle009 said:
I'm just looking into these now.

How do you connect multiple consoles to these? I've got a Wii, N64, PS2 and Mega Drive currently going through a joytech 540c. Would this connect to the OSSC and feed from there or do the consoles need to go direct?
Click to expand...

You can just use a switch box, cheap ones might degrade the signal though. To get the best out of the upscalers you have to give them the best signal you can, so you really want whatever is the highest quality signal the console can give (often RGB or YPbPr + high quality cables).
 
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