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PAL VGA 60Hz Timing Question

Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2012 5:52 pm
by Azureblue
Hey everyone!

I came here on the advice of an American friend, in the hopes that someone could shed some light on my PAL-related problems!

Whilst playing a legitimate copy of Grandia II, PAL-E version, my HKT-3030 Dreamcast using a VGA Box and outputting at 640x480 @ 60Hz has some issues. With Grandia II it's timing-related, such as sound effects cutting off prematurely "tenseiken sla-, impact bo-" etc.

When playing in composite mode at 50Hz, the problems no longer exist.

With Space Channel 5 you'll see the foreground characters dancing around on a completely mismatched background.

Anywho, I believe the problem is with the console outputting at 60Hz, or being forced to. Is there any way I could rectify this problem? Would using DC-X help? I'm quite confused.

Thanks!

Re: PAL VGA 60Hz Timing Question

Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2012 4:22 pm
by Azureblue
No one has any advice? So you're telling me that no one from the UK tries to use a PAL Dreamcast with a VGA box and cares about it not working properly?

Re: PAL VGA 60Hz Timing Question

Posted: Fri Aug 24, 2012 4:32 pm
by Impulse
Moved to support section.

Re: PAL VGA 60Hz Timing Question

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 9:58 pm
by Azureblue
Impulse wrote:Moved to support section.
Sorry! I tried to pick the correct subsection but I failed :(.

Thanks for that.

Hopefully someone eventually sees my problem and replies! I'll be patient :).

Re: PAL VGA 60Hz Timing Question

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 11:25 pm
by Alec1382
Some games are incompatible with 60Hz. I found this list of 50Hz-only games:
Aero Wings
Aero Wings 2: Air Strike
Bust A Move 4
Charge 'N' Blast
Conflict Zone
Dino Crisis
Dynamite Cop
Evil Twin Cyprien's Chronicles
Flogian Brothers: episode one
Grandia 2
House of the Dead 2, The
Iron Aces
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
Maken X
Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits - Volume 1 -
Next Tetris, The
Pen Pen Triicelon
Power Stone
Resident Evil Code: Veronica
Sega Rally 2
Skies of Arcadia
Spawn in the Demon's Hand
Spiderman
Star Wars: Episode 1 Jedi Power Battles
Super Magnetic Neo
Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing (Submitted by cat_mince_nz)
Tokyo Highway Challenge 2
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
Tony Hawk's Skateboarding
Virtua Fighters 3 Team Battle
Zombie Revenge
As you can see, Grandia is on the list. However, SC5 isn't. I don't know how complete this list is, so maybe if you took a closer look you might find some documentation that tells you whether SC5 is 60Hz compatible.

Most of the games that were in that list can be forced into 60Hz with a bootdisc. These are the ones that cannot:
Conflict Zone
Dynamite Cop
Maken X
Pen Pen Triicelon
Railroad Tycoon II
Skies of Arcadia
It's a shame about SoA and Dynamite Cop.

Re: PAL VGA 60Hz Timing Question

Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 4:34 pm
by Azureblue
Thanks for the info, and sorry for my late reply! College life has occupied me somewhat :).

This is certainly great to know, I'll try a boot disc soon, I'm going to have to burn one and since I formatted my PC and misplaced my CD-Rs it's going to be annoying to get the ball rolling on that.

I wouldn't say I'm lazy, it's more of a...."experiencing my inner buddha" thing.

Thanks again, I'll give an update on whether I get this working or not, eventually.

S