New Tomee Dreamcast VGA Cables

[pcwzrd13]

Dreamcast VGA Box Retro-bit vs Hanzo

Interesting. Doesn't seem worth the price IMO. The difference looks negligible. Colors can be adjusted on most screens so that's no biggie. I guess if you want the scanlines it might be worth it but I've never understood why people like that.

As for the Tomee cable, I love it. I've had no issues with it whatsoever and it outputs great looking video. I've never used the Retro-Bit box but it might be worth the extra few bucks if you want the s-video/composite output as well. Although there are very few games that won't output through VGA. I own almost 150 games and only 1 of those doesn't work with VGA.

[lastcallgames]

For a second I thought that was my voice and I was like "I've never made a Hanzo video".

I have a cable coming from China, so I'll use that. I got an old Pelican box but it doesn't want to work most of the time.

[Aleron Ives]

I'm kind of surprised that anyone bothers to include S-Video on a VGA box that's still in production. Finding a TV with an S-Video input is far more difficult than finding one with VGA, and VGA is getting scarce. My TV thankfully accepts the DC's resolution just fine, so I didn't need to buy an HDMI converter for my Tomee cable.

As for whether to get a Tomee, Retrobit, or Hanzo, the only reason not to get a Tomee would be if you enjoy playing the few games that don't support VGA. I don't own any such games, so a VGA box is unnecessary in my case. As for which brand of VGA box to get, it seems to me that the leap from composite to VGA is significant, but the potential for gaining extra quality by using one VGA box over another is minimal. Unless there's something seriously wrong with the hardware in a particular design, they should all look about the same.

[lastcallgames]

Well all games that won't take VGA will still look better in S Video than Composite, and finding a TV with SCART in the west is just about impossible.

[videofx]

I have heard many horror stories about the cable. So I splurged and bought the original Dreamcast box.

[nssone]

Well all games that won't take VGA will still look better in S Video than Composite, and finding a TV with SCART in the west is just about impossible.

See Adam's video on using SCART to HDMI converter.

[OGDCFAN99]

My biggest gripe with the Tomee cable is the inability to do the switch trick on games that work with vga but not natively. With the vga box its easy to switch it from composite to vga mode after the initial boot process thus forcing the game to run in vga.

For me this feature is kind of important because I really like and play alot of the games that have to be forced to run in vga (even though their not the most popular ones). such as:
Army Men, Vigilante 8, Gunbird 2, Both Southpark games, NBA Showtime, Next Tetris, Hoyle Casino, Trickstyle, and even Tee Off.

And without the handy switch trick, you have to use a boot disc everytime which is not ideal. It's like having crank windows when theirs the invention of power windows even though they both roll down the same.

[lastcallgames]

Well all games that won't take VGA will still look better in S Video than Composite, and finding a TV with SCART in the west is just about impossible.

See Adam's video on using SCART to HDMI converter.

Ok, that's neither cheap, nor is a box with SCART easy to find (the only one I know of is the Toro). S Video still produces a better picture than composite and lots of tvs have it. My LCD from 2010 has 2 S Video ports.

[Aleron Ives]

If you use GDEMU, you could just patch IP.BIN to allow VGA, and then you wouldn't need a VGA box or a boot disc.

[OGDCFAN99]

Yeah or just burn a copy that already has the ip.bin patched..theirs always an argument for everything. I plan on getting a GDemu sometime this year but mostly focus on completing the collection.