For Sale Amiga VIDEO - VGA Adapters & Cables DELUXE
- Thread starter a.mi.goun
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Received my adapter and it's working with my A500.
For those interested I can confirm that DEL U2410 and NEC 1970GX monitors can display 15KHz through VGA input.
There are some vertical lines showing though in both monitors but not something you can't live with.
Thanks a.mi.goun, I've left feedback for you mate!
For those interested I can confirm that DEL U2410 and NEC 1970GX monitors can display 15KHz through VGA input.
There are some vertical lines showing though in both monitors but not something you can't live with.
Thanks a.mi.goun, I've left feedback for you mate!
I am interested in one "1/ Adapter (metal coated case and 23pin conn)", normal metal color, pending confirmation of shipping cost to Italy and rough time to delivery if known from other buyers (I am only at this address for a few more weeks).
If there is any other possible advantage or additional flexibility to the "3/ Adapter (metal coated case and 23pin conn with H/V or C-Sync Switch)" with the BL702A aside from bigger picture without overscan (can't the monitor's settings take care of that, anyway?), my interest may switch to that one instead, so a clarifying PM would be appreciated - I tried to find more enlightening posts but this thread's size is far too unwieldy.
If there is any other possible advantage or additional flexibility to the "3/ Adapter (metal coated case and 23pin conn with H/V or C-Sync Switch)" with the BL702A aside from bigger picture without overscan (can't the monitor's settings take care of that, anyway?), my interest may switch to that one instead, so a clarifying PM would be appreciated - I tried to find more enlightening posts but this thread's size is far too unwieldy.
My adapter will be much less fun than anticipated, because in the meanwhile I appear to have managed to break my 1200's accelerator's card. Yay.
But that aside, since I do have the Benq BL702A I ordered here, hoping others didn't already mention this (this thread is way too long for humans): you can enter the monitor's service menu by keeping Menu pressed while powering it on, then pressing Menu again. It is a very barebones service menu, but it does have two toggles that should be useful for Amigas: you can disable the power-on Benq logo, which is just not useful, and you can disable the pop-up thing that tells you which recommended resolution you should use with the monitor (since 1280x1024 is not a resolution you can use with the Amiga chipset, anyway).
Of course, disclaimer: service menus aren't meant for users, and could potentially damage your monitor if used incorrectly.
But that aside, since I do have the Benq BL702A I ordered here, hoping others didn't already mention this (this thread is way too long for humans): you can enter the monitor's service menu by keeping Menu pressed while powering it on, then pressing Menu again. It is a very barebones service menu, but it does have two toggles that should be useful for Amigas: you can disable the power-on Benq logo, which is just not useful, and you can disable the pop-up thing that tells you which recommended resolution you should use with the monitor (since 1280x1024 is not a resolution you can use with the Amiga chipset, anyway).
Of course, disclaimer: service menus aren't meant for users, and could potentially damage your monitor if used incorrectly.
Oh hey, guess what? I'm an utter moron.
Since yesterday my Amiga's accelerator card stopped working properly after I added an FPU to it, I panicked and, among other things, took my Amiga's box out of storage (to get some tools that might help me assess the situation), and guess what I found there? An RGB-to-VGA adapter, an original Commodore one. I had completely forgotten it was part of the bundle I bought from gouldin here a few years back...
So, now I don't know what I will do with a.mi.goun's adapter when it arrives. I might just shrug and keep both, or I might figure out which ones seems to work better for me, and sell the other one. If I had bought the C-sync version, at least, I would have something slightly different from the Commodore adapter to try out... which would actually be interesting, because here's the thing:
So far, although I haven't played around quite enough, I can get my BL702A to display a very good picture with PAL, by setting the "Pixel clock" in its menu at 90 (sometimes 89 or 91), but I cannot get a picture without ugly banding (not just the subtle background color bands, but text displaying with uneven-thickness lines) in anything but plain PAL or NTSC.
DblPAL has banding, Productivity has banding, some Euro things cannot sync, and anyway, there are many modes I could use for "productivity" (i.e. not games) that I cannot get to take up the entire screen area even if I take the overscan to the maximum. When I bought the BL702A, I was really assuming it would come with horizontal/vertical size adjustments, but in fact it has no vertical size adjustment at all (although it usually gets that right enough), and the only horizontal size adjustment is the "Pixel clock", which, however, is also tied to the banding artifacts - and even when setting it to the maximum of 100, won't fill the screen in several modes.
Using PAL or NTSC interlaced, which is okay banding-wise, results in very unacceptable flicker, as this monitor has no built-in flickerfixer, unlike most modern TVs, which is even more noticeable than on a CRT TV in my experience.
So, for now, I can say this monitor is pretty good for gaming (uninterlaced PAL is smooth and if you set sharpness to minimum, an almost-CRT-like mellow picture), but worse for OS use than I had hoped.
I would encourage people who have the C-sync version of the adapter to experiment with it not just in game mode, but also in the various OS modes, in particular to see whether
1) the fact it enables the "Overscan" settings in the monitor lets the picture cover the entire screen area in modes like DblPAL, Productivity, etc. (non-15kHz modes basically), and
2) with C-sync and/or monitor "Overscan" settings changes, there is a sweet spot in the "Pixel clock" setting where no banding can be seen.
I guess the drawback will always be that the monitor will start up in YUV mode with C-sync, but that might be worth it if it improves those modes...
By the way: people here and elsewhere on the web (YouTube reviews of 15kHz capable monitors, for instance) say that the BL702A can do ~30kHz and ~15kHz but it cannot do modes in-between these rough frequencies, such as ~24kHz modes. Based on my tinkering so far, I don't think that's a correct analysis: what I think is going on is that horizontal rates below ~30kHz will only be accepted by the monitor when other parameters in the signal "resemble" PAL or NTSC, i.e. the vertical refresh is roughly between 50Hz and 60Hz, and, perhaps, the signal is interlaced (Amiga "progressive" PAL modes count as interlaced in this sense: the monitor will show 576i, which stands for interlaced in "Information" for those modes).
So, what might be worth pursuing is editing some screenmodes (including ones found on Aminet) to *lower* the refresh rate until it's in the 50-60Hz range: few modes use those vertical frequencies on purpose *if they can avoid it*, since historically, higher frequencies are better on CRT monitors. But on an LCD, 60Hz is standard, so we don't care, while we do care about a good screen-filling picture without banding and/or interlace.
P.S.: I also managed to pry out that FPU that was causing trouble (didn't have the right tool so had to be careful and hope), and my Amiga fully works again.
Since yesterday my Amiga's accelerator card stopped working properly after I added an FPU to it, I panicked and, among other things, took my Amiga's box out of storage (to get some tools that might help me assess the situation), and guess what I found there? An RGB-to-VGA adapter, an original Commodore one. I had completely forgotten it was part of the bundle I bought from gouldin here a few years back...
So, now I don't know what I will do with a.mi.goun's adapter when it arrives. I might just shrug and keep both, or I might figure out which ones seems to work better for me, and sell the other one. If I had bought the C-sync version, at least, I would have something slightly different from the Commodore adapter to try out... which would actually be interesting, because here's the thing:
So far, although I haven't played around quite enough, I can get my BL702A to display a very good picture with PAL, by setting the "Pixel clock" in its menu at 90 (sometimes 89 or 91), but I cannot get a picture without ugly banding (not just the subtle background color bands, but text displaying with uneven-thickness lines) in anything but plain PAL or NTSC.
DblPAL has banding, Productivity has banding, some Euro things cannot sync, and anyway, there are many modes I could use for "productivity" (i.e. not games) that I cannot get to take up the entire screen area even if I take the overscan to the maximum. When I bought the BL702A, I was really assuming it would come with horizontal/vertical size adjustments, but in fact it has no vertical size adjustment at all (although it usually gets that right enough), and the only horizontal size adjustment is the "Pixel clock", which, however, is also tied to the banding artifacts - and even when setting it to the maximum of 100, won't fill the screen in several modes.
Using PAL or NTSC interlaced, which is okay banding-wise, results in very unacceptable flicker, as this monitor has no built-in flickerfixer, unlike most modern TVs, which is even more noticeable than on a CRT TV in my experience.
So, for now, I can say this monitor is pretty good for gaming (uninterlaced PAL is smooth and if you set sharpness to minimum, an almost-CRT-like mellow picture), but worse for OS use than I had hoped.
I would encourage people who have the C-sync version of the adapter to experiment with it not just in game mode, but also in the various OS modes, in particular to see whether
1) the fact it enables the "Overscan" settings in the monitor lets the picture cover the entire screen area in modes like DblPAL, Productivity, etc. (non-15kHz modes basically), and
2) with C-sync and/or monitor "Overscan" settings changes, there is a sweet spot in the "Pixel clock" setting where no banding can be seen.
I guess the drawback will always be that the monitor will start up in YUV mode with C-sync, but that might be worth it if it improves those modes...
By the way: people here and elsewhere on the web (YouTube reviews of 15kHz capable monitors, for instance) say that the BL702A can do ~30kHz and ~15kHz but it cannot do modes in-between these rough frequencies, such as ~24kHz modes. Based on my tinkering so far, I don't think that's a correct analysis: what I think is going on is that horizontal rates below ~30kHz will only be accepted by the monitor when other parameters in the signal "resemble" PAL or NTSC, i.e. the vertical refresh is roughly between 50Hz and 60Hz, and, perhaps, the signal is interlaced (Amiga "progressive" PAL modes count as interlaced in this sense: the monitor will show 576i, which stands for interlaced in "Information" for those modes).
So, what might be worth pursuing is editing some screenmodes (including ones found on Aminet) to *lower* the refresh rate until it's in the 50-60Hz range: few modes use those vertical frequencies on purpose *if they can avoid it*, since historically, higher frequencies are better on CRT monitors. But on an LCD, 60Hz is standard, so we don't care, while we do care about a good screen-filling picture without banding and/or interlace.
P.S.: I also managed to pry out that FPU that was causing trouble (didn't have the right tool so had to be careful and hope), and my Amiga fully works again.
@LjL: You should be able to get rid of the vertical banding by correct pixel clock and phase settings to have a clear picture - that is why this monitor is so popular (some of the DELLs can not do this). Start with the values suggested in the thread and you will certainly make it. I also have provided link (in the first post) for ADF with tuning pattern picture to simplify the twaking.
BTW. none of the LCD monitors can do the vertical adjustments, only CRT monitors can do this.
BTW. none of the LCD monitors can do the vertical adjustments, only CRT monitors can do this.
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