SNES and SCART: Reluctant Friends

Recently, I picked up what was basically the last (what I consider) essential system in my retrogaming collection, a Super Nintendo. I used to have one as a kid and was quite fond of it. I have a setup in my game room that consists of, among other things, a smattering of retro consoles attached via SCART to a 32" Sony PVM monitor. SCART delivers pure RGB video signals from consoles like Sega Genesis, Dreamcast, and Playstation, and let me tell you, they look fantastic. The NTSC SNES (v1) supports RGB via SCART as well, but with a caveat: you need to make sure the RGB lines coming out of the multi-out have 330 uF capacitors on them. If they do not, and you try to attach the SNES to a monitor, the picture will be too bright, and the colors will be washed out. I bought a cheap SCART cable from eBay, and sure enough it was wired incorrectly for my monitor. The RGB lines must be capped, and the ground, sync, 5v, and audio must be straight thru. After much soldering and hassle, I hit upon this configuration. You have never seen Super Nintendo until you've seen it in RGB. It's a thing of beauty.

The audio when using SCART is another issue. There is insufficent shielding either in the SNES or the SCART cable for the audio circuitry, which causes some buzzing noise. It is such that the brighter the image onscreen, the louder the buzz. There exist SCART cables with dedicated RCA outs for audio, which minimizes or alleviates the buzz, but those are currently inadequate for my setup. I just keep the volume low and try to ignore the noise.

Agetec Dreamcast Stick Full Sanwa Mod

I got the Agetec Arcade Stick for the Sega Dreamcast for Xmas. What a great gift! The stick is built like a tank, and it's meant to mimic a Japanese arcade machine, AKA a candy cab. I no longer had to use the standard Dreamcast controller for 2D-shooters and fighters, which encompass my favorite DC games. The standard controller is ill-equipped for titles like Marvel Vs. Capcom, Street Fighter Alpha 3, Gunbird 2, and Mars Matrix. The Agetec stick is made for those games. But as much as I liked this arcade stick, something was missing. The sticks and buttons felt good, but not great. I read that people were unlocking the full potential of this controller but removing the standard stick and buttons and replacing them with a Sanwa stick and buttons, and replacing the Agetec's 4-way joystick gate with a Sanwa octal gate. Sanwa is the most popular arcade control manufacturer in Japan. They make great looking, durable, reliable, accurate, and comfortable sticks and buttons. I read a couple tutorials about how to do this mod here and here. Looked simple enough, so I placed an order for a white-top Sanwa JLF stick, octal gate, and 6 white 30mm buttons.

I used a Dremel to enlarge the button holes from 28mm to 30mm so that the new buttons would fit. I also removed some of the mounting plastic for the old stick so that the new one would fit, and drilled holes to mount the new stick. I installed the Sanwa buttons and the stick, soldered the wires in place, closed it up, and tested. (All this is covered in the above tutorials.) The buttons all worked right away, but both tutorials had the wrong colors listed for splicing the stick controls. I had to do this manually by testing at the Dreamcast menu screen. After a while I found the right combinations. The correct joystick wire color combinations are as follows:

Agetec          Sanwa
Yellow   >     Black
Orange   >    Yellow
Red        >     Green
Brown    >     Red
Black      >    Orange

The stick is now perfect. The 8-way gate makes fighters feel like they should. The buttons are a bit lighter and more respnsive. Plus, I think it looks pimp in white. If you have the Agetec stick, this mod is highly recommended, especially for shmup and fighter fans. I'd consider it essential.

Game Room Update

In November, I bought a Neo Geo MVS cabinet from someone off of Craigslist. It was in very good condition, fully functional, except for a half dead power supply. I replaced the PSU and several other cosmetic components. It fit into my apartment with no problem. Here's some before and after pics:

 

Here's the full list of what I replaced:

Marquee Artwork
Monitor Bezel
Power Supply
Coin door bulb
Sticks + Buttons
Foot
Door locks
Coin reject button

I love this thing. I have 5 games for it now (Metal Slug 1,2,X, Puzzle Bobble, Baseball Stars 2), with 5 more coming (Last Blade 2, Samurai Showdown 2, Blue's Journey, Blazing Star, Neo Turf Masters). I'm beyond happy.

I also added some Ikea shelving to hold all of my controllers. Very nice. Here's a pic of the room as it looks now:

One of my Xmas gifts was the official Dreamcast Arcade Stick, which can be seen on the shelf. It makes playing Dreamcast fighters much more enjoyable than using the stock controller, which I'm not a fan of. I need to get another stick for 2-player fight sessions. Highly recommended. I may swap out its stick and buttons for Sanwa ones, but that's another project.

Sony PVM + NES + Comb Filter = Awesome

I recently gave away a Sony 32" TV and swapped in a Sony PVM pro monitor for use with the retro consoles in my game room. This was a good decision. The PVM is an RGB monitor. All my consoles, like my Genesis, PS2, Dreamcast, and Xbox look their best in RGB, and almost every system supports it. Except the NES. The NES only supports composite out (unless you wanna hack the hell out of it for RGB, which I'm not a fan of). The extremely unforgiving composite input on the PVM made my NES games look like ass. I found out that what I needed was a comb filter, something the TV I gave away had, and something my PVM lacks. I found a Kramer FC-10D comb filter on eBay for $14 shipped. This little box has composite in/s-video out and s-video in/composite out. I'm using the former. Man, what a difference in picture quality! The images below tell the story. Super C and Mega Man 2, respectively. Without the Kramer, and with, respectively. If you're using a monitor without a comb filter with your NES, I highly suggest getting one. The Kramer FC-10D is cheap and works great.

Retrobrighting a Dreamcast

ABS plastic was commonly used in the 90's as a cost-effective way to house electronics, like computers and video game consoles. It had one major drawback that was not immediately apparent: it yellowed badly over time and more so in direct sunlight. My Sega Dreamcast that I bought second hand suffered this very affliction. I thought I was just going to have to deal with it until I found out about Retrobright. This a paste that you can make at home out of semi-common products that is supposed to remove the yellow from ABS. I thought it's worth a try, since I'm planning on playing my DC more in the near future. You basically take the highest concentration Peroxide you can find (in my case 12% from Sally Beauty Supply), mix it in a blender with Glycerin gel and Xantham Gum to form a paste. The last setup before application is to mix in a small amount of Oxy laundry powder. Blend it up and put on some rubber gloves to spread it on the plastic in question. Wrap each piece in plastic wrap and put it under a UV lamp (blacklight) for 24 hours, and you'll be amazed at the results. Granted, I did not get perfect results. My DC still had small amounts of faded yellow hues here and there. Overall, however, it looks way better than it did before. Some parts look perfect. The proof is in the pictures (see above). If I had used a higher concentration Peroxide, like 15%, or if I had spread the paste a little thicker, I think it may have worked better. A word of advice: Unless your Retrobrighting 10 devices, do not make the amount listed on the website. Make 1/6 to 1/8 of the amount for a batch capable of coating one device. I'll conclude by saying that if you have a yellowed SNES or Dreamcast, or an old Apple computer, then Retrobright is your friend. I'm very happy with the results.