FujiSkunk

The Retron 3 is the best NES clone I've used. It still has the sound issue that pretty much all NES clones have, but it actually plays The Legend of Zelda correctly. Other known clone-hating games still have issues, so even Retron 3 won't play everything, but someone at least took the time to fix the existing technology to make sure one more landmark game would work.

segawallnut, on Sat Feb 4, 2012 11:48 AM, said:

I haven't done a lot with the Genesis RGB connection beyond investing in the XMB-3, which was made specifically for the Genesis for connecting with S-video, so this is where my ignorance is beginning to show. In other words, take everything I say here with a grain of salt.

My understanding is the Genesis's RGB video does use a 15kHz signal. It also uses a composite sync signal, where VGA monitors require separate horizontal and vertical sync signals. Some people have successfully connected their Genesises to VGA monitors, but only with the help of an intelligent circuit programmed to repurpose the different video signals into something a VGA monitor can understand. A simple wire-to-wire connection won't work.

However, it sounds like you may already have the necessary hardware. If I'm reading you correctly, you have a Genesis SCART cable, an adapter for converting SCART to component, and an adapter for converting component to VGA. You may lose a little bit of signal quality going through multiple adapters, but otherwise, as long as the adapters work fine on their own, I don't see why they wouldn't work when linked together.

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No, the SNES and the Genesis have very different designs, and a simple pin swap is not possible. What I believe makes the Genesis cartridge possible is a way for the SNES to accept video and audio created by the cartridge itself, and pass that audio and video along to the SNES's A/V outputs. Actually several old consoles have this ability. The Atari 5200 can accept audio and video through its cartridge port, which is how its Atari 2600 adapter works. The Atari 2600 itself has a somewhat unintentional ability to accept audio through the cartridge port, which Pitfall II and its embedded sound chip takes advantage of. This ability allows the cartridge to do all the work, and use the console as little more than a pass-through. It's a novel way of doing it, but again, it's only as good as the technology within the cartridge. From what I've seen, modern Genesis-compatible consoles are pretty good, but not perfect.

You could make captures from the original Inty hardware.

I haven't read up as much on the Inty's as I have on other consoles. Are there any composite or S-video mods available for the Inty?

If not, the RF still does a fairly decent job, as long as the connection's good:

 IntelliCapture.png   104.47K   4 downloads

segawallnut, on Sat Feb 4, 2012 8:03 AM, said:

It depends on which signal it is converting to VGA. If it is using the Genesis's RGB output, then I imagine it would be okay, and probably look very nice on the Samsung. But if it's using the composite output, then it's not going to look any better than what you're used to seeing already, and you may get the black-and-white issue all over again.

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I'm curious about those too, and I'm tempted to buy one just for the novelty. What's most likely happening is the cartridge itself is handling all of the processing and just feeding audio and video to the SNES console. If so, I believe you are correct in assuming captures from the Genesis-on-a-SNES would not be a problem. However, depending on how "authentic" you want to be with your captures, keep in mind the cartridge is like any other modern Genesis-compatible console: based on reverse engineering, not made by Sega, and likely to show imperfections in some games.

The good news is it is possible to do Sega Genesis captures if you have the right configuration:

 GenesisScreenCap.png   98.99K   5 downloads

This is with an early Genesis 1 (boasting "high definition graphics") connected to a Micomsoft XMD-3 RGB-to-S-video converter, and captured by a 10-year-old ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon. I suppose this is something of a cheat since the NTSC video signal is generated by the converter and not the Genesis itself, but the resulting screen caps are quite lovely.

If anyone is curious I can see how well the ATI handles the Genesis's composite video output without the converter.