Topic: Dreamcast VGA help

[Abnormal Freak]

wtf yo. My buddy lent me his DC with Shenmue and I was gonna buy a VGA cable for it (if cheap) to enjoy it in FULL 480p GLORY, but all I find are what appear to be...converter boxes? I'm not getting this. Do you plug the RCA cables into the box and then from there plug the VGA into the TV/monitor? If that's the case, I don't see how you'd be getting a better image, just a "converted" one.

What am I missing here? Do the boxes work differently than I think, or are there actual Dreamcast-to-monitor VGA cords that I'm not looking hard enough for?

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Mind taking a picture of the cable you're thinking of buying?

Here are a few things to keep in mind:
-Not every game works with the VGA cable.  Because of this, it's more convenient to have the box, as with the box you can switch between VGA, Composite, or S-Video.  If you get a cable, you may get stuck with VGA which would work but not for every game.  It's not a problem if you're gonna be switching the cables around every time, though.

-The good dreamcast VGA devices have a port built into the box; if the cable you're trying to buy has a VGA connector on a short wire, it's probably crap.  At least, that's from what the good boys at digitalpress say.

-Racketboy likes to sometimes raise the prices for the VGA box.  At times it's as cheap as 25, and at other times I've seen for 50.  Weird.  I guess that helps you price it out depending on the site, etc.

-Make sure what you get has a headphone jack.  I think everything these days has it but be mindful of it.

[Abnormal Freak]

Nothing particular in mind, just was perusing eBay. A lot of the boxes seem to be going upwards of $40. Too much for me to wanna spend on one game... I doubt I'd ever buy a Dreamcast and collect a large assortment of games.

Suppose I'll just suck it up and use the composite video on my SDTV. It was good enough for me up until a few years ago, I'll pretend it's good enough still.

But aaarrrrgh, if I'm gonna play a highly-praised game once, I want it to look amazing. Gonna have to keep looking around for a cheaper option. $25 is more my limit...

Looking more closely at the pictures, though, I can see how the box works. Looking briefly on my phone, I thought the cable attached to the box was the VGA cable, and you plug the RCA cables into that and it converts the image—which looking back doesn't make sense 'cos where would the sound plug into? :p And obviously you wouldn't get an actual high quality progressive image from that, so I thought, "What the $#!7?"

Bummer not all DC games support progressive scan, though. I thought I'd read somewhere that all games supported the function.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Well to be fair, it's not just progressive scan: you're essentially doubling the resolution 640x480 as opposed to the regular SDTV's 320x240 (or so).
There is a way to trick the system out so that all games do it but it requires tools, skills, and knowhow.  The same things that have made people have NES consoles with an HDMI-Out port.