Kuro has added the new Moread adapter I mentioned to the sheet, testing two copies of the same model. It tested well! Also a new issue with the icybox has come to light, which is a delay switching from 240p to 480i. This is mainly an issue for ps1 games where the game is 240, but the menu is 480i to add extra text detail. You will need to enable “Sync 480i for HDMI” on the PSX core to fix this on the icybox. Alternatively In this case, considering how well the Moread tested, I would get that over the icybox if you play a lot of PS1 games on Mister. This comment is likely to keep changing based on additional DACs being added to the list.
So how long was the delay before fixing it on the Mister? And if it's fixed with a settings in the PSX core, isn't it then just good to go? Is the delay gone after?
Best video on the topic. I’ll admit I was none the wiser until recently that the ‘official’ IO board runs the video a little hotter than ideal. Keep em coming, these videos are super helpful
Just got my Icybox and it works better than I had hoped. I've been using the old(?) analog board with my mister since 2020. It worked OK, some noisy interference some white blooming and of course colors not exactly correct but it got the job done. The Icybox however was razor sharp and almost all noise (some noise is to be expected it is analog afterall) was gone. It fixed the blooming, the colors look great and I feel this solution makes the Mister's video out better than original hardware. I ordered mine the same day you posted this video and it took 18 days to arrive from the Netherlands. I'm so happy with this DAC well worth the money. With the quality I would even have paid much more. Thank you so much, Lex!
Great video, thank you for making this! When I got my MiSTer I was really disappointed by the quality of the analog io board I bought it with, and I felt like there was no information out there on what I could do about it.
Great video! I've been spending ages trying to get the VGA output to work *AT ALL* from my "Ironclad Plus” baseboard, but it looks like I now need not bother. A HDMI -> VGA adaptor will work just as well... in fact better according to the excel table! Cool!
Look directly at the VGA port, we will call that side the “front”. You’ll see a line going around the entire outside of the front. Stick a thin piece of metal or plastic spudger in there, and pry the VGA port out. It’ll slide out; there are no screws.
Thanks for the awesome video. Looking at the official list it only shows RGB and not component. Does the information apply or affect the picture of component, svideo or composite? I can't find a clear answer on this. All of my CRTs are component, svideo and composite. Trying to figure out if I need to buy different DACs.
Now that's something that I'm curious about as well. I always wondered if using YPbPr output instead of RGB reduced the signal range or if the sync and luma get combined on the board, instead of having the sync generated on the DAC itself, I never gave much thought about HDMI to VGA DACs and how it would work with sync on luma for YPbPr output either.
On grooves land, all of the IcyBox stuff comes in stock pretty frequently; hopefully it’ll be back soon! If you look at their best sellers you’ll see one is actually #3 for their whole site, so I imagine they’ll want to keep buying more stock! Also, if you need it because it has audio, I *think* an HDMI Audio Extractor before the DAC would work. But, I haven't tested it, just a thought.
Hey great video! Have you tested resolution switching with PSX core? As you probably know, going in and out of menus for games like Chronos Cross, Sotn, Dino Crisis, etc. have sync issues with a lot of DACs. I had a bunch of cheap DACs that are bad at switching. Benfei one you've highlighted performs great but unfortunately it has flickering line artifacts for certain color range for me. I'd appreciated if you could test Icy Box, Retrocastle, and others you have.
All of my DACs have some kind of "down-time" when switching from 480i to 240p. I can do a live stream later tonight testing all of the DACs I have (only three), what game do you want to see tested? Chrono Cross?
@@BanchoZX Just gone done testing; The Moread and RetroCastle both switch very quickly between resolutions, and the Icybox switches within maybe .5 seconds though it's more noticeable than the other DACs. Hopefully that helps!
I'm a bit confused (I'm new to all this): when you go to buy a MiSTer you are asked to choose between either analog or digital board to go with it. Are those DACs? Or are those what DACs connect to? If it's the former, are saying the official boards aren't actually that good and should be avoided?
Basically everything involving the Mister is a nightmare for beginners so it's understandable! This is going to be a pretty long comment, bear with me: First, a DAC is a digital to analogue converter. This could be built into an IO board, or it could be an external device that plugs into the HDMI port of the Mister. Not all IO boards have analogue video, so you'd use the external DAC in that case. Yes, there are two "types" of IO board, digital and analogue. The digital IO board is basically a fan and some USB/audio ports. It has no video output, and no DAC. The analogue board, on the other hands, is a bunch of USB ports as well as either a VGA or Sega Saturn video port for analogue video, which by nature includes a DAC. I suggest going with the VGA version. If you're buying a pre-built Mister, you'll usually get two options like you said; an analogue version or digital version, which is referring to which IO board it has. The digital IO board is basically a PCB with some USB ports and buttons on it. It has no video output; the DE-10 Nano already has the HDMI port built in. The Analogue IO board actually has an analogue video output on it, along with USB. And yes, you understood correctly; any analogue IO board based off of the original design is heavily flawed. It will look like the bad side of comparison picture in the video of FF7. I'm going to assume you're looking at MisterAddons to buy your setup. I would strongly advise not buying from that website for a number of reasons that I don't want to get into right now. What I will say, at least, is that their analogue board is based on that bad official design. Instead, if you want a full build, I can suggest RetroCastle on AliExpress. It's well-trusted, and the Analogue IO board from there is incredibly good compared to the "original" design. I can also recommend the Complete Mister PLUS from Antonio Villena. It may also be cheaper for you to get your IO board from RetroCastle for Analogue output, and then just build the Mister yourself.
Hello, thank you for the video! I just have a question as i am a little confused: i have a digital mister bundle from misteraddons and i just got the ICY BOX IB-AC502 (the one without audio) what should i expect ? Will i have audio missing ? How can i get audio out of my mister ? Sorry maybe my question is dumb but i am a newbie and don't know what to use. Thanks again!
Looking at the MisterAddons Digital IO board, it has Mini-TOSLINK and full sized TOSLINK for audio. So, you'd need to get a TOSLINK cable and plug that into your speakers somehow, via an audio DAC of some kind. Most AV receivers support this, or you can get a very cheap TOSLINK to RCA converter box from Amazon, such as this: amzn.to/42saH3h
I've noticed a bit of a "red push" over S-Video using my MiSTer, where red is stronger than blue and green, especially at lower brightness levels, compared to my original consoles using official S-Video cables. My setup is: generic analog I/O board -> S-Video adapter -> TV. I have both the original Antonio Villena adapter that converts RGB to S-Video externally, as well as the newer Mike Simone active adapter that gets Y/C direct from the MiSTer, but the difference in color is negligible to my naked eye. Do you think it's something to do with the I/O board? It is a relatively early model that I bought 3 or 4 years ago. I'm tempted to pick up a confirmed good DAC to compare, but i don't want to waste money on one if I don't have to
Yes, it’s probably the board. The official spec of the IO board is quite terrible, it seems to be based off the levels from the AG6200. To this day it hasn’t been fixed, and it seems that the dev team doesn’t particularly care about this issue since it technically works.
Looks like you're right! 90 or 140 euros, depending on the model. A bit more expensive than the RetroCastle board, but you also get 24 bit colour. Definitely worth considering if you're going the IO board route!!!
If you could do a group buy or somehow get one for $100 or less, it’d be worth it for the extra features. Maybe a good used deal? It’s just hard to justify MSRP on it.
It is not a part of this test, however all of these should be zero-latency (i.e, under 1ms). I've tested just now with the MisterLaggy, and can say that the CS5210-based DACs, RetroCastle IO board, the IcyBox DACs, and even the AG6200-based DACs all add no latency to my setup.
I know this video goes over picture, but how about audio quality for DACs? I have the RetroCastle IO board, but see they also sell a Digital Audio update module for their boards. Do you know anything about the module and if it’s worth purchasing?
The module is definitely worth it! It’s an easy installation and greatly increases audio quality according to a few friends of mine who have them (who I trust with this kind of thing; they’re Kuro-types). The brand new DirectVideo based analogue IO boards from Retro Castle, I *believe* will have a DAC equal in quality to that module as well, but check the store page to make sure.
Should be even better; look at Kuro’s list at the very bottom, that chip was rated incredibly well on a Mister Addons board. Assuming the values are similar, you got really lucky! If they permanently switched to that chip, that’s great for us.
Wondering if you can help me out. I got the Icy Box without audio adapter and used a fresh new ini. I enabled composite sync & direct video plus vga = rgb & it's quite glitchy with blue interfearance and yellow on white. CPS Arcade Cores & Megadrive core is perfect though. Kinda stumped and dunno whats wrong.
What kind of cable are you using, and what are you sending the signal to? Might be best to take a pic of what you’re seeing as well and upload it to Imgur
@@lexlocatelli Thanks for the fast reply. Will upload soon for you. Using a VGA2BNC5 Cable to a JVC PVM with white plug going to sync. Same cable works through IO Board.
Question: Does the data from these tests apply the same irrespective of whether you plan to use component, s-video, or composite? I use s-video from the YC active encoder board from MisterAddons usually, and sometimes component. I'm wondering if those factor into anything somehow.
The YC encoder boards have fairly basic circuitry, so I imagine they’re doing a very simple translation of the values from the DACs. That is to say, a shitty DAC will be shitty through the YC board, and a good DAC will look good. However the misteraddons IO board is one that had major level issues since it was just the reference design, so I’m not sure on the quality of those adapters. For component, since it requires no processing and instead comes right out of the DAC with a component to VGA cable, it should also be good relative to the DAC quality.
@@lexlocatelli That all seems to make sense. Thanks for the confirmation and clarification! I think I'll be trying to order one of those icybox DACS soon! Looking forward to the upgrade :)
@@professorc-dawgscastle8591 Kuro just added results for the Moread adapter I mentioned - might be worth grabbing that instead as the icybox has a longer delay switching from 240p to 480i in ps1 game menus.
@@lexlocatelli Interesting, do you know what's the problem with the reference design? Are the resistor values wrong, are the tolerances too big, or is it something else?
I’m not particularly savvy on what makes an audio DAC incredible, but it’s been “good enough” going into my tower speakers from an amp. I haven’t noticed any poor quality or issues. That being said, Bob from RetroRGB is a much better source for things audio related. He seems to think most HDMI DACs have “good enough” audio, but an audiophile would want to use an HDMI audio stripper and go into a high quality amp/DAC like a schiit stack. I’d certainly trust that opinion over whatever I have to say about audio!
There is no comprehensive list for real systems yet, this is something I plan on working on. The output of real systems has another set of issues, which are: 1. System revisions can potentially perform significantly differently from one another, like with the Genesis 2. The cables used for testing have more effect than anything else. You’d have to be running tests not just on console revisions, but also all of the different brands of cable.
@@lexlocatelli Ah I see. I'm kind of surprised that there's no such a list already. Difference between revisions is something cool to measure and document. Cable wise, OEM cables could be used as baseline for systems that released OEM cables. Looking forward to what you could come up with.
Hello, correct me if I'm wrong but the IO boards output direct analog from the de10's pins right? No DAC involved. So why is there an analog IO board in this DAC comparison ? And how the retrocastle IO can be better than the official one? (resistor ladder ?) Thanks
A resistor ladder is a DAC, so there is a DAC involved :D! Presumably, they use different resistance values, which would cause the output R/G/B levels to be incorrect. I haven't torn them both down to check, all I know is what the scope says about these outputs. There has been a discussion bringing this up on the Mister Github, showing how the original design has incorrect values, though I'm not sure anything is being done to rectify the situation.
These adapters are all specced to be full range, so for the most part, no. If limited=2 needs to be turned on to fix them, it’s because the chip is out of spec, not because it’s actually a limited range output. This is mentioned at 08:56 in the video. There is also a test result at the bottom of the list that verifies what I’m saying; limited=2 does fix the low end, but it destroys the rest of the image accuracy.
@@lexlocatelliSorry, I paused just before your mention of it to write the comment 😅 I have a Ultimate MiSTer HDMI to SCART and a Delock 65901 and will try to investigate.
@@SvenKillig You say limited=2 "destroys the rest of the image accuracy", but that doesn't seem to be reflected in the chart or the note. The values over 50 IRE, (actually, every IRE,) are almost the exact same as the Super Nt with the DAC.
