Xbox 360 in an Astro City?

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Re: Xbox 360 in an Astro City?

Post by Chempop »

Good stuff! I have a 360 in my Blast City, but either way it's a great way to get your cave (and other shmup) fix. 8-)
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Re: Xbox 360 in an Astro City?

Post by mRCaESaR »

It's a much easier process with a tri-sync monitor :)

I can't wait to compare 240p vs 480i.

The amount of flickering in menus is astonishing...
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Re: Xbox 360 in an Astro City?

Post by emphatic »

Very nice wire work! The interlace flickering in menus never did bother me that much. Ingame video is what counts, and it looks great IMHO, but I only ever compared the 24kHz video to the 480i, and not 240p vs 480i, so... Congrats on scoring the UVC.
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Re: Xbox 360 in an Astro City?

Post by mRCaESaR »

emphatic wrote:Very nice wire work! The interlace flickering in menus never did bother me that much. Ingame video is what counts, and it looks great IMHO, but I only ever compared the 24kHz video to the 480i, and not 240p vs 480i, so... Congrats on scoring the UVC.
Yeah in game video is definitely a massive difference compared to the menus! It's actually quite amazing how different it looks.

I will probably get the UVC sometime next week, but the VGA cable is going to be a long wait :(

During that time, I will figure out how to connect the UVC - looking at your fingerboard connection, I'm hoping/guessing I can use the Viletim board as a pass through for everything

360 VGA ----> UVC -----> power connected via the molex plug to the respective terminal blocks on the Viletim SCART to JAMMA, video sync also connected to the terminal block on the Viletim board -----> pass through for pad hacks.

One final thing I noticed in my quick "run through" with the couple of games I tested - I'm far from a Cave connoisseur, nor do I have any real pcbs, but there are a couple of times there is "slowdown" in some games (when there's too many things on screen), are these "slowdowns" also present in the original games?

When I first started running Ketsui and DDP DOJ on my RaspberryJamma, I thought the pi couldn't handle the game properly since there were a couple of times I received "slowdowns" but when I played it on the 360 and noticed the same type of slowdown, I figured it must be on the original games... Anyone know if this is the case? Did cave put intentional slowdowns?
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Re: Xbox 360 in an Astro City?

Post by Chempop »

Yes, the slowdown is intentional, though on PCB it's technically caused by hardware limitations iirc. The ports try to best replicate it, though in the end often have slightly less slowdown than the original arcade boards.
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Re: Xbox 360 in an Astro City?

Post by emphatic »

I don't know if the viletim board can passthrough the video, but I haven't even given it any thought before. ;)

If you want no slowdown CAVE games, you can try the Futari Arrange mode or ESPGALUDA II Omake mode (needs to be unlocked by clearing Black Label or Novice).
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Re: Xbox 360 in an Astro City?

Post by Daniel B. »

Don't kill me, but I've read this thread a couple of times now and I'm still unsure of what I need to get.

I want to go Jtag hacked xbox into my astro city with nanao ms monitor. I believe this is a dual frequency monitor.

I think I can figure out some type of hack for controls but I'm not versed in arcade machines, and I'm trying to get my ducks in a row.
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Re: Xbox 360 in an Astro City?

Post by mRCaESaR »

emphatic wrote:I don't know if the viletim board can passthrough the video, but I haven't even given it any thought before. ;)
I'm only assuming since I see terminal blocks for 12v, 5v, gnd, and the video sync.
Daniel B. wrote:Don't kill me, but I've read this thread a couple of times now and I'm still unsure of what I need to get.

I want to go Jtag hacked xbox into my astro city with nanao ms monitor. I believe this is a dual frequency monitor.

I think I can figure out some type of hack for controls but I'm not versed in arcade machines, and I'm trying to get my ducks in a row.
From what I've learnt in this whole proces, the easiest way is the Viletim scart to jamma for 480i and the UVC for 240p

There's a pseudo 240p method using a sync strike and extron rgb 580xi but that gets complicated since your screen isn't a tri sync.

Your best bet is to get a uvc but that can be expensive... My uvc cost me almost double my viletim scart to jamma
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Re: Xbox 360 in an Astro City?

Post by Sp33dFr34k »

UVC is nice, but impossible to find. Wonder why nobody is able to copy a nice alternative. Any more where yours came from? :)
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Re: Xbox 360 in an Astro City?

Post by mRCaESaR »

Sp33dFr34k wrote:UVC is nice, but impossible to find. Wonder why nobody is able to copy a nice alternative. Any more where yours came from? :)
Yeah I've been wondering the same thing since I went on a hunt. These things came out many years ago and with the advancement in technology, I would have thought there'd be something similar.

I got mine from rugdoctor and it might be worth pm'ing him.
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Re: Xbox 360 in an Astro City?

Post by Sp33dFr34k »

One would think they're not very advanced products, but maybe I'm wrong. Anyways, I've sent him a message, thanks for the tip :)
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Re: Xbox 360 in an Astro City?

Post by Daniel B. »

I'm in the USA, and have an official VGA cable - does this differ from the scart stuff you're mentioning or are scart and VGA the same thing for our purposes here?

many thanks guys
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Re: Xbox 360 in an Astro City?

Post by mRCaESaR »

Daniel B. wrote:I'm in the USA, and have an official VGA cable - does this differ from the scart stuff you're mentioning or are scart and VGA the same thing for our purposes here?

many thanks guys
Two totally different ways.

Scart connection is required if you go with the scart to jamma route using Viletim's pcb and the maximum you'll get is 480i (unless you use the pseudo 240p method)

360 ---- > official scart cable ---- > viletim scart to jamma ---- > arcade monitor 480i

VGA is what you require if you want to get true downscaled 240p using the UVC.

360 ---- > official vga cable @ 480p ---- > uvc ---- > jamma finger board (so it can connect power and the video feeds) ---- > arcade monitor 240p downscaled from 480p

On the topic of the UVC, does anyone know the pitch of the header so I can make my own cable for it?

Is it molex, JST?

I don't have anything on my spare atx psu that fits the video connector header.
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Re: Xbox 360 in an Astro City?

Post by FrancoB »

It's a five pin 0.156" pitch 'Molex KK'. Something like [this] would fit.
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Re: Xbox 360 in an Astro City?

Post by mRCaESaR »

FrancoB wrote:It's a five pin 0.156" pitch 'Molex KK'. Something like [this] would fit.
Awesome! Thank you. Isn't it a 6 pin though?

For us metric folk, that's 3.96mm and I'll now look into buying some of those.
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Re: Xbox 360 in an Astro City?

Post by FrancoB »

Apologies, It's a while since I've had mine out :whoopsie:

You're correct. It is 6 pin, something like [this] would be suitable.
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Re: Xbox 360 in an Astro City?

Post by mRCaESaR »

I got shipment of my UVC on Friday (thanks rugdoctor!) and rather than using the pass through from Viletim's unit, I decided to make my own pcb specific for the UVC

Image

Contains the power (thanks emphatic for the reference photos), the video sync (still need to purchase a molex plug) and the P1/P2 astro city connectors.

I present, the xbox 360 240P setup with the UVC, fingerboard and ps360 controllers in one big package that all connects up pretty seamlessly to the Astro City

Image

And some close ups...

Image

Image

I still have to wait for the official vga cable - I used a hd fury to connect the hdmi to vga (480p) but there's a bit of a shift to the right so I'll wait for the original cable.

I'm far from a videophile and I haven't done a direct comparison yet, but a part from the horrible flickering of menu's, I wasn't able to tell THAT much of a difference in picture quality in game, although, I didn't really test all that much yet (still waiting for the official vga cable).
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Re: Xbox 360 in an Astro City?

Post by Daniel B. »

mRCaESaR wrote:
Daniel B. wrote:I'm in the USA, and have an official VGA cable - does this differ from the scart stuff you're mentioning or are scart and VGA the same thing for our purposes here?

many thanks guys
Two totally different ways.

Scart connection is required if you go with the scart to jamma route using Viletim's pcb and the maximum you'll get is 480i (unless you use the pseudo 240p method)

360 ---- > official scart cable ---- > viletim scart to jamma ---- > arcade monitor 480i

VGA is what you require if you want to get true downscaled 240p using the UVC.

360 ---- > official vga cable @ 480p ---- > uvc ---- > jamma finger board (so it can connect power and the video feeds) ---- > arcade monitor 240p downscaled from 480p
This is a big help, Is 24hz 240p? like, the dual sync monitor will display that, or is that only for the blast and newer?

Also, your project looks amazing. I definitely want to eventually build something like that. I have read enough times about anything OTHER than the official VGA cable causing all kinds of image quality issues, so expect a noticeable difference.
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Re: Xbox 360 in an Astro City?

Post by emphatic »

24kHz isn't 240p, it's 384x640. It's quite a hassle to switch manually between 15/24 though, so unless you have a dedicated cabinet you wanna play beautiful high res games output to 24kHz because it looks amazing (Daifukkatsu, ESPGALUDA II, S-DOJ and Futari for example) I would keep it in 15kHz for convenience.
Mode 1 – Low Resolution – CGA – (std resolution)
· Horizontal Pixel Clock 73.626 ns
· Horizontal Active Pixels 640 pixels 47.121 μs
· Horizontal Total Pixels 864 pixels 63.613 μs
· Horizontal Front Porch 64 pixels 4.712 μs
· Horizontal Sync Width 60 pixels 4.418 μs
· Horizontal Back Porch 100 pixels 7.363 μs
· Horizontal Scan Rate 15.72 KHz 63.613 μs
· Vertical Line Clock 63.613 μs
· Vertical Active Lines 240 li nes 15.267 ms
· Vertical Total Lines 262 li nes 16.667 ms
· Vertical Front Porch* 3 lines 0.318 ms
· Vertical Sync Width 3 lines 0.191 ms
· Vertical Back Porch 14 lines 0.891 ms
· Vertical Refresh Rate 60 Hz 16.667 ms

Mode 2 – Medium Resolution – EGA
· Horizontal Pixel Clock 50.080 ns
· Horizontal Active Pixels 640 pixels 32.051 μs
· Horizontal Total Pixels 800 pixels 40.064 μs
· Horizontal Front Porch 1 6 pixels 0.801μs
· Horizontal Sync Width 80 pixels 4.006 μs
· Horizontal Back Porch 64 pixels 3.205 μs
· Horizontal Scan Rate 24.96 KHz 4 0.064 μs
· Vertical Line Clock 40.064 μs
· Vertical Active Lines 384 li nes 15.385 ms
· Vertical Total Lines 416 li nes 16.667 ms
· Vertical Front Porch* 5 lines 0.200 ms
· Vertical Sync Width 5 lines 0.200 ms
· Vertical Back Porch 22 lines 0.881 ms
· Vertical Refresh Rate 60 Hz 16.667 ms

*Vertical Front Porch Timing is variable based on input frequency ”
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Re: Xbox 360 in an Astro City?

Post by Daniel B. »

emphatic wrote:24kHz isn't 240p, it's 384x640. It's quite a hassle to switch manually between 15/24 though, so unless you have a dedicated cabinet you wanna play beautiful high res games output to 24kHz because it looks amazing (Daifukkatsu, ESPGALUDA II, S-DOJ and Futari for example) I would keep it in 15kHz for convenience.
Mode 1 – Low Resolution – CGA – (std resolution)
· Horizontal Pixel Clock 73.626 ns
· Horizontal Active Pixels 640 pixels 47.121 μs
· Horizontal Total Pixels 864 pixels 63.613 μs
· Horizontal Front Porch 64 pixels 4.712 μs
· Horizontal Sync Width 60 pixels 4.418 μs
· Horizontal Back Porch 100 pixels 7.363 μs
· Horizontal Scan Rate 15.72 KHz 63.613 μs
· Vertical Line Clock 63.613 μs
· Vertical Active Lines 240 li nes 15.267 ms
· Vertical Total Lines 262 li nes 16.667 ms
· Vertical Front Porch* 3 lines 0.318 ms
· Vertical Sync Width 3 lines 0.191 ms
· Vertical Back Porch 14 lines 0.891 ms
· Vertical Refresh Rate 60 Hz 16.667 ms

Mode 2 – Medium Resolution – EGA
· Horizontal Pixel Clock 50.080 ns
· Horizontal Active Pixels 640 pixels 32.051 μs
· Horizontal Total Pixels 800 pixels 40.064 μs
· Horizontal Front Porch 1 6 pixels 0.801μs
· Horizontal Sync Width 80 pixels 4.006 μs
· Horizontal Back Porch 64 pixels 3.205 μs
· Horizontal Scan Rate 24.96 KHz 4 0.064 μs
· Vertical Line Clock 40.064 μs
· Vertical Active Lines 384 li nes 15.385 ms
· Vertical Total Lines 416 li nes 16.667 ms
· Vertical Front Porch* 5 lines 0.200 ms
· Vertical Sync Width 5 lines 0.200 ms
· Vertical Back Porch 22 lines 0.881 ms
· Vertical Refresh Rate 60 Hz 16.667 ms

*Vertical Front Porch Timing is variable based on input frequency ”
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