Lapis the Nevrean

@lapisnev

Don't squeeze me, I fart

she/her
dinobird.website/

Things that make you go 🤌. Weird computer stuff. Artist and general creative type. Occasionally funny. Gentoo on main. I play rhythm games!

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Lapis the Nevrean @lapisnev8/26/2024, 6:06 AM

I Almost have a working streaming setup to play video games from old computer

Except the S3 ViRGE on the Compaq Armada is being a tease. If I plug a real CRT into the laptop, I can mirror the desktop at full resolution no problem. If I plug an OSSC into the laptop, it gets confused and outputs a 640x480 viewport of the desktop, and it moves around to follow the mouse cursor too! It's neat but it's not what I want, I want it to just output the exact thing it's showing on the built-in LCD.

If I plug in the CRT first, set up the mirroring, then hotswap the OSSC, the OSSC can actually pick up the 1024x768 video just fine. If anything makes the LCD flicker for a resolution check then it will recheck the VGA output and change it back to the 640x480 thing again.

I could apply the hardware revision to the OSSC and upgrade to 1.x firmware and see if that helps, or I could get a powered VGA splitter and see if the laptop detects that differently and just outputs the correct video signal. Or maybe there's a different solution.

#vintage computing #retro computing #capture card #soliciting advice #OSSC

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in reply to @lapisnev's post:

Birdout: Paradise @SomeEgrets8/26/2024, 6:32 AM

could be the OSSC has a generic EDID (or sends no/empty EDID? i dunno the hardware...)

in which case it would probably just say "okay fuck it this display isn't identifying itself, it must be legacy and fall back to a short list of minimum safe resolutions like 640x480?

Lapis the Nevrean @lapisnev8/26/2024, 5:37 PM

It does send a valid EDID, but it's like this version of the S3 drivers don't like it... Other laptops with VGA, this same laptop during boot before the driver loads, it all works perfectly fine, I've just found the one exact combination where something is confused and it doesn't want to work. I could try downgrading drivers but I doubt that will help...

Birdout: Paradise @SomeEgrets8/26/2024, 6:19 PM

hm, does it allow uploading a custom EDID? i know some converters let you do that - maybe you can get somewhere if you exactly clone the EDID of the screen you already know works?

that's all assuming it even is an EDID problem to begin with...

i wonder if another idea could be generating a custom monitor .INF that matches however the OSSC identifies itself and adds whichever modes it is you want? don't know if this would work but it's an idea?

Lapis the Nevrean @lapisnev8/26/2024, 8:13 PM

I ended up buying an EDID emulator on eBay so we'll find out if that works in a week! In the meantime, God I hate microsoldering but the OSSC hardware revision upgrade is only one bodge wire so I'm gonna do it.

(Update: that didn't help.)

Birdout: Paradise @SomeEgrets8/27/2024, 5:55 PM

dang, that was my best guess

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