XRGB Framemeister
Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 2:40 pm
It is a japanese Upscaler that is specialized on old gaming consoles and therefore is an option for connecting a ST(E) to a modern TFT as well. It is pricey but very universal, so it's well suited for someone who wants to connect a variety of systems to the same display.
You will find a very good introduction and usage guide here:
http://arekuse.net/blog/my-games/the-ul ... ister-eng/
In addition for anyone considering a Framemeister for his/her Atari ST(E) or basically any other system:
I recently found out, that the image adjustment range of the framemeister depends on the resolution of the connected display. I used a Dell 20" TFT via DVI (Dell 2007) with a native resolution of 1920x1200 Pixels. Although the Framemeister can use this resolution in full, you won't be able to allways position the image centered and full screen.
I often read, that the Framemeister only uses 1080 lines, even if connected to a display capable of showing more. But since I was able to position the image at the extreme top and botton of the display, this seems not to be the case. At least not any more, maybe it was resolved in one of the latest firmware versions.
But nevertheless the Framemeister was appearantly made to use 1080p resolutions as maximum, so when using higher resolutions you will have to compromise on adjustment range.
In lack of a spare 1080p display I now use a 19" Display with 1280x1024 and 5:4 aspect ratio (Dell 1907) with my framemeister. It gives me a lot of adjustment range and I have been able to scale the input signal to fullscreen in most cases without using the zoom. When I use the zoom I like to enlarge the screen area within the overscan, when the screen content is small and does not use the overscan area. This gives a better immersion in games but of course in apps as well.
Although the framemeister theoretically can accept a 31kHz VGA signal on its RGB-Input (when you combine H/V-SYNC to CSYNC) , it is not officially supported. I experienced crashes and distorted image on it, so this is no option for ST HiRes. The advantage of using a 1280x1024 Display is, that you can directly connect the ST to its VGA-input, and it can simply line double the 640 horizontal pixels to 1280. When applying the line doubling to the vertical resolution, you end up with 800 lines used and 224 left empty and a very crisp image.
On a sidenote: The 50% gray default background in highres is perfect for letting the display autoadjust on the signal. Whenever you have to adjust a display or your framemeister, I recommend of doing so by using a 50% gray background. The interferences show clearly when you approach integer scaling.
The disadvantage of using a (cheap) monitor, or at least most of them: They will most likely only be capable of displaying 60Hz. When you are on a PAL machine (50Hz) or using HiRes (70Hz) either the display or the Framemeiste will have to do a framerate conversion. The Framemeister is really good at this, but nevertheless you will never have perfectly smooth horizontal scrolling.