Best way to hook up a Sega Dreamcast

[ElGansitoo]

For some reason sega dreamcast seems very confusing to me!
It seems like from what I have read its best to use the DC to toro and use scart to ossc to hdmi. but when you do that you have select games that wont work over scart. What is the best way to use and get the best picture from the Dreamcast and if or when i come across one of the few games that dont work how can i play them? I want to use original discs. I have an ossc and use a lg oled65c9 tv.

I mainly started on this adventure because I wanted to use the 240p test suite to set up my tv for sega genesis and the everdrive was more expensive than a dreamcast. so now i hav a dreamcast and im starting to think maybe the everdrive was easier lol

[Spaghettaboutit]

If you aren’t going to solder the DC-Digital (aka DCHDMI), then the best way is to get a 480p SCART cable and the OSSC.

The 480p SCART cable has a switch on it that can switch between VGA and RGB modes. This should give you access to all games. I don’t know about a game that is missing BOTH video modes. Most games will be able to run in VGA and those that can’t should work on RGB.

240P Test Suite works wonders on the cable. When in RGB mode, the suite lets you check both 240p and 480i video, and on VGA mode you have access to 480p tests.

The OSSC instantly sees the change in signal for the cable between RGB and VGA, and is able to help with ease of a One cable setup.

I use the Retro Gaming Cables 480p SCART cable:

https://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk/SEGA-DREAMCAST-RGB-SCART-CABLE-WITH-480P-MODE

But they aren’t your only option for a 480p SCART cable, Retro Access also have one and I’ve heard good things about the company:

Dreamcast 15kHz/31kHz 480i/480p SCART Cable

[nmalinoski]

For some reason sega dreamcast seems very confusing to me!

It isn’t just you. There are a lot of options to choose from, and 480p support is missing from many games that clearly work fine when forced into 480p, plus the ingrained use of “VGA” when that video output is not strictly VGA needlessly complicates that topic.

It seems like from what I have read its best to use the DC to toro and use scart to ossc to hdmi. but when you do that you have select games that wont work over scart. What is the best way to use and get the best picture from the Dreamcast…?

As Spaghettaboutit mentioned, the best way to get video out of a Dreamcast is a DCDigital, but that tends to be out of peoples’ price range and/or ability to install.

I second Spaghettaboutit’s next-best suggestion of a SCART cable with a sync combiner and a mode switch that allows 480p mode, particularly when an OSSC is involved–that should be cheaper overall than a Toro plus a male-to-male SCART cable.

…if or when i come across one of the few games that dont work how can i play them?

Generally, what you would do is set the switch on the SCART cable to 31kHz mode (480p), turn on the console, and load a game. If the game supports 480p, it’ll just start.

If, however, it shows a screen that says the game is not compatible with the video cable you’re using, you would turn off the console, flip the switch to 15kHz mode (240p/288p/480i/576i), turn on the console, launch the game, and then, during the white Sega licensing screen, flip the switch on the cable back to 31kHz mode. For most games, this will trick the game into playing in 480p mode.

Unfortunately, I’m not able to find a definitive list of which games don’t support RGB and how; some supposedly support 31kHz RGB, but not 15kHz RGB, and some supposedly don’t support either, in which case that mode switch trick won’t work and you’ll need to use either a composite or S-Video cable instead. I believe a couple of those games were rereleased with RGB and/or 480p support, and the others were patched by the community; if you want to play those games, you’ll either need to burn them to CD-R or give up use of physical media by using an ODE like a GDEMU.

[BuckoA51]

Has it ever actually been confirmed there are games that don’t work in RGB 15khz OR VGA and require a s-video or composite cable instead? I remember someone telling me that Record of Lodoss War was one such game but it works in VGA.

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