[Jamie Shaw]

I’ve resorted to HEX editing in combination with a spreadsheet to import and export timings, but it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

After I ended up re-doing them all after 0.78, I ended up keeping a spreadsheet too 😅

It’s a good failsafe, but certainly wouldn’t be as easy as a profile editor, or at least conversion to JSON.

[Jamie Shaw]

Whilst it pleases me that the OSSC Pro is getting ongoing firmware updates, the lack of profile editor like the OSSC has is a bit of a kicker.

Having spent a good few hours into fine tuning the 20+ profiles for the consoles I have, it’s a pain having to walk them all for the updates. I completely understand why from a binary point of view, but the ability to convert to and from JSON was an absolute life saver—and great for version control of the directory of profiles I have.

I mean, I’m happy to take a look myself if someone could point me in the right direction.  Building web apps I’m familiar with, but encoding/decoding binaries without some assistance puts me at a non-starter. 😅

[Jamie Shaw]

Thanks for the update. For ease, I’ve organised a replacement OSSC Pro to be shipped out and then this one returned to VGP, as it was only purchased a few months ago and still under warranty. It also means that this unit can be captured for debugging if so required.

Saves the hassle of finding a reliable flasher for JTAG, and any additional problems this may introduce.

[Jamie Shaw]

Cool. Keep me posted. I’ll stick on 0.77 for now then, and get around to upgrading (and fixing) following tests. 🙂

[Jamie Shaw]

Any recommendations?

What’s the risk of a lousy programmer? Bricking the device?

[Jamie Shaw]

Thanks.

I’m kinda at a loss at this stage, having tried several cards (of various sizes), formatters, and devices. All are fine for profiles read/write, but firmware always fails.

In regards to JTAG, it sounds like a viable option if given step-by-step instructions. If it is a bad FW on this board, hopefully a clean flash could resolve that. If I could provide any debug logs, I would… 😅

Failing that, it’s going to be a return for replacement with VGP (and have to deal with the customs for returns 🙃).

[Jamie Shaw]

Firstly, thanks for the assistance with this.  It’s appreciated.  Apologies if this isn’t the correct thread for support, I’m happy to move this over to the GitHub repo to keep it organised if required? (Or a different thread on the VGP forum, as the OSSC Pro was purchased from them 12/02/2025).

So, I’ve tried all of the following:

• SD Card Formatter for Mac, using both “Quick Format” and “Overwrite Format”
• Disk Utility (macOS), using both FAT32 and exFAT, using MBR Partition Map.
• newfs_msdos command via Terminal (macOS)
• A 60GB PlayStation 3
• My wife’s old Panasonic Lumix digital camera

All yield “Failed (-5)”. And just to confirm: no SD card provides -1, no FW file gives -2.

As previously mentioned, saving/loading/renaming profiles on the SD Card gives me absolutely no trouble at all.  I just seem to fall at that CRC check for whatever reason.

And to be on the same wavelength, ossc_pro.bin yields the following checksums:

• MD5: b9c40357d7fd719cfc4f29713ad3e06b
• CRC32: 1b812510

• This reply was modified 6 months, 1 week ago by Jamie Shaw. Reason: Gratitude

[Jamie Shaw]

I normally use the SD Card Formatter for Mac as it’s never given me any problems with any flashcarts (EverDrive, EZ Flash, etc).

I’ve just tried with two other cards, both 32GB (larger than the previous 1GB I’m using for profiles). One formatted to FAT32 with 32k clusters, the other formatted to exFAT.

Both give error -5.

• This reply was modified 6 months, 1 week ago by Jamie Shaw. Reason: Fix duplicated link text

[Jamie Shaw]

Works absolutely fine for profile load/save.  Just firmware updates that seems to be giving an issue.

This is my first upgrade since getting the Pro, which came preinstalled with 0.77.  I could try reinstalling 0.77, to rule out the card…

UPDATE: Tried reinstalling 0.77, same -5 error. I will try a third, larger SD card that might be more reputable.  Other than that, faulty OSSC? 🤔

• This reply was modified 6 months, 1 week ago by Jamie Shaw.

[Jamie Shaw]

Having issues myself with installing the update.  Tried two separate SD cards, both formatted to FAT32.  Both give “error -5” when using the renamed firmware .bin from GitHub.

Thoughts?

[Jamie Shaw]

Perhaps.

To be honest, my main use of it was archiving the JSON files — they were useful for comparing profiles in a diff editor, as well as version control through git.
It may be overkill, but I ended up committing various tweaks of my profiles so I could track and revert the change less useful 😅

An example would be where I have a “Saturn 320” and “Saturn 352” profile I’d like to keep in sync, other than timings.  I can diff the JSON to ensure all non-timing settings were the same.

• This reply was modified 6 months, 3 weeks ago by Jamie Shaw. Reason: Giving an example

[Jamie Shaw]

I’m going to throw my hat in the ring and ask for an OSSC Pro equivalent.

I’ve wasted countless hours on this web app on my OSSC, and having now upgraded to the Pro model, this web app is sorely the most missing “feature” between the two. 😅

[Jamie Shaw]

I ended up picking up a 1CHIP board and using the RGB Bypass on that one.

I just couldn’t deal with the smearing from the 2 PPUs on the original board 😅

[Jamie Shaw]

Going through a bit of a roundabout here… 😅

Having posted on the circuit-board.de thread, I was redirected to contact Matt from VGP directly, and in turn, kindly forwarded back to the community here for some further insight.

I might’ve not been clear in my original post, but the Bypass board that I have purchased is the VGP 4.1b board, hence why I am posting here. But due to the differences between it and Borti’s original design, I have some questions about changing it to be suitable with Borti’s AIO SuperCIC / Dejitter board.

Looking into this further, it seems that he does provide instructions on how to connect the AIO board to the bypass board for PAL 1-CHIP models and a couple of modifications required on the bypass board, but unfortunately due to the VGP model being a derived design of Borti’s, I’m unsure what, if any resistors are required to support the CSYNC coming from the AIO board.

For the most part, it seems that the first two resistors connected to the CSYNC input on the bypass board are replaced to better suit the voltage coming out of the AIO board, as well as selection of TTL or 75Ω CSYNC provided to AV Pin 3 — these are R41 and R42 on Borti’s design.  I’m not sure how this translates to the VGP version, if at all, I understand if it’s not a 1:1 derivative.

Borti’s GitHub defines the output of the “raw” CSYNC pad on the AIO board as follows, but I’m not electrical engineering minded enough to decipher which changes are required.

/CS.o raw: (output (2x)) Raw output of the CPLD, which has 3.3V high and 0V low level. Connect it to the video encode, which is pin 8 of the S-ENC or pin 7 of the S-RGB (both chips allows 2.0V for input high, so 3.3V high is sufficient.)

For reference, I have a RetroGamingCable’s 470Ω CSYNC RGB SCART so will be using TTL CSYNC — I’ve already soldered J2 on the board to accomplish this. How this factors into the resistors replacements, again, I’m unsure. It may be that the equivalent of R41 only needs replacing in this regard.

If all else fails, I’ll just leave the CS pad empty and find an alternate-sync SCART.

[Jamie Shaw]

Thanks, I’ll do just that.  Just ended up posting here as VGP sells a version of the board, and was looking for some pre-purchase advice 😅

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