Upscalers for Retro Consoles

Link@rentadrunk.org to RetroGaming@lemmy.world – 40 points –

I have been looking to get a upscaler for my retro consoles and also to allow me to stream these analog consoles.

Currently I am leaning towards the Open Source Scan Converter 1.8 but I know there are other options too like the RetroTink.

Does anyone have any experience, recommendations etc with these?

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This will be dependent on a few things:

  • What's your budget?
  • What consoles are you looking to play?

I can personally vouch for the OSSC as a great entry point, however there's a caveat - if you'll be mostly playing PS2 / inputting interlaced content and you have the budget for it, you might want to consider the RetroTink 5X, as the OSSC's bob deinterlacing is not up to par IMO. The 5X is well worth it for that reason alone, otherwise they are both great options.

PS1, PS2 and maybe Wii not sure if they benefit from it.

Looking at the RetroTink 5x it seems to be double the price of the OSSC.

  • Wii, you'd be perfectly fine either way, you'll be able to get 480p 2x on the OSSC or 3x on the 5X.
  • PS2, you'd really benefit from the 5X for a vast majority of games, which output 480i, as the deinterlacing on the 5X is much better than the OSSC, here's an example on GT4, and you'd again get 3x (1440p) vs 2x (960p) on the OSSC.
    You could try and force 480p via GSM otherwise, if your PS2 is nodded, but I've had pretty poor luck with that method so I wouldn't recommend it.
  • PS1, that's debatable, for most games you'd be completely fine either way, but there's a fair number of them with res switching, which the 5X tends to handle better / without any delay vs the OSSC, so if that matters to you, that could be another pro for the 5X.

You're kinda in the perfect "target demographic" for the 5X with a PS2 in a way, but it's a matter of how much flickering bothers you or not, and whether or not the higher output res, more features, etc, is worth the price or not.
Again, both options are absolutely great and you wouldn't go wrong with either!

Thank you for your advice and everyone else. I have opted to get the RetroTink 5x!