Author Topic: RGB mod on IF Unit or PC Engine?  (Read 279 times)

Sumez

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RGB mod on IF Unit or PC Engine?
« on: March 19, 2012, 09:51:23 PM »
Another stupid newbie question from me, I think - but once again I (strangely) couldn't find the answer anywhere else. :)

Most RGB mods on PC Engines I've seen were made in the interface unit itself. Which makes sense I guess, since this is the one you usually hook up to your TV set, but I'd like to be able to detach my PC Engine (coregrafx) unit when just playing a HuCard game, and still make use of the same mod.

Is there any reason not to make a RGB AV output directly on the PC Engine unit in an area that's still accessible while it's plugged into the IFU, and use this when playing CD-ROM games as well? I assume it would still work, or..?

grahf

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Re: RGB mod on IF Unit or PC Engine?
« Reply #1 on: March 20, 2012, 12:29:25 AM »
It will work, but you won't get any CD audio that way (because the CD audio is mixed in the interface unit). I suppose you could mix it in yourself though, before the TV.

Sumez

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Re: RGB mod on IF Unit or PC Engine?
« Reply #2 on: March 20, 2012, 12:50:30 AM »
Good point! I didn't even think of that.
I'll have to make a custom RGB cable anyway, so I guess I'll have to mix an RCA plug into it for the audio input

GohanX

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Re: RGB mod on IF Unit or PC Engine?
« Reply #3 on: March 20, 2012, 04:02:34 AM »
You wouldn't necessarily have to rig up something complicated, you could just hook up RCA cables directly to thr IFU for audio and use the Coregrafx RGB cable for video only if that's possible with your AV setup.

I found out about the audio mixing the hard way when I modded my TG dock. I originally tapped audio on the dock's expansion connector, it didn't occur to me that that was before the CD audio signal until I put it back together.

grahf

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Re: RGB mod on IF Unit or PC Engine?
« Reply #4 on: March 20, 2012, 04:36:07 AM »
Yeah, I found out about it the hard way too. I modded one of my white PCEs using the Mmmonkey mini-din8 method. It's a pretty clean looking mod, almost original looking if done right.
Here's his page, if you care to look:
http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/console/pce/rgb.htm

Sumez

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Re: RGB mod on IF Unit or PC Engine?
« Reply #5 on: March 20, 2012, 12:54:20 PM »
Ok this doesn't make sense to me anyway now... I just tried playing a CD game with the AV cable plugged directly into the normal DIN plug, rather than the RCA plugs of the IFU, and the CD audio plays just fine, so I don't see why an RGB mod in the PC Engine unit itself shouldn't be able to take the audio from the exact same source without any problmes.

grahf

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Re: RGB mod on IF Unit or PC Engine?
« Reply #6 on: March 20, 2012, 10:13:16 PM »
Ahh, must be because it's a CoreGrafx. The original white PCEs don't mix the CD audio back in. Until now I had no idea that the CoreGrafxs did... Just curious, is it a model I or II?

If it's working out, looks like you just saved yourself a lot of work. Nice!

Sumez

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Re: RGB mod on IF Unit or PC Engine?
« Reply #7 on: March 20, 2012, 10:15:53 PM »
Yeah, it's a CoreGrafx (as mentioned in the first post :))
It's a model 1 (blue logo)