Gamecube Portable Screen Help

zeldaxpro

Well-Known Member
Hey guys zeldaxpro here with a question on my TFT LCD Screen for my GameCube. I am currently in the progress of building a GameCube Portable. Everything is going fine so far until today. I bought this screen a few weeks ago:

5tftlcdscreen.jpg


As you can see it is a 5" TFT LCD Screen with a resolution of 640x480 Display. I also can run it on 7.4v with no problems. My GameCube is a NTSC Motherboard. I connected the GameCube AV Cable Composite (Yellow) to my screen and was testing it out with one of my favorite games for the GameCube: The Legend of Zelda Wind Waker. For some reason the picture isn't as good as I thought it would be. The colors seemed kind of washed out and fuzzy. I don't think its the screen itself, but the signal that I am giving it, which is the standard Composite. Is there any way for me to get better video quality? I know the screen has VGA as seen in the picture. I know PAL GameCubes can output RGB. If I used a PAL GameCube could I somehow mod or use the VGA to output RGB? Would I need a GameCube Component Cable if I am using a PAL GameCube? Or is there anything I can do to get better video quality? Thanks for listening.
 
Is you video wire shielded? That could be a problem with you video quality. You'll need the component cable for sure on the NTSC 'cube for RGB and If I remember right then you will also need it for a pal cube.
 
I was using the original GameCube AV Cable and I thought PAL GameCubes can output without a component cable because the port on PAL Cubes have RGB. Any other suggestions? Thanks for replying.
 
Ok since PAL GameCubes can output RGB from their analog port is it possible to somehow get that signal on the screen that I have above? Or do I need the Component Cable? Im pretty sure the Component Cable was not used on PAL GameCubes because NTSC DOL-001 GameCubes never could output RGB, only Composite and S-Video. Could someone clear this up or explain to me? I just want to make the video quality better and if I can do it with a PAL GameCube I would do it. Thanks.
 
95% sure that to get RGB on any cube you need a component cable. There's a special chip inside that encodes it or something. I think that if there was a cheap and easy-ish way to do it without the cable, we would know and there would be more portables with the RGB mod.
 
It doesn't matter if its a NTSC or PAL GC. You NEED a official component cable to get VGA.
 
Ok thank you guys for clearing everything up. I will probably end up buying a Component Cable if I can find one pretty cheap (They are very expensive). The Standard AV just doesn't look that great compared to it on my regular TV. Is there any other way to make the screen pictures nicer maybe like resistors or capacitors or anything? Thanks again.
 
I remember seeing somewhere that adding a potentiometer to the video line helped clear up the quality
 
The bottom line is that composite just looks like crap on these modern LCD panels. The GameCube was made in a time when CRT TV's were still the norm for most people and the crap quality of most of these CRT TV's helped to make the color bleed and other problems with composite video less noticeable. Any modern LCD larger than a 3.5/4.3" ebay screen composite generally looks like flax.

Unless you're going with a Wiikey Fusion and plan to flash Swiss to it so you can force ALL games to 480p the component cable won't really help you as the LCD you've shown most likely doesn't support 15khz VGA (the only LCD's I know of that DO are the "good display" LCD's from ali express). This being the case the only games you'll get VGA to display on that screen are the ones that support progressive scan (31khz VGA) natively by holding the b button while booting them. And even then you'll still have to switch back and forth between composite and VGA on the screen itself as the GC boots to 15khz (interlaced) in the IPL (bios/boot screen) and doesn't switch to progressive scan until a game is booted and tells it to.
 
Where would I hook up the potentiometer to? Would I hook it up to the video line on the GameCube motherboard?


zeldaxpro
 
Ashen I do plan to use a Wiikey Fusion so even if I have a composite cable I can use Swiss to force the games to 480p, thus making them look like they would with a component cable. Or do I still need the Component Cable? Thanks for replying.


zeldaxpro
 
Yeah just hook it up between your video line it doesn't need to be on the motherboard, a cap after that would help too
 
Is there anything else I can do or anything you guys suggest to get better quality? Maybe smaller screen? I see so many GameCube portables and there video quality doesn't look that bad but I could wrong. I don't know how many GameCube Portables were made with the component cable.


zeldaxpro
 
@tom10122 I'm not quite sure what you mean? I'm just using the original AV cables and there was no circuit board connected like the PAL ones. Do you have a diagram? Or could you explain more? Thanks.


zeldaxpro
 
just cut the a/v line and put a potenitometer on the positve wire( the one with insulation ussually) and hook up the cap to the pos/neg line , , once its hooked up , run the gamecube and screen and turn the potentiometer either way until you see a increase a in quality
 
Also, not to backseat mod, but can you please edit your posts instead of rapid posting? It's kind of annoying.
 
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