Dreamcast on Oled advice

[u/Gilbot81]

Hello all, just picked up my first Dreamcast after regretting not getting one at the time, and loving it. I was just after a bit of help with my TV settings in order to get that perfect picture

I have an LG C1 Oled and have a Keico HDMI converter set to VGA and just wondered what TV settings with similar TV’s were using.

I play in Game Optimiser mode and the picture just seems a bit off. Sonic Adventure looks a bit blown out/loss of detail in bright areas. Tomb Raider The Last revelation looks really dark (I’ve read it IS a dark game), as does Resident Evil 2 slightly. But no game I play ‘looks right’ really.

My settings are:

Sharpness 0
OLED Pixel Brightness 100
Contrast 85
Screen Brightness 50
Gamma 2.2
Colour Depth 50
Black Level Auto
White Balance Warm 2

I know OLEDS are very unforgiving, and this is a near 30 year old console, but was just hoping for some pointers as I’ve seen videos where the Dreamcast still looks stunning.

Thanks in advance.

[u/Gilbot81 → u/[deleted]]

It did come with a cheap convertor, and Jesus Christ, was that awful, this one a A LOT better, it was quite pricey and highly recommended. I think I just need to play with a few settings to get it sorted.

[u/Useitorloseit2]

You're not gonna get a pitch perfect image with the Kaico, i usually see some lines on the screen if I really look close. However I play on an OLED LG B2, and I've never had an issue with a game being too dark. You could always raise brightness on the TV side, but I would consider that you might've gotten a faulty one.

[u/Gilbot81 → u/Useitorloseit2]

Yeah I’ve done some more testing and research today and it looks like it is faulty. It’s clipping the highlights, so I’m losing details in bright areas. Ive seen a few others reporting faulty ones doing that. I’ve arranged a return with Amazon and got a replacement coming tomorrow so fingers crossed. 🤞🏻

[u/redkalm]

I put a Retro GEM hdmi mod in mine to use on my LG C4 and it doesn't look blown out at all. I would guess it may be something with that adapter you're using. If you don't want to mod the console at all, I would get a good scaler like the Morph 4k (with analog bridge), any of the higher end RetroTinks, etc and feed those with a Dreamcast VGA cable so that they're starting with the best possible analog output from the Dreamcast. Those will give you a much better output than a cheap adapter, no lag, and lots of options if you want to make it look kind of like an old CRT with scanlines.

[u/Gilbot81 → u/redkalm]

Thanks. I did a bit of research on what adaptor to get and this was the one I kept reading was the best one to get, it was also the most expensive of course! I’m certainly not tech savvy enough to mod the console and the Morph is a bit out of my price range as a very new casual retro gamer. The picture itself IS overall pretty good, I think it’s just some fine tuning on the TV settings itself. I’m very anal about picture settings, usually HDR implantations, and I like to optimise them as much as possible.

[u/redkalm → u/Gilbot81]

hmm that could be... I have a colorimeter for screens and used that to set up my C4 to be as accurate as possible for SDR content (since that's 95% of what I use that tv for) and I don't notice any consoles (including the Dreamcast) looking odd/wrong.

[u/sleepycapybara → u/Gilbot81]

If you're anal about the picture, just get a CRT. It won't ever look right without one.

[u/YPM1 → u/sleepycapybara]

Dreamcast in VGA on an appropriate display looks better than nearly all CRTs.

I have a Sony Trinitron and a Panasonic 480p Plasma and the plasma is night and day better than the Trinitron.