THE ZEALOT JACK!

[zealot2009]

As I have seen LOB64 I thought there may be a cheaper way of doing it for the people who don't want 3 players on 1 5" Screen. My portable is going to support the latest technology in portabilizing.

. Not so much of a jack as such but what happens is that you have 2 extra plugs on your portable. These plugs connect to separate screens with inbuilt controls. I thought this would be a cool idea as 3 people on one screen would definitely get crowded. I am making soonish and it'll be done with portable. If you want to make this all you need are a couple of 4 pin or 6 pin plugs (Whichever are available. I am using 6 pin), a dual screen portable dvd player like this one http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/7-Twin-Dual-Scree ... .m63.l1177" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and 2 n64 controllers. You then have to get the plugs and wire composite left and right audio and controller to both of them. All this is doing is making a slave screen and 2nd and/or 3rd player controller. I am doing this as a cheap way to get a similar system to LOB64

Zealot2009

[vskid]

You can't get much cheaper than the LOB64 interface... The LOB64 interface does everything you want, you have a host N64p that outputs video and controller data to other portables. With the appropriate adapter (still being developed, I think), you can play 4 player games. Everyone has a screen, but it also has to display the other players on it.

So I fail to see the point of your idea...

[eagle5953]

vskid's right - I fail to see what improvements you can make on LOB64 at a lower price.

Besides, your system in inflexible because you have one system that would ALWAYS be the master system, the others ALWAYS the slave systems, and you need to install 2 ports on the first portable. LOB64 does not have these problems.

[zealot2009]

I know that LOB64 is better but this is for people who don't have 3 portable n64's to play 3 player multiplayer in the car. Anyway what are the chances that I will ever meet someone with a portable n64? Probably zero as I'm 11 and I can't go to any MGC like convention.

[vskid]

You can still use LOB64 for what you want. Then, in the unlikely case you meet another N64p with a LOB64 port, you can still make use of it. The LOB64 makes the 2nd-4th player's N64ps into slaves, so whether or not they have a N64 in them doesn't matter.
No reason to reinvent the wheel.

[XCVG]

Also, the LOB64 port can connect to an XDS (of my own invention) that allows you to use it as a home console!

[Tibia]

Since you're so desperate to use your name on something, may I make a recommendation? Go ahead and build your "slave" units, with screens and controllers, and just call them Zealot "Packs".

[FireTime]

As you describe it now the LOB64 would do just that, BUT find a way to setup a small video multiplexer/demultiplexer so each screen only gets their portion of the n64 screen (2 player goldneneye: You split the video stream in half, so P1 get the top half and P2 gets the bottom half) then you would be on to something. As of right now I don't think this has ever be attempted in the portable world.

[eagle5953]

As you describe it now the LOB64 would do just that, BUT find a way to setup a small video multiplexer so each screen only gets their portion of the n64 screen (2 player goldneneye: You split the video stream in half, so P1 get the top half and P2 gets the bottom half) then you would be on to something. As of right now I don't think this has ever be attempted in the portable world.

I looked into this sort of thing (splitting the video signal), and it can't be done inexpensively enough. Even if you could, each quarter of the screen would still be 320 by 240 (or, in 2 player, 320 by 480), regardless of the screen resolution - it would just be stretched to fill it.

[marshallh]

since 99% of all N64 games render to a 320x240 framebuffer, a quarter of that is 160x120. To split the signal you'd have to have an FPGA interfacing with a video decoder writing the video to some RAM, and then re-encode the region of the image you want with yet another video DAC. Unless you already know what that means there's pretty much no hope for that idea.

[FireTime]

I know that it would be incredibly difficult. I have also attempted to do such a thing a while back, golden eye on 4 tv's. Just ended up using 3 splitters and some cardboard. I am just trying to motivate the peoples of the internet and see what they come up with. Come-on there is atleast 1,596,270,108 of you out there on the net, figuar it out!


@marshallh
yeah I know that to would require an entirely separate system to decode/split and encode the video. The Idea would be a small box that the systems would connect to (think of a router). I have looked into some systems in the past but most of the technology out there is way more powerful that what is needed for this application.

[eagle5953]

And if you want to know what a 160 by 120 image looks like upscaled to 640 by 480 try this:

[palmertech]

Why 640x480? When has anybody used a screen with that res, ever?

[eagle5953]

Isn't that the resolution of the PSone screen?

Besides, the point I was trying to make was that it wouldn't look any better just because it filled the screen.

[palmertech]

Cover yourself better! Your ignorance is showing.

The PSone LCD has a native resolution of 320x240. It can interlace 640x480 sources, though.

Now, because I like to play devils advocate: Sure, Goldeneye would not look good. But! Perfect Dark, with the expansion pack, runs at 640x480. Cutting the images from a 4 player setup would actually look as good as they possibly could on the PSone LCD, as they would be native res images.

And, as far as I know, the goal is not to increase the quality, it is to allow people to play without screenlooking. Quality is always going to take a hit with any kind of splitscreen.

Vuzix makes some of those Video Glasses that allow for the splitting of splitscreen games into quadrants. Might be fun to mess around with them a bit.