While the work done at RetroRGB is centered around video games, we’re essentially a “technology” site focused on gaming. As a result, we’re constantly running into deep technical issues and very often that includes getting older computer hardware to work on newer equipment and operating systems. One common issue: Drivers.
Developer Ben Cox ran into this exact issue when trying to use an Epiphan VGA2USB on a newer version of Linux in which it wasn’t supported. This especially hit home for me, as the Epiphan series of USB capture cards are excellent and with the right software can be perfectly tweaked to capture both retro gaming consoles and computers’ off video timings (as Michael Huth so wonderfully demonstrates).
I guess this post has a few purposes: A shoutout to Ben’s work, a thank you to people who help keep this hardware alive and a reminder that we really need custom open source capture software designed specifically for capturing pixel-perfect classic game signals with affordable hardware.
Check out Ben’s post here: https://blog.benjojo.co.uk/post/userspace-usb-drivers
Pre-built versions for Linux and OSX available here: https://github.com/benjojo/userspace-vga2usb/
Ever bought something and after it being delivered realising the drivers for it were bad?
This happened to me recently, so I took it as a chance to learn how to write user space USB drivers!
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Writing userspace USB drivers for abandoned deviceshttps://t.co/E8I2dZYt39 pic.twitter.com/9z4eh2JPP8
— Ben Cox (@Benjojo12) November 17, 2019
