Custom configs for CRT using the built-in composite out

Sakitoshi

Long awaited update:

vertical configuration for arcade games.
slightly more precise scaling for genesis low res and neogeo.
shader preset cleanup.

One of the questions people asked was how to run vertical arcade games like pacman without having to rotate the whole tv and I had no idea of how to easily do that so I ignored the topic altogether.
but some time ago I found the answer and thoroughly tested it to make sure it worked as intended. sadly is not an automatic process so you'll need to edit some files to make it work, but I tried to make it as painless as possible by providing a template configuration.
for the full details of how to use it the instructions are as always in the github readme.

vertical mode in action:
pacman
espgaluda

dimetrius

@Sakitoshi hi, there is one question, copied your configuration, did according to the instructions. The question is, should it be so in snes that shaders are turned off "shader Passes =0" ? Or do I need to install shaders separately? Now so. Thank you for your attention, sorry for the bad English. alt text

Sakitoshi

@dimetrius are you using dispmanx? it doesn't support shaders.
if that's not the case then some files didn't transferred to your raspberry pi correctly.

dimetrius

This post is deleted!

dimetrius

@Sakitoshi hi, did it all over again, installed the retropie 4.5.1 image for my Raspberry Pi 3 b +. Copy your settings to directories. At the moment, in the nes console, the shader section write "shader # 0 tvout - tweaks_sharp.glsl". and the snes emulator writes shader # 0 filtre "tvout-tweaks_smart.glsl". Now what have I done right? Thanks for your attention.

Sakitoshi

@dimetrius yup, that looks right.

dimetrius

@Sakitoshi Thank you very much, CRT TV is just great. There is a request, you can do it or tell me how to do it for zxspectrum 64,128. Thanks a lot for your attention

Sakitoshi

@dimetrius sorry if the reply is late, I was out the whole week.
I'm not familiar with the zx spectrum, but I see that it has a retroarch core so I'll see what I can do.

Sakitoshi

Requested update:

support for zx spectrum added (via lr-fuse).

Since I though my job was done after I added coleco/intellivision and msx I didn't investigated further which other emulators I could create configs for. that and I'm not really interested in microcomputers in general (I never had one and I'm not from Europe or even USA, my first piece of technology was a custom built 80486).
But here it is the support for the zx spectrum some were waiting for, better late than never I guess.

Rion

@Sakitoshi Have you looked at how the Guys/Gals over at the Facebook group Pi2Jamma / Pi2SCART (Google: facebook group 1649021265123737) solved the problem with automatic switching for vertical arcade games?

From retropie-4.4.12-pi2scart-v1
runcommand-onstart.sh
runcommand-onend.sh
vertical.txt

Sakitoshi

@Rion No, I havent. there are fundamental differences between built-in composite and other methods of analog tv out (mainly they have access to custom timings and resolutions while we are stuck at 720x480 interlaced or progressive skipping every other line) that make 90% of those configs useless for my purpose, so I usually just take a quick look and move on (that and I don't use facebook and stay away as far as possible from it).

and for what I can see they use a list and modify the config at launch time, both things that I try to avoid. the first because then I'll have to maintain said list and the second to not burn write cycles of the sd card every time you launch a game.
of course the list method is better (for me since the list was already made by them), but I don't want to burn out everyone's sd card.
another way to do it would be to create unique configs for each game (like I did for neogeo before giving it a dedicated scaling shader), but I prefer to avoid adding +2500 files just for a niche feature.

Rion

@Sakitoshi

Well sadly facebook is where they are. To bad that they don't use a forum. The "official" (circuit-board dot de) is sadly not updated with the latest info.

Its a pain in the ass to find something on facebook.

Anyway... I could not help myself so i created a 480i.txt containing all the games from the file vertical.txt with file extension to be place in:

/opt/retropie/configs/arcade/ 
/opt/retropie/configs/fba/

Then i went ahead and created *.cfg files for all the 2500 vertical games in the list.

Place in

/opt/retropie/configs/fba/config_crt/FinalBurn Neo/ 
/opt/retropie/configs/arcade/config_crt/emulator/

zip or rar pick your poison.

I have tested about 20 or so games and all looks good. But i am only using FinalBurn Neo at the moment.

Sakitoshi

@Rion I guess I can add an optional zip or rar with all the vertical configs.
I'll be testing a couple games to assure that at least the most popular ones work as intended, but it'll take some time.

Rion

@Sakitoshi

I was not aware of this until yesterday.

240p via HDMI on Raspberry Pi to RGBS, no need for RGB hats!
Non-powered active HDMI to VGA adapters for OSSC But i think you need a powered one for the pi if you look at the link below.
Connect your recalbox to a CRT with HDMI (EN)

Sakitoshi

Arcade update:

optional zip file added which contains every game that uses a vertical monitor.
also in the zip are a couple tweaks for popeye and the mortal kombat series.
new optional configs to help frame arcade games.

vertical configs for every (I think) arcade game are here!
and also I went ahead and tried to make some other arcade games look better.
arcade games are such a complicated beast that I really tried to avoid the issue, but since I also play them from time to time I just couldn't stand how they looked, so I had to open up my box of tricks and come up with something to frame them inside the viewable area of my tv. the results aren't perfect (if you put attention you can see there are missing lines thanks to the scaling going on), but it really helps since some games miss some information without doing that (you couldn't see the time in mortal kombat).

and as always, the details are in the github readme.

@Rion interesting information, but all of those links point to using pc monitors or rgb, which is not the goal of this.

handlolo

Hello again guys, I wanted to ask you one thing, how you have managed to make the controls work in Fuse, I have tried everything and I do not get the Pad or keyboard to work

Sakitoshi

@handlolo as a computer emulator, fuse controls highly depends on the game. you can open a virtual keyboard with select to choose kempston joystick in games that support it.
try jetpac or manic miner, I tested the configs with those games and both support the kempston joystick interface.

handlolo

@Sakitoshi thanks for the clarification.
But the problem I see is that absolutely nothing works, neither the kempston nor the keyboard, can you pass me a photo with your configuration?

Sakitoshi

@handlolo I'm using default core options, only needed to change the model to spectrum 48k for jetpac to actually load, manic miner works regardless.
for the controls you need to change the controls setting from retropad to kempston joystick.
I think you can also assign keyboard buttons to gamepad buttons (there are joypad X mapping core options), but I haven't tinkered with the options at all.

Rion

@Sakitoshi said in Custom configs for CRT using the built-in composite out:

@Rion interesting information, but all of those links point to using pc monitors or rgb, which is not the goal of this.

That is true. What i wanted to say was you can get true Rgb output from the HDMI port without buying a Pi2Scart or Retrotink Ultimate.

But here is the interesting part. @mikechi2 Mike Chi the creator of the RetroTink product line recently did an Interview with Bob from RetroRGB where he talks about a new device he is developing that can output 240p super resolution over HDMI from the Pi to Component, Scart or Composite.

The Interview is

and if you want to skip ahead it starts from 9:00.

@Sakitoshi said in Custom configs for CRT using the built-in composite out:

Arcade update:

optional zip file added which contains every game that uses a vertical monitor.

also in the zip are a couple tweaks for popeye and the mortal kombat series.

new optional configs to help frame arcade games.

vertical configs for every (I think) arcade game are here!
and also I went ahead and tried to make some other arcade games look better.
arcade games are such a complicated beast that I really tried to avoid the issue, but since I also play them from time to time I just couldn't stand how they looked, so I had to open up my box of tricks and come up with something to frame them inside the viewable area of my tv. the results aren't perfect (if you put attention you can see there are missing lines thanks to the scaling going on), but it really helps since some games miss some information without doing that (you couldn't see the time in mortal kombat).

and as always, the details are in the github readme.

This is very interesting.

Especially since the Mortal Kombat games outputs at a rather odd resolution of 400x254@54.7H.
I think you could do a lot of easy game specific configurations this way if you use the Mame/Final Burn Neo resolution database.

Sure it's true that arcade games used different resolutions but the ones like Mortal Kombat is a handful of games that uses non standard resolutions.

Here is the arcade rez table from Regamebox 3.0.20.