connecting retropie to CRT tv

amook11

I just need help with these question about crt tv configs. hopfully someone experince guide us to right direction. (I have the xbox 360 3.5mm rca cable , right now when I connect it to tv nothing happens)

from what I searched online I learnt that I need image file on sd card to be able to get crt tv to work with retropie. do you have any name or link for this image file? is the image file necessary ? I have the latest retropie version. the tutorial that say you require image file is couple years old. Iam not sure if you still require to get RGB Image for retropie to work with crt!?
if this image file is required am I be able to switch back to hdmi whenever I want or that requires reformatting sd card , and another image file again?
finally when I get everything fixed and get pictures on crt does it mean I can run all emulators on crt tv with no extra configs etc ? or some of the emulators will have issued.

if there is step by step guide on internet on how to connect crt to retropie which some how I missed, could you please give me link to that. I appreciate it. thank you for helping .

mitu

@amook11 Do you have a Pi4 ? On older models, there was no configuration needed to connect via analog to a CRT, but on the Pi4 you need to edit the config.txt file on the sdcard and enable the analog video out by adding enable_tvout=1 to the file.
See more details at https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/config-txt/video.md.

sirhenrythe5th

@mitu i just tried this yesterday and had a much worst picture than with a Pi3 (using a AV Cable / Scart). There were red stripes in the Raspberry Logo and everything seemed to be much more blurry:/
Also i was shocked by the message "beware of less performance" when using AV out.
Is there any chance that this will be optomized on the future?
Or is a Pi2Scart the best solution here?
For the moment i canceled connecting the Pi4 to a CRT. If this is all you get i dont want it ;)

mitu

@mitu i just tried this yesterday and had a much worst picture than with a Pi3 (using a AV Cable / Scart). There were red stripes in the Raspberry Logo and everything seemed to be much more blurry:/

Are you comparing composite on Pi3 with composite on Pi4 ?

Also i was shocked by the message "beware of less performance" when using AV out.

This option doesn't affect the ARM CPU frequency, it downgrades the core_freq to 350 from 500 (default). On the Pi3, I think core_freq was 400 by default (without overclock). The documentation specifies:

Because composite video requires a very specific clock, setting that clock to the required speed on the Pi 4 means that other clocks connected to it are detrimentally affected, which slightly slows down the entire system

Is there any chance that this will be optomized on the future?

I don't know.

Or is a Pi2Scart the best solution here?

While not the best, it's better than composite.

sirhenrythe5th

@mitu yes, i compared it to the Pi3 which i use with a CRT for quite a while.
The picture is ok and performance even increased compared to HDMI, best example is "DoDonPachi II:BeeStorm", just try it (at stock speed, i never overclock).
With a Pi4: picture not as good and even no performance boost anymore :/

So is there any recommandation? Pi2Scart is not the best, so is there something even better? Framemeister maybe?

mitu

@sirhenrythe5th said in connecting retropie to CRT tv:

So is there any recommandation? Pi2Scart is not the best, so is there something even better?

The RetroTink had more options and outputs 3 x 8 bit of color instead of 3 x 6 bits as the Pi2Scart. That being said, it was considerably more expensive and for European users wasn't so straightforward to connect to a Scart enabled TV.
I hear it's going to be produced again, though not my @mikechi2, but I don't think it's going to be cheaper.

Framemeister maybe?

AFAIK, that's an upscaler used to with an input analog video signal to output to a digital display (HDMI), I don't see how it would be useful to connect the Pi to a CRT. I think it's mainly used the other way around - to connect classic consoles (with analog output only) to modern TVs.

amook11

Thank you very much.

amook11

@mitu I have pi 3 . I was almost certain I needed some type of rgb image file inorder to use crt tv with retropi from what I read online.
the problem was hdmi cable was connected aswell. I unplug restart and I have pictures on tv now . I am sorry that was such noob mistake! surprisingly Iam getting good image with all emulators . the smaller texts are not readable tho in emulationstation. I think I need to test some other themes.
thank you .

amook11

@mitu hi. I dont know if I should post new question or Just ask it here , since my question is related to this post .
the first crt tv that I tried composite cable with was 21 inch NEC . and I had no problem with . but today I tried it on 29 inch Sony trinitron . and I get slow video when Iam in a game . I can scroll thru games and emulators, with no problem but when I start a game , everthing get laggy and slow . I didnt do any config before and get perfect speed video on the NEC! do I need to change somthing u think ? is the slow video related to size of the crt screen? I have P3 b+ . you also mentioned you dont need any config on pi3. so not not sure where this isuue comes from. specially when I had no problem on the first CRT I tried !

mitu

@amook11 Please add some more info about your system - https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first.

If you run tvservice -s from the command line, what's the output ?

amook11

@mitu here is the result.

amook11

@amook11 FOR CRT :
state 0x40000 [ntsc 4:3] 720x480 @60 hz , interlaced

for hdtv
0xa [hdmi cea (31) rgb lim 16:9)
1920x1080 @50 hz progressive

amook11

@amook11 I didnt include the NEC 21 tv ,commadn line . (the one that is working with no isuue) I didnt know if you need that one aswell

mitu

@amook11 said in connecting retropie to CRT tv:

FOR CRT :
state 0x40000 [ntsc 4:3] 720x480 @60 hz , interlaced

Try with

sdtv_mode=16

and see if it improves the situation.

Also - https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

amook11

@mitu sure. thank you. its working now . I used the command you gave me. but I also removed the high res splash screen video which I have added few days ago! do you think the splash screen was causing the issue? becuse the slow laggy video was happening from the begging of the splashscreen! until the emulationstation menu , then again in games!!

mitu

@amook11 said in connecting retropie to CRT tv:

do you think the splash screen was causing the issue?

I don't think so, the video splashscreen does not alter any video settings or impact the emulators' performance.

amook11

@mitu that make sense .. thanks for the help.