Retropie with pc crt monitor

Andyp74

Hi.
I've just got hold of a pc crt monitor and running retropie through the hdmi to vga adapter to the crt monitor is already an improvement over the lcd set up.

I've had a little play around in retroarch and the other menus to set some resolution settings etc.

However, I've read that to get the best possible retro look and feel you can change the output to 240p?
Is this something only for actual arcade crt monitors and not pc crt monitors?

Cheers
Andy

Capeman

PC monitors can display at a resolution of 320x240... but the traditional 240p signal that people talk about when talking retro gaming is an analog signal at 15khz that is used for standard consumer crt and professional video monitors (pvms).

Displaying a digital resolution of 320x240 (which is the resolution of 240p... kind of) will display on a computer monitor just fine, but it will not produce the scanline effect that is prized among crt enthusiasts. This is mainly due to the fact that consumer crt's used an actual resolution of 480i and the 240p spec was just a trick to get a rock solid progressive signal out of an interlaced display.

There are HATs for the pi that you can get to output directly to analog signals - Retrotink and GERT666 specifically. Retrotink will do 15khz with scanlines, but that won't work on vga... GERT will push out 30khz to a vga port, but will not output scanlines directly.

If you want to read more into using RGB standards, 15khz analog signals and 240p, one of the best sources on the net is www.RetroRGB.com OR watch the RGB master class from MyLifeInGaming on youtube - These are both great sources to gain knowledge on the subject.

I have found that achieving the desired effect out of Retropie is more complicated than it's worth and have since given up, haha. But some people out there are hard core and can be a better resource than me.

EvilDindon

Retrogaming @15kz / 240p60 is the best cause it's native resolution/frequences.

But, I've recently tried mame (windows edition) with good hlsl settings on a 17" 1280x1024 PC monitor, and the result is the closest to sandard resolution CRT's you can get. It's very crisp and looks authentic.

You should try it.

Bt unfotunately, raspberry pi's cannot handle hlsl.

You need the latest mame windows build (0.186).

Cheers.

Andyp74

@capeman wow, thank you for taking the time to reply so indepth.
You answered everything I needed to know.

The fact that I can now play the games through a traditional crt monitor and not an lcd is more than acceptable for me.

Could you advise me on any settings I should be using with the pc crt monitor, resolution, aspect ratio etc?

Thanks again
Andy

Andyp74

@evildindon Thank you. Yes I'm restricted by the pi interms of processing power, but the configuration frexability makes up for it.

Cheers
Andy

Capeman

@andyp74 Like i said, i gave up on trying to get the scanline 240p effect out of retropie, but some people have succeeded. The guy in this video seems to have succeeded, and he posted all of his settings to the video's description (SHOW MORE), check it out, and let us know if you have any luck.

Capeman

Also note that the most recent version of the raspian firmware supports 240p output from the pi's onboard composite port. You have to enable it in the config file. There is a thread on it here (read the whole thing, settings detailed in earlier posts are older now, newer ones are at the bottom).

https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/issues/683#issuecomment-283179792

Andyp74

@capeman Thank you.
I'll just stick with the vga crt set up, I'm more than happy with the results right out of the box (I'll have a play with some settings myself) compared to the lcd with scanline shader effects.

Much appreciated.