@Flexo55 Sure it is possible. Just think about your requirements.

Which input formats (16:9, 4:3, 5:4, ...) and resolutions (1920x1080, 800x600) should be accepted on the HDMI side? Which output standard should be supported? (NTSC/PAL or both?) Which framerate you need for your CRT (50Hz/60Hz/...)? Shall it support conversion options when converting e.g. from 16:9 (in) to 4:3 (out)? Do you also want HDMI audio looped through the device or will you use the Pi's headphone jack or USB audio? Do you want extra filters supported by the device, e.g. blurring, scanline modification, ...?

This might be one device as example: https://www.startech.com/en-ch/audio-video-products/hd2vid2 (obviously you need a Micro HDMI to HDMI adapter)

I would also ask or research in some AV forums on recommended products for your project and your requirements.

@mitu Yep it was that. Bought an official cable and it works. Now I just need to work out how to get emulationstation and the console to be the same scale

@mitu thank you very, very much for the help and information about kernel. :)

There's no extra commands in EmulationStation or otherwise that changes the resolution on a stock RetroPie installation. You can change the emulator resolution via from the runcommand launch, but that's about it.

If 240p set via config.txt works, then I don't see why the same method for 480i wouldn't work. How are you setting the 480i resolution for your display - via config.txt or other method ?

Please also add the info asked in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first to your post (RetroPie version, devices, etc.)

The issue seems to be specific to RetroArch, standalone emu like ReDream look both sharper and don't have screen tearing.

In RetroArch.cfg i've already set the following to no avail:

video_refresh_rate = "50.000000" video_vsync = "true"

@Trendkiller-9 Glad you solved it :D

@dankcushions hello, I am aware of how the crt image is generated, I just failed the properly explain the issue. But thanks to you, I revisited the config file once more and realized it was an overscan setting that was preventing the correct size of the image being displayed. Now everything works beautifully. Thanks a bunch.

@Mrakobijes said in trying to use KMS driver yields no composite video output (Raspberry Pi 4):

dtoverlay-vc4-kms-v3d-pi4,composite=1

This looks like a mis-spelling, it should be just:

dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d,composite=1

and you should start with stock config.txt, instead of the one you're using, which has too many overclocking options which may conflict.

Note that this configuration is not fully supported by RetroPie yet and for the KMS driver is recommended to use an up-to-date Linux kernel/firmware.

You

The font in the message blurb is not set by theme, it's the default EmulationStation font - the size is not configurable.
It would be nice if the size would be bumped on smaller resolutions, could be a nice addition.

@dankcushions

can you give an example? fmv in PS1 games used pretty brutal compression. it's typical to see constant ugly colour banding on real hardware.

Not an FMV, but I believe it's a 24-bit color scene. Comparison between a screenshot and the screen. Some of the grays in the photo aren't completely gray.
SLUS-00922_2022-02-02_14-28-04.png
IMG_20220202_153105.jpg

what did you add?

I used hvs_set_dither=0x210

i use my Pi-Models 1-3 with CRTs (1x Samsung / 1x Bang&Olufsen)
Of course i wanted to connect the Pi4 also with my CRTs, but i only tried it once and burried that idea.
At least concerning the composite out.
Maybe i had bad luck and my Pi4/the AV-socket is broken, but the picture was H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E!!!

I am still searching for a verfied method to connect with better quality (Gert666, Pi2Scart etc.), but did not find anything that runs out of the box without any issues or performance loss :[

@mitu
Ok. All clear now. Thanks for the clarification.
I'm not a dev guy, so it's beyond my knowledge to modify the source code. I guess I have to prepare two set of config.txt, and reboot into the proper video mode when needed.

@sharkytowers Your issue is not related to this topic.
For RetroArch Windows issues you'd better ask in the libretro forums - forums.libretro.com, which seem to be down at the moment - or on their Reddit forum over at reddit.com/r/retroarch.

You can try with a different hdmi_group/hdmi_mode until you find one that works (240p modes maybe ?).

To anyone having the same issue, I needed to cut the HSYNC trace on the vga666 board for the csync to be strong enough to control the PVM