Best way to play HDMI Or Composite?

RetroFreak89

I recently got into retro gaming on the pi
I was curious ive been enjoying snes rpgs alot i also use the shaders but i use a HDMI HD monitor i also have a CRT i heard it can be used with that is it worth buying a camcorder cable? Is what i need i think for it to work but is it worth it tho or is HDMI best?

How are you guys set up? Just curious

caver01

@retrofreak89 I think it would be cool to setup a CRT. I’d like to build a bartop with one someday. Often, this comes down to aesthetics. Many of us use the CRT-PI shader to bring back the retro-nostalgia of an actual CRT, but not everyone wants to use a real CRT for a variety of reasons. For me, it is a matter of portability. For someone else, they might be repurposing their home theater TV to play these old games. Everyone has a different idea about what they want and why.

If I had access to CRT to build my arcade and I wasn’t trying to make something thin or lightweight (not that my project was very light!), I would definitely try to make it work.

Anyway, that’s my two cents. You can search the forum for other threads where people are discussing their CRT solutions if you are curious about the hardware challenges.

DD-Indeed

@retrofreak89

If your old CRT has SCART or S-Video, head for those instead. Althou, I personally don't wanna head back to the old TV quality, since we've got away from it haha.

A Former User

@dd-indeed said in Best way to play HDMI Or Composite?:

I personally don't wanna head back to the old TV quality, since we've got away from it haha.

You seem to forget when the games we emulate on RPi were made :) Anything released before the 7th generation (PS3/360) will look better on a CRT, it's just how it is.

DD-Indeed

@arkive

Well, in a way yes. All of the 2D-stuff look better on the CRT, but personally I like more of the ''exposed'' 3D-graphics drawn in double resolution. Scanlines to emulate CRT makes games look so dark and it just hurts my eyes, because I'm not used to that anymore.

VGMonkey

games back then where made to work in harmony with the TV technology, IE. the curvature of the screen, the refresh rate (hence the whole 50hz Pal and 60Hz NTSC )

I personal feel that the older games look a little to sharp and jaggered when on a modern TV so i turn on the shaders/overlay (if it don't effect the running speed of the game)

Pietze

Make sure you enable 240p once you try the composite: https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/issues/683

I switched to CRT and I'm pretty happy. Biggest plus is the input lag, because you don't need video filters/shaders anymore and it's the original resolution (and not upscaled like on HD TVs). And I really like to play 4:3 content on a 4:3 TV.

Biggest surprise were PSX games: I would not have expected them to look that good.

For best picture quality, I recommend Pi2Scart or RGB Tink.

Only one thing is missing: A decent 240p theme, but I saw somebody working on it here on the forum.

Eldrethor

Both are viable options, so it's just a matter of preference.

If you go with HDMI, the upside is that you will have an insanely bright, sharp, crisp, colorful, clear image, but this comes with a slight touch of input lag. HD also exposes a lot of the pixels that would otherwise have been obscured by a CRT screen, since these games were never designed with such high definition in mind. You would also get black borders if you go with a 4:3 ratio, but an overlay can fill in that void.

A CRT would be the most authentic way to experience gaming on those systems when they were in their prime. The screen would fuzzy-blend the pixels to create smooth edges, and there is zero input lag due to the way CRT screens work. The downside is that it may take some work to configure the overscan correctly, and your image won't be as crisp and clear, but the details (such as text fonts) will look as they were originally intended to look.

RetroFreak89

Ok and what cable do i need i heard not all camcorder cables works?

Capeman

No camcorder cables work. Go on ebay and get a cable designed for a an ipod with video or a zune (if you remember what that was), those work great. Also sites like pi-supply, element 14 and pimoroni will likely have the correct compatible cables. It's not worth guessing, there are like 3 different specs for 4 pole av jacks, and only one works on the pi.

Eldrethor

@capeman I second that; I bought a generic camcorder AV cable, thinking that I'd be fine with that, but the ground was positioned in the wrong place in the plug, so I got a crappy distorted images. I eventually picked up a Zune cable, and it worked flawlessly.

Capeman

@eldrethor And not only that, the zune specific cable is dead sexy! its probably the nicest looking AV cable i've ever used and the cable is very flexible, i was very impressed.

InsecureSpike

@capeman said in Best way to play HDMI Or Composite?:

@eldrethor And not only that, the zune specific cable is dead sexy! its probably the nicest looking AV cable i've ever used and the cable is very flexible, i was very impressed.

hey, do you have any links for the zune cable?
thanks

Capeman

Everything can be had on ebay
https://www.ebay.com/i/182653454444?chn=ps&dispItem=1

InsecureSpike

@capeman said in Best way to play HDMI Or Composite?:

Everything can be had on ebay
https://www.ebay.com/i/182653454444?chn=ps&dispItem=1

that's awesome, thanks lots

drake999

@retrofreak89 If you want the authentic experience for console generations 2 through 5, you will want a CRT TV with composite video. This will reproduce the look and feel of the games pretty much as they were back in the 80's and 90's. If you favor a crisp picture over nostalgia, then HDMI is the best way to go. It really comes down to preference. I've always used HDMI, but I'm starting to see the appeal of the authentic experience.

Rion

@drake999 I would recommend

RetroTINK-S, RetroTINK-C and RetroTINK-RGB

Or

Pi2Scart

over composite any day.

drake999

@rion I wasn't aware of that things existence but yes the S-Video option would be a better choice than composite for sure. Probably a good choice to use this board if you are building an arcade cabinet to.

sirhenrythe5th

Just for interest as far as original Arcade cabinets are concerned:
Were those Crts in the cabinets also connected to the pcbs/system boards with RGB or S-Video?

Its a long time ago that i saw the original cabinets as a kid, but i have got the Impression that this picture, that i have with my Pi simply connected to the CRT with composite, seems to be close to the original.
I remember that the shadows of sprites were flickering and the picture was kind of blurry.
I liked it! 😊

So has there been a high-quality-technoligy in the cabinets, or are we going further away from the genuine experience by boosting up the picture with S- Video or RGB?

DorkVonWaterfall

@sirhenrythe5th

RGB, 15 kHz, 320x240