RetroPie forum home
    • Recent
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Home
    • Docs
    • Register
    • Login
    Please do not post a support request without first reading and following the advice in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

    Screen intermittently blacking out during gameplay

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Help and Support
    screen turns blmonitorsvga screendvi to hdmi
    1 Posts 1 Posters 294 Views
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • timeonmyhandsT
      timeonmyhands
      last edited by

      I'm posting both the problem and (my) solution as I've seen a number of threads on this and other sites reporting this issue and I hope that I'm helping out by posting this (rather than replying to multiple older threads).

      Issue : Screen blacks out at seemingly random intervals during gameplay. Usually on MAME. Blackout lasts 1-3 seconds.
      Setup : PI 3b. No overclocking. VGA connection to an older model monitor - like a lot of people I'm using older kit and particularly wanted a 4:3 monitor for my cabinet.

      I followed a salad of advice from various threads. HDMI boost and disable screen blacking didn't work at all. Lowering the screen resolution helped in 95% of cases and I identified (by also using a newer monitor that didn't fit my cab) that this was an issue with my older monitor rather than the Pi.

      The key was that the blackouts only happened on newer games with large amounts of visual data - big sprites in the X-Men vs Street Fighter games, and lots of large sprites on screen in AvP (both in MAME2003). The Lenovo was basically choking up on certain games at certain points. I tried more than one VGA adapter and no change.

      My solution was to buy a HDMI to DVI adapter. A lot of people still seem to be using VGA adapters on older hardware (and last week I knew nothing about passive/active adapters), but if your monitor also offers a DVI port, this seems to be the better option. There are plenty of ex-office refurb 4:3 monitors out there for about £20. Definitely go with one that doesn't need you to use a VGA port.

      Hope this is of some use to people.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • First post
        Last post

      Contributions to the project are always appreciated, so if you would like to support us with a donation you can do so here.

      Hosting provided by Mythic-Beasts. See the Hosting Information page for more information.