Retropie on Raspberry pi 5 + 5:4 DVI Black Screen

gruik

Hello everyone,

I love Retropie and used it a lot on my raspberry pi 4. It worked like a charm on my 5:4 screen (Iiyamma ProLite e1900s).

The problem is : I just bought a Raspberry pi 5 and, since there's no official image, I tried to install the official Lite OS on it to follow the official retropie installation guide. The only thing I get is a black screen.

I tried to modify the config.txt file with those lines :

hdmi_safe=1
hdmi_drive=1
hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=35

But still nothing.

I installed Retropie on this OS via putty. Booted it. Again, black screen.

I also tried to litteraly copy and paste the boot configuration from my pi 4 Retropie installation to the new one. But again, still nothing.

Retropie is the only thing I can launch and use with this screen with my pi 4. So there must be something that was done in the last official images that is missing from all other OS.

Do you have any idea what this could be ?

mitu

@gruik said in Retropie on Raspberry pi 5 + 5:4 DVI Black Screen:

hdmi_safe=1
hdmi_drive=1
hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=35

But still nothing.

The firmware/config based configuration of the resolution is not available in recent RaspiOS versions, regardless of the Pi model.

Instead of the above options, the resolution can be set with the video parameter in cmdline.txt - see https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/configuration.html#set-the-kms-display-mode.

Something like

... video=HDMI-A-1:1920x1080M@60D

should be added at the end of cmdline.txt.

[...]

Retropie is the only thing I can launch and use with this screen with my pi 4. So there must be something that was done in the last official images that is missing from all other OS.

The only thing added to the image's config.txt by RetroPie is the GPU memory settings and even that applies only to Pi3 and earlier models. Nothing special was added on the Raspbian Lite image that was used as a base.

The fact that the display isn't working means the EDID read from the monitor is incorrect or has issues. That could be because of the monitor itself or because of the adapter used. What is the output of the following command:

kmsprint -m

gruik

@mitu

Thank you !

I didn't know the documentation I was using was outdated because it mentioned the use of raspberry pi 5 several times...

That being said, for those interested, I managed to get a display with :

video=HDMI-A-1:1280x1024@60D

HDMI-1 is the one near the PSU
"D" is mandatory. Without it I was still getting a black screen.

Case solved. Thanks again ! :)

mitu

@gruik said in Retropie on Raspberry pi 5 + 5:4 DVI Black Screen:

I didn't know the documentation I was using was outdated because it mentioned the use of raspberry pi 5 several times...

Which documentation ?

"D" is mandatory. Without it I was still getting a black screen.

Ok, glad you got it working.

gruik

@mitu

https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/legacy_config_txt.html

Now that I read it again, I feel dumb because it's called "legacy" and explicitly says that the hdmi filter is for the pi 4 only...

The only documentation I should have used is this one :
https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/configuration.html#kernel-command-line-cmdline-txt
along with that one :
https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/blob/rpi-6.1.y/Documentation/fb/modedb.rst

tldr : retropie had nothing to do with my issue, it was just related to raspberry pi 5 and the way it manages display.

mitu

@gruik said in Retropie on Raspberry pi 5 + 5:4 DVI Black Screen:

Now that I read it again, I feel dumb because it's called "legacy" and explicitly says that the hdmi filter is for the pi 4 only...

Yes, and in this context 'legacy' means every Pi model with recent RaspiOS (Bullseye or up), not just the Pi4.