Recalbox RGB/Scart Output kein Bild

[Substring]

@funkybunch As I said, not ni 4.1, but later. I have to make sure the process can work easily on almost any CRT, and be as much as possible faithful to the original display/framerate. I can't just take someone's work (@ironic who is the man who made the big leap forward in CRT configuration) and add it. This topic is complex, and I have to make sure i understand everything so that i can give support once it's ready

There are 2 main topics regarding CRT (both are mainly in french :/), on that is more than 600 posts, and an other one regarding advancemame in 4.1. The advancemame configuration can be done rather easily, but it's arcade only.

[funkybunch]

@Substring That's the point. It have to work with every system and every config

When my system works correctly i only copy arcade roms on the recalbox instead of tekken 3 because the mame version doesn't work on the pi. So i have to use the PSX Version.

I think i have to learn french because "a l'ecole je ne l'ai pas beaucoup appris" and try to understand.

Thanks for the support with my hdmi_timings problem.

[Substring]

@funkybunch try first to understand the hdmi_timings line in your config.txt. What i'm doing on my own for now is simply testing neogeo as it almost has a single resolution. So it's very easy to test. But still, that's much (and very interesting) work

[funkybunch]

@Substring ok. i think i approximately understand the logic behind it. now i got a perfect output. a centered picture and the graphic quality is absolutely beautiful pixel by pixel.

One problem is, that Marvel vs Capcom for example is nearly a widescreen game. With 320x240 i can't get the full screen because the game got a resolution of 384x224pixels.

I've found a solution for that here but where i have to put the runcommand-onstart
and runcommand-onend scripts when i switch to retroarch? simply in the script folder?

And last but not least my config.txt if anybody needs. the timings are perfect for a Sony Trinitron KV-21X5D (of course you have to make the correct settings in retroarch. so no scaling, turn off pixel perfect, custom aspect ratio, setting offset etc.)

#uncomment if you get no picture on HDMI for a default "safe" mode
#hdmi_safe=1

disable_overscan=1
#overscan_left=5
#overscan_right=5
#overscan_top=5
#overscan_bottom=5

#uncomment to force a specific HDMI mode (this will force VGA)
#hdmi_group=1
#hdmi_mode=1

#comment to get jack audio
#hdmi_drive=2

#config_hdmi_boost=0

#force hdmi while the tv can take time before sending the signal on the hdmi output
#hdmi_force_hotplug=1

#uncomment for composite PAL
#sdtv_mode=2

#uncomment for lirc-rpi
#dtoverlay=lirc-rpi

#if you plug your tv at the same time as your rpi and that the rpi switches from the hdmi or give a low resolution because tv had no enough time to initialize it
boot_delay=3

#uncomment if you don't want the rainbow at startup
disable_splash=1

#Overclock
gpu_mem_256=128
gpu_mem_512=256
gpu_mem_1024=512

avoid_safe_mode=1

kernel=zImage

#NOOBS Auto-generated Settings:
#hdmi_force_hotplug=1
dtparam=audio=on
overscan_scale=1

disable_audio_dither=1
dtoverlay=vga666
enable_dpi_lcd=1
display_default_lcd=1
dpi_group=2
dpi_mode=87
hdmi_timings=320 1 10 30 47 240 1 4 3 15 0 0 0 60 0 6400000 1

[Substring]

such a configuration will lead to all games more or less stretched to 240p and cause some horieontal stretching, resulting in some columns that can be 2 pixels wide, sometimes 1 pixel wide ... this should be quite visible on horizontal scrolling ...

Regarding Marvel vs Capcom, you'd need to understand how its MAME driver (or FBA driver) is made. I guess it's a CPS2 game ? so you'd need to write a hdmi_timing on your own, or see what's been done so far. This is what we're working on. I have an untested modeline for CPS3 that could suit your needs, or you can check http://sommerp.net/doku.php?id=raspberry_pi_arcade

Then you can just add for testing in your recalbox.conf fba_libretro.videomode=hdmi_timings 384 1 0 11 28 224 1 30 0 30 0 0 0 60 0 6400000 1 (fba_libretro being the system name) and then play around with porch to reach the result you'd want. So far recalbox has no mecanism yet to set a per system+game custom resolution, just a per system one

[funkybunch]

@Substring oh yeah! That's so nice. Thank you very much! I've made global timings for a 1600x240 resolution and switch back to the regular resulution for displaying emulationstation. So I have to made separate retroarch configs for every core, but it works real nice. is not pixel perfect but without seeing any artifacts. I'm very, very happy and as a photographer I normally never really satisfied with image quality.

For every console game it's already perfect. The only thing is that some arcade titles got different resolutions and i have only core specific options. As you said recalbox have only settings per system and not per system+game. So i only have to make retroarch custom settings for each rom which has no standard resolution.

[Substring]

@funkybunch That is until recalbox handles a per game resolution. The question is really purely technical about the best way to add this ...

You could eventually give a go to advancemame by doing the commands i described in https://forum.recalbox.com/post/56641 :

• edit ~/configs/advancemame/advmame.rc.origin and set device_video auto (also set device_keyboard none)
• run TERM=xterm advcfg -rc ~/configs/advancemame/advmame.rc.origin and have fun with setting up your screen (kinda not really user friendly, but still, that's an easy way to do it)
• last : change the default mame core to advancemame, and give some feedback

Edit :
Thanks to @ian57 who tried first :
To me, that's really the "easiest" way of setting up arcade CRT, despite not being perfect. The video configuration of advancemame is tricky, i'm not sure yet about all the consequences of trying to "perfectly" resize the picture in the screen, but i've had some interesting results. Games could not always be fullscreen, but i succeeded in running them at their original speed, sometimes a little scaled, but no tearing/artifacts (i can't say i tested that many roms ...)

[Substring]

I added this screenshot so that you can see key combos to mode/shrink/expand the screen. The aim is to make it fit your screen, even if you loose 1 or 2 lines/columns.

and make sure you run advcfg at tthe same resolution you'd run mame !!! Which means : if you added a mame.videomode option in recalbox, you should run advcfv at the videomode, of course

[Pietze]

Oh man, I think my SCART2PI will arrive tomorrow. I really hope I won't spend the whole weekend to get this started!

@funkybunch Und, hat es sich am Ende gelohnt?

[Pietze]

Is there anybody else working with Pi2Scart and a Rasberry Pi3 + Recalbox setup? I spend the whole evening trying to get this running, but I just get a black screen, even with @funkybunch final settings

I'm starting to think I'm better of with my composite 240p signal, at least that worked out very easy...

[Substring]

@ian57 can you share your experience with Pi2SCART ?

[ian57]

@Substring LOL, did not test it yet... sorry
perhaps next week

[Pietze]

@ian57 Little update: I used a pre-defined .img on another sd card with Retropie and it works. Unfortunately, I'm not able to copy those settings successfully to my Recalbox card. If you find a way, keep my updated please

[ian57]

@Pietze I tested on my recalbox this morning... scrumbling blue image with the basic config given in http://strike-devices.net/index.php/pi2scart/. I will try another scart cable... and test retropie too, to see if it comes from config... or hardware

My bad.... GPIO controls was activated in recalbox.conf : it is my recalbox for testing.... so....

so the only thing to do is to add :

disable_audio_dither=1
dtparam=audio=on
dtoverlay=vga666
enable_dpi_lcd=1
display_default_lcd=1
dpi_group=2
dpi_mode=87
hdmi_timings=320 1 16 30 34 240 1 2 3 22 0 0 0 60 0 6400000 1 #240p

at the end of /boot/config.txt
for that read the following page : https://github.com/recalbox/recalbox-os/wiki/Edit-the-config.txt-file-(EN)

[Pietze]

@ian57 That's so weird! I put that same code in my Recalbox config.txt as well. I just got that black screen Even on a fresh new install. Those GPIO controls aren't something that are activated usually, right?

I started a Retropie on another SD card, and that works. So, it doesn't seem a problem on the hardware side, I'm afraid...

[ian57]

@Pietze Are you using the 4.1 release? I omitted to say , that it is working with the 4.1 release

see here for DL https://archive.recalbox.com/updates/v1.0/unstable/

[Pietze]

@ian57 Oh, well I should try 4.1! It's still 4.0.2 ^^

However, that Pi2Scart is worth the trouble:

[ian57]

@Pietze I made my tests on 4.1. I think you should try the 4.1 release... and yes it gives some great images ... with some work to configure it . See http://strike-devices.net/index.php/pi2scart/ to reproduce the emulator config in recalbox for a better image.