High-Res CRT 512+ Help

RetroArch General
#1

I haven’t used my CRT in a few months in a regular capacity, just been moving furniture around, that sort of thing. Anyway I went to play with it a couple nights ago and suddenly nothing above 480 will work in CRTSwitchRes.

I was utterly confounded by this, as I know it was working before, so I redid RA’s setup from scratch, created the modelines in CRU, etc etc. I even had a file saved with all the modelines that had been working to avoid footwork in the future… HA… so much for that, they still didn’t work.

Here’s the modlines I’m TRYING to use with my 31Khz PC CRT Monitor…

  • 1920x192 @ 140Hz
  • 1920x200 @ 140Hz
  • 1920x224 @ 120Hz
  • 1920x237 @ 120Hz
  • 1920x254 @ 120Hz
  • 1920x256 @ 120Hz
  • 1920x272 @ 120Hz
  • 1920x288 @ 120Hz
  • 1920x400 @ 120Hz
  • 1920x444 @ 120Hz
  • 1920x448 @ 120Hz
  • 1920x480 @ 120Hz
  • 1920x512 @ 60Hz
  • 1920x528 @ 60Hz
  • 1920x540 @ 60Hz
  • 1920x576 @ 60Hz

Now, as I said, this happened a few days ago and on top of trying to redo the whole setup, I have gone through every piece I could find in these forums on running these resolutions on a 31Khz monitor. In that process I found two posts, from myself, confirming that I am not insane and this used to work lol.

More so however, I discovered 2 CONTRADICTING posts by myself:

In the one dated earliest, I state I’m running the resolutions listed above. There is question about 1920x480 working at 120Hz and not 60Hz, but I state it works at 120Hz, and indeed that is still true.

At a later date, I state that I have all the 512+ resolutions running at 120Hz, which I distinctly remember being confused as to why that was working, but my saved “Working modelines file” confirms I had them listed at 120Hz, and it was what was listed before I redid the setup.

While playing around with this, I’ve tried both 60 and 120. Neither will pull up when CRTSwitchRes calls on it. Notably, only the 60Hz options show up in RetroArch’s video settings for resolution, and those will work if I switch manually there - but again, not through CRTSwitchRes

I’m at my wits end with it… I’ve used the First/Last scanline options in Bettle_PSX_HW and Beetle_Saturn to force Pal resolutions into 240p/480p, and that gets the job done - but, and this is a big but, then there is Dolphin.

Now, Dolphin is how I noticed there was a problem in the first place. I booted it up and noticed the CRT wasn’t flipping over. I had all my modelines installed, and know for a fact I was playing with this before with Tales of Symphonia… So I actually downloaded mme4crt and ran it to see what resolution it was looking for and that’s where the 528 came up.

This was an entirely new resolution that wasn’t in my documentation, and wasn’t necessary before, but a quick search does show this is the internal resolution for the Gamecube.

Problem is, unlike PSX/SAT - I can’t force the resolution to 480…

Please help… I’m so very, very tired…

#2

Just as a quick note, 15khz CRTs only support 50 - 57hz when above 480i. This is due to line draw/scanrate calculations. Off course this would be different on a 32khz CRT. However, CRTSwitchres was built around 15khz . eg 575i would have to be 50hz, 528i would probably work at 57hz.

I hope this help

-Ben

#3

The internal res of the Game Cube is not the output. It’s just a possible max. of the framebuffer. NTSC output is still limited to 480i/p. The Game Cube is also able to output 240p (probably only used in Homebrew and Retro collections).

PAL does not have progressive support on the GC, so it limited to 528i (assuming internal res is the limit). Because this is basically the same relation as 448i to 480i on NTSC at 60 Hz, 528i would run at 50 Hz of course, it’s just less active lines.

I believe the Game Cube can scale the same as the Wii, so the actual output would not necessarly. match the internal res anyway.

I have no idea how exactly Dolphin handles output, but obviously just going by on an internal res of 640x528 is probably not going to work with Switchres and is not accurate anyway I’d just set the monitor manually to a resolution which looks somewhat right like 640x480 and use that.

#4

All of this makes sense to me, but when I run CRTSwitchRes and MME4CRT they both state they are trying to change to 1920x528 @ 120hz. Same with the Saturn and PSX PAL stuff after I set it to proper pal res, after the 1920x265 @ 120hz, they report trying to do 1920x512 @ 120hz.

I have the modelines for 1920x480 @ 120hz installed, and that (as well as anything beneath it) works beautifully. If CRTSwitchRes was calling on 1920x480, it would switch fine, but it’s calilng on 1920x528.

I don’t know what settings I need to have in place for 1920x512 and 1920x528 to work, because 60hz and 120hz don’t seem to work for either resolution (though 60hz shows up in RetroArch’s resolution list in Video Settings - and works if I manually switch). I tried playing with “Use custom refresh” in CRTSwitchRes options too, but that doesn’t seem to do much of anything.

This used to work, so I don’t know what setting is wrong to keep it from flipping over like it does with every other resolution. If I had moved from a 15Khz to 31Khz this might make sense, or if I had changed monitors even.

I’m using the same screen as before though, so it’s gotta be something in my settings.

#5

This is MME4CRT running Luigi’s Mansion, for example.

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#6

Here’s 512 as well, this is via PSX Mega Man X3

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