Output CRT

RetroArch General
#1

I have a CRT that does 240p and 480i over componant. It doesn’t do 480p or anything higher. I got a VGA to component cable and set that monitor to 240p and also tried 480i. I get a weird purple wavyness and you can tell the picture is in there somewhere but obviously completely unable to see with any consistency. Looks like when my xbox was set to HD and I had to change the settings to SD and plug it back in.

Is there any way to do this? I’d love to output this to my CRT if possible.

Thanks for any help.

#2

What operating system are you running? I’m assuming Windows. If so, you’ll need to handle it through your driver. There’s a thing called CRT-Emu-Driver that can set up 240p modelines for you, though I think it may require certain video cards. I have no experience with this process.

In linux you can set custom modelines through xrandr or a custom EDID. I have a decent amount of experience with this process.

What it comes down to is RetroArch will snap to whatever your fullscreen resolution is, so once you get your OS to display on the TV, RetroArch will “just work”.

#3

It sounds like the resolution is changing to something your CRT can’t handle somewhere along the process.

#4

The last thread about this got me wondering too. Mine’s complicated by having a Japanese CRT TV with proprietary Sony RGB input in front and D-Terminal on back (it’s Component with a different connector).

I only have DisplayPort ports free. I wonder if this crazy chain of cables/adapters would take the DisplayPort and give the TV a valid D-Terminal signal:

Cable Matters Gold Plated DisplayPort to HDTV (HDMI) Cable 6 Feet $12 Portta PETHR Premium HDMI to Component YPbPr and R/L Audio Converter v1.3 1080P $28 orPortta PETHVRP HDMI to Component Ypbpr VGA Converter Adapter $27 D-Terminal to Component Adapter Cable (Female) $20

I’m not too confident so am not sure it’s worth 60 bucks to find out. And since this is a 2004ish consumer TV, doesn’t it lack EDID or whatever feature it is that Windows uses to read monitor capabilities? (Not that such data would be carried over a component connection, anyway.) As such, can it really be added to Windows as an additional monitor, so I could give it its own weird resolution while the real desktop monitors stick to 1080p? If not, it seems like I’d have to change the entire desktop environment to whatever low res the CRT needs when it’s time to use it.

In short, this is a ball of edge cases and mysteries.

#5

With all of those adapters, you might run into sync and latency issues. There are people who use a low-res CRT as a second monitor but again, you have to make it all work in the OS before you can get RetroArch or MAME or whatever to work with it.

#6

[QUOTE=hunterk;46537]What operating system are you running? I’m assuming Windows. If so, you’ll need to handle it through your driver. There’s a thing called CRT-Emu-Driver that can set up 240p modelines for you, though I think it may require certain video cards. I have no experience with this process.

In linux you can set custom modelines through xrandr or a custom EDID. I have a decent amount of experience with this process.

What it comes down to is RetroArch will snap to whatever your fullscreen resolution is, so once you get your OS to display on the TV, RetroArch will “just work”.[/QUOTE]

Cool. Yeah I run Windows 10. Unfortunately that driver doesn’t work with my card so I may be out of luck. Thanks for the response though.

You did did it in Linux? How does it look in comparison to the real thing? Identical?

#7

Yeah, you can get it looking identical with a little effort. However, I will advise that the cheapest and easiest way to go, by far, is to just softmod a Wii and use RetroArch there, since it’s already outputting an appropriate signal for a consumer TV.