CRTEmudriver HDMI to Component Issues

[rishooty]

Hi! I just joined to ask this question, which is also being asked on r/crtgaming on reddit.

I finally have my apartment together, and I've been wanting to try out crtemudriver with my existing hardware before committing to a dedicated build.

I've been following a mixture of calamitys guide and this one: https://cdcruze.com/2019/03/retroarch-and-crt-emudriver-setup-guide/.

When I reach step two of calamity's guide, it seems I cannot get it to output 480i to my standard sony wega tv no matter which preset I select or what custom resolution I make.

My setup is rather strange, and I wouldn't be surprised if it were some cause of the issues.
-Thinkpad T480
-Razer Core X + RX Vega 56
-HDMI is going to this commonly recommended Portta transcoder: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00R19BG7O/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I mostly get garbage output no matter what I do. But I swear transcoding hdmi to ypbpr supports 480i at least? I thought super resolutions and anything fancy was only needed for 240p and the like. I have tried creating one with CRU (2560x480), and I got something resembling a desktop but still warped.

Any ideas?

[buttersoft]

Oooh, an external GPU. I haven't heard of anyone using one for crt_emudriver. This might be an interesting test case, i guess.

You say that converter is recommended, but by people using it for 15kHz HDMI conversion with crt_emudriver? Or mb with MiSTer? It does say it doesn't scale, but it also doesn't list 480i as an input resolution, let alone 240p.

I'm assuming you're following this guide - https://geedorah.com/eiusdemmodi/forum/viewtopic.php?id=301

So step one goes ok. You have the test-signing watermark in the lower right of the screen. And the driver says it installs ok? And when you click setup again, it offers the option to uninstall?

What exactly happens when you enable EDID emulation, as the first point of step 2 of that guide. Does it appear to work? As in, does the laptop's main screen appear normal, with the Arcade_15 (or whatever preset you selected) screen appearing as a second screen when you go into display properties? You should not enable composite sync, if you were doing that. I doubt the converter would be designed for that.

That guide you linked seems ok, but the link to my guide in there is broken. There's a lot of general information in there to help you understand what you're trying to do and what might be going wrong. https://www.aussiearcade.com/topic/76809-a-guide-to-connecting-your-windows-pc-to-an-sd-crt-tv-pvm-or-arcade-monitor/#comments This is in case the above doesn't help...

[rishooty]

Yes, your description of step 2 is precisely what happens. The laptop screen is normal, and it first starts out mirroring the laptops 1080p display downscaled to 640x480 (interlaced) to the 2nd screen. I then set it to extended, and its still interlaced). Regardless of either output type, it displays garbage and makes noise.

According to my reddit thread counterpart: https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/comments/q3jo2o/crtemudriver_help_i_may_have_goofd_on_trasncoding/

It seems that not everyone has the same luck with cheap transcoders, even if they're good. One member pointed me in the right direction toward a good one. When I get it, i'll be 100% sure if its the transcoder or not. Its a linuxbot3000 vga to component, which will serve me well even if I decide to go pure analog. The idea is that they apparently work great when the hdmi is properly converted to VGA.

Unfortunately linuxbot3000 hand makes them I think? So it'll take until next Weds at the earliest and Nov 1st at the latest for me to really find out.

[Zebidee]

It should work with a decent HDMI-VGA adapter + linuxbot3000's transcoder. His product is pretty good and seems to work for most situations. I found some sync issues with one of his early boxes, but he has made improvements to the design since to address that and his latest version seems to work well (I have both old and new!).

You could also use a GreenAntz RGB to YPbPr transcoder, which I co-designed and hand-make for sale to forum members. PM me if you want one. We have tested them in a wide range of retrogaming situations and continuously/incrementally improve the design.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,164245.0.html

Honestly, either of these transcoders are the best you can get for the price.

There are some other cheap/nasty Chinese RGB-YPbPr transcoders on aliexpress etc, some of which are actually ripoffs our early designs (before we got wise and stopped posting them online), but they all have issues. In particular they don't handle the sync very well, or at all. Possibly because by the time we were sorting sync out we had already stopped posting schematics etc online