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Monitor 2 looks good.

Kortek something or other.

Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk

I still haven't bought one, but I follow several Mister news sources. I already have so much rarely played retro hardware, but Mister remains a strong temptation and I'm really impressed by the development progress. If they ever get around to adding Jaguar, 3DO, and Saturn, that should be the end of my will to resist ... probably.

Thanks Zebidee. I took a meter to it, and discovered the SCART plug wasn't grounded properly. Opening it up, the metal shield wasn't connected to pin 21, I guess it had jiggled out in transit. Slotting that pin back into place solved the crazy bad interference I was getting.

While open, I spotted none of the R G B grounds were connected either, and the chosen cable didn't have enough conductors to support them. Checked the VGA end and they were empty on the PCB too.

The original design says some connections are optional, but since I was still seeing and hearing interference, I figured I should just replace the whole SCART cable part wirh a fully wired one and see what happens.

That is good news! 

You only need one ground from the VGA - it depends on your cable, but typically it will be connected to pin 10 or 5.

Pins 6,7,8 are often not used, but usually connected/soldered to ground at the video card and TV ends anyway.

For making a VGA-SCART video cable, you need just six wires from VGA. RGB (1,2,3) + syncH&V (13,14) + GND (5,6,7,8,10). Just twist all the available VGA grounds (video+sync, not shield) together and run them into one of the SCART RGB ground pins.

Make sure you don't have any other random wires from VGA connected to SCART ground, here I'm talking mostly about the monitor ID/data pins (VGA 11,12,15) or the 5v pin (VGA 9). The wires can be any colour, so don't assume, check with DMM.

You'll also need to link the syncs together for SCART. Exactly how, and what your cable does with sync, is another issue we can get to later.

4 hours and some sorely tested patience later, I've done that, along with belt-and-braces joining all the video grounds. The video noise was still present, albeit reduced further. Audio noise, no difference.

I've done a bunch more messing around, not sure if its video card or mains socket but fingers crossed I've eliminated all video noise. Audio is there but the level is pretty low - low enough at  normal volume for it not to be audible anyway. Might try your suggestion although I would need to inject the audio into the SCART plug as none of my TVs have a separate input - should I just make sure audio and video grounds are separated in the cable and see if that makes a difference?

Separating the video/audio grounding points may make a notable difference. Even with all the grounds connected back at TV/PC, the electrons still seek the shortest path of least resistance. If you can give the audio a ground return that is a little more direct, it will take it, and interfere less with your video ground return.

Video and audio signals operate at very different frequency levels (Mhz vs Khz) and there is usually some frequency filtering, so providing better ground returns may help.

Having said this, you will probably still get some interference, a kind of variable hum, sometimes sounds like a Jedi light sabre, with running the game audio output through the TV. In my experience, the hum varies mostly with screen brightness, a strong indication of voltage regulation issues. There are some very powerful voltages going around in TVs, and their voltage regulation and noise filtering can only do so much.

This is why, whenever I use a TV for a cab, I usually prefer a separate audio amplifier with its own power supply. Effectively, this separates the video and audio systems. The TV speakers can be re-used for $zero if you want, or get some new ones (speaker are where prices can be whatever you are willing to pay). There are some some decent & inexpensive audio board amps available with a range of features, choose according to your taste (prices vary with features, but around $5 to $30, check your marketplace). This also makes it easier to control things like volume, bass/treble etc.

In my current Aussie lowboy build I'm using a ZX-502MT (cost <$10) like this (clicking on pic will take you to the thread discussion):





Finally, installing a ground loop isolator for the audio inputs may help. There are many simple board-type audio isolators available under $10, so worth a try. They come with a range of different input/output options for attaching audio cables, from RCA connectors to screw terminals to 3.5mm and combos. Search your favourite online marketplace. For example:

Audio ground loop isolator

If you love to build, then finding everything by yourself is fun. If you just want to build a cab, or heck even buy one premade, then getting a hyperdrive or whatever could be an option. Allthough most seller of that kind, they just want to make a quick buck and wont offer help when you need one, so you ll have to figure things up by yourself.

This is what i did to solve a similar problem:
You can use romlister to reate a list of the vector games, then, save that list as a bat file, the bat file can be set to create anything you want, i use it to create a bunch of ini files of those games only. then opened each file and added the (in your case) vector settings i needed, left mame ini alone and i had all (in my case) vertical games with settings i needed nunning only on the games i needed.

Man, i'd love some 19" spares

The MiSTer still remains one of the best purchases I’ve made in the last few years.

I can agree with this now.

After the honeymoon with my initial stack, the shortcomings started to become apparent. The component video out functioned and looked OK, but it was lacking that pop,.my s-video modded consoles looked better. Ended up learning about the 18bit cap and limited color range on the analog out of the i/o, tried direct video with an hdmi to vga thingy and what an impressive difference.

Next, my audio system has optical provisions because of the ass analog audio from a PS2 fat, but I defaulted to using the optical with MiSTer in the begining. Noticed that my system would cut off the first couple ms of a sound, i.e. the jump sound in pitfall or the nintendo snes chime would get clipped. Games that had music or other continuous noises happening were fine. No fault of the MiSTer, just something with my system. Figure I'll just try the analog audio out from the i/o. Welp, on first core launch 3 loud pops made my sub and speakers scream in pain, analog audio from i/o had no use for me. Snagged an optical to analog box and got a good clean signal with happy speakers.

So, now I have a pile of random bits that make up my MiSTer "rig" under my TV, not the easiest thing to kinda set up and tear down when I want to use one of my other consoles.






Attached everything to a chunk of shelf and got mine "consoleized" with easy power in and audio/video outs for easy hook up and storage. The MT32-pi is the only item not attached, left that loose to have that center space to use snac adapters. Got me thinking about all these really expensive multi system, ironclad itx and other all in one boards, it's just the same design of the stock stack with all the shortcomings on a single fancy PCB and box. I almost got sucked into one of those boards.... PHEW!





This isn't a knock on the MiSTer, I always noticed on my 27" TV, that the top an bottom were clipped. I had NO clue that consumer crt's had service menus. One of them "wish I knew this sh!t years ago" moments. Got the vertical dialed in and now I can see all scores, insert coins, power meters, lives left and everything else fully now.



good day.

good day.

Set the crt desktop res to 320x240, load up hyperspin from the other monitor and see if the shaking is gone, if its still there it might be a problem with the chassis. I keep my crt in my cab at 320x240 because I dont like the shaking either. The only reason to run the crt in 640x480 or up is to be able to navigate and do work in windows, but since you are doing the work on a secondary monitor just leave the crt in a lower res progressive mode.

So I just checked it out and in game it does not shake at all, and as you thought, the res was 640x480.  However I did not see any other option to select below that, that seemed to be the smallest one I could use and it also had the (Recommended) text next to it.

On another odd note, my RocketLauncherUI settings reverted and it was trying to find the RocketLauncherUI as the plugin and front end.  Not sure why that happened, it was working fine last night.  But after figuring that out I tested the games and the games weren't shaking like the UI was.

You most likely need to add that resolution to the user_modes-super.ini and generate the modelines again. It should look like this

## Desktop ##

 640 x 480 @ 60.000000 desktop
 320 x 240 @ 60.000000 desktop <-------add new res here

## Super resolutions ##

2560 x 240 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 248 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 256 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 264 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 272 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 280 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 288 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 296 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 304 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 320 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 336 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 344 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 352 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 360 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 368 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 376 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 384 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 392 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 400 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 416 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 432 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 448 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 464 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 480 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 496 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 512 @ 59.000000 super
2560 x 544 @ 55.000000 super
2560 x 560 @ 54.000000 super
2560 x 768 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 800 @ 60.000000 super

once you have that file saved open up vmmaker and click generate, then install the modes again. You should see 320x240 in the windows resolution settings now. As for rocketlauncher resetting its config doesnt surprise me, seems Hyperspin and RL are still full of bugs that have to be resolved.

So I finally got around to doing this and I am not sure why, but it's not working for me.  I tried it twice and I still do not see that option under Windows.

All I did was add that line to the users - super.ini file, open vmmaker, made sure it was still pointing to the user - super.ini file, then clicked generate modes, and I saw it in the list there, then I clicked on install modes and it said it successfully installed them.  I then shut down the PC and put it back in my cab, and I'm not seeing it in the list. 

Is there something else in the settings I should be checking for that I don't have set properly?

Here is a pic of what it's showing in the list of resolutions, and that is all the way at the bottom.  It's also not on the top.

This topic has been moved to Monitor/Video Forum.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=166847.0