Recent Posts

Try going into Device Manager. Find the USB keyboard entry for the Corsair, right-click and uninstall it. Then you'll probably get a ! icon and you can try to right-click and re-install. See if it works after that. You may need to unplug the keyboard after uninstalling it, and on re-plugging it in (perhaps try a different USB port) it should be automatically installed. If Windows is doing its job properly anyway.

You might need to repeat the process multiple times until it "sticks".

I recently swapped the keyboard on my GroovyMAME/CRTEmudriver PC from an old Logitech Elite to a not quite as old Corsair STRAFE mechanical (Model RGP0017). This used to be my main keyboard but it broke down so I replaced it. Turns out it was just a broken fuse and my friend was able to fix it for me.

I had no problems with this keyboard until I tried to play some GroovyMAME tonight (build 0289), and GM won't see the keyboard at all. I cannot bind any controls, navigate the menus, nothing. If I go with the mouse into rebinding the controls and try to rebind, GM just doesn't see the key presses at all. It's like the keyboard isn't even connected.

I tried changing keyboard providers, turning on global inputs, deleting ini files to rebuild to defaults, no difference. the ONLY place GM sees the keyboard is if I type to search in the games list. There it'll only see letters, not the escape to quit searching.

Putting back the old keyboard on the same USB port things worked fine. Swapping for a CherryMX that I was saving for another project also worked fine, but nothing I tried could get GM to like the Corsair keyboard. Heck I even installed Corsair bl***y Strafe, no firmware updates no driver updates, waste of time.

Every other app on the PC sees the keyboard just fine, including an older build of MAME I had lying around on there.

So what exactly does GM have against my Strafe keyboard?? I'd prefer to use this keyboard as I do tend to play with the lights down low to get the best benefit from the CRT, so being able to turn on keyboard backlighting can help. If anyone has any ideas please do share!

Edit - Forgot to say I'm on Windows 10 extended support.

Stay strong!

Oh man how I struggle sometimes. I now just have random loss of energy, leaving me unable to hold down a regular job since I don't know when I will be able to function. I can push myself, but it leaves me weak for days and so I do odd jobs when I can. I'm on government disability and the amount they pay is perfect if I don't like to drive or eat or have any electricity 

Went to see the 40th screening of The Transformers this weekend.  They had a nice tribute to Mr. Cullen at the beginning and of course that brand new short, which was really great for what it was.... his final performance btw.  Apparently, it did really well.  So well that fathom is arranging more screenings in October.   If you didn't go, I highly recommend it.   

We've lost some great people over the last few weeks...

"Hold on to your dreams, the future is built on them."  - Optimus Prime

I see. Thanks for the links. Well, hopefully things are looking better now that you have proper termination (75R) and those 104 caps. The way your excess luma was cut off ("clamped") would have left you with greyish blacks.

The thing I was talking about is apparent in some of your screenshots, especially in the one I copied above. I've attached a close-up to demonstrate. See the light-greenish "shadow" after the letters and the "3", and the slightly purplish tint on the leading edges? That is what I'm talking about.

Way I see it, the purplish tint at front is because luma has started drawing a letter but the Pb/Pr is still drawing the background. The greenish shadow after is because luma has changed to background, but Pb/Pr haven't caught up to that yet. The jungle takes longer to process chroma into RGB. Makes sense that it would be more obvious with composite NTSC input, which builds into why they have seemingly weird stuff like those 391 caps on blue and 10uF caps on input etc.

I can tell this tube is heavier than some other 25" TVs and arcade monitors I've moved. Like it's better quality. I checked my photos again in the early Reddit posts and this particular one is an A63AFW40X made in USA in 1994. It seems it took the CRT a while to "wake up" when I was first powering it on a few times to test. I was having to adjust the G2 voltage down a few times, like it would turn on with faint retrace lines that weren't there during my testing the previous day or two. I finally got G2 dialed in the way I want it. This chassis/series of chips doesn't have a DC restoration circuit though so on mostly dark screens the background will be a bit lit up. With a normal game or DVD, that's not noticeable as the blacks return back to their normal levels.

No the chroma delay I'm talking about is much more noticeable with NTSC decoding over composite and s-video:

https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/comments/1tyxttu/new_aliexpress_board_in_rf_only_tv/

And to compare my N64 on s-video, Paper Mario's rainbow text shows the chroma offset isn't an issue with another s-video modded Funai Symphonic TV of mine:

https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/comments/1ud3tq8/paper_mario_over_svideo/

Posting in this thread so I can unlock the ability to PM people.
(lost access to my original account i opened over a decade ago because i used hotmail to sign up, and I can't reset my password on this forum because the reset feature doesn't work with hotmail  )

How does this compare with older transcoders? I'm currently using a Crescendo Systems TC1600 i got in 2014 and it has served me extremely well.

I believe I've reached "cheap retro gaming TV nirvana."

Heh, welcome 

Even if the TV is busted, try to keep the tube!

None of the tubes (even the small PVM) look as good as this one. It's a Philips CRT...

Aye, I would rate the 90's+ Philips CRTs to be perhaps the best of their breed. As cost and competition pressures bore down on the industry in its sunset era, European CRT TV manufacturers cut cost by consolidating tube manufacturing to fewer and fewer facilities, only the best and cheapest survived, and many major brands (Loewe, Blaupunkt, Grundig etc.) were using Philips CRTs produced out of France iirc.

Philips also produced CRTs with bonded yokes, all the adjustments were done to perfection in the factory and a bunch of epoxy plopped down so no-one could ruin it. They were nice, no convergence to worry about with those babies.
 
Around 15 years or so ago (in Australia) I matched some Philips 27" CRTs (from old/dead TVs) with "Sharp Image" chassis to make some arcade monitors for custom cabs I made for people. They were awesome, comparing well against even PVMs.

I appreciate you giving people another good option for converting from RGB to component, but in my case I won't be needing it since I have my Wii for some emulators and fat PS2 for my PSX/PS2 games. S-video is an option too but I haven't been a fan of the color smearing and offset the NTSC decoder in these Toshiba 88XX series chips have.

Yeah, that offset has had me spinning in circles looking for a solution. Originally I thought it was something to do with the GreenAntz, and I spent a lot of time looking into it, even experimenting with delaying the Y output (running it through a hand-made 20-pole Butterworth filter!) by a few hundred nanoseconds. But that didn't really help, just pushed stuff to the right. I also found the same issue (or usually worse) with every other type of transcoders, so it wasn't an issue with the GreenAntz either and I was just chasing my own tail. Seeing your pics shows that even your Wii does it. Eventually I realised it was baked into the TV itself.

There are some TV service mode settings that help. In particular to adjust tint balance and sharpness (low or zero), but I can't remember it all now. If an RGB colour is too bright then it blooms/smudges. There is a Y-offset setting somewhere but changing that didn't improve anything.

This picture of yours (below) shows what I am talking about, zoom right in to the "3", and the shadows before and after the letters. It is noticeable where there is a sharp change in colour and Y vs chroma intensity. I assume it is because the TV takes a little longer (few hundred nanoseconds) to demodulate the Pb/Pr signals into RGB. Difficult to see with video, "normal" TV, but visible in games. Is this what you mean?

The pictures I got didn't do it justice at first, so I boosted the color saturation in the these photos to best reflect how the games look to the eye. I also used to help out with a family arcade operator for many years growing up and after the mods, this thong looks every but as good as a brand new arcade monitor running on RGB.

I agree. This is why I gave up trying to match cheap chinese arcade chassis with old tubes and started looking at modding TVs instead. Despite small issues like above, the results are better!

Maybe a metal plate.

Small update this time, but felt important enough to warrant getting an update out.

V3.0.127.
- corrected a bug related to certain touch inputs being able to trigger a back pill double press while in chains of menus.