How to set retropie to work with a CRT using HDMI to VGA?

[spikespiegel]

I have a hdmi to vga converter and I need to know how to settle retropie to use it with a rgb modded crt tv.
Which settings should I change?

[Fudoh]

What Pi version are you running? On the 3A/3B and supported Pi4 models, you do this:

/boot/config.txt

hdmi_group=1
hdmi_mode=6

(this sets Emulationstation to 480i/15khz output).

videomodes.cfg

set each emu you want to use to CEA-8 output.

To get a template, just use runcommand and set any emu to any output res you want. this adds the proper line and you can duplicate that and add a line for each emu you want to use.

(this sets the emus themselves to 240p output)

To fix the aspect ratio you have to use custom AR as your default and define a custom viewport for each emu you want to use. You can define a global custom viewport in the retroarch.cfg and then add separate overrides, if required.

A good custom viewport setting is:

custom_viewport_width = "660"
custom_viewport_x = "32"
custom_viewport_height = "224"
custom_viewport_y = "8"

To create a override you add a retroarch.cfg in the emu's folder. For example, for Master System you would create an override and add this:

custom_viewport_height = "192"

To get rid of any shimmering you need to use a bilinear filter applied as your default shader (soft-bilinear-simple works great and doesn't affect your vertical sharpness in any way).

(PS: I know, this looks complicated, but it's dead easy, once you understand what you're doing....)

(PPS: for your TV you probably need some kind of sync converter to get from the HDMI-VGA converter's RGBHV output to RGBS needed on your TV's input.)

[spikespiegel]

Thanks, I also found something here:

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/847 ... t-tv-guide

[Fudoh]

The guide you linked to uses a low-res horizontal resolution, which can cause quite some problems with many HDMI converters. Also it's using 240p both for the menu and the emulation. You can do that, but the regular Emulationstation themes will work a lot better in 480i. Otherwise it's pretty much identical.

The usage of 480i for ES also has the big advantage that the whole system will boot fine both on a 15khz TV and a HDMI TV, so you can do all the editing step by step on a big screen TV using HDMI.

[spikespiegel]

The guide you linked to uses a low-res horizontal resolution, which can cause quite some problems with many HDMI converters. Also it's using 240p both for the menu and the emulation. You can do that, but the regular Emulationstation themes will work a lot better in 480i. Otherwise it's pretty much identical.

The usage of 480i for ES also has the big advantage that the whole system will boot fine both on a 15khz TV and a HDMI TV, so you can do all the editing step by step on a big screen TV using HDMI.

Sorry, I forgot to tell you the version. It's the Zero without wifi.

[Fudoh]

On the Zero you most certainly won't have enough power to run a horizontal smoothing shader. I would try it without first, then try if your DAC is compatible with the lower resolutions used in the guide you linked to.

[spikespiegel]

On the Zero you most certainly won't have enough power to run a horizontal smoothing shader. I would try it without first, then try if your DAC is compatible with the lower resolutions used in the guide you linked to.

It worked with the games, but the interface is on a low resolution.

[kitty666cats]

The 'RetroCRT' theme is good for navigating the main RetroPie menu in 240p. I think that's specifically what it was designed for, actually!