RetroTink 4K All But Officially Announced ....

[bobrocks95]

My unit arrived yesterday and I have spent over a day messing around with it.

Unfortunately it seems the SD card it came with is faulty since no device or computer I have access to is able to write to it. It is not due to the lock button either, that is set right.

At first I could write to it fine, but then suddenly writing stopped working. Alas the only other SD card I have at hand wont work in it, so it is stuck with the shipped firmware and I cannot save any new profiles to it.

Has anyone else had similar problems?

Yes, it's been reported, unfortunately it's a bad batch of SD cards Mike got. You'll want to get another, but anything formatted to FAT32 should work, including larger cards it seems.

[Guspaz]

The vendor scammed Mike by showing him legitimate/authentic samples that worked fine, but then sending him SD cards with defective or fake chips to fulfill the order.

You can find the full SD image here: https://consolemods.org/wiki/File:Rt4k_10rc26.zip
And the latest firmware here: https://consolemods.org/wiki/AV:RetroTI ... re_Updates

And use any FAT32 formatted SD card.

[orange808]

I imagine buying good cards in bulk is very very difficult to do.

I have trouble getting a good card when I purchase just one.

[tongshadow]

Never trust SanDisk, always go Kingston.

[Guspaz]

Why? SanDisk (a part of Western Digital) has their own fabs and makes their own flash and controllers. Kingston just buys parts from companies like Western Digital and assembles them together.

The RT4K SD cards are not SanDisk.

[tongshadow]

Havent had good experiences with SanDisk, bought a whole lot that was defective. Kingstons never gave me an issue.

[Guspaz]

You sure they weren't just bootlegs? They're among the most bootlegged SD cards. I have one sandisk micro SD card, bought from Amazon, that performs dramatically worse than all my others, and the ink on it is suspiciously darker than all my other sandisk cards.

[SquidHominid]

Have you been buying them from Amazon? From what I can recall they have a really bad problem with counterfeit SanDisk cards.

[TooBeaucoup]

Can't say I've ever had a problem with Sandisk in my life and I have, probably, a dozen of them, as well as SSDs. There was a time when some fake ones found their way on Amazon, but that was quite a few years ago.

[ZellSF]

MiSTer compatibility with the Retrotink4K (and likely other scalers) is being worked on:
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/issues/808
To be clear, the MiSTer works perfectly as is with the RetroTink4K, it just needs you to manually set decimation factor and cropping settings, both very simple to do, for each resolution. When this gets solved, that will be done automatically.

Though with games with varying overscan, you probably still want to manually set vertical adjustment (if you're a 1080pX5 or 2160pX10 user) or cropping settings per game anyway.

[Triple Lei]

Just voicing my support for SanDisk here.

I had a second Xstation installed and I was noticing music errors in Tekken 3 (which was not redbook audio FWIW). I swapped out the SD card that I was using (256 GB Samsung Pro Plus) with my known working one (the yellow "star" SanDisk 256GB microSDXC with Nintendo Switch branding, bought directly from Amazon) and the errors were gone.

So I guess you want to look for the branded SanDisk micro SD cards. Maybe the counterfeiters didn't bother with anything that specific? Then again the RT4K comes with an 8 GB card and the smallest branded SanDisk I see is 64 GB...

[orange808]

I must be unlucky.

Ever since the portable storage scams got started back with counterfeit USB flash drives (and similar issues spread to sd cards), I've gotten burned by most every brand out there. Zip disks were the last time I bought portable storage media without worry.

Seems like I have to buy them all at local shops, so I can return them easily if something goes wrong. I just test the darn things immediately. I need two programs to do it. One to check for counterfeits and another to verify build quality.

I hate buying a new card. It's a chore...

[SavagePencil]

I must be unlucky.

Ever since the portable storage scams got started back with counterfeit USB flash drives (and similar issues spread to sd cards), I've gotten burned by most every brand out there. Zip disks were the last time I bought portable storage media without worry.

Seems like I have to buy them all at local shops, so I can return them easily if something goes wrong. I just test the darn things immediately. I need two programs to do it. One to check for counterfeits and another to verify build quality.

I hate buying a new card. It's a chore...

I realize we’re all on a huge derail here but what do you use to vet the SD cards?

[DejahThoris]

Have you been buying them from Amazon? From what I can recall they have a really bad problem with counterfeit SanDisk cards.

The thing is you need to buy them FROM Amazon. Everyone buys them ON Amazon from third parties, then get knock-offs that don't work.

Best bet if you're unsure if you're buying FROM Amazon or just ON Amazon is to just buy them from Best Buy or something where you don't have to worry about where they source their cards, and there aren't options for other sellers. Or in a WalMart or Target or something (but not walmart online since they now offer other sellers as well). Any of the above will price match Amazon anyway!

[Guspaz]

Amazon doesn't store items separately if they're fulfilled by Amazon but sold by somebody else. If they're the same product, they mix them all together in the warehouse. At least, that's what they used to do, and it led to Amazon selling a lot of bootlegs even when sold and fulfilled by them. Maybe they've fixed that since, but considering that the last time I ordered Sesame Snaps I got a completely different brand of similar sesame products, I'm doubtful.

[SquidHominid]

Have you been buying them from Amazon? From what I can recall they have a really bad problem with counterfeit SanDisk cards.

The thing is you need to buy them FROM Amazon. Everyone buys them ON Amazon from third parties, then get knock-offs that don't work.

Best bet if you're unsure if you're buying FROM Amazon or just ON Amazon is to just buy them from Best Buy or something where you don't have to worry about where they source their cards, and there aren't options for other sellers. Or in a WalMart or Target or something (but not walmart online since they now offer other sellers as well). Any of the above will price match Amazon anyway!

What Guspaz said. The trick I've fallen back on is to specifically buy Samsung Evo Select if I'm buying memory cards from Amazon, since those are specifically made FOR Amazon (they're white-labeled Evo Plus cards), and I figure Amazon would throw the bullshit card if someone tried to send them third-party stock of an item they have the exclusive rights to sell.

[evil_ash_xero]

So, how close does this thing get to looking like a CRT?

Is it better than the 5X? Do you have to have 4K TV to get it to that level?

I heard a lot about it's masks, but I have heard very little lately.

[kamiboy]

It might not sound like much, but you are going to have to trust me when I say it is quite the endorsement coming from me. I think I am actually going to not only keep this purchase, but also use it on a regular basis.

The very first few hours of firing up I was convinced that I was going to sell it off after a few days, just like I did last time I gave scalers a chance, which was with the XRGB mini.

I was overwhelmed by all the options, a shitty SCART cable I was using and the shadow masks looked terrible on the default 0 setting. But then I figured out that the sweet spot is actually ”-3” especially when combined with a scanline strength of about 15 to 35. These may have changed beyond the launch firmware however, but due to the broken Sd card I cannot upgrade mine currently.

Finally after several hours I had the same games and systems fired up on my PVM 2530 and the LG 77”GX OLED. I managed to dial in the scanline and shadowmask settings on the OLED to look pretty darn close to what I was seeing on the 2530 and then I just sat there, staring.

I couldn’t believe my eyes, what I was seeing on my OLED looked pretty close to a giant 90’s PVM. I then spent a few hours firing up one console after the other (8-32bit era), and played games. My eyes were satisfied, I didn’t have that dreaded urge to fiddle because something was off or not right, I could just play.


It wasn’t perfect, some systems suddenly started acting up with the screen jumping periodically, which I couldn’t fix by any option. However, I suspect those are fixed as for the latest firmware.

I did briefly try to connect a PlayStation 2 to it, and concluded that this is not the device for 480i consoles, I am sure 480p will look ok, but haven’t tried that.

Next I’d like to test 480p content from PS2/NGC/XBOX as well as PS3 via 720p.

I am also keen to try my analogue consoles that support the DAC as that is most likely how I will be playing 8/16 but systems via the RT4K as I’ll benefit from lack of signal degradation by way of HDMI and wireless controllers so I can play from the comfort of the couch.

However, I’ll need to get a working SD card before that.


For the future I want explore some sort of HDMI switch solution so I can have several Analogue consoles and the PS3 connected to the RT4K at the same time.

One thing that annoys me is that I discovered there are console specific profiles, fine for tweaking the input side of things, and there are CRT profiles tweaking the output processing side of things. However these two are mutually exclusive since loading one destroys the settings of the other. I would have liked profiles for input and filtering to be separate.

But I guess I can load either, write down their respective tweaked settings then make my own merged one. So far the only thing I would improve in terms of software. In terms of hardware, it is annoying that this device comes so close to perfection but falls just short by not being able to do black frame insertion on 4k output. My OLED can do it itself, but not when freesync is enabled, so I’ll have to make a choice.

If a future hardware revision comes with BFI in 4k support I’ll want to upgrade, which is not great after paying as much as I already have.

[ZellSF]

So, how close does this thing get to looking like a CRT?

Is it better than the 5X? Do you have to have 4K TV to get it to that level?

I heard a lot about it's masks, but I have heard very little lately.

You want a 4K TV for this. It's a device very optimized for 4K.

If you aren't going to get a 4K TV, I would really recommend you get a cheaper scaler. I would go with the OSSC Pro or Retrotink5X.

[SquidHominid]

I did briefly try to connect a PlayStation 2 to it, and concluded that this is not the device for 480i consoles, I am sure 480p will look ok, but haven’t tried that.

...

One thing that annoys me is that I discovered there are console specific profiles, fine for tweaking the input side of things, and there are CRT profiles tweaking the output processing side of things. However these two are mutually exclusive since loading one destroys the settings of the other. I would have liked profiles for input and filtering to be separate.

But I guess I can load either, write down their respective tweaked settings then make my own merged one. So far the only thing I would improve in terms of software. In terms of hardware, it is annoying that this device comes so close to perfection but falls just short by not being able to do black frame insertion on 4k output. My OLED can do it itself, but not when freesync is enabled, so I’ll have to make a choice.

CRT filter profiles are separate because the console-specific profiles include optimal sampling, which can be problematic when combined with CRT effects. The RetroTINK-5X did have CRT filter presets that could be applied to profiles, but the methodology here is different due to how customizable the RetroTINK-4K's CRT effects are.

Additionally, PLEASE try PS2 with deinterlacing set to 'CRT Simulation' and scanlines turned on. You might be surprised.

[fernan1234]

Additionally, PLEASE try PS2 with deinterlacing set to 'CRT Simulation' and scanlines turned on. You might be surprised.

This is actually the only acceptable way to display interlaced content such as most PS2 games.

[Josh128]

Additionally, PLEASE try PS2 with deinterlacing set to 'CRT Simulation' and scanlines turned on. You might be surprised.

This is actually the only acceptable way to display interlaced content such as most PS2 games.

Most certainly. Actual "Deinterlacing to mimic progressive" is akin to upscaling for the most part, adding fake image information to actual image information. OK in stills, always falls apart in motion.

On GBS-C, this would be Bob+scanlines, on 5X this is CRT simulate. This, my dudes, is the way for 480i games, full stop.

[Kez]

Also for any 480i games with a solid 30 fps framerate - you can enable 2:2 inverse telecine which effectively converts it to 480p.

[cfx]

Additionally, PLEASE try PS2 with deinterlacing set to 'CRT Simulation' and scanlines turned on. You might be surprised.

This is actually the only acceptable way to display interlaced content such as most PS2 games.

Hell no. The absolute last thing I want is to mimic the awful look of interlacing on a CRT with all of its aliasing and combing artifacts. Adaptive deinterlacing with the Retrotink 5X has finally made playing 480i PS2 games tolerable.

You want a 4K TV for this. It's a device very optimized for 4K.

If you aren't going to get a 4K TV, I would really recommend you get a cheaper scaler. I would go with the OSSC Pro or Retrotink5X.

Guess I won't be getting one then as I have no intention of buying any 4K tv or monitor. I'm happy with the 5X but was interested in this for the ability to do scanlines and CRT masks on retro games on PS4, as well as the auto cropping and sizing stuff.

[bobrocks95]

I think the auto cropping/resolution detection stuff, decimation features, and input improvements make it a potential option for non-4K users, if you have the money for it. If your primary interest is scanline features, you'll want a 4K display though.

[TooBeaucoup]

God, I'm in love with this scaler so far. The amount of options and useless info you can access about your signal is staggering! LOL!

Now, am I to understand that, at this point, I have to save all of my profiles and write down a list manually and then go to my PC and rename them all to what I want them to display as on the actual OSD?

[Guspaz]

Yes, you'll have to rename them on a PC. I'm hoping to make it a bit easier to do over wifi, but you'll still have to rename them from the generic names.

2:2 pulldown works a treat on games that support it (locked to 30 FPS and *not* using field rendering) where it can fully recover the original 480p image, and the RT4K's motion adaptive deinterlacing is quite good, better than the RT5X, and works well for PS2 games. I believe the default sensitivity was set such that it should have less combing artifacts than the RT5X did.

As was said for CRT profiles, it doesn't make much sense to combine them with console-specific profiles. You didn't have console-specific TVs, after all. Those profiles are all about perfect sampling and such, and that's not what CRTs were doing. For CRT simulation you want generic sampling, and you may even need to soften the horizontal interpolation to get the scanline transitions looking properly smooth.

[TooBeaucoup]

^^ Do you think a simple naming function can be added in the future like with the Tink5x?

[Guspaz]

I wouldn't count on it, but I can't speak for Mike. I think a higher probability would be more descriptive default names.

[tongshadow]

Hell no. The absolute last thing I want is to mimic the awful look of interlacing on a CRT with all of its aliasing and combing artifacts. Adaptive deinterlacing with the Retrotink 5X has finally made playing 480i PS2 games tolerable.

Nothing handles interlacing better than a CRT, I dont think you have seen the PS2 on a good consumer grade CRT.