ao486 Config for a Plain Old CRT TV

[thorr]

Those give me a nice up to down scrolling screen. Maybe these setting work when using the io-board.

I had to set direct_video=1 to stop the scrolling, as i'm using an HDMI to vga adapter (and then RGBs to the TV)

One more thing to try if you haven't already: set it to 60Hz instead of variable, but otherwise leave the rest of my settings. akeley said he had scrolling issues, but until now it is unclear whether he had vsync_adjust=1 or 2 (1 is required for variable, and 0 might work if 1 doesn't).

[MiSTer_Kirk]

@Mister_kirk: I see expletives,

Oh please, ONE word was slightly off, don't go into drama queen mode.

And this core is called ao486, not ao286. The 486 was a 90s CPU, although first announced in the middle of 1989, it didn't get a proper release until 1990. And this is the period I am talking about, the period where the PC dominated gaming, it pushed out the Amiga and ST, even went toe-to-toe with 90s consoles. And 99.9% of PC users, in this period, had a VGA monitor for their PC, not a TV.
Yes, for 240p content, there is no comparison, and a CRT TV is the best - this is why I own 15 various CRTs of each market, consumer, Pro (my Sony PVM), and Monitor. Now compare, for example, "The Secret of Monkey Island" at 240p, and at 640x480p, the latter just looks soooo much better, and you don't have to squint to see things. Heck, the higher the res you go for Monkey Island the better it looks, especially on a modern PC running ScummVM.

YOU are the one here making an argument, I just stated a fact - 99.9% of 90s 486 users had a VGA Monitor. If you have facts to prove me wrong, then prove me wrong. Otherwise, stop trying to look for an argument where there isn't one. I don't appreciate people who think they can "Correct" other users, without facts. Now 80s PCs, that is something very different, and CGA/EGA PCs were no match for what was around at that time.

[thorr]

Monkey Island 1 and 2 look gorgeous on my TV. They are pixel perfect. 640x480 is not the resolution of these games. Anything displaying them that way is upscaling the image. Other games like Sim City 2000 from what I recall can benefit from higher resolution. I would agree anything higher than 240 vertical resolution would look better on a VGA monitor.

[MiSTer_Kirk]

They are pixel perfect. 640x480 is not the resolution of these games.

The EGA version is 320x200 16 colours.
The VGA version is 640x480 256 colours.

Taken from wiki

The VGA version of the game later corrected these issues by implementing 256-color support, which allowed for more advanced background and character art

[thorr]

Thanks. I play the EGA version. I have never tried the VGA version.
Edit: I am home now and checked, and I am playing the VGA version. I found a comparison video to confirm. It is pixel perfect on the VGA version. I was thinking you were talking about the much newer remastered version that I never tried.

[FoxbatStargazer]

The colors improved for Monkey Island VGA but the resolution did not. Yes it rendered at 31khz just like any VGA game, but it was still doubling/quadrupaling the pixels used in the 15khz versions. You need to dig pretty hard to find actual SVGA DOS games that weren't past the reach of what is playable on AO486. (Mostly 3D-accelerated games I think)

And I can't believe we are arguing over what "looks" the best, when the correct answer is always what looks best to YOU. There is no rule that you can't prefer 15khz "intended" games on 31khz and vice versa no matter the system. Especially when games were ported as-is between such systems in both directions.

I think we should focus here on how to optimize for consumer CRT for those who want to try it without insisting that it is better or worse than VGA monitor or what the original "intent" was. Especially when a key feature of Mister is its extensive support for high-definition widescreen LCD monitors which none of these games were ever intended for!

[thorr]

Here is how Monkey Island 1 and 2 look on my TV. Keep in mind I used my mobile phone to take these photos and it looks a lot better in person. There are no moire patterns.

yOVdAEt.jpeg (1.65 MiB) Viewed 23426 times

1qbD3kw.jpeg (2.04 MiB) Viewed 23426 times

[akeley]

I've tried the vmode from DOS, but it didn't seem to do anything, at least with values between 1-6. Above that, the screen gets completely garbled. Anybody had more luck? Getting DOS to display properly would be an icing on the cake.

@thorr: your image seems to have less left/right borders than there is on my display. Have a look:

IMG-20210622-123013.jpg (311.01 KiB) Viewed 23426 times

Best to view it at 1:1 size, then you can see the actual border difference - part of the dark is the inherent TV thing so that's ok. Actual border is about half an inch each size. Any ideas why is it bigger? I see you're outputting to a component set...NTSC perhaps?

[flynnsbit]

Here is what vmode 4 and vmode 5 "should" do on your set: https://youtu.be/W0ScMbmXMG8?t=32 I tried to capture what it would look like. This is a Samsung GXE consumer set that is RGB modded. It's been a while since I had this setup, I might have been running UniVBE (SDD 5.X) (command is univbe -c2) along with vmode to get the video modes to switch.

[thorr]

@thorr: your image seems to have less left/right borders than there is on my display. Have a look:
Actual border is about half an inch each size. Any ideas why is it bigger? I see you're outputting to a component set...NTSC perhaps?

I am using component on a US television. The reason there are differences is because most TV's have a service menu where you can adjust the size and geometry of the picture. I set mine up so that it works well with most things, just barely cutting off the edges so there are typically no black borders, but sometimes there are. When I configured the modeline settings for ao486, I didn't want anything cut off if possible so I made slight borders. In your case, you have larger borders so less is cut off on other cores but you will have larger black borders on other cores most likely. It's a balancing act and personal preference where you set things up in your service menu. I have other issues with curved edges etc that I can only make good enough in the service menu but not perfect. I don't want to open the TV to make it perfect. It's too big of a pain to do that on my 36" TV and I might screw it up. I have adjusted my 20" TV by opening it up and it helps. You can royally screw it up if you are not careful and it is hard to get it back to where it was. The service menu is easy because you can write down your settings before you change them.

[thorr]

I managed to get a readable image with this ini settings..

[ao486]
direct_video=1
vscale_mode=0
vscale_border=1
video_mode=640,8,58,78,240,1,3,18,12324

The parameter which fixed the screen was vscale border. Anything above 0 fixes the garbling. (I dont understand the reasoning behind it)

Theres too much overscan to the left. Maybe i can center the image within the tv Service Menu, but that would break my tuned positioning for others cores.

Many games are playable, but the overall experience is suboptimal. It seems this core was not meant to be used this way.

I just went back and saw this post. Sorry for the delay, but I think the answer is what I just described above. You need to go into your service menu of your TV and adjust your settings there to get things to fit on the screen. It's a balancing act. Also, you can adjust the modeline settings to move things around. Each core has its own settings which makes it impossible to make everything fit perfectly. You said there is too much overscan to the left. You can go to this site and plug in your numbers, then press the Right button to get new numbers that will move the picture to the right. https://www.epanorama.net/faq/vga2rgb/calc.html
I just found these additional resources following a path from the previous link. They seem to be extremely helpful and I am looking forward to trying them:
http://xtiming.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/xtiming.pl (The output of this can be imported into the previous link if necessary)
https://tldp.org/HOWTO/XFree86-Video-Timings-HOWTO/ (This helps to explain how to shrink the image if it is too big, etc.)

[_javi_]

I managed to get a readable image with this ini settings..

[ao486]
direct_video=1
vscale_mode=0
vscale_border=1
video_mode=640,8,58,78,240,1,3,18,12324

The parameter which fixed the screen was vscale border. Anything above 0 fixes the garbling. (I dont understand the reasoning behind it)

Theres too much overscan to the left. Maybe i can center the image within the tv Service Menu, but that would break my tuned positioning for others cores.

Many games are playable, but the overall experience is suboptimal. It seems this core was not meant to be used this way.

I just went back and saw this post. Sorry for the delay, but I think the answer is what I just described above. You need to go into your service menu of your TV and adjust your settings there to get things to fit on the screen. It's a balancing act. Also, you can adjust the modeline settings to move things around. Each core has its own settings which makes it impossible to make everything fit perfectly. You said there is too much overscan to the left. You can go to this site and plug in your numbers, then press the Right button to get new numbers that will move the picture to the right. https://www.epanorama.net/faq/vga2rgb/calc.html
I just found these additional resources following a path from the previous link. They seem to be extremely helpful and I am looking forward to trying them:
http://xtiming.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/xtiming.pl (The output of this can be imported into the previous link if necessary)
https://tldp.org/HOWTO/XFree86-Video-Timings-HOWTO/ (This helps to explain how to shrink the image if it is too big, etc.)

Thanks a lot for the info. Looks promising. I hope to find the sweet spot with a proper modeline.

Maybe some slight adjust in the Service Mode wont matter for the other cores...But i spent a long time with neogeo and snes video patterns

[thorr]

Glad to help. Hope it helps. I was just going to add that when creating your own custom modes, you want close to 15.73 KHz and 59.94 Hz but both numbers are flexible. That is why I am excited about the xtiming link because it has ranges.

I just started playing with the xtiming link and it gives you a starting point that is out of range, but these numbers can then be put into the first link and adjust the MHz number until the other two numbers are correct. It gets tricky because you need to play with the MHz and non-resolution numbers to get it exact and there are rules to follow, which is where the how-to link comes into play.

I also did something similar with the SNES and found that it wasn't great for other cores. What I ended up doing is trying a bunch of cores and several games including on Genesis, NES, and SNES and got a sense of what all of them were doing and found a happy medium that would work for all of them. Then I adjusted my settings to that happy medium and tested again until I was happy.

[thorr]

Here is what vmode 4 and vmode 5 "should" do on your set: https://youtu.be/W0ScMbmXMG8?t=32 I tried to capture what it would look like. This is a Samsung GXE consumer set that is RGB modded. It's been a while since I had this setup, I might have been running UniVBE (SDD 5.X) (command is univbe -c2) along with vmode to get the video modes to switch.

Thanks for the info. I just got the 300 game version and ran the update script. I am getting command not found when I try to run vmode. Do I need to get this separately? univbe -c2 works. Thanks!

[akeley]

It's a balancing act and personal preference where you set things up in your service menu.

I thought these smaller borders might be due to your tweaking of service menu settings, so I just wanted to make sure, in case I missed something in the .ini. I'll leave it as is, it's not a big problem. About service menu, as you say, it's a balancing act and any drastic changes will inevitably mess up other cores. At the moment my service menu settings are adjusted using SNES NTSC 240p suite and this works okay for majority of other cores, because their output is mostly in line with the real hardware. And what we're doing here with ao486 is certainly non-standard.

@_javi_ you can check, perhaps your TV has option called "RGB centering", or something similar, in the "normal" menu. Some newer sets have this, it's a godsend when it comes to horizontal centering. If not, then you'll have to dive into service menu. Perhaps it can be adjusted with modelines, but this is not an operation for the faint-hearted ...certainly not for beginners. You touch one value and 5 others will go out of whack...and what might look ok in one core will produce artifacts in another.

@Flynnsbit: thanks this video is very interesting, since DOS looks ok, and also the whole screen is filled in games. Any chance you still have the config used in this setup?

[_javi_]

@_javi_ you can check, perhaps your TV has option called "RGB centering", or something similar, in the "normal" menu. Some newer sets have this, it's a godsend when it comes to horizontal centering. If not, then you'll have to dive into service menu. Perhaps it can be adjusted with modelines, but this is not an operation for the faint-hearted ...certainly not for beginners. You touch one value and 5 others will go out of whack...and what might look ok in one core will produce artifacts in another.

Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately, theres no such option in this Sony.

These parameters are what works the best, so far..

[ao486]
;select Full Screen within core OSD menu
direct_video=1
vscale_mode=0
vscale_border=1
video_mode=640,0,58,86,240,1,3,18,12350

(thats the most i can force to the right, using https://www.epanorama.net/faq/vga2rgb/calc.html)

I'll start playing, enjoying it as it is.
Thanks again.

[FoxbatStargazer]

My understanding was that direct_video makes your modeline pointless. Its just going to ask the core for whatever resolution it feels like (which seems to be something like 1440 x 240). I think on this core it also adds some side border to go with the top border on 200p games, to try and have the viewable game area match a 4:3 aspect ratio. You can try to compensate with your TV menu but it will probably throw things way off for other content. Better would be to shut off direct_video and find a useable modeline. You can use the HV integer scale options in conjunction with different resolution widths to adjust the effective border on the left and right, at least within 200p games.

[FoxbatStargazer]

BTW here's some 1440x240 settings I found that work for me, this may work with HDMI->analog converters.

video_mode=1440,40,136,176,240,3,10,6,27000
direct_video=0
vscale_border=20
vscale_mode=0

Video settings in the core:
aspect ratio: full
scale: HV Integer(- or +)

over on scaling filter page: "no interpolation"

DOS text will run edge-to-edge (so may disappear into overscan) but will be pixel-perfect in width and exactly half resolution height. 200p DOS games will have some black border on either side which will get pretty close to 4:3 aspect ratio along with the border on the top/bottom. change scale from HV Integer to Normal if you'd rather have games run to the edge.

[flynnsbit]

Here is what vmode 4 and vmode 5 "should" do on your set: https://youtu.be/W0ScMbmXMG8?t=32 I tried to capture what it would look like. This is a Samsung GXE consumer set that is RGB modded. It's been a while since I had this setup, I might have been running UniVBE (SDD 5.X) (command is univbe -c2) along with vmode to get the video modes to switch.

Thanks for the info. I just got the 300 game version and ran the update script. I am getting command not found when I try to run vmode. Do I need to get this separately? univbe -c2 works. Thanks!

I can't remember if I included vmode or not, you can get it here: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=133258#p133258

[akeley]

DOS text will run edge-to-edge (so may disappear into overscan) but will be pixel-perfect in width and exactly half resolution height. 200p DOS games will have some black border on either side which will get pretty close to 4:3 aspect ratio along with the border on the top/bottom. change scale from HV Integer to Normal if you'd rather have games run to the edge.

Tried these settings on my Direct Video...they do work slightly better than thorr's because there is a little bit less left/right border. DOS goes indeed into overscan though (for some reason HV integer doesn't affect it). Hmmm, which one to use then... *scratches head*.

Regarding the other angle, I did install univbe 5.3a, but the command "univbe -c2" doesn't seem to do anything, same for vmode 1-5. Most likely I'm doing something wrong though, or maybe its the fact I'm not running the 300 pack, but some self-made vhd's (with an exception of a "BOOT-DOS98.vhd", which I think comes from it). I'd rather not download this whole huge pack just to try to sort this out though...

[thorr]

I haven't tried vmode yet because I need to get the file into the VHD. Is there a way to copy the file to the folders on the MiSTer and from an ssh session, copy the file into the VHD, or from a DOS program within ao486 be able to copy files from the MiSTer folders onto the C: drive? I don't want to mount the VHD over wifi from Windows because any wifi dropouts could cause corruption, and I have dropouts with my MiSTer more than I would like.

[akeley]

I just use a little 50MB .vhd to carry files from PC to MiSTer, then mount it alongside bigger ones and copy stuff in DOS.

Been trying to mess with it all a little, but it's all above my paygrade. Found this curious program called VBEHz - seems like you can adjust modelines on the fly in DOS with it?

I'm also looking at AdvanceCAB utilities - from AdvanceMAME DOS days, which I guess is a precursor of crtemudriver. Wouldn't it be wild if you could output via this from ao486?

[thorr]

That's a great idea about the 50MB vhd file. I will do it that way. Thanks!
That other stuff looks cool, but I have my doubts whether it would work in the MiSTer since the video implementation is not the same as a real PC. If it works, that would be awesome.

[thorr]

run vmode "insert a number from 0-9" at the dos prompt to change video modes for text and the TDL menu. this will make both legible on a CRT/RGB set. I think I use vmode 4 once you find the one you like, edit autoexec.bat and add it before the tdl command.

I got vmode working, and vmode 6 looks excellent in DOS. However, as soon as I launch a program such as tdl or edit, it reverts back to the original video mode. I ended up putting it in the runme.bat because that is where the tdl command is. I put a pause just before the tdl command to verify that the font looks correct before launching tdl. Are you sure that vmode works with tdl, and if so, do you have any suggestions? I tried univbe -c2 before and after vmode 6 and it didn't make any difference. If I have vmode 6 working and run edit, the font is wrong in edit, but after exiting, the font looks ok again in DOS. TDL does not put the font back to vmode 6 after exiting.

[thorr]

I re-setup my screen geometry using the SNES and made some new screen modes for ao486 that are wider and fill the screen. New Best has a slight border and New Best Wider has no border on my screen in DOS. 320x200 games use the center 200 pixels of the 240 to maintain pixel perfection. You can change the vscale_mode to 0 if you want to fill the screen but you will be upscaling and it won't have 1 to 1 pixel mapping.

[ao486]
; Set it to "Variable" in the ao486 core instead of 60Hz
direct_video=0
vga_scaler=1
vsync_adjust=1
vscale_mode=1 ; Set this to 0 if you want to fill the screen but lose 1 to 1 pixel mapping on 320x200 games
;video_mode=1280,170,140,244,240,2,0,22,29020 ; Old Best for ao486 12-8-2020
;video_mode=1280,138,140,216,240,2,0,22,28070 ; New Best 06-25-2021
video_mode=1280,120,140,202,240,2,0,22,27565 ; New Best Wider 06-25-2021


I also applied it to the Menu because the overscan is so large. I noticed that there are borders on the left and right until you let it sit there and it turns down the brightness eventually and then it fills the screen. I may decide to make a new menu mode that is wider to fix that. (Edit: I think my screen just gets wider when the image is less bright. I noticed this in Monkey Island 2 when digging the grave and the lightning struck).

[Menu]
direct_video=0
vga_scaler=1
vsync_adjust=1
vscale_mode=1
video_mode=1280,120,140,202,240,2,0,22,27565

Adjusting the width and positioning of these modelines is quite easy. Here are the steps:
- Start with a working mode like video_mode=1280,170,140,244,240,2,0,22,29020 and plug them into https://www.epanorama.net/faq/vga2rgb/calc.html
- If you want to make it wider, decrease the fourth number (244) - I usually use multiples of 8 (8, 16, 24, etc.)
- Press the calculate button
- Adjust the pixel clock frequency in the tool until the vertical sync frequency is 59.94 and keep hitting calculate to check it
- Usually decreasing the fourth number (244) leaves a gap on the right side, so you need to move it to the right. Press the Right button to see how it adjusts two of the numbers. If you need to adjust it by different amounts than 8 at a time, you can do this manually. Just adjust both numbers by the same amount and make sure the refresh rate stays at 59.94 (It should not change as you move it left or right).

Hope y'all love the new video modes and find this useful.

[akeley]

I will try the new modelines soon, they sound promising!

Any chance you could briefly describe the steps to get the vmode stuff working?

[thorr]

Sure. I did the following:
- Download the zip file from https://www.vogons.org/download/file.php?id=5159
- Create a 50 MB VHD file in Windows, format it and copy the file to it
- Mount the 50 MB drive in ao486
- Go to the drive (D: or whatever)
- type vmode 6

That's it!

[akeley]

Thanks, but that's what I had been doing before and just get garbled screen. It needs univbe as well, right? I'm not using the 300 pack btw. Basically, the way I tried was:
-mount BOOT-DOS98.vhd as C: and some other vhds too
-install univbe to C:, run univbe.exe (the "-c2" doesn't do anything, it seems). From SDD 5.3a I get Tseng SVGA card and VBE 2.0. I've tried 6.7 as well but it sends mixed signals (says VBE 3.0 is enabled, but when I run uvconfig it says there is no supported chipset)
-type vmode 6, screen scrambles, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- NO, WAIT! A-HA!

Have just tried it again and the screen scrambles indeed, but only in DosZip Commander I've been using. I was mashing the keyboard trying to go back to the <6 mode and saw that the actual DOS command line looks ok. So when i quit DosZip it's all good. How bizarre.

Then I tried tdl, and it's the same as in your case - goes back to "normal", ie the slightly weird font. I could live with that, but I'd like a DOS navigator to display properly, because I spend a lot of time there. Got to try DN and NC, see if they also get garbled...

[flynnsbit]

Checking if Binary can make TDL not reset for you guys. Have you tried the other lower vmodes? 3,4,5?

In TDL.INI on E:\

Change this line in it to :
set VESA=0h for mode 6

[thorr]

Checking if Binary can make TDL not reset for you guys. Have you tried the other lower vmodes? 3,4,5?

In TDL.INI on E:\

Change this line in it to :
set VESA=0h for mode 6

Vmode 3 does nothing. 4 and 5 have 40 column text (huge).
setting VESA=0h in E:\TDL.INI does nothing in TDL (is 0 correct? that seems wrong to me). I also tried 06h.
Thanks for your help!