Can't get Cave cores to sync on CRT

[Klatrymadon]

Hi, everyone! Sorry for the boring tech question, but I'm having trouble playing the Cave (68000) games on my CRT. Using the following ini settings, every other core has been fine, and I can play both vertical and horizontal games without issue, but with any Cave game I get a desynchronised display, sort of rolling horizontally to the left:

composite_sync=1
vga_scaler=0
video_mode=0
vsync_adjust=2

Someone on the Jotego discord kindly suggested it might be that my CRT can't handle the funny refresh rate of Cave's earlier games, which is 57.4hz or something like that. However, I've tried many other games with refresh rates that aren't exactly 60hz or 50hz (such as Section Z, Moon Patrol, Kid Niki, Legendary Wings and Ladybug, which are all between 55 and 61). Is it possible my TV could play nicely with everything but 57? Is there something else I've missed, or are my ini settings actually wrong? I'm using this display cable, if it's at all relevant: https://coolnovelties.co.uk/coolnovelti ... 07088.html

Thank you for reading!

[Klatrymadon]

I hooked up the Mister to my PC monitor to see if the Cave cores would sync there, and they seemed to start up perfectly well, though the roms aren't working since my last update (previously I could see DoDonPachi and Esprade zipping by in desynchronised form). After changing the refresh rate to 60hz in the cores' options, though, I found they were still were still desynchronised / scrolling wildly on the CRT. Does this suggest it was never a refresh rate issue at all? Is there anything else I could try?

Thanks!

[Chris23235]

Can you try if it works with vsync_adjust=0?

This mode has the most lag, but it is the most compatible mode. If this works then your CRT has problems with the sync rate of the core. I found the Cave core very picky when it comes to syncing.

[Klatrymadon]

Thanks for your reply! Yeah, I've tried 'vsync_adjust=2' (my usual setting), 'vsync_adjust=1' and 'vsync_adjust=0', and the only difference between them is in the direction and speed of the image's scrolling. None of them give a steady display, sadly.

[akeley]

I've just tried DDP and it is indeed out of sync. It's odd, because I'm 100% sure it has worked before.

Progear still works okay though. For some reason I don't have the other Cave games, despite using update_all, so can't test these.

[_javi_]

Same here. I remember having tried DDP before.
Now it shows a garbled image on the CRT TV

[Klatrymadon]

Weird! I appreciate the responses, and am slightly relieved to know it isn't something specific to my hardware (I've seen "buy a different RAM module" proffered as the cure-all for too many issues.)

Yeah, Progear works perfectly well, as does every other CPS2 game I've tried so far - it's only the CV68000 games that seem to have this issue.

[Chris23235]

RAM is no issue with the Cave 68K core as it is possible to use the DDR3 RAM of the MiSTer in the core.

[akeley]

I mentioned Progear because for some reason Arcade Organiser has classified it as a Cave game (meanwhile the other Cave games are missing. I thought update_all, or at least AO script was supposed to be sorting it all out, even if my arcade folders had been a bit messy before...)

I don't really play DDP since it's a vertical game and I enjoy these on my GroovyMAME setup. It'd be nice to have it working for the sake of completion though, so I'll keep my tabs on this.

[Chris23235]

Progear is a Cave game, but it is running on the CPS2 hardware. So Arcade Organiser is right by putting it into the Cave folder.

[Klatrymadon]

Yeah, sorry for the confusion there - I should have clarified at the start that it was the 68000 Cave games that were problematic, rather than all of them.

Edit: I've just tried each version of the .rbf available here, but they all had the same issue, sadly.