9.7" iPad Retina Screen Perfect for MiSTer, $60 Fully Assembled 😄

[Lightwave]

Mine arrived today. And it can't hold sync with vsync_adjust 2 (low lag)
Tested some CPS2 games and DoDonPachi. Both worked on a firend's screen. But desync a lot on mine

So then the question is did the LCD Panel change, or the driver board?

[sonik]

Looks like I have a power supply problem.
Keyboard was not working correctly too. Swapped some cables and now it's working fine, even the screen at mode 2!
Does this screen draws energy from the hdmi port?

Edit: CPS1 and CPS2 are loosing sync on modes 1 and 2.Works on mode 0.
Genesis, Snes, Neogeo, and even DoDonPachi works in mode 2.

[Nemesis2k]

I'm having the same problem, this ini file didn't work for me. just a black screen.

Same, black screen, tried 3 diff cables.

Have you tried plugging in a different hdmi source besides the mister? I had the same problem, but the screen would display a picture with my laptop, so I knew the screen was ok.

Ended up figuring out I needed to strip the CEC out of the cable. Luckily I already use the CEC-less cable from mister addons, so I ran that from my mister into a coupler with the hdmi mini cord to the screen and it started working perfectly.

Good luck, hope that helps!

It turns out the cables I had where not supported. I got a 4th!! and it worked lol.

[Newsdee]

Any of you have solved it? any advice? maybe some electronic board to switch from 5v to 12v?
Do you see feasible that a power bank power everything including the Mister?

I use a 12V -> 5V buck converter and cable splitter for my arcade1up mods. 12V goes to the screen and marquee, and 5V powers the MiSTer and USB hub..

[Nemesis2k]

Ok, so when I can get it working, it’s powered externally, good HDMI cable, CEC stripped, it runs great.

image.jpg (2.53 MiB) Viewed 232525 times

Except, on a cold start, the ipad screen will go bright white and actually burn a halo around the screen. It takes me turning the mister on and off 10 times to finally get the screen to show a picture then have to wait for the burn in to calm down.

35C786B5-4DDF-4E5D-80F3-DB404FB448B7.jpeg (3.75 MiB) Viewed 232519 times

Any ideas?

Edit: I have to leave it on the white screen for like 5 minutes, then reset the HDMI device im using, and eventually the picture will work. Although I get image retention constantly.

[aperfectcirclefan]

So i've been having a NIGHTMARE with the screen I bought from Laserbear. It refuses to hold any kind of sync. I've tried all kinds of HDMI wires etc, but it constantly just results in the screen flickering:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/mn6RxVqWTA4vQvcNA

PXL_20211130_021727099.mp4

(1.4 MiB) Downloaded 992 times

if I turn the resolution to 1920 x 1440 it marginally gets better, but still does this crap.

Anyone know a way to solve this? Sometimes if I put on 2400 mode it'll work for like three minutes and then anytime the main menu gets on screen it goes back to doing this.

Thanks!

[jca]

Did you also get the controller board from LaserBear?

[aperfectcirclefan]

Yep. He was responsive at first to my support but I haven't heard back since December 3rd.

[epistaxis]

Mine arrived today. And it can't hold sync with vsync_adjust 2 (low lag)
Tested some CPS2 games and DoDonPachi. Both worked on a firend's screen. But desync a lot on mine

Are you using the HDMI cable that came with it?

[sonik]

Are you using the HDMI cable that came with it?

Tested with 3 cables:
The one that came with it.
Xbox Series cable.
PS4 Pro cable.

All work the same. Works in a lot of cores. Does not work on JT cores.

[Yim]

I got one of these intending to use it for my MiSTer, but I’ve wound up using it mostly as a second screen for my PC. This is kind of off-topic for a MiSTer board, but today I plugged in my SNES classic and realised that it only puts out widescreen, making it horizontally compressed on this 4:3 iPad screen. I can’t change it on the SNES end, does anyone know if it’s possible to change the scaling on the screen itself and make it crop the sides? I tried the aspect ratio setting in its menu, but switching between 4:3 and 16:9 doesn’t seem to do anything. In fact, most of the settings don’t seem to do much. Turning brightness up and down has no obvious effect. Any ideas?

[jd213]

I don't have an SNES classic, but doesn't it have a display option for fully stretching out the 4:3 image to 16:9 when displayed on a normal 16:9 screen, which would therefore be a 4:3 image on the Retina screen?

[TealShark]

The one I ordered from the AliExpress link just arrived absolutely crushed in its box. The metal frame is bent along with the screen, which appears like it might have some damage to the screen’s backlights (I haven’t opened it up yet to be sure). Lovely.

I’m pretty much up a creek when it comes to getting this replaced or refunded, right?

[Nemesis2k]

They charged me a dollar but are meant to be sending me a new lcd panel.

[Yim]

I don't have an SNES classic, but doesn't it have a display option for fully stretching out the 4:3 image to 16:9 when displayed on a normal 16:9 screen, which would therefore be a 4:3 image on the Retina screen?

So far as I can tell, it doesn’t. The display options are CRT (a filter on the 4:3), 4:3 (scales to 4:3 within a 16:9 frame), and pixel perfect, which is even narrower. Maybe I there’s a version of the hacked firmware that will do it. Oh well.

[sonik]

Quick update on mine:
Tested a bunch more arcade cores. Only JT cores seems to loose sync.
Also VGA 480p does not work. Tested with a dreamcast.

JT cores can be more stable with mode 2048,26,32,48,1536,3,6,12,200000
But still will loose some sync.

[Queen Fiona]

Some more info. Dumping the firmware is possible via the I2C interface from the HDMI connector (no soldering needed).

I have extracted the two firmwares and they are showing the same mode identification for the build product tree:

Code: Select all

(prot(monitor)type(LCD)model(RTK)cmds(01 02 03 07 0C E3 F3)vcp(02 04 05 06 08 0B 0C 10 12 14(01 02 04 05 06 08 0B) 16 18 1A 52 60(01 03 04 0F 10 11 12) 87 AC AE B2 B6 C6 C8 CA CC(01 02 03 04 06 0A 0D) D6(01 04 05) DF FD FF)mswhql(1)asset_eep(40)mccs_ver(2.2))

The flash type is the following:

Part id: ZB25VQ80ATIG
Manufacturer: ZBIT SEMI
Type: FLASH-NOR
Short id: 25VQ80
Description:（8Mbit）SOP8 1M Flash

Flashing can be done if pin 3 is lifted up from the board. Otherwise, special RTD25xx flashing tool is needed. I have ordered one, but I am also tempted to lift the pad to test directly.

Things are going into the right direction for the moment.

Has there been any progress on this? How hard would it be to flash this once it's available, anyway?

My monitor looks great, none of the issues people have mentioned (thankfully), came ahead of schedule. Bit of light leak somewhere but it's only noticeable under certain conditions. Sadly, I don't think it can do FreeSync/VRR like the Laser Bear monitors...at least not yet.

I need a second HDMI cable to test a hunch of mine, but it won't arrive for a bit. In the meantime, I'd like to see what people's monitor EDIDs look like from their versions of the board. The modelines repo mentions support for variable refresh rate on one of the boards; that might be represented in the EDID somewhere, right? Maybe the inconsistent results people are getting are partly a matter of EDIDs being different with different boards?

[daveo]

Just got mine, great screen! Screen to work great on most cores except the ao486, I just get blank screen.

Any tips for getting the ao486 core working on this display ?

[sonik]

I got one of these intending to use it for my MiSTer, but I’ve wound up using it mostly as a second screen for my PC. This is kind of off-topic for a MiSTer board, but today I plugged in my SNES classic and realised that it only puts out widescreen, making it horizontally compressed on this 4:3 iPad screen. I can’t change it on the SNES end, does anyone know if it’s possible to change the scaling on the screen itself and make it crop the sides? I tried the aspect ratio setting in its menu, but switching between 4:3 and 16:9 doesn’t seem to do anything. In fact, most of the settings don’t seem to do much. Turning brightness up and down has no obvious effect. Any ideas?

Aspect and picture size/position only works on vga input. At least on the board I have.

[Topbravo]

Hi all, I’ve had mine for about 2-3 months and it’s worked really well (VGA/HDMI Driver Board version). I have a question, what shadow mask setting do you all use? I’ve notice some bad checkerboarding when using most of the options.

[lechucker]

Hey all,

I ordered a screen from the updated link and can confirm that it’s the same screen. It’s the same board as was posted here.

It’s the 2 hdmi version, however I wasn’t able to power it over USB either. The included power adapter works fine however. Also I had to use my own hdmi cable with an adapter, the included cable didn’t work (as posted here as well).

What I noticed immediately was light leakage on dark screens. Somebody here was suspecting pressure on the case and it kinda felt like that to me too.
So I opened it up (careful with the screws, they’re like butter and I messed one up) and indeed, less pressure helped!

Here’s a shot of the screen with the case attached:

4785032F-7FF3-472E-B463-1689A2A9FD9D.jpeg (2.32 MiB) Viewed 230727 times

And that’s without the screws! With the screws it was worse.

And here with just the board:

3C28C69C-0E17-4DD1-9585-9D5C74AB461E.jpeg (1.3 MiB) Viewed 230727 times

Hard to capture but noticeably better.

Still have to play around with the settings and different cores but apart from the leakage it looks great.

Shame about the case though, maybe I’ll order a printed case or print my own.
What could be worth a try is to shorten or remove the foam spacers in the case, they should be the ones applying the pressure since the screen is just glued to the frame.

[Lightwave]

Has anyone managed to find an angled mini-HDMI to HDMI cable for this that supports 4k?

I can only find straight 4k, or angled 1080p. It seems impossible to find an angled mini-HDMI adapter that will properly support the full resolution of this screen.

[Doozer]

If not already posted somewhere, this is the link to the laser bear firmware that can be flashed to the RTD2556T board. I can confirm successful flashing and additional features availability. At least the multi frequency input range support is present. Freesync and others would require deeper testing.

Link to laser bear firmware

[limi]

Do note that this is not the board discussed in this thread. No reflashing needed for that one. (But if you do own that board, great!)

[Queen Fiona]

That firmware has extra features, though. Most relevant here is a native integer scaling option, but it also has FreeSync and aspect ratio control if you're using the monitor for other tasks as well.

The firmware might not work with the boards sold here without modification though...but on the plus side, someone said they were able to flash it through HDMI alone. I wonder if it'll work first try, or need additional modification, though?

Oh, question: does anyone know how much current this draws when using micro USB power? I wasn't having luck powering it that way, but that may be a cable issue.

[Jukk@M]

If not already posted somewhere, this is the link to the laser bear firmware that can be flashed to the RTD2556T board. I can confirm successful flashing and additional features availability. At least the multi frequency input range support is present. Freesync and others would require deeper testing.

Link to laser bear firmware

Does this work with VGA/HDMI RTD2556T board.

[Doozer]

Does this work with VGA/HDMI RTD2556T board.

Should work for the HDMI input. VGA registers might not be initialized and thus this input would be unusable. Chip input 1 and 3 are configured for HDMI on the fw, if HDMI on your board uses one of these paths it will work.
Anycase, you can test it and revert back to the original firmware if it does not work. Just create a backup (do not forget to set 8 banks) and you will be on the safe side.

[MrDo]

Hello

When I set vsync_adjust 2 the screen flickers twice every time I load a core. And once again when loading a rom.

Is this normal? Sorry if this is a newb question.

The problem is that when this happens the screen displays the info HUD in the center showing resolution and refresh rate. Having this after loading a game and covering e.g the Sega logo on a Genesis game is a bit distracting.

Is there a way to hide the info box? I haven’t found anything in the settings.

[limi]

Is there a way to hide the info box? I haven’t found anything in the settings.

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_Mi ... video_info

Set video_info to zero in the ini file.

[edr]

Is there a way to hide the info box? I haven’t found anything in the settings.

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_Mi ... video_info

Set video_info to zero in the ini file.

If this refers to the blue/white popup shown by the display interface board (Realtek), I haven't found any way to disable, and I checked in Factory Settings (advanced) also. I get the popup once when loading a core or going back to main menu. Shows frequency and resolution.

BTW I'm using a panel & interface from LaserBear which I believe is the same hardware.