MiSTer with CRT Lose Image When Loading Cores

[Mononoke456]

I just added an analog io board to my mister and I have managed to get the main menu with static background to show up on my CRT, but as soon as i load up any core I get black with white lines flickering on the screen. I have tried composite sync on/off and SOG on/off and v scaler but nothing. I thought it could be the vga to scart cable i am using but it displays main menu just fine.

Any help?

[Mononoke456]

Just to add, if i load up an arcade core i can get image of the game but it is in black and white and loses sync every 30 seconds or so and flickers again.

[aberu]

https://mister-devel.github.io/MkDocs_M ... anced/crt/

It all depends on what your CRT is, what signals it supports, what cable you are using (VGA to SCART often requires a resistor on the sync line for MiSTer btw --> https://www.retrorgb.com/beware-of-mist ... ables.html ), what IO board you are using (or dv adapter), etc... It's kind of a complicated thing, but hopefully this guide gives you some stuff to try.

Additionally, if you are using SCART and your TV is PAL-only, then the cores usually start off by default running in 60hz, so you may have to force PAL frequencies to all the cores in the ini. However, usually, the menu core is 60hz by default so I'm assuming your screen works with 60hz.

[akeley]

https://mister-devel.github.io/MkDocs_M ... anced/crt/

So 2 days after I submit the Wiki CRT wiki, a new CRT wiki appears? Lol.

I posted the WIP thread asking for feedback and advice more than three weeks ago. I'd have though that if there were some other people doing the same stuff somebody could, like, say something. It could save us - well, me perhaps - quite a lot of work.

[Mononoke456]

Hi thanks for the response.

I am thinking it is most likely my cable as it was super cheapo. So I ordered what should be a good one from Retrogamingcables.co.uk.
I am using an analog IO and my TV is a b&o which accepts NTSC and PAL both RGB its a pretty high-end set for retro gaming.
So yeah I will post back when I receive the cable. It might be something else that is the issue but I am highly suspicious of the cable tbh.

If you have any suggestions to try in the meantime let me know tho!

[FoxbatStargazer]

For VGA->Scart its important to have a cable with a resistor that will bring TTL csync voltage down to scart levels. So yes a cheap cable there could be a big problem. Although I'm having trouble finding such a cable on retrogamingcables?

[aberu]

https://mister-devel.github.io/MkDocs_M ... anced/crt/

So 2 days after I submit the Wiki CRT wiki, a new CRT wiki appears? Lol.

I posted the WIP thread asking for feedback and advice more than three weeks ago. I'd have though that if there were some other people doing the same stuff somebody could, like, say something. It could save us - well, me perhaps - quite a lot of work.

I think you are misunderstanding something about that site. It's the official MiSTer MkDocs site that was announced a month ago, that CRT documentation page was up there with only the table by Porkchop on it until I updated it yesterday (https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/MkDocs_ ... ced/crt.md). I don't read most of the forum threads here. I also credited the authors of that content and where I got it from, the GitHub Wiki. Read the contents of it, it's not wasting your time, you can continue writing in the wiki as you please.

Sorgelig didn't want to make the MkDocs site the sole documentation site yet because the wiki is still more easily editable and has more documentation (albeit some of it outdated or scattered around), and I have no problem taking the extra effort to port over the documentation as it's updated.

As to the main reasons why the MkDocs site exists:

1. It's crawlable by google search bots, whereas all GitHub wiki's are not crawlable, which is a major problem because there are abandoned and outdated websites that are at the top of the search results for certain queries. The users weren't pointed to an appropriate source of information for all sorts of google search results.

2. Material for MkDocs is a very simple and attractive documentation platform with lots of functionality baked into it and is easily extensible.

[akeley]

I think you are misunderstanding something about that site. It's the official MiSTer MkDocs site that was announced a month ago, that CRT documentation page was up there with only the table by Porkchop on it until I updated it yesterday (https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/MkDocs_ ... ced/crt.md). I don't read most of the forum threads here.

There's not much I could understand or misunderstand since I've never heard about that site prior to seeing your post here. For an "official" one it had very little exposure here on the forums and I don't recall seeing any announcements about it. I guess it's another example of the twitter/discord vs forums information divide.

I also find it hard to believe that one of the most frequent posters here, and also a wiki editor, missed that WIP thread I made. It's the only recent one in the "MiSTer FPGA Project Wiki" section and as such has been visible on the front page for weeks. It's also linked to in the intro of the document you have ported, explicitly asking "to let us know", so you could've popped in there and mentioned something about the existence of yet another Wiki, to share the data, or simply out of common courtesy.

It's not an awfully big deal of course, but it adds to the slight bizzareness of this situation, where there are now two resources, and people might end up recommending different ones in the same thread such as this one ( and they do differ significantly, at the moment at least). It might also lead to one or the other being as outdated as the Analogue Compatibility list. And seeing as the main drive of my initiative was consolidation of information, it makes it all a somewhat eyebrow-rising thing (aside from also having a little whiff of "office politics" about it).

As it is, barring one more addition, I was actually about to step away from editing "my" guide anyway, seeing as I've created it to contribute at least something to the MiSTer project, but don't really fancy working on it on a permanent basis and will gladly go back to my other, more fun projects. Making even a small change requires a lot of research time, plus I find dealing with Markdown rather tedious, so now it's out there for anybody else to contribute to, change, or use in their own projects as they see fit.

[aberu]

I suppose I'm realizing now that there is no actual announcement in the forums. I just assumed there was, my bad.

I really don't understand why you are suggesting that I'm lying, because I'm not. This is totally disrespectful and unwarranted. I didn't see the thread until you mentioned it here so how could I know to "let you know" that I was porting it over? Your thread also just mentions that you are looking for help to add things to it.

I didn't know about that wiki page until I just glazed through all of the wiki articles again. Then I saw MikeS edited it a bunch, and talked to him about it a bit. I agree there is a disconnect between the forums and discord. I'm on both and I'm attempting to consolidate both, but I don't do announcements here, Xbytez does. I guess I should have communicated with him, I didn't really think of it.

Please don't expect me, or anyone else, to read every single thread in every forum here. I moderate a 6000+ member discord for the project, am upkeeping a documentation site, helping users both here and moreso in the Discord, am testing and reproducing bugs people report, and am now learning more about development of the cores. All this in addition to a 48+ hour per week full-time career. It's a lot. It's not reasonable for you to assume I've read every single thread in this entire forum before I do something.

If you want to discuss this further please send me a private message instead, it's not really on-topic here.