MiSTerFPGA Y/C Out Module (Direct - S-Video / Composite Output) - Update

[LamerDeluxe]

Good to see these boards are now available in shops. Two things:

• what's the difference between passive / active one?
• the MisterAddons board says "NTSC only" - I don't remember, were the cores also NTSC only?

The active one has composite out as well. The customized cores work for both PAL and NTSC. That's why I'm waiting for the Ultimatemister version.

[matijaerceg]

Good to see these boards are now available in shops. Two things:

• what's the difference between passive / active one?
• the MisterAddons board says "NTSC only" - I don't remember, were the cores also NTSC only?

The active filter refers to the luma trap being an active one, rather than a passive one. The active luma trap filter cleans up rainbowing more aggressively than the passive one. Both look great. You can see a comparison here https://www.reddit.com/r/MiSTerFPGA/com ... ap_mikess/

The cores are not NTSC only, just MisterAddon's adapter is. Hopefull the ultimatemister adapter has a switch like Mike's design.

The active one has composite out as well. The customized cores work for both PAL and NTSC. That's why I'm waiting for the Ultimatemister version.

The passive board can output composite with a s-video > composite cable, it just doesn't have an RCA output on the board itself. But it works great with the adapter cable. I use a little 5" one.

[ItalianGrandma]

Oh snap, I didn’t realize that the Ultimatemister version will likely have an NTSC/PAL switch and I already ordered the Misteraddons one

Not a huge deal, but I do play some Amiga here and there and some of those games are best played in PAL it seems.

Edit: Oh, I just realized there is no Y/C build for Amiga.

[Wave]

Oh snap, I didn’t realize that the Ultimatemister version will likely have an NTSC/PAL switch and I already ordered the Misteraddons one

Ha, same. After waiting so long my trigger finger was primed.

[matijaerceg]

Edit: Oh, I just realized there is no Y/C build for Amiga.

You sure?

wgE9BIZ.png (3.47 KiB) Viewed 8801 times

It's in the computers folder, not consoles https://github.com/MikeS11/YC_Builds-Mi ... YCComputer

[ItalianGrandma]

Edit: Oh, I just realized there is no Y/C build for Amiga.

You sure?

It's in the computers folder, not consoles https://github.com/MikeS11/YC_Builds-Mi ... YCComputer

Oh wow, I looked there and totally skipped right past that!

Interesting…hmmm I might have a reason to get the eventual adapter that has support for PAL after all…

[KennyL]

Misteraddons Y/C active board is looking fantastic on my old 13" consumer composite only Sony Trinitron (KV-13TR20). So much cleaner than previous board I was using. It's pretty striking. There is no buzzy swimy background noise that I can see. Things look solid and sturdy. A bit "thick" vertical lines maybe? I've been just hopping around spot checking different cores and TG16 is looking pretty much spotless on my TV. Cleaner than real recapped Duo I have. Thank you MikeS for tuning TG16 so cleanly! PSX, Neogeo, NES, SNES, etc. all looking great.

Genesis is clean and pleasant overall (Sonic waterfalls are very nice) but there are some vertical splits in certain darker tones as you can see in dark leaves of Sonic palm trees. This could be specific to my TV. (Edit: I checked on my plasma tv and it looks like this and issue below are in the y/c signal.)

yc-sonic-tree-s.jpg (28.22 KiB) Viewed 9929 times

Arcade cores have diagonal cuts on edges on certain color tones.

yc-1943-01s.jpg (40.45 KiB) Viewed 9929 times

It's less apparent when going over brighter color.

yc-1943-02s.jpg (40.16 KiB) Viewed 9929 times

Arcades are not made for composite so this is how it goes I guess. Again, this could be fault of my TV. Really nice otherwise.

Overall I'm super happy with Y/C cores and this board. Beyond my expectation.

yc-kabuki-s.jpg (149.23 KiB) Viewed 9929 times

[Wave]

Genesis is clean and pleasant overall (Sonic waterfalls are very nice) but there are some vertical splits in certain darker tones as you can see in dark leaves of Sonic palm trees. This could be specific to my TV. (Edit: I checked on my plasma tv and it looks like this and issue below are in the y/c signal.)
yc-sonic-tree-s.jpg

Thanks for your impressions. I just got mine hooked up last night and while I didn't get to test as much, my first stop was Genesis and I was somewhat dismayed by the vertical line artifacts you point out. They're very apparent even on Sonic 1's rings, and quickly become more noticeable if TV sharpness setting is increased at all (I usually run at 0 on a PVM-2950Q).

I also saw more rainbowing artifact on the Sonic 1 waterfall than I expected from the tuned core + active luma trap. Maybe it's as good as it can get, though? I wouldn't characterize the rainbowing as excessive, just more present than I'd hoped.

The other core I tested, SNES, looked terrific all around. Really reminded me of playing SNES with my childhood best friend on her Trinitron. And both cores seemed pristine in S-Video.

Really looking forward to trying more composite core gameplay!

[MikeS1]

Misteraddons Y/C active board is looking fantastic on my old 13" consumer composite only Sony Trinitron (KV-13TR20). So much cleaner than previous board I was using. It's pretty striking. There is no buzzy swimy background noise that I can see. Things look solid and sturdy. A bit "thick" vertical lines maybe? I've been just hopping around spot checking different cores and TG16 is looking pretty much spotless on my TV. Cleaner than real recapped Duo I have. Thank you MikeS for tuning TG16 so cleanly! PSX, Neogeo, NES, SNES, etc. all looking great.

Genesis is clean and pleasant overall (Sonic waterfalls are very nice) but there are some vertical splits in certain darker tones as you can see in dark leaves of Sonic palm trees. This could be specific to my TV. (Edit: I checked on my plasma tv and it looks like this and issue below are in the y/c signal.)
yc-sonic-tree-s.jpg

Arcade cores have diagonal cuts on edges on certain color tones.
yc-1943-01s.jpg

It's less apparent when going over brighter color.
yc-1943-02s.jpg

Arcades are not made for composite so this is how it goes I guess. Again, this could be fault of my TV. Really nice otherwise.

Overall I'm super happy with Y/C cores and this board. Beyond my expectation.
yc-kabuki-s.jpg

What you're seeing are artifacts that are typical using composite video

The arcade cores specifically have problems that are directly tied to the video timing of the hardware. The biggest being the horizontal line freq being way out of spec, see my Twitter post for a good example

https://twitter.com/MikeSimone3/status/ ... rUNiA&s=19

Its why my sweet spot will always be Y/C

Some developers have added options for different modes that improve it, like most of Aces cores, but many will not.

[riblad_om]

Very happy with board. Here's a before and after of SFA3.

ryu.jpg (166.46 KiB) Viewed 9819 times

[MikeS1]

Here's attempting to change a standard genesis to look "better" or have timing that closer to the NTSC standard.

A real console has all the nasty artifacts so this is just an exercise

genesistiming.png (1.5 MiB) Viewed 9627 times

[KennyL]

Here's attempting to change a standard genesis to look "better" or have timing that closer to the NTSC standard.

A real console has all the nasty artifacts so this is just an exercise

genesistiming.png

Wow they look sweet! Having those options (at least for Genesis core) would be great. Many of your yc cores already look much cleaner than real consoles so I don't think you need to worry about accuracy if you have option to dial back and forth. Mister itself is already way beyond capabilities of real systems anyway. It would also help dialing in good looks for different types of crts. Again thank you for all your work!

Is it possible to reduce diagonal line artifacts on arcade cores? Just curious. It's pretty interesting how Neogeo MVS mode has diagonal lines and AES doesn't.

[KennyL]

Dipping my toes in MSXYC core, composite looks fantastic!

msx-01.jpg (488.73 KiB) Viewed 9345 times

Who is this guy?? heh heh

sd-snatcher-01s.jpg (62.81 KiB) Viewed 9345 times

[KennyL]

Here's attempting to change a standard genesis to look "better" or have timing that closer to the NTSC standard.

A real console has all the nasty artifacts so this is just an exercise

genesistiming.png

Hey Mike, I tried your Genesis test build you posted in Discord with option to toggle 15.70khz and 15.75khz. I really like it! Vertical splits are more like dotted with 15.75khz but a lot of games look more stable and pleasing to me. Like the intro of Street of Rage scrolling cityscape have very harsh vertical shimmer with 15.70khz but shimmer is much lighter with 15.75khz. It's like sparkly shimmering city lights. Pretty nice effect I'd say. I understand 15.70khz is accurate but having 15.75khz option is big big plus I think. 32x and SMS would also benefit from this. Is it also possible to apply this to arcade cores? Anyway, I'm having so much fun with your cores. Thank you.

[limi]

Just got the adapter from MisterAddons, and realized there’s no Minimig/Amiga core. Is that something that would be complicated to support vs. the other cores?

[riblad_om]

Just got the adapter from MisterAddons, and realized there’s no Minimig/Amiga core. Is that something that would be complicated to support vs. the other cores?

I'm sure someone who knows better will weigh in shortly if I'm wrong on this, but I think a lot of the pc cores don't have a YC port because they run at too high a resolution to be displayed on a regular television.

[LamerDeluxe]

Just got the adapter from MisterAddons, and realized there’s no Minimig/Amiga core. Is that something that would be complicated to support vs. the other cores?

viewtopic.php?p=68049#p68049

[limi]

Hah, I missed that as well. Probably my eyes scanning for Minimig and skipping it because of the NTSCYC etc. Thanks!

[serge85]

Is there a pinout diagram somewhere that I can use to build a custom cable? I have a VGA cable and a s-video cable to act as donors, just not sure about how to arrange the mod.

I got in touch with Mike on discord and he instructed me on how to build the cable:

VGA Pin #1 (Red) connects to SVIDEO Chroma (NW)
VGA Pin #2 (Green) connects to SVIDEO Luma (NE)
VGA Pin #5 (GRND) connects to SVIDEO both grounds (SW & SE)

I assembled a cable and double checked my continuity and I believe I built it correctly.

When I try to use the cable, the Main MiSTer menu appears on the screen, but it is very wavy and jittery. When I load any core (vanilla or YC) it looks like it has lost sync. The image rolls vertically and if I have a YC core loaded and switch from RGBs to YC output, I lose the image completely and there's just artifacts strobing on the screen.

It seems like I have a sync problem... I've tried all the different combinations of SOG and composite sync, and all have exhibited these same symptoms. Is there something that I am missing? Could this be a symptom of not building my cable properly?

Is there a pinout diagram somewhere that I can use to build a custom cable? I have a VGA cable and a s-video cable to act as donors, just not sure about how to arrange the mod.

I got in touch with Mike on discord and he instructed me on how to build the cable:

VGA Pin #1 (Red) connects to SVIDEO Chroma (NW)
VGA Pin #2 (Green) connects to SVIDEO Luma (NE)
VGA Pin #5 (GRND) connects to SVIDEO both grounds (SW & SE)

I assembled a cable and double checked my continuity and I believe I built it correctly.

When I try to use the cable, the Main MiSTer menu appears on the screen, but it is very wavy and jittery. When I load any core (vanilla or YC) it looks like it has lost sync. The image rolls vertically and if I have a YC core loaded and switch from RGBs to YC output, I lose the image completely and there's just artifacts strobing on the screen.

It seems like I have a sync problem... I've tried all the different combinations of SOG and composite sync, and all have exhibited these same symptoms. Is there something that I am missing? Could this be a symptom of not building my cable properly?

I ended up having the exact same sync problems you did, and I also tried just about all ini setting and SOG switch combinations (except I didn't think to try turning composite sync off). Used a multimeter to verify that all the pins were wired correctly and that there were no shorts, so I dunno what the problem could be. I used different VGA pins for ground and kept them separate, but if you kept them together and had the same problem, that's probably not the cause.

Guess I'll have to try a BNC to S-Video adapter or wait for Mike's breakout board...

I had the same problem... and found the issue... this image:

chroma-and-luma.png (914.88 KiB) Viewed 9075 times

Is Wrong

Is the other way around, right pin is Chroma, left pin is Luma.

Don't forget to leave SOG ON!!!

It Works perfect now!

[Dougdoesnt]

Congratulations, Mike!!! Y/C template has been added to MiSTer main!!!!!! I can't believe this day has come! Thank you so much, Mike, for your diligence and persistence! The MiSTer world will never be the same! Long live the CRT!!!

[jd213]

Hi Mike, I used Update All about 12 hours ago, and it removed most of the YCConsole cores and added links to empty folders. I noticed you posted something on Twitter about removing the cores from the repository because the main repo's cores have the new framework, but unless I'm missing something the main cores can't yet be switched to YC output...

edit: Ah, I didn't realize that an ini change is needed: viewtopic.php?p=69762#p69762

[MikeS1]

Hi Mike, I used Update All about 12 hours ago, and it removed most of the YCConsole cores and added links to empty folders. I noticed you posted something on Twitter about removing the cores from the repository because the main repo's cores have the new framework, but unless I'm missing something the main cores can't yet be switched to YC output...

edit: Ah, I didn't realize that an ini change is needed: viewtopic.php?p=69762#p69762

Haha, yes sorry about that I tried to make sure I had some messaging to let people know why cores were missing. But Yes, everyone using Y/C needs to now download the latest MiSTer binary through the update script and change their ini file to the following:

;YPbPr=0 ** Remove **
vga_mode=svideo ; supported modes: rgb, ypbpr, svideo, cvbs. rgb is default.
ntsc_mode=0 ; Only for S-Video and CVBS vga_mode. 0 - normal NTSC, 1 - PAL-60, 2 - PAL-M.

I wanted to avoid any problems or confusion with older / outdated cores.

[mapf]

Hi,

I recently got a Commodore 1802 monitor. While waiting for parts to make my own RGB cable (that model uses 6-pin DIN instead of SCART) I tried the S-Video connection with my analogue board and a DB15 to cinch RGB cable. After setting vga_mode, ntsc_mode and sync-on-green, I get a rather nice and sharp color picture.

But I noticed that the chroma information seems to be "off". For example, the SMPTE bars in the 240p test suite on SNES show thick overlaps between the colors.

To ensure that it is not a problem with that particular monitor/tube, I tried another 1802 that has SCART RGB. The test picture is clear with SCART-RGB, and shows the same visible overlap with S-Video:

20230302_142704.jpg (6.15 MiB) Viewed 8543 times

My questions:

• I took the red and green wire directly from the analogue board. Should I have used capacitors/resistors to modify the chroma signal? The discussion and wiki made me think that this only required for composite.
• Are there any ways to tune the PAL color information? I noticed yc.txt, but that seems to be only for dot crawl on NTSC.

[serge85]

Hi Mike, I used Update All about 12 hours ago, and it removed most of the YCConsole cores and added links to empty folders. I noticed you posted something on Twitter about removing the cores from the repository because the main repo's cores have the new framework, but unless I'm missing something the main cores can't yet be switched to YC output...

edit: Ah, I didn't realize that an ini change is needed: viewtopic.php?p=69762#p69762

Haha, yes sorry about that I tried to make sure I had some messaging to let people know why cores were missing. But Yes, everyone using Y/C needs to now download the latest MiSTer binary through the update script and change their ini file to the following:

;YPbPr=0 ** Remove **
vga_mode=svideo ; supported modes: rgb, ypbpr, svideo, cvbs. rgb is default.
ntsc_mode=0 ; Only for S-Video and CVBS vga_mode. 0 - normal NTSC, 1 - PAL-60, 2 - PAL-M.

I wanted to avoid any problems or confusion with older / outdated cores.

Hey Mike, great that did the trick for some console cores.

But, I'm having problems with some arcade cores (including jotego's) they are displayed in black and white, and they got deleted from the YCARCADE folder.

[MikeS1]

Jotego has the new framework but only cps had been recompiled with it.

But I've only removed cores which have been updated. If you have one specific I can have a look!

[serge85]

Jotego has the new framework but only cps had been recompiled with it.

But I've only removed cores which have been updated. If you have one specific I can have a look!

Thanks Mike for your work and help!

Well, I tried Cadillacs & Dinosaurs for example, and I didn't find it in my YC arcade core folder

[MikeS1]

Jotego has the new framework but only cps had been recompiled with it.

But I've only removed cores which have been updated. If you have one specific I can have a look!

Thanks Mike for your work and help!

Well, I tried Cadillacs & Dinosaurs for example, and I didn't find it in my YC arcade core folder

Yikes, sorry, CPS1 and CPS2 are updated but for some reason CPS15 never got updated, I've put back the MRA files for CPS 1.5 but you can also add more if the alternative are the ones you like.

Edit: Looks like most of the cores have been updated now, a few still have not e.g. S16 but I'll start cleaning them up on the weekend

[jca]

CPS1.5 has been updated a few days ago and the mras for this core have been restored.
May be it will solve your problem (I don't do YC).

[mapf]

To ensure that it is not a problem with that particular monitor/tube, I tried another 1802 that has SCART RGB. The test picture is clear with SCART-RGB, and shows the same visible overlap with S-Video:

One update: the fuzzy color borders are far more visible in NTSC consoles than in their PAL counterparts.

[jca]

jotego @topapate · 38m
#MiSTerFPGA cores updated to support Y/C (compositve video) implementation from MikeS. Run update_all to get them.