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Recommended scaler settings to rotate vertical-only games? (re: 15 kHz arcade monitor)

Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2020 4:26 pm
by sofakng
Can anybody provide information or settings for rotating vertical-only arcade games on a horizontal arcade monitor? (15 kHz, 240p/480i)

Should I create separate scaler settings for each vertical game?

I'd like to retain the most amount of information (ie. highest quality) when scaling so I'd really appreciate any advice on the best settings to use.

Re: Recommended scaler settings to rotate vertical-only games? (re: 15 kHz arcade monitor)

Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2020 5:41 pm
by Atohmdiy
Hello,
I am also interested in this. There is suppose to be some option on few core to rotate screen or change the screen orientation with dip switch, but nothing is working with my 15 khz crt.

Re: Recommended scaler settings to rotate vertical-only games? (re: 15 kHz arcade monitor)

Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 1:53 am
by LeftEmpty
The lack of reply should tell you something ;)
Until recently, it was not a decent possibility.
Now it's usable, and doesn't look too bad actually, but it comes with limitations.

The basic setting for each game should be:

Code: Select all

; Insert here [romset name as specified in the MRA]
vga_scaler=1 
video_mode=320,8,32,24,240,4,3,16,6048 
vscale_mode=0 
The last setting is very important: it ensures the game will fill the screen and be somewhat readable. Now, the problem is that this way, it is not properly scaled anymore, which will introduce very visible graphical glitches.

The core needs to have the basic aspect ratio settings from the Main core implemented. This means something like Gemini Wing will work relatively. Some other cores will display with worse aspect ratio. Most cores (such as the ever popular CPS1 core) won't work properly currently in such a Frankenstein setting.

The use of user-set custom aspect ratio introduced recently should help with the aspect ratio eventually, but, again, each core will have to be updated to incorporate this, and most of the arcade cores are very old — in MiSTer age, that is ;)

I didn't run many tests, but in my experience the only cores currently having the necessary basic requirements to make it working were Nullobject's Tecmo (Gemini Wing) and Jotego's beta Contra core.

The relatively decent results (all things considered) are mainly because of the low resolutions of those games. I'm pretty sure Cave shooters will be nearly unreadable (as they were, when rotated, in their Sega Saturn ports), and I doubt the CPS1 ones might be either.
It's a curiosity more than anything, and offers very limited interests versus simply emulating the games on anything — and no interests versus using a modern screen.

Re: Recommended scaler settings to rotate vertical-only games? (re: 15 kHz arcade monitor)

Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 3:54 pm
by bengmo
Unfortunately I have to agree, I tried a lot of settings to get the vertical games working on my CRT tv and the best I got was Arkanoid is playable now but it looks muddy and it's not nearly as nice to play like that.

Code: Select all

; Custom graphics mode for mister menu to allow wallpaper
[Menu]
video_mode=640,6,56,66,224,14,8,18,12000
vga_scaler=1

; Arkanoid
[arkatayt]
video_mode=640,6,56,66,224,14,8,18,12000
vga_scaler=1
vscale_mode=1
This is the mode that gave me the best results, but Mister or maybe the core has changed something since then and it no longer works properly. no big loss.

Re: Recommended scaler settings to rotate vertical-only games? (re: 15 kHz arcade monitor)

Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2020 2:42 am
by ash2fpga
If I understand correctly, you can use the video filters with vga scaler. An appropriate filter could possible improve the clarity of a downscaled image. So far, with fixed geometry screens anyway, I have gone with one of the gaussian sharp filters when I could not get integer scale to enable scanlines.