MiSTer FPGA Forum

I have a custom-built arcade cabinet that uses a 27" CRT TV. I've also built a MiSTer and it's by far my favorite way to play arcade games but I also want to play the vertical-only games (ie. Arkanoid, DoDonPachi, etc).

I don't have room to build a second vertical-only arcade cabinet, so what option(s) do I have to rotate and play these vertical-only games?

MiSTer has a built-in scaler that can be used over VGA output, but it doesn't seem ideal for a 15 kHz output.

Should I replace the CRT with an SVGA or LCD monitor? Does that significantly improve rotated video output quality? (I've been trying to find a 27" 4:3 VGA or LCD monitor but it seems impossible...)

Get a nice monitor with low lag and a VESA mounting kit that lets you rotate it.

Currently, I am using the scaler to play rotated games on my CRT and they work ok, but are missing a few pixel rows here and there. The various scaler filters help a bit. This may be good enough for you depending on how often you play vertical games. I have a second TV that I plan to build an arcade cabinet for and I plan to make it for only vertical games. In my case, I plan to only have one arcade cabinet and the vast majority of the arcade games I play are vertical, so it will be a vertical only cabinet. You may consider changing your existing cabinet to vertical by rotating your TV if you don't have space. Or, you can find room for a second cabinet somewhere.

Build a rotating mount?

https://forums.arcade-museum.com/thread ... or.433261/
http://jrok.com/project/rotateamon/rota ... nitor.html

I'm a fan of TATE on my SVGA. It took me some time to setup the custom video_mode lines for all the arcade cores (allowing integer scaling) but once setup it looks absolutely amazing. Will share my ini file for those interested at some point in the future.

ash2fpga wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 4:38 pm Build a rotating mount?

https://forums.arcade-museum.com/thread ... or.433261/
http://jrok.com/project/rotateamon/rota ... nitor.html

I was thinking about doing something like that for a long time. I did not know about "bearings" and that is the secret sauce! I think I will go that route. Thanks! In my mind, I was thinking about something like a round laundry basket with handles dropped into a wooden hole and the CRT inside the laundry basket.

Can the built-in (VGA) scaler rotate the image and then output as 480i?

I'm not sure if I understand the issues with rotating vertical-games, but is it related to there not being enough vertical resolution?

sofakng wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 6:57 pm Can the built-in (VGA) scaler rotate the image and then output as 480i?

I'm not sure if I understand the issues with rotating vertical-games, but is it related to there not being enough vertical resolution?

The scaler doesn't currently support 480i (I wish it did), but it supports 240p. It is capable of rotating the image, but you will lose some resolution because there is more than 240 rows of pixels. You can get an external converter to get 480i. I have a thread on the Display forum talking about my journey testing various options. In short, if you want 480i, you can use the HDMI to Svideo converter that I linked to in my thread. The Mister scaler would rotate the image, then the HDMI to SVideo converter would display it on the TV in 480i. Also, rotating the image introduces at least a frame of lag because it has to know what to draw and has to wait for the whole frame before it can start to draw it rotated.

480i support probably is coming at some point, or else it will make a lot of PS1 games unplayable.

Thanks again for the information.

As I was researching this, I placed a few bids on eBay for Extron VSC 500/700 units.

Do I understand correctly that I need MiSTer to scale the arcade games to 480p (and the supported arcade cores will rotate the image), and then the VSC will downscale the 31 kHz to 15 kHz?

Perhaps we can petition Sorgelig or somebody knowledgeable to implement 480i on the scaler?

I have the Extron, but I don't use it because the picture quality is not as nice as the Svideo converter in my opinion.

Yes, you would use the MiSTer to scale to whatever resolution, and then the Extron or Svideo converter will scale that to 480i (15kHz).

deepthaw wrote: ↑Thu Jan 14, 2021 8:13 pm Get a nice monitor with low lag and a VESA mounting kit that lets you rotate it.

Funny thing if I rotate my component TV the colors are all off.

redsteakraw wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 10:17 pm

deepthaw wrote: ↑Thu Jan 14, 2021 8:13 pm Get a nice monitor with low lag and a VESA mounting kit that lets you rotate it.

Funny thing if I rotate my component TV the colors are all off.

Obviously it sounds like a joke, but have you tried turning it off and on again (while it's rotated)?

jimmystones wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 10:25 pm

redsteakraw wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 10:17 pm

deepthaw wrote: ↑Thu Jan 14, 2021 8:13 pm Get a nice monitor with low lag and a VESA mounting kit that lets you rotate it.

Funny thing if I rotate my component TV the colors are all off.

Obviously it sounds like a joke, but have you tried turning it off and on again (while it's rotated)?

Purple grass in frogger is no laughing matter.

The earths magnetic field may be toying with you, but I am not... Degaussing is very important.

aberu wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 8:30 pm 480i support probably is coming at some point, or else it will make a lot of PS1 games unplayable.

After thinking about it, I am not sure that is the case. The PS1 core should output to 480i natively without going through the scaler at all, so it should just work. I imagine that the current scaler can take 480i input from a core and scale that. It just can't output 480i.

thorr wrote: ↑Sat Jan 16, 2021 12:41 am

aberu wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 8:30 pm 480i support probably is coming at some point, or else it will make a lot of PS1 games unplayable.

After thinking about it, I am not sure that is the case. The PS1 core should output to 480i natively without going through the scaler at all, so it should just work. I imagine that the current scaler can take 480i input from a core and scale that. It just can't output 480i.

I was replying to you talking about the scaler not supporting 480i.

aberu wrote: ↑Sat Jan 16, 2021 2:08 am I was replying to you talking about the scaler not supporting 480i.

Yes, I know. I am not sure if the scaler supports 480i cores, but I am guessing that it already does. The PS1 would be at least partially a 480i core. What it does not support is 480i output from the scaler. You can't set a scaler video mode to 480i, but I think it can scale a 480i core to 240p or anything else that is not interlaced.

Yup this is true. I'm sure it could be updated, it's just not worth it since it all seems to work fine in 240p

It is worth it in some cases to get double the vertical resolution, even if it is interlaced and flickers more. Examples would be vertical arcade games that are rotated and ao486 higher resolution games and applications.