What "fb_terminal" does and should I care? [Solved]

[Malan]

When I run updates on my CRT I can't see what's going on and I'm asked to set "fb_terminal=0" in the mister.ini.
Can somebody explain what this framebuffer option does, appart form displaying the update on the CRT? Why is it not 0 by default? Should I care for cores?

Thanks.

[aberu]

Let's say you have connected your CRT to the MiSTer via VGA.

fb_terminal=0 <-- means you will see the tv "snow"
fb_terminal=1 <-- means you will see the background image (menu.png if you did that, or anything in /media/fat/wallpapers/*.png)

That's the last I remember of it.

[FoxbatStargazer]

If you want to see what's going on with your crt, you need to se vga_scaler=1 for the menu core. (And naturally, find a video mode that works with it...)

[EmK_IronFist]

Can somebody explain what this framebuffer option does, appart form displaying the update on the CRT? Why is it not 0 by default? Should I care for cores?

It enables a framebuffer for the main menu and the commandline terminal (which is also where the update scripts run) so you don't necessarily have to worry about it for games, no. The framebuffer displays on the same output as the scaler, so basically it only displays over HDMI unless you have vga_scaler enabled too. When you run the update script, by default it's going to display the script running in this terminal. By disabling fb_terminal, the update script's output is just shown in the menu window instead.
With the framebuffer terminal enabled, you can also easily switch to this terminal using F10 on a keyboard; F12 or the OSD button will switch back to the menu

I keep fb_terminal enabled because I like being able to use the linux command line on my MiSTer now and again for quick edits of config files, checking names of things, etc. I also like being able to see the lots of text in the expanded space of the framebuffer. But if it's useless for you, you won't lose that much from disabling fb_terminal, except your HDMI output will also lose its background wallpaper, since that's another framebuffer feature.

I'd say feel free to disable it unless you're the kind of person who likes to stream, because the snowy animated background that you're stuck with if you disable fb_terminal will wreak havoc on the stream bitrate. Leaving the framebuffer enabled and switching to a static background image is better for that sort of situation.

[Malan]

Thank you very much for your answer, that's perfectly clear now