MiSTer FPGA Forum

I recently got one of those iPad displays for the MiSTer that is recommended in a topic here. It is a fantastic display for MiSTer. I found a very nice stand for it now, which allows me to easily turn it vertically.

So now I've been adjusting all the settings of the vertical arcade cores, taking hours, to display correctly vertically. This includes scan line and shadow mask settings.

The problem is, setting all these cores up correctly for a vertical display, ruins my settings for horizontal displays.

I'm using two alternate MiSTer ini files, for correct cw and ccw orientated display of the core menu. I could set the default scanline and shadow mask filters for horizontal and vertical cores. Which would partly solve this (sadly not all arcade cores support adaptive scanlines yet).

What I was thinking, as a possible solution, is being able to set your display as being clockwise or counter-clockwise in the (alt) MiSTer ini file. This would correctly adjust the orientation of the menus as well. Vertical cores could then use this information to turn and flip the image for this orientation (not all of them have a working flip option yet). And maybe also swap the scanline filter orientations and change the shadow mask orientation.

Does anyone else here run into this problem? Could this be a good solution or are there better ideas for it?

I don't have that problem, no. It looks correct, with no artifacts, regardless of the orientation.

Theoretically, identical settings can be used for both directions. I.e. it's simply the physical CRT that is (or rather was) flipped - therefore scanlines and shadow masks should stay the same in MiSTer, exactly like the look does on a CRT that's rotated.

In practice this is also what I'm getting.

Perhaps something else is causing this problem for you, such as vertical scaling setting/lack of integer scaling which can lead to visual patterns and irregularities which are more or less visible depending on your screen orientation and the scrolling direction. I noticed this in the beginning I was setting up my MiSTer.

I've not tested with an iPad, though. I'm not sure how an iPad screen would cause different problems in this regard, though.

Vertical CRTs in arcade machines are just normal "horizontal" CRTs turned 90 degrees. So scanlines/shadowmasks etc should not have to be set separately for vertical games. If you're getting horizontal scanline effects in vertical games, I suppose maybe you just like the look of it, but it wouldn't be "accurate".

The problem I'm having is not the orientation of the image, scanlines or shadowmasks. It is that if I change that for a vertical HDMI display, it will be incorrect when connecting it to a horizontal HDMI display, even if I would select a different (alt) mister ini file per display orientation.

That part can be fixed by deleting all scanline (scaler) and shadowmask settings for all arcade cores and defining correct defaults for your display orientation in the (alt) mister ini files.

For vertical cores, you can set different defaults in this way:

[Arcade_Vertical]
vfilter_default=<horizontal filter name>
vfilter_vertical_default=<vertical filter name>
shmask_default=<shadow mask name>
shmask_mode_default=<shadow mask orientation>

What remains then is that the orientation of the image itself will be wrong when connecting to a horizontal HDMI display. I can select the correct (alt) ini file for a vertical or horizontal display, but they share the same stored image orientation configuration.

It would be handy if you switched to the correct (alt) ini file, that the displayed orientation of the vertical cores would switch as well. If the (alt) ini file would contain a setting for display orientation, cores could know how to correctly display their content automatically.

LamerDeluxe wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2023 3:51 pm

The problem I'm having is not the orientation of the image, scanlines or shadowmasks. It is that if I change that for a vertical HDMI display, it will be incorrect when connecting it to a horizontal HDMI display, even if I would select a different (alt) mister ini file per display orientation.

The settings will be correct regardless of whether the display is rotated one way or the other, but you do need to physically rotate the display as intended.

For vertical cores, you can set different defaults in this way:

Code: Select all

[Arcade_Vertical]
vfilter_default=<horizontal filter name>
vfilter_vertical_default=<vertical filter name>
shmask_default=<shadow mask name>
shmask_mode_default=<shadow mask orientation>

You can do that, but it's not necessary or meaningful as long as you physically rotate the display, as intended. Do you not want to rotate the display for some reason? This would also limit the usable part of the display and result in large borders.

What remains then is that the orientation of the image itself will be wrong when connecting to a horizontal HDMI display. I can select the correct (alt) ini file for a vertical or horizontal display, but they share the same stored image orientation configuration.

You can generally choose per core how to rotate the image. If it's meant to be played vertically then you can and should set that, and you need to rotate the display, physically, which would be the intended way.

If you really don't want to touch your display with your hands it's possible to install a step-motor behind the display and rotate it automatically based on the current core (/tmp/CORENAME). I'm using this method for my high score website by curling it to my server, but I will be implementing a step-motor at some point.

It would be handy if you switched to the correct (alt) ini file, that the displayed orientation of the vertical cores would switch as well. If the (alt) ini file would contain a setting for display orientation, cores could know how to correctly display their content automatically.

If setup correctly, the core will already display correctly and you simply need to rotate the display as intended.

lagerfeldt wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2023 10:05 pm

LamerDeluxe wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2023 3:51 pm

The problem I'm having is not the orientation of the image, scanlines or shadowmasks. It is that if I change that for a vertical HDMI display, it will be incorrect when connecting it to a horizontal HDMI display, even if I would select a different (alt) mister ini file per display orientation.

The settings will be correct regardless of whether the display is rotated one way or the other, but you do need to physically rotate the display as intended.

For vertical cores, you can set different defaults in this way:

Code: Select all

[Arcade_Vertical]
vfilter_default=<horizontal filter name>
vfilter_vertical_default=<vertical filter name>
shmask_default=<shadow mask name>
shmask_mode_default=<shadow mask orientation>

Yes, you can do that, but it's not necessary or meaningful as long as you physically rotate the display, as intended. Do you not want to rotate the display for some reason? This would also limit the usable part of the display to a small usable part of the screen and result in large borders.

What remains then is that the orientation of the image itself will be wrong when connecting to a horizontal HDMI display. I can select the correct (alt) ini file for a vertical or horizontal display, but they share the same stored image orientation configuration.

You can generally choose per core how to rotate the image. If it's meant to be played vertically then you can and should set that, and you need to rotate the display, physically, which would be the intended way.

If you really don't want to touch your display with your hands it's possible to install a step-motor behind the display and rotate it automatically based on the current core (/tmp/CORENAME). I'm using this method for my high score website by curling it to my server, but I will be implementing a step-motor at some point.

It would be handy if you switched to the correct (alt) ini file, that the displayed orientation of the vertical cores would switch as well. If the (alt) ini file would contain a setting for display orientation, cores could know how to correctly display their content automatically.

If setup correctly, the core will already display correctly and you simply need to rotate the display as intended.

The thing is that I would like to be able to easily switch between HDMI displays that can rotate to vertical orientation and ones that cannot. Without having to change the orientation and flip settings of all the vertical cores every time. I can partly do that for the scanlines and shadow masks by switching to alt mister ini files, but not for the actual image orientation, which needs to be done in the core menu of each core.

The [arcade_vertical] example works for displays that cannot rotate. My iPad display is on a stand now and can rotate any way I like. My OLED TV can't do that.

I like to run MiSTer SAM to randomly shuffle my games. It will show the vertical cores in the wrong orientation if all of them haven't been adjusted manually to the orientation of the display the MiSTer happens to be attached to.

A simple mister ini addition to let the system know if your display can handle vertical orientation (cw or ccw) could solve that. Of course, all vertical arcade cores would then have to be updated to correctly set their orientation and flip settings according to this ini file setting. Being part of the ini file, you could then simply switch to the correct alt file for your attached display, to automatically show all vertical cores with the correct orientation.

Another drawback of having changed the settings of all vertical cores for vertical orientation, is that now I can't shuffle horizontal games together with vertical ones correctly anymore with MiSTer SAM.

As an owner of the same display, I would also appreciate your proposed option.

As for an immediate fix, and it's probably a good bit of work, but: you could move your games to a USB drive or network drive and have separate SD cards for the OS, one for each display. Then you'd just change the SD card when you change displays.

PistolsAtDawn wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 2:37 am

As an owner of the same display, I would also appreciate your proposed option.

As for an immediate fix, and it's probably a good bit of work, but: you could move your games to a USB drive or network drive and have separate SD cards for the OS, one for each display. Then you'd just change the SD card when you change displays.

Thanks for your reply. Good to head from someone else who would like to have this implemented.

Thanks for the idea! That would indeed be quite some work. I wouldn't want to switch SD cards often, apart from the possible wear, it is a bit tricky to insert a card without accidentally dropping it into the casing.

LamerDeluxe wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 7:35 am

PistolsAtDawn wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 2:37 am

As an owner of the same display, I would also appreciate your proposed option.

As for an immediate fix, and it's probably a good bit of work, but: you could move your games to a USB drive or network drive and have separate SD cards for the OS, one for each display. Then you'd just change the SD card when you change displays.

Thanks for your reply. Good to head from someone else who would like to have this implemented.

Thanks for the idea! That would indeed be quite some work. I wouldn't want to switch SD cards often, apart from the possible wear, it is a bit tricky to insert a card without accidentally dropping it into the casing.

Agreed. The fiddly micro SD card slot is my biggest gripe about the idea too. I would get one of these to make that part easier:

https://www.amazon.com/LANMU-Extension- ... 421&sr=8-3