Arcade Monitor calibration guides

[hardyhell]

think the only possible way for me right now is to use the mister with snes test suite. it snot accurate though. right?

 

[kikaso]

think the only possible way for me right now is to use the mister with snes test suite. it snot accurate though. right?

Calibrating using the SNES results in the gamma being off but I wouldn’t worry about it too much.

At best, you’re working with a 20-year old CRT and even when new these sets were never able to achieve perfection. Using calibration suite on RPi mentioned earlier will help get the gamma curve better but I doubt anyone could ever notice the difference especially when all the monitor will be used for is retro gaming.

 

[ShootTheCore]

think the only possible way for me right now is to use the mister with snes test suite. it snot accurate though. right?

The SNES hardware has an uneven 2.2 gamma curve, so if you calibrate against it, your gamma curve won’t be as flat as it potentially could be. Honestly though, you’re unlikely to notice the difference unless you’re watching a lot of darker movies on your display.

My post here has two photos at the end where I calibrated the same cab twice-once with a SNES and once with PGenerator from a Raspberry Pi. The PGenerator is technically more accurate, but a SNES calibration definitely gets the job done more than well enough for video game content-the DeltaE for RGB is less than 1.0 across the board.

https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads/arcade-monitor-calibration-guides.17183/post-274247

 

[THCsoftcore]

also have the impression that my M92 and M72 are slightly blurrier than other games, but i certainly don't see me dialing in the focus every time i change games - i also haven't tried if that has any effect at all.

my goto pcbs for my monitors normally are, CPS2, Espgaluda2 PGM repro and RFJ...

Good eye. M72 and M92 games are blurry. This is where the Extron peaking control comes in handy, but it produces green ghosting/offset if jacked up too much.

 

[hardyhell]

Good eye. M72 and M92 games are blurry. This is where the Extron peaking control comes in handy, but it produces green ghosting/offset if jacked up too much.

i just recently noticed that the picture gets so bad at the m92 games because the voltage needs to go higher on some games. if i lover the voltage the washed out or blurry effect is less.

dont know why some games need more voltage to run. i noticed on the conversions as well that for example undercoder cops needs much more V than ninja baseball batman. nobody had any response on why question in the thread though

 

[THCsoftcore]

Interesting. Didn't notice the two were related. Are you sure it is not just the voltage making the screen brighter? These games are naturally far dimmer than other titles.

 

[hardyhell]

The picture is more sharp when voltage is lower. Did not really see increase in brightness. The more current the more this washed out blurry irem effect happens. Try it out yourself.like to see your results. Tested in a new Astro city here

 

[MoppelTheWhale]

@hardyhell if i come around to it i'll try as well wenn i'm finished with work

 

[MoppelTheWhale]

ok tried it yesterday with gunforce 2. first it ran on 4.77v (had another board in before), the 5.00 and then 5.20v oo the jamma edge. the picture got definately worse on 5.2v - blurrier but not really brighter.

i completely credit fed through the game on 5.00v and didn't have any problems. next thing i'll try is put the leo conversion roms on the boards and try it with 5.00 - i remember @hardyhell telling me that it needs a ton ov voltage otherwise it crashes on him a few levels in...

Mind you, i'm testing on a blast city, the screen much blurrier than the nac i own in itself and the psu is different as well (no clue if that matters

 

[hardyhell]

Hy guys. Hope anyone will answer this here.
i calibrated my monitors (New Astro city)with the shoot the core guide and the recommended device. 2 of my 3 monitors came out very good. With one I have this problem now though. In 10% ire grey pictures I can see these magnetic field shadow lines or arcs spanning symmetric over the whole screen. Is there a way to get rid of them or at least make them not visible.
Hope somebody knows. Thanks.

 

[stj]

flyback lines,
the brightness is too high on the lopt

this threads a joke,
arcade monitors are like cooking, everybody has different tastes.
you ajust it so it "looks good", not so it fits some fanatic's gamma table.

as for how,
you set the lopt brightness, then the focus.
then tweek those again - because they effect each other.
then you do the RGB brightness and cutoff controls to get bright colours and black that really is black.
the only tools you need are an insulated screwdriver and a small mirror so you can see the controls and image at the same time.

 

[hardyhell]

It comes out always the same if I use 0,0065 % Y value of the 100 ire value at 10ire.
these lines are visible then for example Capcom logo background at street fighter alpha 2. If I then lower the brightness (at the remote board)it eventually is not visible anymore.
What is lopt brightness. And why focus. Screen pot is doing the flyback lines or not?

thanks

 

[stj]

high voltage transformer has brightness(screen) and focus pots on it or connected very close by.

 

[djsheep]

flyback lines,
the brightness is too high on the lopt

this threads a joke,
arcade monitors are like cooking, everybody has different tastes.
you ajust it so it "looks good", not so it fits some fanatic's gamma table.

as for how,
you set the lopt brightness, then the focus.
then tweek those again - because they effect each other.
then you do the RGB brightness and cutoff controls to get bright colours and black that really is black.
the only tools you need are an insulated screwdriver and a small mirror so you can see the controls and image at the same time.

Nah. This thread's not a joke.

Not everyone's a "expert" like yourself. I have no idea what "lopt brightness" is for example.

Excecise some patience and tact toward those getting their feet in the hobby or trying to learn concepts.

 

[kikaso]

Nah. This thread's not a joke.

Not everyone's a "expert" like yourself. I have no idea what "lopt brightness" is for example.

Excecise some patience and tact toward those getting their feet in the hobby or trying to learn concepts.

Agree!

I have a hard time calibrating my monitors and find the guides here, (especially @ShootTheCore ) provide a good starting point for me. Everyone’s ambient lighting and preferences are different but it helps to have accurate place to start.

 

[ShootTheCore]

this threads a joke,
arcade monitors are like cooking, everybody has different tastes.
you ajust it so it "looks good", not so it fits some fanatic's gamma table.

I have no problem with the mindset of setting things so they look "good enough". But for me personally, "looking good" means that each cab matches each other, and that you can see subtle details on a dark background. Now that I've stepped through it a few times, It's actually faster for me to follow my step-by-step procedure and dial in a cab in with a colorimeter than it is to "wing it" by fiddling all those adjustments around without one. To each their own though - it would likely be a different story if I had 20+ cabs to keep up with rather than just 3.

 

[hardyhell]

Yea guys. So if we could leave his opinion aside and get back to my question. Does anyone have an idea about how to approach this flyback effect? Could it go away by turning screen even more down?
There is also this turn screen as high as possible approach by one guys thread. Any thoughts on that? He claims that this way the picture becomes super sharp because of the beam being “slimmer”

 

[stj]

set the rgb controls to the middle, and then ajust the screen till black is black
then do the focus,
and then do the rgb controls

 

[thomas3184]

I just followed the AO guide and looks perfect to me.

 

[Nebula]

Contrast and Brightness
1) In the 240P Test Suite, back out and go to "Test Patterns" -> "100 IRE".
2) Look at the readouts in the lower-left corner of the Color HCRF window. The "Y ftL" measurement tells you how bright your screen is. You'll want it between 30 - 40 ftL. 30 is better for a dark room, while 40 is better for a brightly lit room. I usually target 35 Y ftL for my cabs. Adjust the SubContrast dial (if you have one; Contrast otherwise) until the Y ftL hits your target. If the SubContrast dial doesn't go high enough to reach your target, nudge the "Screen" dial on your flyback up.
3) Write down what your "Y" (not "Y ftL") measurement is in ColorHCRF.
4) In the 240P Test Suite, the L and R buttons on the controller adjust the IRE levels up or down in 10% increments. Tap L until you're at IRE 10.
5) Your target now is to set the SubBrightness pot (if you have one; Brightness otherwise) - not Contrast - such that the Y reading is 0.65% of what you wrote down on Step 3. So if you wrote down "47.387", 47.387 times 0.0065=0.308, so you adjust the SubBrightness pot until Y is as close to 0.308 as you can get. If you can't go low enough, you may need to nudge the "Screen" dial on the flyback down a hair.

Pinging @ShootTheCore about Contrast and Brightness adjustments.

Seeing MS9 manual, I noticed that there is some section where it explains how to calibrate Brightness:

It also involves tunning Sub-Contrast, ABL (Automatic Bright Limiter), Screen, Brightness and Contracts pots to adjust general brightness, but in a different manner.

As I don't really have many knowledge in luminance and technical bright concepts, I don't know if this would be a proper way to adjust it.
Do you think this method could result in a similar final adjustment as yours?

It talks about 0.8 ft-L in the first step, while setting up brightnes pot to the maximum. That doesn’t really make much sense for me, seeing the magnitude values for luminance in your method, or even in the second and third steps in picture above...