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Getting 240p out of a Raspberry Pi through VGA

Milspex

Milspex

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I've been wanting to try this out because I love messing around with these kinds of things. I'm not pro or anti emulation or anything like that but I will quickly lay out how I got this working on my arcade cab.

First of all, get a Raspberry Pi, a proper power supply (at least 2.5A) and a MicroSD (preferably 16gb).

Then, go on ebay or amazon and purchase either a VGA Shield like in the picture below, or a Gert666 VGA adapter (the VGA shield is just a clone of the Gert666, the same settings appy).

To get this to work with 240 it basically consists of copy/pasting a tiny bit of code into your config.txt on the raspberry microsd, explaining what to output through the vgashield/Gert666. That's all you really have to do. Then set the aspect ratio in your retroarch emulator to 1:1 and you are good to go. There is some tinkering involved but nothing too difficult.

Simply add this to your /boot/config.txt
====================
dtoverlay=vga666
enable_dpi_lcd=1
display_default_lcd=1
dpi_group=2
dpi_mode=87


#hdmi_timings=336 1 10 30 34 252 1 15 3 42 0 0 0 50 0 6400000 1 # 336:252 6.4MHz progressive
#hdmi_timings=336 1 10 30 34 252 1 15 3 42 0 0 0 50 0 6400000 1 # 336:252 6.4MHz progressive
#hdmi_timings=256 1 6 17 18 192 1 26 22 29 0 0 0 60 0 4800000 1 # 256:192 Sega Master System (NTSC)
#hdmi_timings=256 1 8 17 21 224 1 7 10 24 0 0 0 60 0 4800000 1 # 256:224 NES, SNES (NTSC)
hdmi_timings=320 1 20 29 35 224 1 10 14 16 0 0 0 60 0 6400000 1 # 320:224 Sega Genesis (NTSC)
#hdmi_timings=320 1 14 46 28 256 1 17 32 9 0 0 0 50 0 6400000 1 # 320:256 Amiga (PAL)
#hdmi_timings=384 1 0 11 28 224 1 30 0 30 0 0 0 60 0 6400000 1 # 384:224 CapcomPlaySystem
#hdmi_timings=320 1 16 30 34 240 1 2 3 22 0 0 0 60 0 6400000 1 #240p


Peter Sommer on youtube posted this video and a knowledgebase on all the different timings and settings so all credit must go to him. :thumbsup:







tumblr_omwgwwC4VA1sns8t5o1_1280.jpg


tumblr_omwii1nQlf1sns8t5o1_1280.jpg
 
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very nice, can't wait to try it myself! :D

How do you handle controls?
Via a JVS-PAC?
 
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Currently running latest Retropie, but pretty much anything should work in the same way.

Controls are handled by 2x PS360+ pcbs (or Brook Universal Fighting Boards).
 
Great find, fun to play around with. Would be even more awesome if the JVS-PAC would work with the rPi Emulation Station distri :)
 
Also, run games off usb and not off your microSD (much easier to install new games). This is how I have it setup at the moment. Just copy roms to usb, plug it in and play.

Follow this tutorial:

 
This weekend I will try my hand at making an Emulationstation theme in 4:3 size (for crt's) and the same one for vertical monitors. There's a first time for everything...
 
Gonna try these settings later today because they seem to fit arcade games a bit better perhaps:

hdmi_timings=384 1 0 11 28 224 1 30 0 30 0 0 0 60 0 6400000 1 # 384:224 CapcomPlaySystem
 
Still trying to figure out how dynamic resolution switching works. Even though retroarch is set to 1:1 pixel aspect ratio, with the raspberry pi set to 320x240p, the games that are not exactly 320x240p exhibit some shitty scrolling. There is a way to set the resolution for each game but haven't figured that out yet.

In the meantime, the menu is now in tate mode aswell:

tumblr_onhey3nu8q1sns8t5o1_1280.jpg
 
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