Wondering if anyone is familiar with running GBI and could help with a problem I’m running into. I moved my GC/GBP setup to the CRT and have it connected via component cables. When I boot up the program via Swiss and set it to 240p mode, I’m noticing an uneven edge on the left and right sides of the image. Any idea what could be causing this?
It’s like something is screwed up with the geometry of the image. Could it be the TV? Something I can adjust and fix?
Also curious if anyone has any recommended settings or config options that would be best with how I have things set up. I’m pretty unfamiliar with GBI and Swiss in general.
Ok, thanks - I’ll figure out how to get into the service menu on this TV tonight and will see what options are available to me. Not sure if this is relevant to the troubleshooting, but I only noticed this issue when I put things into 240p mode. When playing 480i content full screen, I wasn’t able to tell. If I start messing about with the TV settings, do I run the risk of messing other things up that were previously fine?
It changes with every console because they all put out slightly different resolutions.
It looks like you’ve got a Trinitron so you want to adjust the HSIZE and potentially HPOS
HSIZE stretches the image horizontal
HPOS moves the center of the image on the horizontal axis. Adjust this if you stretch past the screen on the 1 side but not the other.
Always keep both of your settings before you change them so you can change them back if need be.
Although I brightened up your picture and realized you have GBI unscaled. I don’t think you’ll have enough adjustment to stretch that the entire screen, and even if you did it would be WAY off for any other console, so I recommend you scale GBI itself as much as possible first.
You’re right, that’s a detail I didn’t really expand on - when I scaled the GBI to something like 2.66x it filled most of the screen and eliminated any visible geometry errors. I preferred the way the “high fidelity” (previously called “ull”) version looked, but I don’t think I have any scaling options with that. So basically I’m trying to have my cake and eat it, too.
@BeerMonkey yes, exactly. The other versions are called “speedrunner” and “high-fi” now, but that’s what I’ve been experimenting with.
@fester ULL/Speedrunner are likely to have no issues with BVMs and PVMs as they are very forgiving of off-spec scan rates and timings. Consumer CRTs are less so forgiving and may have issues with color (like, no color, the picture may be monochrome) or geometry may have that ‘keystoning’ effect. Many flat panel HDTVs and some capture devices will be even less forgiving than the consumer CRTs.
I read through that neo-geo forum thread and it was helpful. Also a bit intimidating and not sure I want to dive into to it. Here are some pics from the 240p test suite I’m running off the GCN. Worth the time trying to fix?
hmmm it’s not bad. You’ll never get perfect geometry on a flat panel CRT and it’s not just consumer crts. ALL crt’s have some geometry issues, it’s part of the “feel” these days. Sometimes I love playing on a CRT and sometimes I love the razor sharp perfect look of the OSSC.
You can play around in the service menu and see what each adjustment does. I think your centers are pulled in a tiny bit which I believe would be an easy fix by adjusting VBOW.
I was going to suggest adjusting the TROT to fix the angle but it looks pretty good down at the bottom and I don’t believe you can adjust only the top through the service menu.
Looking at the white bar at the bottom it looks like you may be able to straighten it out with the LPIN adjustment but that will start to throw off the center of the screen as you pull out the bottom. It’s all a balancing act and it’s incredibly tedious and time consuming.
For the over scan I found a sweet spot that works for all my consoles. Some are a little over scanned and some are a tiny bit under but I don’t want to go into the service menu every time I decide to load up my Saturn instead of my SNES. Older consoles were designed with some over scan in mind. Mega Drive games are a good example with their flickering bar at the bottom, it was never supposed to be seen.
Overall it’s pretty damn good, especially for a flat screen but I’m no expert so take my opinion with a grain of salt. I will say those the fs100 is the base model for that era of Trinitrons though so there’s definitely some better options out there if you’re looking to upgrade.
Just wanted to add to this that these types of “flatscreen” CRTs always seem to have worse geometry issues than normal “curved” CRTs. I have banged my head against the wall fighting with a couple of these, spending way too much time in the service menu trying to get perfect geometry. It just doesn’t happen. My normal CRTs all have better geometry and seem less prone to geometry errors in general than these flatscreen ones. Of course ymmv. Yours actually doesn’t look bad.
I’ve had the same issue with multiple Trinitrons (even a PVM). Believe it or not, the thing I’ve found that makes the biggest difference with geometry is adjusting the brightness. Try turning the brightness way down and the contrast up in the “regular” menu, then turn up “SBRT” in the service menu. Overall, the picture will probably be darker than factory settings but the geometry will improve significantly. You’ll also get clearer scanlines.
PS: You can use the “speedrunner” version of GBI with the zoom CLI command to make it closer to full screen. This is my preferred method as I still get the full screen experience but with minimal lag.
