MiSTer in 31khz tri-sync monitors

[bbickell]

Hey friends,

I'm looking at picking up a New Net City arcade cabinet with a 31khz tri-sync monitor in it and I'm considering my options for running MiSTer in it for primarily arcade and neo-geo core usage.

Option 1: Just output 15khz and adjust the tri-sync for picture quality in 15khz

Option 2: Plan on scan doubling everything to 31khz all of the time and adjust for picture quality at 31khz.

I think that option 2 might be more attractive if I dual purpose this cabinet for MiSTer and maybe use it down the road for NAOMI hardware.

Anyone have opinions on picture quality from MiSTer over scan doubled vga? Is this a bad idea? I also have another option to pick up another Astro City (15khz) but I wanted something that could cover 31khz down the road if I wanted it for flexibility.

Thanks!

[retrorepair]

Go for 15khz. The NNC monitor is auto switching so will switch to whatever resolution the currently attached system outputs.

You would only likely need to adjust the h/v size but that's going to happen regardless what's plugged in.

[bbickell]

Speaking of MiSTer on the NNC - I'm thinking to use the I/O board vga output and then I'll need to figure out some kind of controller situation. Probably the daemonbyte pcbs (2 of them).

For my Astro City I'm using direct video to j-pac but I won't have any need to go through Jamma on the NNC I suppose.

[retrorepair]

You will need the JAMMA edge for controls as I believe the other controller input is JVS? Been about 10 years since I had one so my memory is fuzzy.

Could always look at MisterAddon's new JAMMA adapter coming early next year.

[tonyt76]

For MiSTer in a JVS cabinet, go for the JVS-PAC 2.

[retrodroid]

FYI I have a 31mhz tri-sync arcade monitor in my cabinet, mounted horizontally.

I use 15khz for horizontal games (arcades, consoles, etc.) and they look amazing.

Where the 31khz support really shines is for running vertical arcade games in VGA (640x480x31khz) mode. After much experimenting I found the following settings to provide a really decent experience for them on my cabinet. Not quite authentic since the scan lines are all but gone, but it still has that CRT mask pattern and really pops.

video_mode=6
vsync_adjust=1
vfilter_default=Vert_Normal_Scanlines_010.txt
vga_scaler=1

The vsync_adjust=1 double buffer eliminates any screen tears that otherwise appear, especially in scrolling games.

The vfilter_default=Vert_Normal_Scanlines_010.txt setting doesn't really add any visible vertical scan lines, since the 010 setting is very very slight, but it seems to engage a filter that "fills out" any pixels that otherwise might looks truncated do to screen resolution not quite having enough pixels to show the entire vertical orientated 240p content on the 640p horizontal display.

This combination is great to my eye, be interested in others configurations / experiences.