MiSTer FPGA Forum

Hello!
I just purchased a fully built MiSTer with the hopes I could use it with my November 1988 Trinitron! I'm using the VGA port to the RCA component cables.


When I run the connection this way I get black and white static rolling images.


I changed some of the settings based on a thread I found form last year but nothing seems to be working -> viewtopic.php?t=2428

I also tried an HDMI to RCA converter but that unfortunately squishes the game video but not the mister menu.


Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thank you!

I don't think this TV takes component signal, so you're trying to connect via composite. At the moment there is no good solution for that with MiSTer. You can read about various option's here, but most of them will require additional adapters and have some sort of artifacting. Your best bet would be to use MikeS1's cores with a special cable/adapter, which is described there (check out the links at the end too).

for your converter you could try setting the video modes within the core to Original, FullScreen, etc to see if it is filling the screen. My guess is that converter is receiving a 16:9 image and your TV is squishing it to fit in 4:3 so the menu is 16:9 by default (filling the TV screen) and the game is 4:3 --> 16:9 converter leaving you black bars on both sides. Maybe the converter has a 4:3 mode, and in that case you would go into your mister.ini and set a resolution that is appropriate (like one of the VGA resolutions instead of a widescreen formatted one...

You need component or RGB inputs on the TV.

How are you going from VGA to composite? You only showed a thick VGA cable and thin RCA cables (VGA doesn't carry audio so the red/white cables sure won't do anything)

callanabrown wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 2:33 pm How are you going from VGA to composite? You only showed a thick VGA cable and thin RCA cables (VGA doesn't carry audio so the red/white cables sure won't do anything)

Pretty sure they must be using one of those cheap converters from Amazon or something like that, which won't work because the MiSTer isn't sending the same kind of signal as a VCR.

aberu wrote: ↑Fri Jun 17, 2022 1:54 pm Pretty sure they must be using one of those cheap converters from Amazon or something like that, which won't work because the MiSTer isn't sending the same kind of signal as a VCR.

I think it might sort of work, especially with flynnsbit's suggestion to change Aspect Ratio, but these converters mostly output 480i (not true 240p) and might have some lag included too, so it's not something I'd recommend for MiSTer's cores, majority of which are 240p. It's up to the OP though, how much do they want to use that particular TV with MiSTer right now.

Nioreh wrote: ↑Thu Jun 16, 2022 2:00 pm You need component or RGB inputs on the TV.

Thats what i did to both of my Trinis (normal and TATEd). They were only composite, and i added the RGBS inputs to the board/jungle chip. Not an easy mod, but totally doable.

https://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.p ... 1#p1410111

Picture quality is awesome.

Just use the MikeS modded cores for now as someone suggested. They really do look pretty great these days, if you keep your expectations where they should be if you are not doing S-video/Component/RGB/VGA/HDMI...

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBy_XPmieKc
RetroRGB post on the topic:https://www.retrorgb.com/how-to-hook-up ... osite.html
Cores: https://github.com/MikeS11/MiSTerFPGA_YC_Encoder under YCBuilds