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Rotating the display

Posted: Mon May 22, 2023 8:01 am
by Giddygoon

I was setting up my new Mister with my vertical cab ( Sega Net City ) with an 31khz crt, and stated going through all the games to rotate them, most I could do in the settings or dips but a few a flip option or even a rotate feature are not there.

Is this something that's going to addressed sometime in the future?

Gyruss for example can be rotated to vert but not flipped so its upside down on my monitor

So Gyruss is currently not in my games list as it can't be used unless I take the whole monitor out and physically swap it around which would then upset other games that don't flip the other way


Re: Rotating the display

Posted: Mon May 22, 2023 10:25 pm
by DevilHunterWolf

The standard for vertical arcade game cores is to have the flip exactly the same as the original did. Real arcade machines didn't always flip their vertical the same way. Some games did clockwise and some did counterclockwise. As the MiSTer cores are recreating that accuracy, that means some games will be vertical one way or vertical the other way. If the game didn't offer the option, you had to physically flip the monitor. Of course, this was a one and done solution back in the day as a cabinet only had the one game on it. But for modern solutions like MiSTer, it left some games without a way to flip them in DIP switches or other cabinet settings.

Somewhat recently, there has been an effort to add in the additional vertical flip to games that didn't have it. But this is manually done on a core by core basis. If someone hasn't gone back to add it to the core, it doesn't exist. This next bit I'm less sure about so I'll happily be corrected if I'm wrong but the way this is done (to my understanding) is by using the frame buffer to force the screen flip. The benefit is getting the other flip direction but the downside is there is a small additional bit of latency introduced versus the arcade original no buffer needed screen flip. Depending on the person, this may or may not be a suitable solution depending if they just to play the game proper vertically or if they demand the lowest amount of latency possible. As for being addressed in the future, can't really say. Again, these are being manually added by wonderful people with the know how to do so. I would just think of them as bonuses from the community rather than something that is planned to be done.

The best advice I could give is to look at all vertical games and see what options they have then make your actual CRT's rotation match the greatest amount of games that matter to you. And if another game gets the option later, then that's just another wonderful surprise!


Re: Rotating the display

Posted: Tue May 23, 2023 7:25 am
by Giddygoon

Thanks for the information, I thought as much, I have set-up most of the games to my cab in the correct vert direction and it is just a few that did not have the extra rotation or flip, like you you said I will just keep checking over time and add the games in future that get their cores updated.

They are plenty of great games that rotate correctly for my cab, I played Batrider, DoDonPachi, Dangon Feveron are amazing from the mister on a 28" crt

my PC with mame has been swapped out for a DE10 nano, the future is bright, the future is Mister FPGA ( :


Re: Rotating the display

Posted: Tue May 23, 2023 10:04 am
by MikkyTee

I'm leaning the other way, my mister hardly gets used. I'm setting up a sit down cabinet with a good pc & coinops. The large screen experience with the beautiful mame filters is hard to beat. Its nice to have both options.


Re: Rotating the display

Posted: Tue May 23, 2023 11:36 am
by Giddygoon

Its true that different set-ups have different benefits, I don't miss using special graphics cards and hacked drivers and emulator with hacks to make this things work.
Mister is so simple, CRT friendly straight out of the box and its only going to get better.


Re: Rotating the display

Posted: Tue May 23, 2023 12:48 pm
by MikkyTee

I'm not using special cards or hacking anything, i have a spare pc with a decent spec, loaded windows 10. Single install of coinops and click on the exe. done. I use mister with a crt but its not the be all and end all. Using vertical games is a complete pain, and some cores don't work well with a crt, some have adjustments & options, some dont. Its not consistent and that can be frustrating. I realize it will take time to bring everything up to a single standard, but that will take time and some may never get updated who knows.


Re: Rotating the display

Posted: Tue May 23, 2023 1:03 pm
by Giddygoon

Yeah my set-up was coin-ops on Win10, more games etc and a nice frontend. I sure Mister will get the features that it doesn't have right now


Re: Rotating the display

Posted: Tue May 23, 2023 1:06 pm
by MikkyTee

Btw, what crt do you use? I have a few, my 25" trinitron was ok but just too big and heavy for practical use. I found 20in is a nice size overall.


Re: Rotating the display

Posted: Tue May 23, 2023 1:44 pm
by akeley
Giddygoon wrote: Tue May 23, 2023 11:36 am

Its true that different set-ups have different benefits, I don't miss using special graphics cards and hacked drivers and emulator with hacks to make this things work.
Mister is so simple, CRT friendly straight out of the box and its only going to get better.

Imo Mister is better on CRT since it offers 1:1 image out of the box with zero fuss in most cores. But for the arcade side I will always keep a Groovymame running PC, seeing as it offers the complete library and MiSTer just a fraction (albeit it is growing rapidly), plus, yeah, the scaling and rotating is a bit easier too.

I've tried to run RetroArch and individual emus via Windows & crtemudriver but that has always been a struggle, full of deep rabbit holes. I've never tried CoinOps thou, is it really a simple CRT-friendly solution?


Re: Rotating the display

Posted: Tue May 23, 2023 1:52 pm
by bazza_12
MikkyTee wrote: Tue May 23, 2023 12:48 pm

I use mister with a crt but its not the be all and end all. Using vertical games is a complete pain, and some cores don't work well with a crt, some have adjustments & options, some dont. Its not consistent and that can be frustrating.

That's cos those cores are as close to the original arcade PCB's as possible. If the rotate option wasn't on the original arcade then it's usually not on the core - in effect it is consistent; even if it doesn't rotate, doesn't work with all CRTs and doesn't have every adjustment setting other cores may have.


Re: Rotating the display

Posted: Tue May 23, 2023 2:11 pm
by MikkyTee
bazza_12 wrote: Tue May 23, 2023 1:52 pm
MikkyTee wrote: Tue May 23, 2023 12:48 pm

I use mister with a crt but its not the be all and end all. Using vertical games is a complete pain, and some cores don't work well with a crt, some have adjustments & options, some dont. Its not consistent and that can be frustrating.

That's cos those cores are as close to the original arcade PCB's as possible. If the rotate option wasn't on the original arcade then it's usually not on the core - in effect it is consistent; even if it doesn't rotate, doesn't work with all CRTs and doesn't have every adjustment setting other cores may have.

Yes of course I'm aware of this, but it is still irritating nevertheless :)


Re: Rotating the display

Posted: Tue May 23, 2023 2:23 pm
by MikkyTee
akeley wrote: Tue May 23, 2023 1:44 pm
Giddygoon wrote: Tue May 23, 2023 11:36 am

Its true that different set-ups have different benefits, I don't miss using special graphics cards and hacked drivers and emulator with hacks to make this things work.
Mister is so simple, CRT friendly straight out of the box and its only going to get better.

Imo Mister is better on CRT since it offers 1:1 image out of the box with zero fuss in most cores. But for the arcade side I will always keep a Groovymame running PC, seeing as it offers the complete library and MiSTer just a fraction (albeit it is growing rapidly), plus, yeah, the scaling and rotating is a bit easier too.

I've tried to run RetroArch and individual emus via Windows & crtemudriver but that has always been a struggle, full of deep rabbit holes. I've never tried CoinOps thou, is it really a simple CRT-friendly solution?

Coinops isnt really made for crt's. Its a 1080p pc based app that contains curated collections of arcade & console games, complete with custom graphics, marquee's etc. There are a few versions, just pick the one that suits you. A single folder contains all you need. It can be used in cabinets without the windows shell, and offers a pretty seamless experience for the cabinet user. For me, mister excells in 8 & 16bit retro computers, for arcades i use coinops.

If your looking for a crt focused build, nothing beats rgb-pi for me.


Re: Rotating the display

Posted: Tue May 23, 2023 2:41 pm
by Giddygoon

Btw, what crt do you use? I have a few, my 25" trinitron was ok but just too big and heavy for practical use. I found 20in is a nice size overall.

I have a Sega Blast City and a Sega Net City both running 28" Nanao monitors and I also have 25" Sony KV-25F3U Trinitron for my consoles.

I was running GroovyArcade which is also Linux based mame running freesync refesh its really good but a massive pain to set up... I don't miss it, I have installed Misters into both cabs up and running in hours, looks so good

I meant to say that I only use Coin-ops for newer emu's on 1080 TV, I did try get my arcade cab to work with groovymame crt drivers but it didn't work and yes too many rabbit holes .... I was trying to get Demul to work on blast city at 640x480, Naa, not happnin !!!


Re: Rotating the display

Posted: Tue May 23, 2023 6:38 pm
by MikkyTee

Never tried groovymame, sounds a bit of a pain to use. Candy cab is my dream setup, wish i had one ;)