Help with TV out cable settings

[Damon]

Cable arrived today!

Can someone help me?

I've connected the cable to tv (both CRT and then also tried LCD) and i can see well the desktop, the menus, and some emulator menus.

But when i launch a game it goes black on tv (both crt and lcd) and just stays the display on open pandora screen.

I tried with:

GPFCE r2

Snes9x4P

PCSX

as soon as i run the rom, the TV screen goes off.

with PanMame it just goes off directly as i launch the emulator itself, the same happens with UAE4all and gpPS...

so in the end i can only see the desktop well....

I connected the yellow, white, red connector to a scart cable connected to the TV (PAL), i used the Pandora TV-Out configuration utility to set:

• size and position of the oversanc
• set the encoding to PAL
• conncetion to composite
• Layer to Main Layer

wrote my settings and the rest is told...

any ideas? what am i doing wrong?

thanks for any help

 

[Asmo]

To see the output from most games (and media players) you need to call up your TV out options (the tools symbol on the taskbar) and select Pal or NTSC HW Scaler before launching the pnd you want to use (rather than selecting Pal or NTSC 'Main Layer' which enables display of normal desktop).

Switch back to 'Main Layer' when you're done

 

[Asmo]

Since you mentioned PanMame, I should add that when you run some of the very old games, their native resolution is quite low and they may look soft and blurry on TV out even though they look crisp on the Pandora's screen - when you find that, you can change the output to get a more clean looking image by calling up the Video options (when the game is running, tap SPACE and go to the VIDEO options). Try changing each of the options in turn until you find the image looks the way you prefer - avoid adding stuff like scanlines ('rgb effect' option) as this requires more cpu speed, it's usually the top three or four options that will affect the clarity of the displayed image. Just highlight and use left-right to cycle through them, don't save your settings as they may not suit normal use.

 

[Damon]

Yes you are right!

but since my CRT is very ooooooold (bought in 1987 ) using NTSC it goes in black and white, but you just leaving PAL and switch to HW scaler it works really nice with ROMS and I'll just use the PD screen to select ROM!

Thanks a lot! Really!

 

[Asmo]

No problem! I'm guessing there'll be a lot of similar queries shortly as the cables start dropping through letterboxes...!

 

[mcobit]

I still think some kind of daemon running in the backhround and switching tv-out options automatically if there is another overlay used would be nice.

 

[EvilDragon]

Or an implementation into the PXML, where pnd_run switches to the correct layer accordingly.

The daemon wouldn't work with DraStic, for example, which uses both framebuffers

 

[mcobit]

It would already be possible for the developers to switch it in the startupscript at launching the pnd or launching the game from a frontend.

 

[BAFelton]

Is it me or Picodrive doesn't work too ?


I'm on a 1ghz unit. I know it ran with a rebirth and the old kernel.

 

[TrashyMG]

You have to use the hw scaler for picodrive.

 

[BAFelton]

I knew this

But it doesn't. Here's the log with Picodrive 1.85 :

=======================================================================================
PND             : /media/SD2/pandora/menu/emulators/PicoDrive_185_2.pnd
PND_FSTYPE      : Squashfs
APPDATADIR      : /media/SD2/pandora/appdata/picodrive
APPDD_FSTYPE    : vfat
PND_CPUSPEED    : <unset>
EXENAME         : PicoDrive.sh
ARGUMENTS       : <unset>
=======================================================================================
[ START ]--- Mount the PND ----------
Mounting : mount -t squashfs -o ro "/dev/loop0" "/mnt/utmp/picodrive"
Mounting the Union FS : mount -t aufs -o exec,noplink,dirs="/media/SD2/pandora/appdata/picodrive=rw+nolwh":"/mnt/pnd/picodrive=rr" none "/mnt/utmp/picodrive"
[sUCCESS]--- Mount the PND ----------
[ START ]--- Starting the application ( PicoDrive.sh  ) ----------
hugetlb: 2 pages allocated.
SETUP_MEM: Device or resource busy
failed to set up layer, exiting.
SETUP_MEM: Device or resource busy
open /dev/tty: No such device or address
hugetlb: 0 pages allocated.
[sUCCESS]--- Starting the application ( PicoDrive.sh  ) ----------
[ START ]--- Restoring the frame buffer status ----------
ioctl SETUP_MEM: Device or resource busy
[ FAILED]--- Restoring the frame buffer status ----------
[ START ]--- uMount the PND ----------
[ START ]--- Waiting the Union to be available ----------
[sUCCESS]--- Waiting the Union to be available ----------
auplinklink.c:223: AUFS_CTL_PLINK_MAINT: Inappropriate ioctl for device
rmdir: failed to remove `/mnt/utmp/picodrive': Device or resource busy
[ START ]--- Waiting the PND mount dir to be free ----------
[sUCCESS]--- Waiting the PND mount dir to be free ----------
cleanup done
[sUCCESS]--- uMount the PND ----------
=======================================================================================
Return code is : 3
 

 

[Asmo]

Are you saying this only happens with TV-Out enabled? Or just that PicoDrive no longer works for you at all, in which case this probably isn't the right thread - try redownloading the pnd maybe in that case.

 

[BAFelton]

With TV out enabled only.

 

[PokeParadox]

Yup confirmed... it doesn't start with TVout enabled...

 

[Asmo]

Anyone with a TV cable using an older version of PicoDrive on the current OS, or an older OS with the current version of PicoDrive? I know it has worked in the past, PicoDrive was updated since then.

Maybe we should run through all the major emulators and see if the problem is unique.

 

[BAFelton]

The 1.80 works, I reported it here : http://boards.openpandora.org/index.php/topic/14172-picodrive-revival-185/page-4

 

[Asmo]

FWIW -

Tried a few emulators out briefly (so I can't be certain the ones that failed are the most up to date), and found that:

Hatari, Mupen, Fuse, Eduke32 and Vectrex all worked with Main Layer enabled,

PCSX, Picodrive (180), PanMame, Snes9x4p worked with HW Layer

GpSP wouldn't start with TV-Out enabled and UAE4all started but locked all the controls forcing a reset.

Mame4all won't start with it enabled, but I think that was already known.

 

[BAFelton]

Mame4All works

Gpsp works with old kernel and HW Scaler (Rebirth/CC)

 

[Asmo]

Mame4all worked under the old kernel too?

 

[BAFelton]

I think so, can't try now I don't have my old Pandoras anymore.

1) You have to launch tvout setting and enable tv out in main layer

2) launch mame4all, choose your game and launch it

3) push the pandora button (mame4all is running minimized)

4) activate hwscaler and click on the minimized mame4all icon