Make sure you have a video card that is compatible with CRT_EmuDriver or Soft15k. Then you'll need to convert the RGB VGA signal to a YUV Component signal. I have used the $50 RGB Scart to YUV converter boxes that are all over Ebay and Amazon with good results. To use that you'll need a VGA to Scart cable. From there I'm not sure how to setup the emualtors because I never got CRT_EmuDriver or Soft15k to work (I didn't have any compatible cards.)

There are some other ways to get 240p, like using an Extron Emotia to donwscale 480p to 240p http://scanlines.hazard-city.de.
It is also possible to get real 240p on a standard CRT VGA monitor by creating a custom 240p resolution that runs at 120Hz. This produces a very sharp image, similar to that of a PVM.

I eventually gave up on getting 240p out of a PC and got a Raspberry Pi2 instead. It supports 240p out natively from the HDMI, so a simple HDMI to VGA adapter was all I needed to get RGB out of it.

Hi, there! That sounds like an awesome project of yours. ^^
I'm no expert either, but I did a few attemps to connect TV's to computers and vice versa.
That beeing said, I don't have much experience with component video.
But maybe a few of those things can help you. 😀

Hardware
a) You can use a simple VGA to component cable, but only if your graphics card has
component (YPbPr) support built-in. These cables are non-standard (different pinouts) and have to match your gfx card.
b) You can use a generic VGA (RGV-HV) to RGB cable along with a RGB to Component converter (so that's essential the VGA->SCART->component route).
c) VGA to composite/s-video adaptor (worse, most of them don't do proper 240p)

(I tried to figure out whether there are more ways to do it but informations are scarce.
Most articles on the web go the other way - how to use old stuff on VGA screens).

So the main thing here is that most older PCs/consoles use RGB internally.
So a true RGB-Component transcoder could be helpful here.
Unlike a converter, it does only translate the signal, but doesn't change anything else.
Back in the days, such devices (or more correctly: ICs) were used to convert PAL to NTSC or PAL to RGB.
Timing and resolution weren't changed, only the color coding.
A famous example is the french NES which had an internal chip to create RGB from Composite (Sony V7021).

Software
As for the software: Don't worry, this should work with any emu.
As long you can see the Windows desktop, everything is fine.
The 15khz affects only the horizontally frequency range. The important part for the emulator's timing,
the 60hz refresh rate, is still there. (In case of demoscene stuff for DOS this might not be true).

A few useful(-less) links I've found so far (I didn't try those items myself):

VGA to Component converter handling 15khz
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=41944

VGA to Component Video Conversion, transcoding and scaling
http://www.ramelectronics.net/VGA-RGB-HV-to-C … nent-Video.aspx

Build your Own RGB to Component Transcoder
http://www.keohi.com/keohihdtv/interfaces/diytranscoder.html

By the way, this reminds me of somethings similar from the ol' CGA days.
Back then people connected the RGB output of the Color Graphics Adapter to the SCART connector (and it worked).
That schematic must float somwhere.

Good luck!

So essentially, I need to get one of these:
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/VGA-TO-SCART-RGB-ARCAD … F8AAOSwD0lUfz1z

And then one of these:
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/NEW-SCART-RGB-to-YUV-C … IBdVHyF2RvMlcww

From my understanding, the box will do the RGB to YUV conversion, and the cable is necessary because there are no boxes that will accept 15khz signals directly from a VGA source. According to this page, the R7 250X in my main rig, which is really just a rebadged HD 7770, sounds like it should be compatible with CRT_EmuDriver. http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=149266.0

That should work, though I don't know why that cable has a molex connector. That is something I have never seen.
Hope it works for you. Let us know how it goes.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, make sure whatever VGA to SCART cable you get is Euro SCART and not Japanese JP21 SCART, they are not compatible.

jxhicks wrote:

That should work, though I don't know why that cable has a molex connector. That is something I have never seen.
Hope it works for you. Let us know how it goes.

Thanks. 😀 Money's tight right now so I'll probably have to wait, but it'll be a fun little project once I can afford it.

There's another big question I have though, how does CRT_EmuDriver know when to use the right resolutions? Retro consoles used all sorts of oddball resolutions, and sometimes they switched between different resolutions in different situations.

I have done this but for TV sets that have RGB inputs (the standard here) , no idea how you can achieve this for component output as I am not sure that component is flexible as to work with non-standard refresh values... At any rate here is what I did:

a. got an ATI card so that CRT Emudriver works:
tutorial for 4350 , tutorial for 5450+ cards

b. built this VGA->SCART cable: http://www.geocities.ws/podernixie/htpc/cables-en.html (1st schematic)

c. download groovymame that works natively with CRT EmuDriver , it's the best for arcade emulation. All other emus need to be stup manually to use one of the custom resolutions that CRT EmuDriver installs.

I'm not entirely sure to be honest. With the Pi it is running Retroarch at 720x240. I just set the aspect ratio to 8:3 and turn on maintain aspect ration and everything seems to look fine. Games that run at 256x224 don't have pillarbars. The only system I had problems with was PC Engine/TurboGrafx because the Mednefen core also has it's own aspect ratio correction. It took some tweaking, but it also came out looking great. I assume using CRT EmuDriver will work similarly.

I fiddled a bit with something like this on a Pentium-3 around maybe 6 months ago.
I was using Soft15khz with an nVidia 7600GS AGP card. The card has a mini-DIN connector which supports SVideo and Component if you use an appropriate dongle.
I *think* I was able to get 240p over SVideo, but it's been a while so I'm not 100% certain. I remember getting an extremely low-res desktop, and the config menu in Unreal was borderline unusable, so I think it was 240p.
The problem I had was that I couldn't convince the nVidia driver to enable the desired mode when I was connected via component. It only worked with SVideo.
I was annoyed by having to make that compromise and that was as far as I got (it was just an experiment). It was kind of cool running an NES emulator on the TV though, even though the SVideo limitation was perturbing me. It's on my mind for a future project using a different machine (in a more suitable form factor for an HTPC).

The SDTV friendly video modes were only listed when I connected an SVideo cable, but not if using Component. It seemed that nVidia's driver assumes that component will only be used for HDTV and not for SDTV. They apparently didn't know (or care) that many late SDTVs support component inputs.
I don't remember what driver version(s) I tried. Maybe some versions are more SDTV friendly. But at least SVideo did work.
Not sure what provisions it had for adjusting overscan. I didn't get into that.

shamino wrote:

I fiddled a bit with something like this on a Pentium-3 around maybe 6 months ago. I was using Soft15khz with an nVidia 7600GS A […]
Show full quote

I fiddled a bit with something like this on a Pentium-3 around maybe 6 months ago.
I was using Soft15khz with an nVidia 7600GS AGP card. The card has a mini-DIN connector which supports SVideo and Component if you use an appropriate dongle.
I *think* I was able to get 240p over SVideo, but it's been a while so I'm not 100% certain. I remember getting an extremely low-res desktop, and the config menu in Unreal was borderline unusable, so I think it was 240p.
The problem I had was that I couldn't convince the nVidia driver to enable the desired mode when I was connected via component. It only worked with SVideo.
I was annoyed by having to make that compromise and that was as far as I got (it was just an experiment). It was kind of cool running an NES emulator on the TV though, even though the SVideo limitation was perturbing me. It's on my mind for a future project using a different machine (in a more suitable form factor for an HTPC).

The SDTV friendly video modes were only listed when I connected an SVideo cable, but not if using Component. It seemed that nVidia's driver assumes that component will only be used for HDTV and not for SDTV. They apparently didn't know (or care) that many late SDTVs support component inputs.
I don't remember what driver version(s) I tried. Maybe some versions are more SDTV friendly. But at least SVideo did work.
Not sure what provisions it had for adjusting overscan. I didn't get into that.

I wonder if CRT_EmuDriver is any better than. It seems to be more of an option for me since I primarily use AMD/ATI stuff.