After several months of testing and evaluating options, I'm happy to announce that 4K60 video processing is no longer out of reach for retrogaming. With some head banging, I've figured out how to output 4K60 4:4:4 using FPGAs that aren't cost insane.
"TINK4K" is coming...
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Can’t believe I’m at almost 15K followers!
In celebration, we are going to have a very special giveaway for something that cannot yet be bought.
Like, retweet and follow. Drawings for two RT5X Directs in one week!
Thank you everyone for all your support this year :)
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RT4K Official Info!
TL;DR: Planning 2023 release. Best guidance is to budget $1,000 and expect a pleasant surprise for the final price.
If I missed anything, drop a q below. No teasing or BS from me. 🤡
Working on Automatic Detection of Console and Resolution!
RT4K detects SoTN as it switches between 256, 320 and 384 pixel modes!!!
Still have a lot of stuff to prep before launch -- so this will be one of the things I'll be working on later on.
5K GIVEAWAY!
FOLLOW, RETWEET AND LIKE TO ENTER
10/19 - RT2X-MINI + Insurrection SNES/N64 S-Video Cable
10/26 - RT2X-MULTI + Insurrection S-Video Cable
11/2 - RT2X-Pro + Insurrection S-Video Cable
Special thanks to
@Insurrection33
for making this possible!!
RetroTINK-5X Pro goes live Saturday May 1st, 9AM PST:
Orders will begin to ship same day. Limit one per customer.
Price is $275 for this production batch, and increases to $300 for future runs due to the rising cost of parts.
Thank you everyone for your patience!
RT4K will go on sale December 9th at 2PM Pacific Time!
We will start shipping immediately from inventory, but expect that the whole batch will take until Jan. 15 to finish fulfillment.
Simulating CRT beam mis-convergence in 4K!
These pictures are probably pushing it too far, but I’m starting to be convinced that a slight amount (vs perfect alignment) is needed for an authentic look.
Wow, I completely underestimated today.
THANK YOU so much everyone, and I'm very sorry if you weren't able to get a unit.
Demand was much much higher than the 5X, which destroyed the site.
Production run 2 is already in progress and hopefully will arrive in January.
Here's some info on the RT4K hardware for those interested in electronics design!
This is the most complex PCB I've ever designed and the first time I dared to work with BGAs🤪
1🧵👇
Surprise Sunday delivery from DHL!!
Sticker to shield some parts from the H8ers, shade tossers and cloners 🤡
5X PCB for scale, this thing turned out bigger than I thought 😰
New RT5X firmware!
Version 2.74 adds the ability to inject a custom infoframe to ‘trick’ compatible TVs into HDR mode. This opens up the possibility for much brighter images, especially when scanlines are turned on.
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RT4K's will be back in stock on
- Saturday March 9th
- 1 PM Pacific Time
Thanks everyone for your patience, I know this took a lot longer than expected.
New Year’s Eve building the final few units by hand (factory was short some parts). 😌
Hope everyone has a great holiday looking forward to 2024!!
Thank you for all your support this past year!!
A year later and this might be the final PCB rev for the RT4K!
Surprisingly, the hardware side went smoothly for a first attempt at BGA high density layout.
The biggest problem was not connecting a programming pin on the MCU 🤡
So where do things stand now?
1. Still working
Surprise Sunday delivery from DHL!!
Sticker to shield some parts from the H8ers, shade tossers and cloners 🤡
5X PCB for scale, this thing turned out bigger than I thought 😰
My current plan for the TINK-4K is 9 inputs:
-5 'universal' HD-15 ports that support RGBHV/RGBs/RGsB/YPbPr/S-Vid/Composite
-Front Composite and S-Vid for quick hookups
-SCART users are not forgotten. The SCART port will also support RGBs/RGsB/YPbPr/S-Vid/Composite
-HDMI
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Six more RT4Ks going out into the wild!
These are probably the last time I’m using 3D printed shells… injection molding is close 🤞
Besides the case, everything is production ready. Famous last words 🤡
Finally got rid of glitches during external resolution changes!!!
Second half of the video shows the feature turned on and gracefully blanking the screen anytime there's a disruption. No lag added.
Will be trying to port this to the RT5X as well.
RT5X Season 2 firmware premiers Tuesday 12PM PST during a live stream with
@retrorgb
.
We’ll go over all the new features as we take a step towards a post integer scaling world, new CRT simulation modes and more 😁
Once again, thank you to everyone for making this all possible!!
Finally got all the resolution switches from the RT4K auto-sample rate buttery smooth!!!!
Took a lot longer than I hoped, but I finally got my birthday present🙃
Update should be posted soon after I do a few more cleanups. Should help both analog video and MiSTer DV1
Next batch of RetroTINK 5X-Pro will be for sale on Sat 7/24 at 9am PT (4pm GMT) for everyone except UK.
UK folks will have a special checkout link which will be live one hour later, at 6pm UK local time.
Limit 1 per person.
Wrapping up the CRT simulation/HDR menu this week!
Each time a menu page gets finished, I feel like I’m opening a new door :)
I’m just afraid with so many settings, we’ll never play the damn game 🤡
Making some interesting progress in reverse 2:2 telecine deinterlacing.
If I can get it to work, that means that PS2 titles that run at 30 fps can almost be perfectly weaved back together!!
Much cleaner than Motion Adaptive!
Testing real 10-bit HDR on the RT4K! We can get massively bright scanlines and accurate colors :)
Sorry, can’t port this one back to the 5X. Literally burned more memory than the entire 5X FPGA to do the color correction. 🤡
Took longer than I wanted to make the menu, but now I can finally test every input on the RT4K!
Still a long way to go, none of the other menu pages work yet. 🤡
Thanks everyone for your feedback! I decided the best option is to keep selling from inventory.
Ultimately, no scheme is perfect for everyone. And pre-orders significantly increases my stress level.
The biggest concern has been "I want make sure I have a spot even if it means
Looking for your thoughts!
I've been getting many requests to open backorders for the RT4K. How would people feel about purchasing now and waiting up to a year (very worst case) to receive their unit.
The advantage would be a massively increased stock limit to avoid the mad
Now that everything is official, I'd like to thank
@BlurBusters
for helping make the RT4K "Blur Busters Approved"!
Mark has been kind enough to share his wisdom on BFI, inverse telecine and many other topics and I'm very much looking forward to what comes next!
Having too much fun tonight 🥃
3840 x 2160 upscaling (yes that’s 4K!)
Currently limited to 24 frames per second, so maybe only useful for the low frame rate N64 🤣
Disclaimer: 24fps really isn’t suitable for games; the image gives a taste of what real 4k60 could do one day 😊
RT4K sold out! Thank you everyone!!
We expect to finish fulfillment by June 30th. Restock should happen shortly thereafter and we should be in constant inventory at that point.
And that’s perfectly okay!
We all have different priorities and preferences.
What’s not cool is judging people for how they choose to spend their money.
RT4K Restock on May 18th 1PM Pacific Time!
Based on number of units and the last batch, I expect this one to last at least a day.
Thanks again everyone for your patience!
Getting the remotes made up now. Short cuts to key functions, resolutions and profile loading.
Also looking into getting one made for the 5X at some point with similar capabilities.
Don't worry - the remotes will be using an obsolete vendor code, so you can sub in a universal
Adding a bunch of new output modes to the RT4K, including frame doubled (100 and 120 Hz) resolutions.
Also adding the ability to define custom modes via a text file on the SD card.
In this case, 1690x1420p69.420 works great 🤡
Somebody from the
@retrotink2
community stepped up in a big way!
Super GameBoy pallets 3H and 4H were some of the closest to DMG you could get without an analog pocket, but community member Billgonzo actually recreated the colors and LCD effects of the DMG. Check out the pics!
RT5X-Direct will be a series of plug and play devices with all the features of the RT5X-Pro including motion adaptive de-interlacing, scaling and filter effects.
Due to shortages, it will be at least late 2022 before production, but we wanted to make this giveaway special.
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About 300 have been shipped now. Fingers are really cramped from holding down the reset button to flash each unit.☠️
Please remember that order # isn't an exact indication since USPS, DHL and FedEx are on separate tracks!
RT5X Firmware Update: Version 2.77
*Added option to flag HDMI output as Freesync VRR.
*Changed composite video decoder to minimize curling on the top of the screen on NES games (see Castlevania I score section as an example).
Next official RT4K FW has been released! Highlights include:
-New deinterlacer with Edge Adaptive interpolation (see pic) and improved motion search
-HLG HDR with color gamut conversion and perceptual quantization
-VESA VRR
-More bug fixes and profiles!
It's done! Huge thanks to you
@khmr33
and
@_daemons
for this!
Now we can perfectly simulate the primary colorspace of various CRTs on the RT4K.
I think this wraps up the last major item on my pre-launch punch list. 🤞
Digitizing some old family tapes... and found something unbelievable!! 🤯
Apparently I got an N64 in 1999/2000 for xmas??
I have ZERO recollection of EVER owning or playing an N64. Alternate reality or repressed memories?? 😱
Can confirm owning a SNES and PS1 during this time.
PCB sent to fabrication after the most important finishing touch. 🤡
Probably will overpay for the FPGA on this production run.
Next week will start on ID work for the enclosure.
I am so humbled and honored by the reception of the 5X. As always thank you so much everyone for making this possible.
1. UK - Please stand by, I am so sorry that the PayPal system seems to be broken today. You have not been forgotten.
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Helping my good buddy
@Voultar
optimize the circuit for the 3-chip SNES de-blur mod.
It looks incredible, especially after running it through the RT4K auto-gain/auto-phase!
This will really breath some new life into those old consoles.
Hope everyone is having a great Sunday (even the trolls haha)! Back to work for me.
Got 720p -> 1440p working (yes you can even apply the smoothing)
Also got composite/s-video optimal timings back, plus tools to better define custom modes for odd systems like this PC-FX :)
@MARSFPGA
I’m deeply honored and humbled to be a part of this amazing project.
Honestly you guys are doing stuff way beyond my ability. I’m just glad I can help out a bit on the video side.
New RT4K Stable Firmware! This one adds quite a number of new features:
- XBR smoothing
- Enhanced S-video
- 3D comb filter for composite video
- Minimized glitches during resolution changes
...and more!
We’ve had aperture grilles, slot masks, shadow masks and now… clown masks.
Testing loading custom mask files from the SD card 👍🏻
And that’s enough for 1:30 AM shit posting. Have a great Thursday everyone!
@Voultar
I feel bad for saying it, but this stuff really bothers me and takes the fun out of what I do. Unfortunately, it's been going on for years, and it has only gotten worse.
RT4K Firmware Version 1.1.0 Released! Major highlights include:
- Support for the new MiSTer Direct Video metadata with auto-scaling and auto-cropping
- Automatic rotation of scanline and mask effects
- New sync processor for NEOGEO, Atari 2600/7800 and other difficult sources
New RT5X firmware released with a ton of new scanline effects, blur/sharpening filter, new PS1 320 mode and 540p support.
Huge thanks to
@RetroRGB
for putting the CRT effects through its paces.
Here's some insanely good news for RT5x fans -
@retrotink2
has just added three new scanline options that are by FAR the closest to the look of a real CRT I've ever seen!!! Here's a really detailed post, which should have all the info you need:
Here is the latest RT5X firmware update! A few highlights, among many:
*Support for the 2048 x 1536 iPad LCD kit
*Ultra low lag 1080p mode (~1 ms)
*The ability to press and hold the remote button to speed thru settings🤡
Restock on August 28th, 9AM Pacific Time (4PM GMT).
UK link will go live one hour later at 6PM UK time (5PM GMT).
Please do me a huge huge favor and double check your address. It really helps make things smooth and fast. TY :)
Testing direct HDMI from the MiSTer PSX core into the RT4K!
So far all good. No problems with the super-wide resolution (yes it automatically rescales to a 4:3 AR🤡)
No drops between 240p/480i with the buffer on. MA deinterlacing works in 480i 👍
1. Scalper gets caught trying to buy a second unit.
2. Then tries to a chargeback on the first one he scaled for $600 in May.
3. I feel like I should tag this scumbag on twitter (yes I know who you are) but something holds me back...