PC Component Out w/ Emulators: Is 240p possible?

[Richter X]

 I recently constructed a fine PC for gaming, arcading, and home theater. The video card it uses, an Nvidia GTX 280, has component out, which I run to my 27" Flatscreen CRT TV (the only way to play the classics). However, I've been having trouble getting it to do 240p (320x240). I was, however, able to trick it into doing 480i. Which is almost as good, except for all the annoying flickering that goes with it. Is there any way go get the card to output the low-res progressive resolutions used in consoles and arcade games?

[kendrick]

Are you willing to reprogram the flash ROM on your VGA card? Here's one person who achieved what you're describing, albeit with older hardware:

http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/bchafy/lood.html

[antron]

maybe try soft15k  or powerstrip.

[Richter X]

Already tried that. Soft15Khz did add the resolutions, but only for my LCD Monitor. It did nothing for my CRT TV, unfortunately. I think Nvidia's drivers are to blame, as it tends to scale any output to the set to 640x480 or higher, and I've yet to find a way to coax/force it to do otherwise.

[viletim]

Already tried that. Soft15Khz did add the resolutions, but only for my LCD Monitor. It did nothing for my CRT TV, unfortunately. I think Nvidia's drivers are to blame, as it tends to scale any output to the set to 640x480 or higher, and I've yet to find a way to coax/force it to do otherwise.

Almost all TV output capabilities found on video cards are handled by a seperate video processor which scales and encodes the video by itself. Sometimes it's a seperate chip, sometimes it's built into the main graphics processor. Because it's a seperate entity, its output will not be affected by the state of the VGA registers which are manipulated by Soft 15Khz, Power Strip, etc. Indeed, that is the whole point - to provide a standard 625 line (in the case of PAL) representation of the PC video signal regardless of the PC's current video mode.

There are tools available to play with the resisters found inside some TV out chips but nothing easy to use or available for MS Windows to my knowlegde...

I think you'd be better off using the Soft 15Khz or other availabe tools to set the main video output to a TV non-interlaced mode and using an external box to convert the RGB to Component video.