Send core name over an HDMI infoframe when not in DV1 mode

[spinek2]

Hello, I am not sure if I am posting in the right place. If not, I apologise. Today, on the Morph4k channel, I raised the issue of rotation, which is not yet available on this scaler. All the cores that are important to me use DV1 and everything is fine. The problem is, of course, with the Arcade Tate cores, because they have DV1 disabled so that they display correctly on a horizontal television. Unfortunately, all Arcade Tate cores are then treated like everything else in 1080p. If I now use mask settings in Morph, e.g. for Pooyan, then Galaga inherits these settings and does not look good anymore. The same with BFI - it is enabled for all 1080p things, and we know how different arcade cores are.
And now one of the creators of Morph mentioned that I should ask for ‘send core name over an HDMI infoframe when not in DV1 mode’, then the problem with the diversity of Arcade Tate cores without DV1 should be solved 🙂

On Discord RetroTINK, one of the advanced members informed me that rotation in the PRO version of the scaler has its problems related to the high load on the FPGA chip, and then there may be problems with, for example, CRT beam simulation and other CRT effects.

It would also be great if the scalers ‘knew’ which specific Arcade Tate core was running without DV1. Then each one could be individually configured in the scaler.

I apologise for the chaos in this text, but I don't think in English 🙂

[sorgelig]

May be it's possible. I don't have these scalers, so probably some one having such scaler can add it.

[spinek2]

Sorgelig, thank you for taking an interest in this matter. You are a true legend to me. This would be a big deal for the part of the community that uses scalers and loves Arcade Tate games. At the moment, only RetroTINK Pro uses rotation, but its users would also have the choice of whether to use the scaler's rotation or Mister FPGA. For other users, this would be an amazing feature.
I will ask competent people for technical support and I hope that together you will be able to add such a great feature :)

[Gawthepopful]

The Morph already configured to accept data from the spd infoframe and also through cec without dv1. So from dev standpoint on scaler side, nothing is required. My understanding is the functionality needs to come from the MiSTer side of things specifically. Porkchop already has a fork of the Menu that adds GameID support, but currently that data is not sent over hdmi. I think just the core name would work for arcade cores. Let us know how we can help.

[Gawthepopful]

I’ve written a script that logs the core name and sends a curl http command to the Morph that will load a profile based on the loaded core, and it works, but it’s not always reliable, as the MiSTer isn’t designed to do such things. Would be much more elegant to just add that data over the hdmi infoframe like it does over dv1. Only needs core name. The morph can apply auto presets just by unique spd info.

[spinek2]

Hi, Sorgelig. Do you think it will be possible to do something about what Gaw wrote?

[sorgelig]

As i wrote above, i don't have these scalers. So i don't know how it works.

[woozle64]

Hi, I'm one of the developers for the Morph 4K. If you'd like a Morph to try out with MiSTer (no strings attached), I would happily send one your way. Just need shipping info (not sure where to exchange that, only social media I use is Discord under the username woozle64). Thanks for all you do on the MiSTer project btw :)

[birdybro]

Also I believe @zakk4223 has one or both of these scalers.

[zakk4223]

As it stands now:
Freesync over HDMI uses the SPD info frame
HDMI Forum VRR uses one of the adv7513 'spare packets'.
HDR uses the other 'spare'.

DV1 also uses the spd frame, which is fine because DV1 and VRR are mutually exclusive.

I think it would be reasonable to assume the 'fake' vrr is useless when doing normal HDMI to these scalers and we could just use the SPD frame and send a vendor name of 'MiSTer' with a product description that's the same thing as DV1 does: the core name/setname.

Should be pretty straightforward, I'll put something together and test it.

[Gawthepopful]

Thank you for the consideration. I think this could very helpful in many cases, especially where dv1 has been problematic where cores send wrong info or if switching hardware messes with the signal.

…

On Tue, Nov 11, 2025 at 6:34 PM zakk4223 ***@***.***> wrote: *zakk4223* left a comment (MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer#1057) <#1057 (comment)> As it stands now: Freesync over HDMI uses the SPD info frame HDMI Forum VRR uses one of the adv7513 'spare packets'. HDR uses the other 'spare'. DV1 also uses the spd frame, which is fine because DV1 and VRR are mutually exclusive. I think it would be reasonable to assume the 'fake' vrr is useless when doing normal HDMI to these scalers and we could just use the SPD frame and send a vendor name of 'MiSTer' with a product description that's the same thing as DV1 does: the core name/setname. Should be pretty straightforward, I'll put something together and test it. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1057 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/BHISXQS2JJX3DQIQQIPHPTL34J6ATAVCNFSM6AAAAACLNZ2QJ2VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZTKMJZGMZDKMRZHA> . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[zakk4223]

@sorgelig it looks like there was already code that did this (if not DV1 and not freesync_vrr then send spd with core name info).

It was commented out in this commit: 613f808

Do you remember if there was something problematic with some displays if it was set? Do we need to maybe make it opt-in via some ini variable? Otherwise it seems to work perfectly with the morph4k and let's you load profiles based on core name.

[sorgelig]

I know, the code is there but it's not enabled for non-DV and i don't know if it will affect any display. I only have one TV and couple of monitors ;)

Ok, i've pushed the commit. Currently it sends SPD always. Let's see if there will be complains.
Added flag 0x8 in SPD to show it's not direct video mode, so scalers can distinguish it.

[zakk4223]

I think most (all?) of them currently use the 'DV1' "vendor" string to trigger their DV1 specific scaling. They will all need to push firmware changes; without it users will not be able to disable DV1 mode selectively.

Until those firmware updates are done and users update, this is a very disruptive change. (my non-DV1 setup through a morph is now unusable) A lot of users disable DV1 for the menu core and some problematic cores. It might be best to use another vendor string when DV1 is not active, maybe just 'MiSTer'

edit: this also breaks vrr_mode=2/vrr_mode=1 where freesync is detected

[Gawthepopful]

Rather than requiring a FW update on scalers, changing the vendor to anything other than DV1 should fix the current issue. It’s also broken on the RT4K.

[sorgelig]

Ok. Changed to "VI1".