Screen rotation for Retropie GUI

eclark5483 · 24 Jun 2018, 10:34

So I have a little project in the works since I had so much fun building the last Retropie setup.

What I am planning on doing, is building a mini cocktail arcade. Project details can be found here: Mini Arcade project

What this will hopefully end up looking like, is a miniaturized version of the arcade I built my son:

What I am needing to do, is rotate the screen 90 degrees so that the GUI and of course games, will display correctly. I plan on only using MAME and no other emulators, so I am assuming screen rotation won't be much of an issue there, but I'm wondering about Retropie/Emulation Station itself. Will I need to code my own theme design for it to compensate, is rotation at all possible? Any help is appreciated, thanks.

blackshadow · 24 Jun 2018, 11:40

quick copy and paste from another site to save me writing it out lol

Step 1 – Edit Config.txt

Start by editing the config.txt file ether via the sd or with:

sudo nano /boot/config.txt

Add one of the following lines to the bottom of the file :

display_rotate=0
display_rotate=1
display_rotate=2
display_rotate=3
0 is the normal configuration. 1 is 90 degrees. 2 is 180 degress. 3 is 270 degrees.
If you are using the Official Raspberry Pi touch screen you can use “lcd_rotate” rather than “display_rotate”.

Save the file by using CTRL-X, Y then ENTER.

as the site you linked references the 7inch pi screen ill assume thats what your using you can use the lcd_rotate that is mentioned as apposed to display rotate

eclark5483 · 24 Jun 2018, 14:17

Cool, figured it was probably just a config edit. Now what about the themes themselves? Will rotating change the proportion ratio of the images? And will I need to modify that as well?

blackshadow · 24 Jun 2018, 17:27

i would suspect so but i dont personally mess with screen rotation myself in any of my projects though so cant really help in that regard

eclark5483 · 24 Jun 2018, 19:05

Guess there is only one way to find out, and that's experiment with it. Think I'll do a standard install using the base carbon theme and see what I get. Probably play around with the source code as well. If I find something that works, I'll share that with the retropie team for others to use. If I can't figure it out, well, guess I could always just go with Raspian OS and install MAME that way. Would prefer retropie though, it's a neat little front end/OS.

mitu · 24 Jun 2018, 19:25

@eclark5483 RetroPie is not an OS in itelf, it's based on Raspbian (Stretch), so you don't necessarily need to install Raspbian (again) over RetroPie.

Sano · 24 Jun 2018, 19:40

Beware, IIRC, rotating screen 90° (or 270°) through display_rotate have a quite important performance impact.
That said, I don't know if it's still the case.
See here for example : https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/issues/403#issuecomment-86962019

DougA · 24 Jun 2018, 20:55

@sano I run MAME2003 games in a cabinet with a vertical screen, powered by a Pi 3B , and I haven't seen any performance issues yet.

eclark5483 · 25 Jun 2018, 01:01

@mitu Yes, I realize that. To clarify, I'd rather use the Raspian OS utilizing the Retropie/Emulationstation front end over just plain ole' Raspian without all the bells and whistles.

jdrassa · 25 Jun 2018, 02:41

@sano said in Screen rotation for Retropie GUI:

Beware, IIRC, rotating screen 90° (or 270°) through display_rotate have a quite important performance impact.
That said, I don't know if it's still the case.
See here for example : https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/issues/403#issuecomment-86962019

EmulationStation now has support for screen rotation to get around this. Details can be found here.

eclark5483 · 25 Jun 2018, 03:27

@jdrassa One of the things I got from reading that, is that a new theme will indeed need to be made. Can someone point me to the correct folders and files I would need to modify, and what is the theme using? .CSS, .XML? C, etc,etc. Kinda like to research it a bit. Sorry if I'm not well versed in Pi frontends. But I can modify most formats without too much assist. I see many others have authored themes, so I am assuming changing aspects on a custom design wouldn't be too difficult.

mitu · 25 Jun 2018, 03:49

@eclark5483 https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Creating-Your-Own-EmulationStation-Theme/

eclark5483 · 25 Jun 2018, 04:01

@mitu said in Screen rotation for Retropie GUI:

@eclark5483 https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Creating-Your-Own-EmulationStation-Theme/

Yes, thank you, exactly what I was looking for. Exactly what I figured needed done as well. This is one of the reasons why I inquired in another topic about Retropie in a virtual machine and transferring files. Hey I love coding, great past time, but I prefer doing it on my Windows 10 PC where I have tools at my disposal that I'm more familiar with. I mean, I can squeak by just fine with Linux and all, guess I'm just spoiled by Redmond. But yeah, thanks for the help. I think I can press forward now.

mitu · 25 Jun 2018, 04:07

@eclark5483 If you're developing on Windows, check out the ES Toolkit, ES runs also on Windows and you can pretty much do your development exclusively on the PC.

eclark5483 · 25 Jun 2018, 05:20

@mitu Thank you, downloading v1.1 right now. Will take a quick look at it tonight. I am only using 1 emulator (MAME), so at least my file structure won't be complex and tedious. I'll probably just do a simple mod of the carbon theme for what I need it for. Then maybe later on down the line when I get bored I'll look at completing other systems.

eclark5483 · 25 Jun 2018, 05:49

Hey, can I add code to the ES screen that you get when you are configuring your joystick, to ask the user if they would like to rotate/switch resolution and have their selection sent to the correct theme (without needing source code)? Like I said, I'm just gonna mod the carbon code a bit, make it easier for a "per monitor", maybe add a couple other resolution variables that I wouldn't otherwise need but may prove helpful to others.

Sano · 25 Jun 2018, 05:58

@DougA @jdrassa
Thanks for the information guys.
By reading the provided link, I understand that rotating screen via display_rotate (kernel/framebuffer) still has a performance impact, but now ES (as the various emulators do) supports vertical screen (through VG/GL) without this impact.
Good to know.

JSM · 14 Aug 2019, 22:07

I know this is a necrobump, but I just wanted to say thanks for this. I was trying to run my Retropie in my Arcade1up Galaga cab vertically using that config.txt rotate optino, but the screen tearing was driving me nuts. Downloaded a fresh Retropie 4.5 image, installed the Dev version of Emulation station, and not everything is perfect (except the retropie configs/run command stuff that are rotated 90 degrees!) Seriously - thanks for bumping this thread and adding more info. It was very helpful.

treki · 29 Jun 2020, 14:46

I know, it's a old topic. But still an info:

/boot/config.txt
display_rotate=1
works perfect.

I also have to uncomment:

disable_overscan=1

peterisgb · 16 May 2021, 17:40

@blackshadow said in Screen rotation for Retropie GUI:

quick copy and paste from another site to save me writing it out lol

Step 1 – Edit Config.txt

Start by editing the config.txt file ether via the sd or with:

sudo nano /boot/config.txt

Add one of the following lines to the bottom of the file :

display_rotate=0
display_rotate=1
display_rotate=2
display_rotate=3
0 is the normal configuration. 1 is 90 degrees. 2 is 180 degress. 3 is 270 degrees.
If you are using the Official Raspberry Pi touch screen you can use “lcd_rotate” rather than “display_rotate”.

Save the file by using CTRL-X, Y then ENTER.

as the site you linked references the 7inch pi screen ill assume thats what your using you can use the lcd_rotate that is mentioned as apposed to display rotate

Thanks. This needs the thumbs up as all other routes didnt work. This. Yes. Thanks