Border Issues, Black Bars, and Screen Stretch

BingoLittle

I was just wondering if anyone could help me out with some issues I have observed with borders. I have set up my Pi to use over-scanning, which I adjusted slightly so that EmulationStation basically fills the entire screen. See the link below, Image 1 (see each image's comments also for additional info). I am using an old PAL 4:3 CRT.

If you take a look at Image 2 where I am using lr-imame4all to run Street Fighter II, there are small borders to the top of bottom of the screen. This is the case for most games, however it is not the case for NeoGeo games, as you can see in Image 3 and Image 4 (Art of Fighting, again using lr-imame4all).

On the other extreme, if I play Mortal Kombat II (image 5) the borders are even more pronounced.

Is there any reason for the discrepancies I am seeing between different ROMs using the same emulator? Is there an option to stretch to fill the screen automatically?

I have played with quite a few of the settings in the retroarch.cfg file but to no avail.

Right now, with the exception of video smoothing being set to true, the retroarch.cfg file is set to default for all settings.

Incidentally, when playing SNES games using lr-snes9x-next I also can see small borders (image 6, slightly difficult to see because of artefacts in the photo but most visible at the top of screen). The same is true for Mega Drive games.

Thanks a lot for the help, I would really appreciate any pointers you could give!

Screen shots: https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0N5n8hH4KO0Fe

Individually:
Image 1: https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0N5n8hH4KO0Fe;C3D5145F-C8E3-4B76-81F9-A5EB16482967
Image 2: https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0N5n8hH4KO0Fe;50462168-43E8-4BC7-AF98-A7B9F25C501F
Image 3: https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0N5n8hH4KO0Fe;BE57539E-9A7A-41C2-872F-0D589374AE3D
Image 4: https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0N5n8hH4KO0Fe;9CBAD5E9-6F1D-480E-86AC-2EB070317CED
Image 5: https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0N5n8hH4KO0Fe;41731B28-BFA9-4EC4-95E3-2D7A2EF48F09
Image 6: https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0N5n8hH4KO0Fe;433BF7B2-B6E8-4D9E-80DD-EB42B0E862F3

Setup specifics:

Pi Model: 3
Monitor: PAL CRT 27" 4:3
RetroPie: v4.0 beta 2
Built From: SD Image
Controller used: X-Arcade Dual Joystick

dankcushions

@BingoLittle could you please paste your /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg
and /opt/retropie/configs/mame-mame4all/retroarch.cfg?(i'm assuming you're running via the mame-mame4all folder?)

BingoLittle

@dankcushions Hi, thanks for the reply.

The contents of my /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg is here:

http://pastebin.com/vnrW4PSQ

I have never altered /opt/retropie/configs/mame-mame4all/retroarch.cfg and I am not sure what you mean by 'running out of' but here is the contents of that file:

# Settings made here will only override settings in the global retroarch.cfg if placed above the #include line

input_remapping_directory = "/opt/retropie/configs/mame-mame4all/"

#include "/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg"

Thanks a lot for the help!

dankcushions

no problem :) I mean what folder are your mame4all games in? that dictates what config is relevant.

BingoLittle

@dankcushions Hi - sorry, yes at the moment my games are in the /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/ folder.

dankcushions

@BingoLittle ok, that explains the very sparce mame-mame4all/retroarch.cfg :)

could you paste /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/retroarch.cfg please? the problem is either there, or at least we can try some other settings :)

Floob

@BingoLittle Out of interest is that composite out, so do you have the following in your config.txt?

sdtv_mode=2
sdtv_aspect=1

http://elinux.org/RPiconfig#Video

Maybe post yours to pastebin.com

GreenHawk84

@BingoLittle , off topic one second, which do you use to play Mortal Kombat II? Hows your performance?

BingoLittle

@GreenHawk84 I use lr-imame4all and performance is absolutely perfect. This is despite many forums warning that games like Mortal Kombat II and NBA Jam are very slow...

BingoLittle

@dankcushions Hi again. Really sorry for the delay, I've been at work and can't access the files from there :)

The /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/retroarch.cfg is also stock by the looks of it:

# Settings made here will only override settings in the global retroarch.cfg if placed above the #include line

input_remapping_directory = "/opt/retropie/configs/arcade/"

#include "/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg"

I only ever remember editing one file and that is the /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg file to be honest.

Thanks for the help once again!

BingoLittle

@Floob Hi, yes I am using composite out (one of the reasons the Pi appealed to me so much was native composite out, so that I could avoid using one of those VGA to composite converters, which in my experience are not very good).

I can confirm that my /boot/config.txt file contains sdtv_mode=2. The sdtv_aspect option is not explicitly set, but defaults to 1 if I am right.

dankcushions

@BingoLittle said in Border Issues, Black Bars, and Screen Stretch:

@dankcushions Hi again. Really sorry for the delay, I've been at work and can't access the files from there :)

The /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/retroarch.cfg is also stock by the looks of it:
# Settings made here will only override settings in the global retroarch.cfg if placed above the #include line

input_remapping_directory = "/opt/retropie/configs/arcade/"

#include "/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg"
I only ever remember editing one file and that is the /opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg file to be honest.

Thanks for the help once again!

i think floob might be on to something with the config txt settings, but i have a bit of a brute-force solution that you could try? i think perhaps imame4all isn't playing nice with the default aspect ratio settings (mame2003 has a few issues around this also).

use https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/Configuration-Editor

basic libretro options
additional options for arcade
change the aspect ratio setting. make a note of what it is originally. one should be for 4:3 which may be what you want, but i have a feeling it will warp games that are shown with a narrower aspect (eg, pacman, which is 3:4 or something like that?). if that happens, you might want to try these settings: 19 = Config, 20 = 1:1 PAR, 21 = Core Provided.

it's really cool you're running it on a CRT!

GreenHawk84

@BingoLittle, you play MK2 on mame4all without any sound issues, any issues?

BingoLittle

@dankcushions

Yes, I bought a CRT especially for the RetroPie, arcade games just look great on an old TV :-)

Ok I didn't change anything yet in my configuration files, I just wanted to show you that yes indeed lr-imame4all is stretching upright games:

Mr Do!: https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0N5n8hH4KO0Fe;05AB175E-B8CA-42BF-ADC6-38465B5A7C36
Pac-Man: https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0N5n8hH4KO0Fe;975AFFC6-56C3-4E69-B3DA-67EC6736D313

However, lr-fba-next is displaying them perfectly:

Mr Do!: https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0N5n8hH4KO0Fe;3C591A25-9CDE-46F7-B090-7BF8DEFA9A51
Pac-Man: https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0N5n8hH4KO0Fe;FD72A05F-1493-4D55-85F8-C8A25C1455FD

Of course Final Burn Alpha doesn't emulate some games I want to play, so I have one ROM set that I play out of the /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/folder using lr-imame4all and another set of ROMS that I play out of /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/fba/ depending on the game.

I will try your suggested settings shortly and let you know the outcome.

Thanks again!

BingoLittle

@GreenHawk84 Actually yes, now that you mention it there are occasional crackling sounds that can be heard, but it's pretty rare and goes away after a few seconds. The sound artefacts aren't particularly annoying, but they are there so sound is not 100% perfect, no...

GreenHawk84

@BingoLittle , okay, I was about to say, I have tried all the cores for Retropie and none of them do MK2 very well for me on a Pi3. Mame2003 seems the closest but suffers from a huge audio glitch periodically. Not trying to derail your topic but I couldn't help but ask. Thanks!

BingoLittle

@GreenHawk84 Yeah sure thing, sorry I kinda misled you there, I had forgotten about the sound issues to be honest. In my experience most emulators are terribly slow, except lr-imame4all which is fast and doesn't drop frames, but has these huge borders and, yes, suffers from these audio glitches (but I must say they are rare enough). At first I thought they might be distortion so maybe it's got to do with the audio level in the Mortal Kombat's BIOS settings being too high? I have yet to try to see if that is the problem.

GreenHawk84

@BingoLittle, feel free to post anything you find out regarding audio and Mortal Kombat in my thread here: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/2612/mortal-kombat-2-3-umk3-audio/19

If you would like, just to keep this thread on topic.

GreenHawk84

@BingoLittle, do you know how to get into the Retroarch GUI? It is START and X together. Go into Video settings and set your aspect ratio from default "Core" to "4:3." Let me know what happens.

BingoLittle

@dankcushions

Ok so I went and experimented with the settings using the Configuration Editor. Sure enough, setting it to 4:3 (it was actually set to Unset before I changed it) - this worked great for MKII and other games, virtually eliminating the borders. However, as you predicted upright games are stretched.

But this is better than before, and presumably I can go into the RetroArch settings when playing using the HotKey+X command and edit settings for individual games? And somehow save settings for individual games?

Thanks again, your help is certainly appreciated!