Border Issues, Black Bars, and Screen Stretch

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!

Floob

@BingoLittle What happens if you enable integer scaling?
http://emulation-general.wikia.com/wiki/Scaling

video_scale_integer = true

If you wanted to set a custom retroarch.cfg for each game you can do that which is how I set specific resolutions for this sort of thing

Given arcade games (as opposed to consoles) have a wide range of native resolutions its not that uncommon to tweak them.
You can create these in the same dir as the game with a name of gamename.zip.cfg