Force an aspect ratio in ES ?

[Vlad]

Hello,
I use a standard tv crt for Retropie display. It work well at 240p but because it's low for text and tv accept more (480i not possible with current dpi support), I have tried to get closer 288p. So I get almost 50 lines in vertical, this is not negligible for readability.

But I'm facing a problem of aspect ratio in ES. As you know, the restrictive pixel clock of the pi constrain to non-compliant horizontal resolution to reach at once a suitable 15khz display.
This is not a problem for ES to adapt the resolution to fit the screen, and I can adapt myself the theme for many elements. But because these timings, elements like fonts, md_marquee or element to be size by <maxsize> , system logos etc are compressed rather like they suffer a transition from 5/3 to 4/3 ratio.
But the real problem is that thereafter neither --resolution , nor --screensize ratio change seems affect these elements. They seems definitely setted (about ratio) and I don't find how control the refering aspect ratio.

Additional informations , example of accepted timings I can use on my tv, volontary disparate :
520 1 30 18 48 293 1 5 4 10 0 0 0 50 0 9600000 1
450 1 55 30 85 270 1 1 1 30 0 0 0 50 0 9600000 1
360 1 60 60 120 270 1 20 1 21 0 0 0 50 0 9600000 1

As you imagine, all of these timings give different aspect ratio . I check this display ratio with the splashscreen to have round circle. For example the first give me stretched image. The second give me a good result, en the third give a compressed picture at splashscreen. But in ES ALL give me the exact same render about their aspect ratio (compressed in an exact same way , no more and no less ) for fonts, for systems logos, for marquee ...

(sorry for my english !)

[Vlad]

One more for the road with perfect active resolution (but same result):
384 1 50 65 115 288 1 4 1 15 0 0 0 50 0 9600000 1

I understand the horizontal packed render, due to the high h porch values, but the question is just, can I improve this wrong ratio in ES ?
With the other timings I have tested to add at start something like : emulationstation --resolution 384 288 or --screensize 384 288 and many different values according to compensate the wrong ratio. It stretch the elements according to the new size, but doesn't affect anymore the aspect ratio of the fonts and elements with aspect ratio constraint , these ones continue to refer their ratio to a certain resolution (this one induced by the initial resolution timings I supose)

thanks...

[Rion]

@Vlad I think you should have a look at the config files for CRT tv's that krahsdevil have created.

Retropie CRT Edition Github

[Vlad]

@Rion I will test it thanks for the link. I see he uses 270p resolution timings similar to mine, curious to see the result ...

[Vlad]

Ok, seems krahsdevil has to face the exact same problem that I note. I can say that because he tried to compensate :

here an example of ES system screen with his configuration and theme ( "270P-CRT-FLAT theme"):

We can beleive there is no problem when we see the result, especially since he uses <maxSize> in the theme for elements size, to garantee the aspect ratio 1:1 ... except than for get this, he uses this kind of pre-stretched ressources to anticipate the result:

(this is from the _assets graphics used)

Now some other examples :
If I replace an image in systems by simple font, I got this :

(we can also see at the bottom the helped text are packed.

And the main problem for me (because like the fonts, no possibility to compensate too), if I add a marquee image (wheel) on the gamelist view, I got this (using <maxSize> again for setting, the only good choice which conserve the original ratio for this type of media):

Lastly, we can check the aspect ratio from the ES start : if it's already incorrect , we will see the same on other graphic elements without specific size adjustment :

Here, the compressed rate is about 25% horizontally, so it starts to be very visible on many logos.

Please, is there something to do to facilitate a correct display in ES when we have no choice to use special resolution but we want 4:3 (like with hdmi_timings, like for 270p ..) , either something which force to conserve the original aspect ratio of the element/fonts independantly of the resolution, or a parameter to let us correct/cheat manually ? because it's not very flexible to prepare all images like this, it make them unusable in another resolution/ratio/theme etc and especially it's not realistic to prepare all media datas such wheel/marquee image with a faked aspect , even if for snapshots and videos, their fixed size or nearly, permit to cheat on the display size with <size>1 1.25</size> for example (but not very elegant and not perfect since the resolution, if it is native can also finally vary...)

[Vlad]

@Rion It is nothing to do, but trying to test games with crt-edition EVO 2.4 (seems to be fantastic job about timings fidelity gestion) I unfortunately meet pb with display and bugs. Do you know where I can make some feedbacks about it ?

[Rion]

@Vlad

Sure it's here on the spanish elotrolado forums