Changing Onscreen Notification Size

simpleethat

Pi Model or other hardware: 3B+
RetroPie Version Used (eg 3.6, 3.8.1, 4.1 - do not write latest): 4.5.16
Built From: pre-made image from retropie website
Emulator: lr-pcsx-rearmed (all the lr emulators really but this is the one that matters)

I recently ran an update on my 3B+ build and noticed the onscreen notifications have changed from yellow text to animations (awesome! looks so much better) which was a pleasant surprise. So now I'm trying to increase the size of the onscreen notifications so I can use the controller to swap discs and be able to read everything from my couch. I would prefer to go in and adjust the retroarch.cfg file myself instead of using the menus. Is it possible to do this? What values do I need to change?

mitu

The option is named video_font_size, it's set to 24 by default.

simpleethat

@mitu that did it. Although mine was set to 12, odd. Thanks for the quick response. Time to add it to my list of tweaks for the rebuild.

sirhenrythe5th

I have the same issue since yesterday :/

I updated to retroarch 1.8.5 and now all the notifications are way too small and keep being small even when changing the font size in RGUI.
I can set the value to 100 - does not change anything.

I also tried to edit the "retroarch.cfg" (my "video_font_size" was set to "12" too btw (?)) - but even that had no effect.

Just to get sure: i have never worked arround the "retroarch.cfg" before and had to search it.
Maybe i found a wrong one?
I edited "retroarch.cfg" in "/opt/configs/all/retroarch/retroarch.cfg".

mitu

@sirhenrythe5th said in Changing Onscreen Notification Size:

I edited "retroarch.cfg" in "/opt/configs/all/retroarch/retroarch.cfg".

Check the system's retroarch.cfg and see if you get another value there.

sirhenrythe5th

@mitu sorry for the stupid question: where can i find the "system´s" retroarch.cfg?
Thank you very much for your help!!!

mitu

@sirhenrythe5th each system has its own retroarch.cfg (when applicable) - in \\retropie\configs\<system>. If you start a game in that system and use 'Save Configuration' from RGUI, a full retroarch.cfg is saved, overriding most of the defaults set in the \\retropie\configs\all\retroarch.cfg.

sirhenrythe5th

@mitu ahhhhh!, i see!
thank you once more mitu, i will try that for sure ;)

sirhenrythe5th

@mitu i had a look into the systems retroarch.cfg and had the syntax "Video_font_size = 30.000000".
This is the value i entered in RGUI / Onscreen Notifications, so there is no mistake :/

After that I updated (all packages) to v4.6, deinstalled Retroarch, installed it again - the notifications keep being small ignoring the font_size of 30.

The issue came up with the update from 1.8.4 -> 1.8.5, so i have some hope that i will read in the changelog of 1.8.6 something like "RPI/RGUI: fixed bug notification font size ignored since 1.8.5" :D

mitu

You may be right, the video_font_size seems to have no effect in 1.8.5. I'll take a look and compare with 1.8.4.

mitu

OK, so - funny thing - RetroArch changed how the scaling is calculated for the menu widgets font [^1]. There's a new setting now, called Menu Widget Scale Factor, under Settings -> User Interface -> Appearance, which dictates how the font is resized.
For the RGUI, this affects only the OSD notifications, for OZONE it will scale both the notifications and the menu font.

TL;DR - try changing the menu_scale_factor to see the change in font size. It's a decimal number, if you want to scale up, try 1.something, 2.otherthing, etc.

[1] https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/pull/10114

sirhenrythe5th

@mitu you are a real genius!
I will try this as soon as i am back home again.
I remember that i saw something like "widget autoscaling" in settings->onscreen display, so if this way does have not effect i will try to turn this off (default=on).
This is the right direction, thank you very much once more Mitu!

sirhenrythe5th

That was the solution indeed.
I deactivated "Widget auto-scaling" in RGUI->Settings->Onscreen Notifications.
As soon as you deactivate it two more options appear:

scale Widgets (Full Screen)
scale Widgets (Window)

I set the scaling of (Window) to 1.75 and now everything is wonderful :)

There is still one difference to 1.8.4., but this is not that worse:
in 1.8.4. by deactivating the "onscreen notifications" you got rid of system-messages like "core presets loaded", "input device xy connected to port0" and so on.
Now they still appear, propably all these messages are widgets now.

Thank you for your help Mitu!

sirhenrythe5th

FYI: Retroarch 1.8.6 was released yesterday with more changes to the cheevos/widgets display.

inky

@mitu said in Changing Onscreen Notification Size:

RetroArch

The new widgets are great, but I have a problem with scaling when using on my CRT screen via a RGB-pi (SCART).

The Widgets appear squashed and unreadable. I suspect this is because I'm using "super resolution" on my CRT as I suspect many do - for me 1536x240.

Wondering if there a possibility to please correct for this by adding a horizontal scaling factor? or another setting I should be looking at ?

FYI - My menu initially also appeared squashed (though the game was fine) I was able to correct this within Settings -> User Interface -> Appearance - "Lock Aspect Ratio" to OFF
rgui_aspect_ratio_lock = "0" in retroarch.cfg

mitu

@inky said in Changing Onscreen Notification Size:

Wondering if there a possibility to please correct for this by adding a horizontal scaling factor? or another setting I should be looking at ?

Besides the settings already mentioned by @sirhenrythe5th, I don't know any other that affect the size/resolution of the new notification messages. Didn't the old style notification messages had the same issue when using a super-resolution ?

inky

@mitu Ah well, thanks anyway - I posted it as an issue in github to see if the retroarch - developers can help
https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/pull/10114