Videomode file ignored if game override cfg file exists?

stevas

Update:
I've re-imaged (again again), and it's working here now. That is: it switches resolution, and I get a full verbose log.
Thanks both for the help - it at least convinced me I needed to start again and do literally the bare minimum to get it working.
Lord knows what I did to break it; as I didn't get too far through the setup process I'll go step by step now to figure that bit out (of course, we all know it'll continue to work fine, and I'll never see that behaviour again...)

stevas

I'm back. It's late. But I just want to get this posted... Mainly so I bloody remember it, tbh.

Should I just plain NOT be creating a full retroarch.cfg with the option to in Retropie (i.e. selecting RETROARCH in the emulation station Retropie menu, then saving a full new configuration)?
Now is the point for someone to step up and say "yeah... You just shouldn't be doing that anyways, dude."

Because if I go in there, and save my config, I get this issue.
As long as I was using the skeleton retroarch.cfg file (the one that's mainly comments), I was fine. Switched resolution no problems.
Soon as saved over that (in the way described above), boom, doesn't switch. Again, it's only when a game override cfg is present, and the log is truncated as before (at the exact point it tries to append said override, I might add).
At the moment I have an override for Aladdin which is just loading and saving a state. That's it. I also have a shader preset for that core. (Because why not.)

I can switch the problem off and on literally by either using the backup skeleton retroarch.cfg I have, or saving a configuration over that through the retroarch menu!

Bed now.

mitu

@stevas said in Videomode file ignored if game override cfg file exists?:

Now is the point for someone to step up and say "yeah... You just shouldn't be doing that anyways, dude."

Well, yes. We usually recommend to save an override (core/game/content dir) instead of saving the full config back. The RA configuration has grown to such a dimension it's getting difficult to pinpoint how seemingly unrelated options affect the overall program's behavior; it's easier to keep the base configuration small and simple to get a good starting configuration and manage game/core settings through overrides.

The preferred (but not the easiest) method would be to add the configuration option to that file by editing, so only the bare essential configuration options are added. Or use the Configuration Editor to edit the most important options (shaders, resolution, video smoothing, etc.).

That being said, can you post the offending .cfg so we can take a look at it ? It's worth a shot to see if we can accommodate the video mode switching with this kind of configurations.

stevas

You don't say.

I can see the problem clearly now, as, yeah - that file is getting ridiculous, isn't it?
Is there a definitive guide/help on this? Because I ended up doing this after a load of Google results pointed me towards it being fine to just let retroarch do this (mainly of the "just delete that file, retroarch will recreate it" with people asking "what do I do to return this to the default?" type).

Anyway, lesson learned, I'll be just building my own simple cfg in future... still, I'd be interested to see exactly what is upsetting res switching in there, as I thought I'd tried commenting out everything that made sense - i.e. settings clearly messing with a resolution, viewport stuff, etc.

https://pastebin.com/raw/w3xJ9rft

Thanks again for the help.

mitu

@stevas said in Videomode file ignored if game override cfg file exists?:

https://pastebin.com/raw/w3xJ9rft

Yes, as suspected, the problem is that the config file contains the video settings and they override the video resolution parameters passed with runcommand (via /dev/shm/retroarch.cfg)

video_fullscreen = "true"
video_fullscreen_x = "0"
video_fullscreen_y = "0"

Unfortunately, the same happens if using an override

if the override is created with default video settings (i.e. no custom video mode selected), then the video is scaled incorrectly
if the override is created with a custom video mode (chosen from the runcommand launch menu), then it's persisted and re-used, regardless of any subsequent video mode choices from the launch menu.

stevas

Good day, mitu.

I'll be brutally honest here, I'm having trouble comprehending what you're saying.

I still don't fully understand why the presence of a game override cfg (one that has nothing in it other than, say, save state autoload) should mean the main retroarch.cfg settings you posted would be used above whatever is selected in the runcommand, while NOT having that game override cfg present means the selected runcommand resolution switch works correctly. Is this a bug, or intended purpose?
Also, I seen no incorrect scaling in either case (screen was filled, correct aspect ratio?)

But maybe I'm just being particularly dense today (understandable, but I won't go into why).

Edit:
Wait... Are you saying if I had those settings in the game cfg (ie. x and y are for the target resolution, say 1280 and 720), then it would work? The presence of an override requires the resolution settings also, otherwise it looks for them in the main retroarch.cfg?

mitu

@stevas said in Videomode file ignored if game override cfg file exists?:

Wait... Are you saying if I had those settings in the game cfg (ie. x and y are for the target resolution, say 1280 and 720), then it would work? The presence of an override requires the resolution settings also, otherwise it looks for them in the main retroarch.cfg?

No, it's the other way around - if those settings are not present in the override/.cfg, it would work. The default configuration has no defaults, so that's why the --appendconfig with the video settings coming from runcommand works.

stevas

But... My game override cfg files DON'T have those settings in them?

mitu

Post a game override file - testing one here shows the video resolution is saved to the override file.

stevas

I'd created my own? Literally with just, say, auto load state in it. Or vsync off. As I said at the start. And with that recent posted main retroarch.cfg (one built by retroarch "save configuration" itself), it won't switch to a selected runcmd resolution?
But if I use the skeleton main retroarch.cfg (the .dist one), it will.
Sorry, I thought we'd established this? Am I even more confused than I thought? (Not a small feat - let me tell you.)
The problem is that the mere presence of that game override is stopping the resolution switching.
Which is why I asked if that game override also NEEDS settings in it to control the resolution, see?
Wait (again)...
Did you mean create it from within retroarch GUI?

I'm not at my pi, but does creating the game override through the GUI add resolution/scaling settings? I thought it was best to create game overrides yourself rather than doing that. I'm... Not sure where I got that idea tbh.

mitu

@stevas said in Videomode file ignored if game override cfg file exists?:

I'm not at my pi, but does creating the game override through the GUI add resolution/scaling settings? I thought it was best to create game overrides yourself rather than doing that. I'm... Not sure where I got that idea tbh.

Yes, this is what I was referring to. The previous situation - just creating a single line .cfg file -, didn't yield the error for me, like I mentioned.

stevas

Sorry, I misread: when you were detailing the problem with the retroarch.cfg I pasted, I thought you were saying also you'd reproduced the issue.

So using said main config, built by my system, and a manually created game override, you're able to switch resolution no problem through runcmd? Interesting.
And by that, I do of course mean: more confusing.

In that case, I got nothing. And I guess I'll just move on, make sure I use a manually created main config from now on, and be very suspicious of what these applications are doing regards resolutions.

Incidentally, and amusingly (to me anyway), I just realised the dude who literally only came in here to ask if I was fibbing was actually indirectly the cause of all this!
(In other words: was trying to get the overrides in this forum topic to work.)
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/4046/crt-pi-shader-users-reduce-scaling-artifacts-with-these-configs-in-lr-mame2003-lr-fbalpha-lr-nestopia-and-more-to-come

Is this not recommended either now? Should I be using the GUI to create game overrides? (Then editing them after the fact.)

mitu

@stevas said in Videomode file ignored if game override cfg file exists?:

Incidentally, and amusingly (to me anyway), I just realised the dude who literally only came in here to ask if I was fibbing was actually indirectly the cause of all this!
(In other words: was trying to get the overrides in this forum topic to work.)
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/4046/crt-pi-shader-users-reduce-scaling-artifacts-with-these-configs-in-lr-mame2003-lr-fbalpha-lr-nestopia-and-more-to-come

Shaders are not part of overrides, they're saved separately, using shader presets. Not sure if it worked back then (quite possibly)

Is this not recommended either now? Should I be using the GUI to create game overrides? (Then editing them after the fact.)

It's still recommended, but it won't play nice with the resolution switching. Why are you using the overrides for ?

stevas

I was trying to get the cfg overrides in that forum topic to work (as I say, created by dankcushions). Not the shader itself. The shaders bit is fine. I'm aware the best way to set that is with a saved preset now.

But I was trying to get the cfg overrides to work without the shader bit, ie. just the bit setting aspect ratio index to 23, and some viewport settings to centre/scale it nicely (he very kindly created packs for resizing games individually - and in multiple resolutions too).

At the same time it occurred to me that I'd maybe need to drop resolution to get some games performing well (particularly dreamcast), so I started messing with the 720 override equivalents dank created, and got this issue.

So I guess the question really is: do I still even need to do this to ensure crt-scanlines plays nicely, or is there some faster new fancier way I've missed? Or a later pack for fbneo, MAME?
That topic is linked to by the shaders webpage, btw.
@dankcushions I guess?

Incidentally, I'm running Aladdin smd in 1080p with crt-scanlines, and the performance is awful - is that normal?
I have got threaded video switched off, mind.
Just figured the pi4 would have the horsepower to not have to make the choice between threaded or 720p for just a megadrive game? Or is there something special about Aladdin?

mitu

@stevas said in Videomode file ignored if game override cfg file exists?:

Incidentally, I'm running Aladdin smd in 1080p with crt-scanlines, and the performance is awful - is that normal?

Depends on your configuration - I think that should have been fullspeed even on a 3B model.

I have got threaded video switched off, mind.

Why ?

stevas

I'd read that it could introduce judder or make scrolling less smooth, which is something I find particularly jarring. In actual fact, what kicked off this whole thing was me noticing the scrolling in metal slug (fbneo) wasn't quite right, so I attempted switching resolution down to 720 (with an override for that game present). And... Here we are.

mitu

If you'd like to disable threaded video, then disable it globally in the global retroarch.cfg, so it's present for all emulators, or in the system's retroarch.cfg. That would work without any overrides and can be set from the configuration editor. Not sure if it helps reducing the judder though.

stevas

Thanks, yeah, I'm already doing that (switched off globally). I dunno if it does anything yet, as I got totally distracted with this resolution switching shenanigans.

Anyway, thanks for the pointer, I'll look at what's going on when you create a game override through the GUI...

dankcushions

@stevas those shader overrides have been broken (like anything that relies on consistent retroarch config options) several times over. eg https://retropie.org.uk/forum/post/166725

please don’t use them. if you’ll use them as-is they will mess up resolutions/aspect ratios.

stevas

Hey dank, thanks for the heads up; I kinda figured they would be, yeah. I'm just using them as a basis to create my own such that the screen gets positioned right, ie. for the x and y values. I certainly wasn't gonna just lump them all in there.

While I'm here, did Naomi get borked in the last few weeks? Suddenly the ROMs I have for that don't work (since I had to reimage I mean).

You know what, never mind, forgetting so many things already done several times over: BIOS!