Is Custom Aspect Ratio (height/width) Possible For Each Game?

AlphaBetaPie

I'm using overlays that require my video output to be resized to a specific height/widget. I accomplish this by going into the retroarch menu, selecting scaling, setting the video aspect ratio to custom, and manually resizing it. Then I save it to the core, so all the games loaded for that system adhere to it. But now I need a few games to have a different aspect ratio and position than the rest.

Is it possible to save separate height/width values per game? I know it's possible to save per-game shader info.

dankcushions

@alphabetapie https://retropie.org.uk/docs/RetroArch-Configuration/#hardcoded-configurations

AlphaBetaPie

@dankcushions said in Is Custom Aspect Ratio (height/width) Possible For Each Game?:

@alphabetapie https://retropie.org.uk/docs/RetroArch-Configuration/#hardcoded-configurations

Very help, thanks as always! Love this forum for all the great advice. I'm using the example for creating a custom config file for a specific game (provided in that link), and I made a little progress. But hit a small snag.

After loading it once (and putting in the cfg file NOT to overwrite or save the config globally), it now keeps saying "Override Config File Loaded" every time I launch any of the games, even after I deleted my test cfg to start over. Any idea where it still loading it from, or did it cache it somewhere?

busywait

@alphabetapie said in Is Custom Aspect Ratio (height/width) Possible For Each Game?:

After loading it once (and putting in the cfg file NOT to overwrite or save the config globally), it now keeps saying "Override Config File Loaded" every time I launch any of the games, even after I deleted my test cfg to start over. Any idea where it still loading it from, or did it cache it somewhere?

I'd guess that at some point you've opened the RetroArch RGUI and used the "Save Core Overrides" option? Or perhaps you installed something like the Bezel Project which installs core and game overrides by default?

Override files seem to disrupt the default RetroPie configuration. (RetroPie uses the --appendconfig option to the retroarch command line, and core override files stop --appendconfig working properly, and also switch off verbose logging!)

If you run your game with "Launch with verbose logging" option and then look in the log file it will tell you the names of any override configurations (.cfg) files used. Then you could copy the appropriate lines from those override .cfg files into your retroarch.cfg core or game .zip.cfg configurations as needed, and then delete the override files.

AlphaBetaPie

I ended up upgrading to a Pie 4, so did a fresh install and build. This time I left out the save config file on exit option and just did manual saves along the way. And then adding in the per-game config file worked like a charm. I now have custom aspect ratios for certain "tall" games (which is needed in Mame for games like Donkey Kong, that is not 4:3 but the exact opposite as the others).

I did however run into another issue with saving, which I posted about here (any help is much appreciated):

busywait

@alphabetapie

Did you see that Emulation Station has a RetroPie (Options) section alongside all of your systems (just before Last Played and Favourites)?

In there you can find "Configuration Editor" and choose "Configure basic libretro options". This is how I've been setting per-system shaders and overlays. (The menu is mentioned in https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Shaders-and-Smoothing/, but there is no screenshot, so it's easy to miss.)

Using this RetroPie configuration editor avoids me creating any override files in RGUI and there are other options that you can change at the system level there too.

That doesn't help you with the individual games, like the verticle orientation games that you want to have a different shader or bezel. For those Emulation Station does give you an option to create a custom config from the runcommand menu, when Emulation Station prompts "Press a button...", but it doesn't give you any help about what is needed in the config file. (Try entering just config_save_on_exit = "false" to create an empty game configuration).

In this case I often start the game and go into the RGUI and setup up the configuration as I need it. Then go to Configuration > Save new configuration. This creates a new retroarch configuration file with a new name that will not ever be used by default. Then I quit Emulation Station (exit the game and press F4 on a keyboard, or use the Start menu > Quit > Quit Emulation Station).

Then I use a command line text editor to copy only the parts of the file that I changed into a game.zip.cfg file, using a template a bit like this:

video_max_swapchain_images = "3"
video_shader_enable = "false"
video_threaded = "true"

#run_ahead_frames = "2"

aspect_ratio_index = "23"
custom_viewport_height = "720"
custom_viewport_width = "964"
custom_viewport_x = "478"
custom_viewport_y = "182"

input_overlay_enable = "true"
input_overlay_opacity = "0.7"
input_overlay = "/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch/overlay/realisticarcade/asteroid.cfg"

config_save_on_exit = "false"

I wish I knew a better way - this doesn't seem like the sensible way to create a game-specific config :/

Reminder: you want to have config_save_on_exit = "false" to avoid your game-specific configuration leaking in to your core configuration.

busywait

@alphabetapie Have you made (or found) some good overlays? Which ones? :)