Raspberry PI 400, how to limit to 1080p and use with AVR

BenMcLean

I have:

Raspberry PI 400
SanDisk Extreme 256GB
Yamaha RX-A680 AVENTAGE 7.2-Channel AV Receiver with MusicCast
Sony XBR-75X900H TV
8bitdo SF30 Pro
8bitdo SN30 Pro

I'm somewhat visually impaired so I have problems seeing small text.

Despite this, I want to get RetroPie on the above setup:

To work
To actually work
To not suck

These goals entail:

Limiting the resolution to 1080p maximum so that it can actually run games and so that I have at least some hope of reading at least some of the text without the use of a ladder and a microscope.
Making the output full screen
Getting the PI to actually stay paired with the controllers, even after reboots and not require half an hour fiddling with the controllers every single time I want to use it.

These goals are so simple, and yet so seemingly impossible. I'm not new to RetroPie. I've installed it and reinstalled many times on many devices. Yet it always screws up.

So here's what I've tried:

From my Windows 10 PC, I go to the download page and get the latest image retropie-buster-4.7.1-rpi4_400.img and I flash that to the SD card with balenaEtcher.
I take the SD card out of my Windows 10 PC and then put it back in to make the "boot" partition appear as a drive I can access in Windows.
I edit config.txt to change the following options:

hdmi_group=1
hdmi_mode=16
hdmi_edid_file=1
hdmi_force_hotplug=1

The above settings should limit the device to 1080p. It doesn't. It doesn't do anything.

I remove the SD card from the Windows 10 PC and put it in the Raspberry PI 400 and turn it on.
I see the picture of the colors like it is booting up on my TV and then the booting text comes up in teeny tiny squint-o-vision which I doubt even an Eagle could read. Why don't Linux distros just blow up the text to a readable size by default when on a 4K screen? Why? Why?
Instead of EmulationStation, I get a black screen.
I press f4 to get the terminal.
I try sudo ./RetroPie-Setup/retropie_setup.sh to get the RetroPie menu. It's tiny and it only takes up the upper left quadrant of my TV screen.
I search around in the menus trying to figure out how the hell I can turn SSH on so that I can at least look at this mess on a screen I can actually read, but can't find it.

What the hell.

What should I even do at that point!?

P.S. earlier today, on a previous install attempt, I had tried these instructions to get my controllers paired and to stay paired. They'll pair alright. They just won't stay paired after a reboot. But of course I can't even get that far if I can't see what I'm doing.

(later edit) Oh, I found where I had originally got instructions on how to force 1080p: these instructions here. So apparently next I should try the part about disabling 4K altogether. Will try that and report back.

BenMcLean

OK I have tried disabling 4K screen modes altogether.
I have tried limiting the console to 720p.
But always at some point during boot, RetroPie overrides whatever was put in config.txt and forces it back to 4K.
Even if I reflash the SD card to start over.
Also, EmulationStation isn't just black anymore -- it actually stays in text mode now and lets you fill up the screen with whatever characters you type, but they do nothing.
What.

BenMcLean

I was able to watch this crap boot more closely and it looks like the display settings from config.txt get wiped away when some kind of "kernel hack" is being applied.
Devs, what the hell did you do?

I used to think that these do-it-yourself retro consoles were the way to go for everyone but after using it myself for years, I absolutely cannot recommend RetroPie to anyone who isn't already a hardcore Linux user and even then, I begin to think you'd be better off installing something more generic like Raspberry PI OS and then configuring all of it yourself.

mitu

@benmclean said in Raspberry PI 400, how to limit to 1080p and use with AVR:

But always at some point during boot, RetroPie overrides whatever was put in config.txt and forces it back to 4K.

That would be the GPU driver loading and detecting the display settings. There's nothing that RetroPie installs that configures or changes the video output settings.

Devs, what the hell did you do?

Nothing here, the RetroPie image is a stock RaspiOS Lite Buster image with the RetroPie installed. You'd probably get the same result by booting an official RaspiOS image. Post your config.txt and dmesg (on pastebin.com).

hdmi_edid_file has an effect only if you supply and EDID file to the kernel, overriding the EDID supplied by your display (or AVR).
If you connect the Pi directly to the TV, do you get the same issue ?

Also, please use a civil tone and leave the snarky remarks aside if you wish to get help in the forums.

BenMcLean

@mitu OK I have pasted those here.

I managed to get SSH and Samba turned on, ran updates and transferred my games over, so that's why the SD card is now mostly full. It's also filling the screen now and EmulationStation starts, although trying to view the Pico8 or Tic-80 menus make it crash. Pokemon Mini does too. I think this has to do with putting systems in which don't have custom artwork for the default theme. Can EmulationStation be fixed so that it won't crash from missing artwork? Seems like a few if then blocks should take care of that.

But it is still a major problem for me to read the text any time I have to go into any of the text menus on the TV.

I tried this:

# uncomment to force a console size. By default it will be display's size minus
# overscan.
framebuffer_width=1280
framebuffer_height=720

and that makes the console start in 720p but it doesn't stay in 720p.

Also, while it's OK to plug the pi 400 into the TV just for testing, the audio needs to be coming through the AVR in the final setup. I'll try plugging it in directly just for a test and report back on that.

BenMcLean

I figured out my big problem with the device apparently ignoring my config.txt edits!

The Raspberry PI 400 has two display ports. I plugged in to the one nearest the power port when I should have instead plugged in to the one nearest the SD card slot. After I switched to the other port, the display was finally limited to 1080p as expected based on my config.txt edits.

Also, to help me read the menus on the TV, I found the "consolefont" option in the RetroPie Setup menu and chose a bigger font.

Getting the cheats to work is a pain but I got that working finally.

I am still having problems with the controllers though. I got them to stay remembered after a reboot this time, but the left and right triggers aren't recognized in EmulationStation. (while the shoulders are) Fortunately, I can set them manually in the RetroArch GUI but it would be nice if they'd just work.

mitu

Can EmulationStation be fixed so that it won't crash from missing artwork? Seems like a few if then blocks should take care of that.

I don't recall such a bug - what theme are you using and which ES version ?

Also, while it's OK to plug the pi 400 into the TV just for testing, the audio needs to be coming through the AVR in the final setup. I'll try plugging it in directly just for a test and report back on that.

If the AVR doesn't send a valid EDID, but your TV works directly plugged in, then you can dump the EDID from your TV and use the hdmi_edid_file in config.txt to override the HDMI port settings:

# dump the EDID from the TV
sudo tvservice -d /boot/edid.dat

in config.txt:

hdmi_edid_file=1
hdmi_edid_filename:0=edid.dat
hdmi_edid_filename:1=edid.dat

[..] I got them to stay remembered after a reboot this time, but the left and right triggers aren't recognized in EmulationStation.

How are the gamepads connected ? If they's connected via USB, try re-installing the xpad driver from RetroPie-Setup. This may help if the gamepads are started in XInput mode. Make sure you're using the latest RetroPie-Setup, there have been a few fixed for installing the xpad driver.

BenMcLean

@mitu said in Raspberry PI 400, how to limit to 1080p and use with AVR:

Can EmulationStation be fixed so that it won't crash from missing artwork? Seems like a few if then blocks should take care of that.

I don't recall such a bug - what theme are you using and which ES version ?

Default theme, which I think is called Carbon.

Build Date: 2021-12-26T16:26:11+00:00
Built from source via:
Type: git
URL: https://github.com/RetroPie/EmulationStation
Branch: stable
Commit: c9d905c31acf4b92d0a76b76c5cdf49e2b266d43
Date: 2021-12-26T15:38:57+00:00

How are the gamepads connected ?

Bluetooth.

mitu

Default theme, which I think is called Carbon.

Build Date: 2021-12-26T16:26:11+00:00
Built from source via:
Type: git
URL: https://github.com/RetroPie/EmulationStation
Branch: stable
Commit: c9d905c31acf4b92d0a76b76c5cdf49e2b266d43
Date: 2021-12-26T15:38:57+00:00

That seems to be the latest stable (2.10.1), this version will have a new default theme (Carbon-2021), but Carbon should work just the same. If you run ES with --debug, can you see where it crashes and what's the last error message ?

How are the gamepads connected ?

Bluetooth.

In this case, if the gamepads are started in XInput mode, I'd recommend installing the xpadneo driver from RetroPie-Setup and re-pair/re-configure the controller(s).

BenMcLean

I think I just got over-frustrated when I said I wouldn't recommend RetroPie anymore.

But that display port issue was an enormous problem for me. Can we get this info about the two display ports added to the official documentation? Or was it there all along and I just missed it, in which case this would have been totally my own fault?

mitu

We have some notes in the docs about dealing with a 4k resolution, but the canonical source is always the Raspberry Pi docs at https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/configuration.html#hdmi-configuration.

EDIT: I'll add some notes about the 2nd port and a link to the video mode table listing.