Black "frame" on sides of screen for some emulators (4:3 television)
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Hi everyone,
I'm currently using a Retropie/Emulation Station set up on an old 4:3 television. This setup works great for older console emulation, but I get black bars on both sides of the screen when I'm emulating certain old systems (Genesis, Playstation, NES, etc.). This only occurs with the systems that I'm accessing via Retroarch-Libretro. I think Retroarch likely does this because most users nowadays use 16:9 widescreen and its necessary to adjust the screen to appropriate 4:3 proportions used by older systems (thus, the black bars, which function as a "frame"), but I don't know how to turn off this option. I don't require the frames since I'm using an actual 4:3 television.
I played around with some of the aspect ratio settings in retroarch.cfg (all), but I couldn't eliminate the black bars. Could someone walk me through the process? I'm sure I'm missing something simple...
Thanks,
Jim
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See if over scan is turned off. It's in the raspiconfig under advanced options.
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When I disable overscan, it makes a big difference. There is still a small black frame on the left and right of the display, but it's much smaller. But the problem is, once I disable overscan, the Emulation Station menus no longer fit on the screen. Big chunks of the menu aren't visible. When I re-enable overscan, Emulation Station looks fine, but the larger borders return.
Any additional suggestions?
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@jamesrives find or make a theme that's crt friendly.
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Ok, so I disabled overscan and I downloaded a theme that is designed for a CRT. This helped quite a bit -- there is no longer any border on the bottom/top of the screen, however, there is still a noticeable border on the left and right of the screen. This persists regardless of my overscan settings.
Any other suggestions?
Jim
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Can you post a photo illustrating the problem (a photo of the ES menu and a photo of an emulator running would be useful)? How is the rpi connected to the TV?
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The pi is connected to the tv with a simple HDMI to AV converter that connects to the tv via the old RCA-style AV ports.
After further consideration I think the problem stems from the screen resolution that the pi is using. Since I'm using an HDMI to AV converter, but the pi is probably using traditional hdmi settings. My guess is it will be difficult to get a perfect output on an old 4:3 CRT using this method. Guess I'll probably just live with the black bars on the right and left.
Jim
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@jamesrives pi3 or zero, cause the pi3 has standard video out via it headphone jack
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It's actually possible to force a specific resolution. I'd need more details though.
Are you in the USA using an NTSC TV or in Europe using a PAL TV? (I'm assuming it's a CRT TV). -
It's a Pi3. It's an NTSC television.
I tried modifying the resolutions, but couldn't find one that corrected the issue. Some resulted in larger bars, some resulted in bars at the top and bottom (versus sides).
I haven't tried using the standard video out via the headphone jack. I might try that in the future. If I do, I assume I have to tweak the config file so it uses the jack versus HDMI?
Jim
Jim
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How did you change the resolution?
Try this:
Open- boot/config.txt
Make sure the following lines are uncommented and set to the values shown - this will set the output to 480p.
hdmi_group=1
hdmi_mode=2
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