Black "frame" on sides of screen for some emulators (4:3 television)

lostless

See if over scan is turned off. It's in the raspiconfig under advanced options.

JamesRIves

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?

lostless

@jamesrives find or make a theme that's crt friendly.

JamesRIves

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

ruckage

@jamesrives

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?

JamesRIves

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

lostless

@jamesrives pi3 or zero, cause the pi3 has standard video out via it headphone jack

ruckage

@jamesrives

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).

JamesRIves

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

ruckage

@jamesrives

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