RetroPie Aspect Ratio

ironj679

Hello, I have clawed through the forums and had no luck. I have got a surprisingly complicated, but should be easy problem. I have a Raspberry Pi 3 hooked to an HDMI to RCA converter that is plugged into an old 4:3 tube tv. This a part of my MAME cabinet. (This used to work just fine when powered by a old PC)

The Problem: For whatever reason both the menu and the rom once loaded expand past the screen. It feels like the master out put is off. I have gone in the retro pie settings and the retro arch settings. I have toggled the over scan on and off and tried almost all combonations of changing the aspect ratio. This is really driving me nuts! ![alt text]
(https://imgur.com/aHftyFd) If anyone has any ideas, please help, I am at the end of my rope! I do realize that not all MAME games where made to be on a 4:3 tv. I am okay with it being stretched to fit, but it drives me nuts when it bleeds over.
Thanks,
Jay

caver01

@ironj679 I am thinking your issue isn’t just overscan, it is how your video is setup going out the hdmi. I would edit your /boot/config.txt and play with settings like hdmi_group and hdmi_mode:

hdmi_group=1
hdmi_mode=6

From this page:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/config-txt/video.md

And see how your RCA converter handles the signal. With so many possibilities, including defining a custom mode, you should be able to find one that works.

ironj679

@caver01 Fantastic! One interesting thing is, when I tried to edit the config file. It was blank! It is almost like there is another config file somewhere that I don't know about.

caver01

@ironj679 Hmm. That seems rather suspect to me. The Pi needs the config.txt to know all of its boot settings. How did you build your software setup? Those details are a prerequisite for posting questions here anyway. You should be starting with the official download of the retropie image, and it definitely has a /boot/config.txt.