[workaround] Pi hang on overscan and certain emulators w/ dispmanx

[Meneer Jansen]

My Pi crashes on certain emulators that use dispmanx (i.e. BasiliskII for Mac and pcsx-rearmed for PSX) when I disable overscan in /boot/config.txt (i.e uncomment the line "#disable_overscan=1").

Some relevant info:

• Pi Model: 1B+
• Power Supply used: USB hub and 2 Ampere generic PSU
• RetroPie Version Used: 4.3.11
• Built From: manual install (link) on Raspbian 9 (stretch)
• Error messages received: non, Pi hangs in weird warped graphic of Runcommand. I can still access the Pi via ssh though
• Log found in /dev/shm/runcommand.log (if relevant):

Executing: SDL1_VIDEODRIVER=dispmanx pushd /opt/retropie/emulators/pcsx-rearmed; ./pcsx -cdfile "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/psx/Air Combat.Z"; popd
/opt/retropie/emulators/pcsx-rearmed ~

• My /boot/config.txt: link

What does not help is:

• Commenting out from /boot/config.txt the lines containing "overscan_left=-20" etc and "overscan_scale=1".
• Uncommenting "hdmi_safe=1". Why? Because setting that option means (among others) that "overscan_scale=0" is set. See: this link.

Notice that I've set my HDMI output to VGA in /boot/config.txt because if not, then SNES games play (way) too slow (Pi 1B+).

The workaround to not crash the Pi is to set overscan mode by not uncommenting the line "#disable_overscan=1" in /boot/config.txt. Instead, play around w/ the "overscan_left=-20" until you've gotten Retropie to fill your HDMI screen.

1. Anybody got an idea as to why Retropie crashes on the overscan thingy?
2. Anybody who's got the same prob. w/ said emulators and overscan: this your workaround until no overscan and dispmanx work well together.

Greetings y'all,

Michel aka "MeneerJansen" :-)

[Meneer Jansen]

Well, for some reason Retropie decided on the "workaround" not to work anymore. The problem isn't pcsx-rearmed (the PSX emulator) because it does work if I start it from a terminal in Pixel (thats the desktop environment the one can install on a Pi). That is: when I not run pcsx in Emulationstation but via a "regular" desktop GUI (graphical user environment). [edit] It runs perfectly fine from the command line outside of Pixel too.

Anybody a hint on how I can get pcsx-rearmed to work again from within (that wretched) Emulationstation?

[Meneer Jansen]

Yet another workaround:

1. The standard command with which pcsx is run in Retropie does not always work without errors. Replace it, using the following steps.

2. Edit /opt/retropie/configs/psx/emulators.cfg so that the command to launch pcsx-rearmed reads:

pcsx-rearmed = "/opt/retropie/emulators/pcsx-rearmed/pcsx -cdfile %ROM%"

3. A new (hidden) config dir will be created: /home/pi/.pcsx/. And a dir where you must place the the PSX BIOS (i.e. the file SCPH1001.BIN): /home/pi/bios/.

4. Redo the settings for pcsx. They will be saved in /home/pi/.pcsx/pcsx.cfg. Do NOT copy the file 'pcsx.cfg' from /opt/retropie/configs/psx/pcsx/! You can, however, copy other settings like save files from there.

When certain emulators crash then the command line on my Pi (running Raspbian 9 Stretch) is unresponsive. The Pi does, however, respond via ssh. But no matter what process I kill, the console on my television stays non-responsive. Anybody got some tips & hints?