Configuring vertical screen in Retroarch

mitu

@andrewh At first glance it seems un-documented (neither the wiki or running with --help shows any indication this might be supported), but I remember being being implemented a while ago.
EDIT: I now realise this is part of the master branch, so I think it's not part of the stable branch and you'd need to use the emulationstation-dev experimental package to make use of it.

panhead_jim

After a lot of fooling around, I switched from using MAME 0.37b5 roms with mame4all to using MAME 0.78 roms with mame-libretro. Then I enabled TATE mode within file:

retroarch-core-options.cfg

which can be found under /opt/retropie/configs/all/ in the configuration editor. The option I changed is:

mame2003-tate_mode = "enabled"

Now it works great. No slow down and the entire screen is filled.

thepatchwerkboy

To all - the stable branches all support screen rotation, but if you want it to happen on a system-by-system basis (leave the menus landscape), you need to use the libretro emulators. exclusively. If you want everything, including the menus to go portrait, as in the case of a proper cocktail cabinet, you can tell the OS to treat the display as permanently vertically oriented, just set display_rotate=3 (or 1, depending on the physical screen's orientation) in /boot/config.txt and give the pi a full reboot.

AndrewH

@thepatchwerkboy said in Configuring vertical screen in Retroarch:

you can tell the OS to treat the display as permanently vertically oriented, just set display_rotate=3 (or 1, depending on the physical screen's orientation) in /boot/config.txt and give the pi a full reboot.

This is what I started with originally, but as mentioned above, it was less than ideal - the sprite shadows flickered unacceptably. Apparently this is due to the shadows only being displayed every second frame to crate 'pseudo transparency'. it's not an issue with the standard system rotation, only when rotated by 90 degrees.

Leaving system rotation at 0 degrees, but rotating the ES menus, and rotating the display in retroarch gives a result with no shadow flickering - that's why I did it that way.

thepatchwerkboy

@andrewh - Gotcha. I was unaware you could rotate the menus alone. May I ask which config file has that setting and the syntax? That could be quite useful.

AndrewH

@thepatchwerkboy said in Configuring vertical screen in Retroarch:

@andrewh - Gotcha. I was unaware you could rotate the menus alone. May I ask which config file has that setting and the syntax? That could be quite useful.

@mitu's comments above contain all the detail, but basically;

Install Emulationstation dev version from the Experimental section of RetroPie Setup
Edit autostart.sh and add --screenrotate 3 (or 1, depending on which way you need it to rotate)
Reboot

That gets EmulationStation rotated. It's then necessary to configure Retoarch to also rotate its output.

thepatchwerkboy

@andrewh - I am aware of that method, which rotates the system display on an OS resolution level. I thought he was saying he'd found a way to rotate the ES menus independently.

mitu

@thepatchwerkboy said in Configuring vertical screen in Retroarch:

I thought he was saying he'd found a way to rotate the ES menus independently.

You can do that - as @AndrewH said - by using the command line parameter --screenrotate, it will start ES rotated as you like, without messing with config.txt and doing it as the OS level.

AndrewH

@thepatchwerkboy said in Configuring vertical screen in Retroarch:

@andrewh - I am aware of that method, which rotates the system display on an OS resolution level. I thought he was saying he'd found a way to rotate the ES menus independently.

The method above doesn’t rotate the system display - that will still be sideways on a vertical display if you exit ES - it only rotates the EmulationStation display.

thepatchwerkboy

@andrewh - That is quite acceptable, as I'm always using a wireless keyboard when dropping to command shell.