320x240 emulationstation and 2048x240 retroarch

M3th0D

Hey all

I thought I'd start this topic here to see if said resolution switching is possible.

My setup:
Raspberry Pi 3b+ - JPac - VGA-HDMI Converter going into a 15khz arcade monitor.

I'm able to get 480i menus in emulationstation and 240p retroarch using the following:

Config.txt
hdmi_cvt=2048 240 60 1 1 0 0
hdmi_group=1
hdmi_mode=6

runcommand-onstart.sh:
tvservice -e "DMT 87" ; sleep 3 ; fbset -depth 8 ; fbset -depth 32; tvservice -s

runcommand-onend.sh
tvservice -e "CEA 6" ; sleep 3 ; fbset -depth 8 ; fbset -depth 32; tvservice -s

What I want (if possible) 320x240 in emulationstation and 2048 in retroarch.

The CEA 240p Resolutions are 720x240 so I can't use those and I don't know if it's possible to use 2 CVT= lines of code.

Anyone know if it's doable?

mitu

It should be doable. You have the possibility of creating a resolution and switch to it at runtime, without being limited to 1 custom resolution + the rest of the standard ones.
The way to do that is to use the vcgencmd command:

 vcgencmd hdmi_cvt 1680 1050 60 5 0 0 1
# or using hdmi_timings
 vcgencmd hdmi_timings 640 0 16 64 120 480 0 1 3 16 0 0 0 75 0 31500000 1
# switch to the new created resolution
tvservice -e "DMT 87"
fbset -depth 8 && fbset -depth 16

You can create your 'standard' (320x240) resolution via hdmi_cvt in config.txt, this will be used by EmulationStation at start. Then, using the runcommand onstart and onend scripts, you can

switch to 2048x240 when starting a game (onstart)
switch back to 320x240 when exiting a game (onend).

M3th0D

Thanks for the reply.

I've tested it out with hdmi_cvt and hdmi_timings. When using hdmi_cvt runcommand-onstart.sh says its using hdmi_timings but doeesn't change the resolution of retroarch. I tried using hdmi_timings instead and get the same message: hdmi_timings=1920 1 23 25 39 240 1 4 3 15 0 0 0 60 0 6400000 1 Powering on HDMI with explicit setings (DMT mode 87). Unfortunately it's still in 320x240 when i get to retroarch.

runcommand-onstart.sh using hdmi_timings

vcgencmd hdmi_timings 1920 1 23 25 39 240 1 4 3 15 0 0 0 60 0 6400000 1
tvservice -e "DMT 87"
fbset -depth 8 && fbset -depth 16

runcommand-onstart.sh using hdmi_cvt

vcgencmd hdmi_cvt 1920 240 60 1 1 0 0
tvservice -e "DMT 87"
fbset -depth 8 && fbset -depth 16

config.txt

hdmi_cvt=320 240 60 1 1 0 0
hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=87

mitu

Try adding a

fbset -g 1920 240 1920 240 32

after you switch the video mode via tvservice, this will tell framebuffer console to change it's size to the new video mode.
So

vcgencmd hdmi_timings 1920 1 23 25 39 240 1 4 3 15 0 0 0 60 0 6400000 1
tvservice -e "DMT 87"
fbset -g 1920 240 1920 240 32
fbset -depth 8 && fbset -depth 32