Setting overscan for only the console

Setiawan

I'm using RetroPie on a Pi 4 B, outputting to a CRT SDTV at 240p (sdtv_mode=16), at 4:3 aspect ratio. I've adjusted the autostart.sh and runcommand scripts to ensure that the system is always outputting 240p 4:3. overscan_[direction] settings in config.txt are all set to 0, and so applications are utilizing the entire 720x480 screen.

The image is being cut off a bit by the bezels of the TV, but this is generally not a problem for me. Older games that were designed to be played on CRT TV's typically accounted for this, by ensuring that any vital information was offset from the edges by some amount. This is the 240pee test for NES via RetroArch:

I'm also designing a theme for EmulationStation to work well with 240p (accounting for TV bezels cutting things off, as well as the fact that it's actually 480px high with every second row dropped), so EmulationStation isn't a problem:

Geometry issues aside, those two pictures above are okay I think. However, the console/CLI goes right to the edges of this 720x480 image. Effectively, text is being cut off from the left and the right of my console, making the console very hard to use:

Does anyone have any ideas on how to remedy this? I wish not to use the overscan_[direction] settings in config.txt, as they scale the display down in ES and RetroArch too (which is not desirable) - though, if there were a way to apply those overscan settings to only the console (such as a script that executes on enter/exit of ES, kind of like what the runcommand scripts do for RetroArch), that would be fine too.

I've tried setting the framebuffer_width and framebuffer_height in config.txt as it's supposed to "specify the console framebuffer width/height in pixels", but they don't seem to do anything. It looks exactly the same after I exit/F4 from EmulationStation.

mitu

You can try using fbset to manipulate the display, though for this resolution I'd say the easiest way to use the terminal is a SSH session.

Setiawan

@mitu I've tried using fbset -left X and fbset -right X, but nothing changes for some reason. Is this what the system uses when booting up, after reading from config.txt?

I have been using SSH actually, to do mostly everything. Just wanted to see if I could get this working, if for nothing but the novelty of it.

BuZz

If you set overscan_scale=0 (or comment it out) but set overscan left/right etc does that help?

Setiawan

@buzz I've tried this before, but I've tried again just now, to make sure.

overscan_top=40
overscan_bottom=40
overscan_left=40
overscan_right=40
overscan_scale=0

While this does add the overscan on the console, it also adds it to EmulationStation and RetroArch while emulating.