lr-mame2003 aspect ratio

dankcushions

@mediamogul check the link I posted to understand overscan_scale :)

mediamogul

And to think, with two simple strokes of my scroll wheel, all would have become clear. Very useful indeed, thank you.

Riverstorm

@dankcushions said in lr-mame2003 aspect ratio:

it's pixels. how else could it be measured? :P

http://elinux.org/R-Pi_Troubleshooting#Big_black_borders_around_small_image_on_HD_monitors

Dank thanks again for this link. I was able to also resolve a long running issue with getting the Pi to run on a big ol' LG flat screen we have downstairs. It's really great playing on such a large screen.

Also overscan_scale=1 seemed to be the only option to "shrink" ES to fit on the screen. I tried enabling and disabling overscan_scale=1 in combination with disable_overscan=1 then adjusting different settings for overscan_left=150 and overscan_right=150. Nothing changed ES except overscan_scale=1. It was the same for both an LG TV and also a Best Buy house brand TV.

The thing that was changing when I was tweaking the options was the RetroPie logo screen (blue screen with cupcake controller) but ES was unaffected from overscan_left, right, top & bottom.

Anyway I am still quite happy with the end result and was also able to resolve the other issue of getting a Pi to work on a bigger TV which the wife can kick me down the stairs to use that TV now so thanks Dank! :)

dankcushions

yep, as my link shows, your overscan settings only affect console/desktop, not hardware rendering (ie, emulationstation, games). the only way to get them to affect hardware rendering, is with overscan_scale=1. both settings need to be changed in parallel.

Riverstorm

@dankcushions said in lr-mame2003 aspect ratio:

yep, as my link shows, your overscan settings only affect console/desktop, not hardware rendering (ie, emulationstation, games). the only way to get them to affect hardware rendering, is with overscan_scale=1. both settings need to be changed in parallel.

Ok, now it makes sense what I was seeing. I appreciate all the help in getting that straightened around. overscan_scale=1 is hardware layers only and overscan_left, right, etc. are console/desktop. The lightbulb has been lit! :)

dankcushions

@Riverstorm said in lr-mame2003 aspect ratio:

@dankcushions said in lr-mame2003 aspect ratio:

yep, as my link shows, your overscan settings only affect console/desktop, not hardware rendering (ie, emulationstation, games). the only way to get them to affect hardware rendering, is with overscan_scale=1. both settings need to be changed in parallel.

Ok, now it makes sense what I was seeing. I appreciate all the help in getting that straightened around. overscan_scale=1 is hardware layers only and overscan_left, right, etc. are console/desktop. The lightbulb has been lit! :)

i'm not so sure it has... overscan_left/etc is for both, but it only affects hardware layers if you turn overscan_scale on. overscan_scale doesn't do anything by itself.

Riverstorm

@dankcushions said in lr-mame2003 aspect ratio:

overscan_scale doesn't do anything by itself.

I can you tell with 100% certainty it does on both an LG TV and Best Buy house brand. ES is off screen and also games in lr-imame4all have clipping on the top and bottom. overscan_scale=1 is the the only tweak I am using.

It does fill ES left and right 100% but top and bottom have a small black border that overscan_top & bottom isn't fixing except for the RetroPie boot screen is changing with those options. Here's my config.txt:

# uncomment this if your display has a black border of unused pixels visible
# and your display can output without overscan
#disable_overscan=1

# uncomment the following to adjust overscan. Use positive numbers if console
# goes off screen, and negative if there is too much border
#overscan_left=16
#overscan_right=16
#overscan_top=16
#overscan_bottom=16

# Overscan_scale adjusts screen output (reduces overscan)
overscan_scale=1

dankcushions

@Riverstorm said in lr-mame2003 aspect ratio:

@dankcushions said in lr-mame2003 aspect ratio:

overscan_scale doesn't do anything by itself.

I can you tell with 100% certainty it does on both an LG TV and Best Buy house brand. ES is off screen and also games in lr-imame4all have clipping on the top and bottom. overscan_scale=1 is the the only tweak I am using.

It does fill ES left and right 100% but top and bottom have a small black border that overscan_top & bottom isn't fixing except for the RetroPie boot screen is changing with those options. Here's my config.txt:
# uncomment this if your display has a black border of unused pixels visible
# and your display can output without overscan
#disable_overscan=1

# uncomment the following to adjust overscan. Use positive numbers if console
# goes off screen, and negative if there is too much border
#overscan_left=16
#overscan_right=16
#overscan_top=16
#overscan_bottom=16

# Overscan_scale adjusts screen output (reduces overscan)
overscan_scale=1

i believe you - it must be some bug in the firmware, as the command is well documented. i personally had to redo my overscan settings on my pi3 compared to my pi2 on the same tv, which seemed like a bug, so i will look into it and report the issue if necessary.

i don't see why overscan_top/bottom aren't working for you, though. even if you put like overscan_top=100 it doesn't do ANYTHING? again, that's surely a bug if it's not working as that is entirely what it should do. i will check on my pi3 later.

Riverstorm

@dankcushions said in lr-mame2003 aspect ratio:

i don't see why overscan_top/bottom aren't working for you, though. even if you put like overscan_top=100 it doesn't do ANYTHING?

Yeah, it does move the boot logo (blue screen with cupcake controller) but the ES screen itself doesn't change position. That cut and paste above is from the exact image I am using. If I uncomment overscan_left=16 and change it to something like 100 the logo moves nicely from the left with a black border but ES itself doesn't change at all. I will verify it again just to make sure. If I could do any testing just let me know or if pasting my entire config.txt or another file is helpful I can do that too.

dankcushions

@Riverstorm please paste your entire config.txt as I'm convinced there's something. wrong with it as left/right absolutely works for me and others!

mediamogul

@dankcushions

I can confirm that the directional overscans settings work perfectly for me in every part of RetroPie with the exception of Emulation Station. Using "overscan_scale=1" was the only way I could find to bring it in line uniformly.

BuZz

Yeh it is always a good idea to post complete configs / logs etc. It's not possible to help properly from a snippet as you don't get the overall picture.

dankcushions

@mediamogul there's no question of overscan_scale being needed to influence overscan in emulationstation. it basically turns on the ability to adjust the overscan via overscan_left/etc, as per the docs. please give full details of your config.txt and experiments if you want to help :)

Finhead

Hope it's ok to add to this thread with my question/problem.
Trying to get the proper aspect ratio on lr-mame2003 as well but it's a bit different and I can't seem figure it out. I have tried changing the cfg file with some of the settings posted here but they don't seem to change anything.
Is this the proper file to change for these settings to take effect?
/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg

Here is what I am dealing with for the aspect ratio problem. I have reverted back to the stock cfg file now from the back up file since nothing I changed seemed to work.
This is a RPi 3 retropie 3.7 on a 5:4 monitor rotated 90 deg in the boot config file.

alt text

dankcushions

@Finhead don't edit files, use the config editor IMO: https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/Configuration-Editor

the setting I think you want is
video_allow_rotate - change to false. that should respect the original aspect ratio. however if you've already changed settings it might not work as desired. I guess you've done something to rotate also?

Finhead

@dankcushions said in lr-mame2003 aspect ratio:

@Finhead don't edit files, use the config editor IMO: https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/Configuration-Editor

the setting I think you want is
video_allow_rotate - change to false. that should respect the original aspect ratio. however if you've already changed settings it might not work as desired. I guess you've done something to rotate also?

I made a backup of the cfg file I changed before I started to play with it, I deleted and renamed my backup so it's back to 100% the way it was installed.
Ok got where to change the settings and tried your setting and didn't change anything after a reboot. I went back and checked and the setting are changed in the editor but didn't do anything for my issue.

Like I say I have in my boot config.txt file
display_rotate=1 This is to allow me to run my screen vertical as it will be palced in the cab I'm making.
All other emulators including the lr-mame4all fill the screen out to 4:3 (sides have 2 small strips unsed as it should) lr-mame2003 is the only one that seems to want to cram it into half the space for some reason.

mediamogul

@dankcushions said in lr-mame2003 aspect ratio:

please give full details of your config.txt and experiments if you want to help :)

My experiments are documented above and I have found the resulting solution to be perfect for my own setup. As for my the details of my config.txt, the contents are as follows:

# For more options and information see
# http://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/config-txt.md
# Some settings may impact device functionality. See link above for details

# uncomment if you get no picture on HDMI for a default "safe" mode
#hdmi_safe=1

# uncomment this if your display has a black border of unused pixels visible
# and your display can output without overscan
#disable_overscan=1

# uncomment the following to adjust overscan. Use positive numbers if console
# goes off screen, and negative if there is too much border
overscan_left=22
overscan_right=22
overscan_top=0
overscan_bottom=0

overscan_scale=1

# uncomment to force a console size. By default it will be display's size minus
# overscan.
#framebuffer_width=1280
#framebuffer_height=720

# uncomment if hdmi display is not detected and composite is being output
#hdmi_force_hotplug=1

# uncomment to force a specific HDMI mode (this will force VGA)
#hdmi_group=1
#hdmi_mode=1

# uncomment to force a HDMI mode rather than DVI. This can make audio work in
# DMT (computer monitor) modes
#hdmi_drive=2

# uncomment to increase signal to HDMI, if you have interference, blanking, or
# no display
#config_hdmi_boost=4

# uncomment for composite PAL
#sdtv_mode=2

#uncomment to overclock the arm. 700 MHz is the default.
#arm_freq=800

# Uncomment some or all of these to enable the optional hardware interfaces
#dtparam=i2c_arm=on
#dtparam=i2s=on
#dtparam=spi=on

# Uncomment this to enable the lirc-rpi module
#dtoverlay=lirc-rpi

# Additional overlays and parameters are documented /boot/overlays/README

# Enable audio (loads snd_bcm2835)
dtparam=audio=on
gpu_mem_256=128
gpu_mem_512=256
gpu_mem_1024=256
overscan_scale=1
gpu_mem_256=128
gpu_mem_512=256
gpu_mem_1024=256

I hope this helps.

dankcushions

@Finhead said in lr-mame2003 aspect ratio:

@dankcushions said in lr-mame2003 aspect ratio:

@Finhead don't edit files, use the config editor IMO: https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/Configuration-Editor

the setting I think you want is
video_allow_rotate - change to false. that should respect the original aspect ratio. however if you've already changed settings it might not work as desired. I guess you've done something to rotate also?

I made a backup of the cfg file I changed before I started to play with it, I deleted and renamed my backup so it's back to 100% the way it was installed.
Ok got where to change the settings and tried your setting and didn't change anything after a reboot. I went back and checked and the setting are changed in the editor but didn't do anything for my issue.

Like I say I have in my boot config.txt file
display_rotate=1 This is to allow me to run my screen vertical as it will be palced in the cab I'm making.
All other emulators including the lr-mame4all fill the screen out to 4:3 (sides have 2 small strips unsed as it should) lr-mame2003 is the only one that seems to want to cram it into half the space for some reason.

try updating mame2003 from source. i don't know what version the binaries are but there was a relatively recent aspect ratio fix.

dankcushions

@mediamogul sorry, i think we're agreeing on second read :) the overscan_scale setting is needed to make overscan settings work in ES/games. your experience is what i would expect.

BuZz

@mediamogul you have some duplicate lines in your config btw (gpu_mem and overscan_scale) - might trip you up later if changing one setting and another one was missed.