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Is there a way to always get original system aspect ratio without having to save a single retroarch.cfg for each core or manually change it everytime?
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How can I know which is the right aspect ratio for specified system? Example: I discovered PCE to be 16:15 doing trials & errors in RGUI.
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No, the aspect ratio is reported by the core itself, so you’ll need to compile one yourself and edit it. However, this shouldn’t be necessary, because:
You’ll need to keep in mind there is a difference between the internal aspect ratio of a system and the final picture. Old consoles had been designed to work with regular CRT TVs, so their picture always ended up as a 4:3 image regardless of their internal aspect ratio.
Personally, I’ll recommend using “4:3” for consoles and “core provided” for handhelds and arcade.
OK, I got it. Thank you for explanation.
I’ll do that.
snes’ “core provided” for example is indeed 4:3, but if you load super mario world (shot), you will see how it works better as 8:7 (1:1 par), 4:3 looks very stretched. So was it supposed to be played that stretched or did Nintendo fail into counter design this CRT scaling to 4:3?
Nintendo probably didn’t care to be honest. The thing is, back then 4:3 was the only way to play this game unless you had some sort of a really uncommon TV… If you watch some of the old SNES commercials you’ll see the games are all running in 4:3 too.
I know, luckily today we can play how we want. I can play NTSC games in 60Hz, in correct aspect ratio, on my 40" TV. I guess the question is, what is more common, games designed with 4:3 scaling on mind or not?
Here is an f-zero screenshot, the planet is the proof here, it’s round in 4:3, overall I might say graphics have more correct geometry in 4:3 while text looks like it should be in 8:7. Who knows how many more titles need 4:3 or not? SFII and Mortal Kombat are known to name a few.
That’s highly game/developer dependent. If you always want the “correct” aspect ratio you would need to change it on a per-game basis.
While that is true, it doesn’t answer anything at all. I also think RetroArch should allow a configuration file per game as it does per system too. There are many games that need different shader, button configuration or aspect ratio as discussed here, to name only a few of its uses.
If you can’t answer it I am going to make a full list (from the games I have ~190), just keep checking this post. One day it will find its use when RetroArch recognises cfg files per game.
edit: btw the fba core has also wrong aspect, games like the vertical 1941 has it right, but everything else is set to 16:9, but as you know fighters like Street Fighter or Darkstalkers never were 16:9 more like 4:3. Luckily if you use HyperSpin you can set to load cfg’s per game as explained by Awakened here(thank you man!).
This isn’t quite true. CRT TVs don’t just magically transform any shape to 4:3 (1.3…:1); different consoles have different pictures. For example, the Sega Master System usually displays at 256192 and occasionally at 256224, but the pixels it displays have an 8:7 ratio (in both modes).
This means in the first mode, the aspect ratio is something like 32:21 (1.524:1), and in the second, about 30:23 (1.306:1) or so. The first is significantly wider than 4:3, the second is slightly slimmer than 4:3. In both cases, there’s a colored border which pads out the rest of the signal.
The TVs were 4:3, but the picture was almost never an exact fit for the screen unless you adjusted your set to make it that way (the RetroArch equivalent of which is applying 4:3 to everything).
The important factor is really the pixel aspect ratio (PAR) since you can just multiply the display width by the PAR to get the correct ratio. So if you’re displaying the Master System at 5* scale (1280960 or 12801120), you multiply your width by 8/7 (~1462) and there’s your aspect ratio.
For reference, NES and SNES pixels are 8:7 too (or 4:7 in high-res mode, where there’s twice as many, so the overall shape is the same anyway).
I observed that default Sega Genesis ratio is also wrong, it’s a tad too narrow. Or that was what I observed playing Sonic 2, so I had to set it to 1:1 par, that was 10:7 DAR.
Problem is, I tested After Burner II, and its 1:1 PAR was 8:7. This confuses me a bit, do genesis games change so much in resolution? The good part of it is that RA sets 1:1 PAR ratios on an order base, so 1:1 is index 5.
aspect_ratio_index = “5”
This is fine for most games that didn’t take into account the distortion to 4:3 of CRT TV’s back then. But there is an exception though, I tested with Sonic 1 and its 1:1 PAR was 16:9, as if what it was displaying were game fields and not full frames, so image shows squashed. How can I fix this and set a correct PAR to these exceptions?
Any help? I would like to play Sonic 1 in correct aspect ratio.
edit: after loading a bunch of genesis games I observed they load as 8:7 1:1 par, why is this? I was playing Sonic 2, it was too narrow, then I checked and its DAR was 8:7, set that to core config, then went back to RGUI, and the prior 1:1 par was now correct 10:7 DAR (instead of 8:7), has anyone debugged this?
edit2: Maybe it has to do with shaders, it reads the wrong 1:1 PAR depending on shaders, for Genesis the correct DAR should be 10:7 (as I measured it) but it mostly detect it as 8:7, for instance I changed shader to crt-geom-flat, and the detected 1:1 par was 5:7, go figure, proof images below:
I think all these issues might be due to the development build I use (05-Jun). So far: Genesis Plus Core 1:1 Aspect Ratio Issues Mupen64 - crash at exit or not storing core settings Wrong monitor refresh rate detection mednanfenPSX not loading Resident Evil 2 and 3
I tested with stable release 1.0.0.2 and I get a consistent 10:7 display AR if I enable on core options “double field”, on recent builds with same options I get 8:7.
I need to clear up some mistakes on my side. Indeed Sega Genesis 1:1 PAR is 8:7, that is fine (checked and pixels are square), but it is nowhere the Sega Genesis correct geometry. Which is strange, because 4:3 is neither. 4:3 is nearer but what I found is that the correct geometry for the Sega Genesis games is 10:7 as I noted above, just that it will need to be adjusted as a custom DAR (when I get to know how to that), as for now only custom target resolutions are possible, rendering the custom aspect ratio thing very display dependent.
Still, Sega Genesis showing different PAR for different shaders should be deemed as wrong, so I reported the issue already.
For my HDReady TV I had set Genesis target resolution to 800x560. It only has an aspect ratio deviation of 0.05 in respect to the 10:7 DAR.
And it looks like this:
Yes, nothing can be perfect. Probably you have more luck on a 1080p panel. With same error deviation you can scale it up to 1440x1008.
How do you set the target res for each core please?
Would be interesting to know what res i need to set for a 1080p display for each of the main cores to get the correct aspect ratios…
NES SNES N64 Master System MegaDrive GB GBA Sega 32x PSX Lynx PC-Engine
You actually shouldn’t. You would simply set a custom (correct) DAR and with integer ON let RetroArch upscale that for you automatically, or turn OFF if you prefer. But currently that’s not possible.
thing with having integer enable is that the game doesnt fill the height of the screen
But with correct scanlines… if you don’t have problem with scanlines turn integer OFF.
Well if you have integer enabled, you can go to custom resolution and notch the horizontal and vertical res up by one, for example if its 3 x 3 then change it to 4x4 but for some emulators if has overscan on the vertical if you do this though
Well if you have integer enabled, you can go to custom resolution and notch the horizontal and vertical res up by one, for example if its 3 x 3 then change it to 4x4 but for some emulators if has overscan on the vertical if you do this though[/quote]
By doing so you lose resolution being integer, what’s the point?