What video aspect ratio will result in the most accurate image possible using Retroarch when emulating NES?
Right now my settings are:
integer scaling: ON aspect ratio: Custom (1.143) crop overscan: ON
I thought 1.143 was the right ratio but it isn’t one of the default options. Just want to make sure I have the correct ratio. At any of the other ratios, blocks don’t appear square and circles don’t appear perfectly circular, but they do at 1.143.
Personally, I’d say just use 4:3 since that was the common aspect ratio of CRT televisions back then.
If you want to dig deeper into the subject this might be what you’re looking for: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2252
There was a fairly recent horizontal overscan fix for Nestopia that’s in Lordashram’s latest test build that helps with the aspect ratio. Before the fix, the S in Score would be cut off in Castlevania unless you turned off Crop Overscan. But turning that off would show the background layer under the boat at the bottom of the screen in Shadow of the Ninja’s first stage. After the fix, you see the S without having to disable Crop Overscan.
Personally, I use 4:3 (1.33) for a TV aspect with Crop Overscan on. I’m just used to it by this point; everything looks too skinny at 8:7 to me now. I can understand using 8:7 for games that have geometry designed for it, but figuring that out per game gives me a headache so I just use 4:3 for everything :P. I think 4:3 makes sense when you’re using a CRT shader also, but it’s all subjective.
I thought things like Megaman’s sprite looked a bit too fat in Nestopia at 4:3 before the horizontal overscan fix, but didn’t really know if it was just me or not. So I’m thankful for that change.
Well I guess there is no correct answer to what the games were supposed to look like on a TV - TVs varied too much on individual calibration and were almost never exactly 4:3. So what I’m trying to do now is determine the ratio that developers used.
Looking at the planning sheets used by NES developers, the correct ratio seems to be around 1.28, or around 9:7.
I blew up the planning sheet and measured the area meant to represent the screen and got the following measurements, in inches.
5.375/4.1875-1.284
3.3125/2.5625- 1.292
7.75/6.0626 - 1.278
variance is due to rounding at different sizes.
Looks like 1.28 is the most correct though.
http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/_ui/image … 2/doc3.jpg
Of course, different developers probably used different sized planning sheets, so …
Is 4:3 mode just not working right in 1.0.0.2 in Nestopia? Sprites look kind of fat and squished, but I suppose that could just be the way they’re supposed to look.
It looks more horizontally stretched in 1.0.0.2 since it’s before the overscan fix and less horizontal overscan is being shown. So after the fix the core feeds RetroArch more horizontal area (for most games it’s just more blackness on the sides), which squishes everything compared to before and makes it look like I should at 4:3 (I think). Here are comparison screenshots:
Thanks for the info!
It looks like what’s happening in the first image is that the overscan is being cropped before the visible portion is stretched to fill the 4:3 area, making it look stretched out horizontally.
the PAR (not video aspect) in Nestopia (standalone) is 1.125 when set to 4:3 mode.
However in RA the PAR with Nestopia set to 4:3 is closer to 1.25.
What’s going on?
Retroarch:
Nestopia (standalone):
grrr. photobucket crops the pictures in a dumb way, but you can still see the full image by clicking on it.
EDIT: I got so fed up with this that I hooked up my real NES to the same TV and took this picture with my phone:
As you can see, the ratio matches that seen in Nestopia standalone. Retroarch is doing something wrong.
The NES displays a 4:3 image with the overscan visible. If you crop the overscan and then stretch the remaining visible portion to fill a 4:3 area, this results in horizontal stretching and an incorrect image. It looks like Retroarch is doing this, which is why it looks wrong. Is there a fix pending for this?
If you adjust hardware knobs on a 4:3 TV to not show the overscan area, isn’t that what you would get? The remaining area stretched to 4:3?
I figured out that Nestopia standalone and the LCD with the NES hooked up do not crop the left and right overscan - only top and bottom are cropped. If you crop the top and bottom by 8 pixels then stretch the remaining image to fit the 4:3 area, it produces a more “square” image like the ones seen in the Nestopia standalone screenshot and the real NES.
The left and right overscan should be left in the picture while the top and bottom should be cropped 8 pixels. I think that this has been addressed in the fix that Awakened mentioned, but I haven’t tried it yet for myself. It seemed like the 1.0.0.3 build that I downloaded was doing the same thing.
yes it’s “fixed” in newer nestopia versions left and right overscan are still there looking horrid :d
lol, I guess it’s personal preference but that’s what I’m used to - I’ve had 4 LCDs/Plasmas and all cropped that way, and that’s the way old school Nestopia (standalone) does it.
So I guess in 1.0.0.2 crop overscan crops all four sides, so that the original pixel aspect (1.3333) is preserved.
lol, I guess it’s personal preference but that’s what I’m used to - I’ve had 4 LCDs/Plasmas and all cropped that way, and that’s the way old school Nestopia (standalone) does it. I actually have a crop overscan option on my newest Panasonic Plasma, but it only trims top and bottom.
So I guess in 1.0.0.2 crop overscan crops all four sides, so that the original pixel aspect (1.3333) is preserved. If you want to play in the same 1.3333 pixel aspect ratio in RA version 1.0.0.3, can’t you just leave crop overscan off and set to 4:3?
Why not just have two options that can be enabled separately or together - crop vertical and crop horizontal?
I checked out the latest test build and the ratio is exactly what I want 
Too bad my FPS was like 30 with the same settings I’m using now, and it wouldn’t remember my file paths…
whose build and on what platform? i built last night and everything is working as it should
Lord Ashram from like 5 hours ago, win 64.
double post
Until 1.0.0.3 is released, here’s a suggestion.
In Retroarch 1.0.0.2, you can simulate the pixel aspect ratio that results from cropping the top or bottom 8 lines then stretching to fill 4:3 by setting video_aspect_ratio to 1.25 in the config file. This results in the same pixel aspect ratio as cropping the top or bottom 8 then stretching to 4:3. This is equivalent to a 5:4 video aspect ratio.
Or, you can simulate cropping both the top and bottom 8 lines by setting video_aspect_ratio to 1.2 in the config file. This is equivalent to a 6:5 video aspect ratio. Personally, I like the look of 6:5.
Question: Why not have cropping options in Retroarch? FCEUX had “crop top/bottom/left/right 8 scanlines” and then it would stretch the image to fill 4:3 as an actual TV would. Since actual CRT TVs varied so much on how they were calibrated, it’d be nice to have options so that the user could choose how he wanted the picture cropped/stretched.
Actually for libretro-v2 overscan crop will be gone as far as I know, and then cropping will be implemented via core options, tehcloud (nestopia mantainter) already said he likes the idea.
