Filling the screen on a CRT, is this about Aspect Ratio or ...?

RetroArch General
#1

Hey everyone,

So I recently invested in RadioShack’s awesome HDMI>Coax (RF, if you prefer) converter. This has allowed me to hook my Gam3B0x console (where I run RetroArch and all) up to my little 13" CRT/VCR Combo, and once again be graced with the Channel 03 requirement. :slight_smile:

I have run into an issue though, pertaining to the screen. Now, I don’t know if this matters, but when going through this converter box I have to display the PC’s resolution at 640x480.

Once I do that, I use the graphic card’s settings to get over/underscan adjusted so the screen just barely comes into view (no black bars at all on top/bottom or left/right)

Now, I boot up RetroArch and I initially set the Aspect Ratio to 4:3. However, this then results in the screen being a little small. There’s letterboxing on the left and right… and a tiny bit on the top/bottom.

I played with the aspects and found 3:2 would fill it “better”, but comparing it to my real consoles I see that while those completely fill the screen, I cannot duplicate the effect properly on my CRT via RetroArch.

Is there something I am missing? I thought all these old TV’s (90s) displayed at a 4:3 ratio…

#2

It’s the 640x480 thing. It’s difficult to get a really good picture out of this for every core due to uneven scaling (that is, some cores will be 2x integer, some will have some extra space on the sides). You’re probably best off doing some core overrides to force different aspect ratios for different cores, and you probably want to overscan out just a little bit with your GPU to avoid getting black letterboxing when things change mid-game.

#3

Do you think forcing something like “240p” or it’s realistic equivalent would help? I’m not sure if I can do that…

I haven’t used Integer scaling at all since it doesn’t always fill things.

Is there a way I can create a custom aspect ratio? Even if it’s not perfect, I figure something could be better than what I’m using now for my needs.

#4

Your adapter probably doesn’t support outputting “240p”. Most of them are hardwired to take in whatever resolution and then crunch it down to 480i/30.

You can create whatever AR you want using the ‘custom’ AR index and then setting the height and width to whatever looks good.

2 Likes
#5

Ok, I will give that a try and see how it goes. Thanks for the help :smiley: