Help me understand best border size to fit gameplay

RetroArch Additions Overlays
#1

I just cant wrap my head around how all the video settings and screen sizes affect overlay borders.

I have read and tested a little about integer scale and notice when its ON I have bigger black bars top and bottom (No overlay) when OFF the gameplay screen touches the top/bottom. I also read comments about crop overscan and get it removes the “probably unessasary” pixels left in by devs of old games for some reason.

I get the feeling there should not really be a reason to use custom viewport settings if you can set the game screen to the correct “original” size.

Also I dont quite grasp the issues of running a different resolution boder to your screen and how this affects the gameplay area. I think you can downgrade if the aspect ratio is the same. So a 1080 border or 1440 border will work fine on a 720 monitor but does the transparent whole size change? idk

It would be nice to turn this thread it somewhat of an info thread and i will do my best to edit this 1st post when info is availiable.

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#2

Overlays have ‘fullscreen’ flag that, when enabled, makes them ignore the viewport entirely. Most overlays are set up like this specifically because we want to be able to utilize the dead space.

When you increase/decrease the scale of an overlay, it simply scales the entire image, including the transparent hole (that is, the overlay backend doesn’t know anything about the context of an overlay; it doesn’t know what’s a hole, what’s decorative, etc.).

Integer scale is needed to get even scanline/CRT effects, and yes, it leaves some of the screen unused. If you crop the overscan–which consists of ~8 px top and bottom that don’t contain useful information; sometimes they’re blank, sometimes they’re filled with garbage pixels, sometimes just a flat color–you end up with larger borders. If you fit your overlays to an overscan-cropped image, it will cut off some of an image that is not cropped, of course, but it’s part of the image that would probably be blocked by a real TV anyway, so no big loss. Same goes for horizontal stuff. A nominal CRT TV has a 4:3 aspect ratio on the screen, so on an overlay for a 1080p screen designed for integer-scaled 4:3 content, you would want a transparent hole that’s roughly 896-960 px tall and around 1195-1280 px wide.

#3

So in the case of the nosh01 borders (excluding the handhelds) they dont seem to be designed with integer scale in mind.

i can only test on with 1366x768 latop at the moment so its super hard to know it what im seeing is correct. but they dont seem to fit right with integer on or off. Would need custom viewport.

I think I need to find a way to determine what the border has been created for and what settings should be used.

#4

Those appear to be designed for 4:3, non-integer.

#5

I had a little space between border and gamescreen on the left & right (Gen Plus core). Would you say thats because my screen size is different to the 1440 design or something else

#6

Overlays are more about aspect ratio than screen size. If it’s designed around 16:10 screens, it’ll have some gaps on a 16:9 display, which is wider.

#7

That helps thank you. I now have some time on the big screen (wife’s gone to bed lol) so I will try them there. Those borders are 16x9 though

#8

Hmm, yeah, it’s definitely 16:9, and the transparent space is sized for 4:3, so you should be fine with RA’s aspect ratio set to 4:3 (or core-provided for most cores) and integer scaling OFF.

#9

When I create an overlay I always do it with 4:3 with “custom resolution” option in mind because this allows you to move around the window as the overlay design requires (with integer you can’t move the game screen/window). using the position Y/X option.

So, for instance, on a laptop’s screen wich is 1366x768, the correct screen resolution for 4:3 is Ratio Width: 970 Ratio Height: 728

But on a 1080p TV or monitor the same overlay has to have this Ratio Width: 1343 Ratio Height: 1007

I use this tool: http://size43.com/jqueryVideoTool-4x3.html

And the overlay will work ok in both screens.

**Is this ok, or we need to consider integer scale?**now I’m confused lol

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#10

I think it’s fine however you want to do it, just make sure you include a README and/or instructions in the cfg for what settings a user needs.

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