Padding the resolution with blank space

RetroArch General
#1

Getting handhelds like Game Gear to run in 240p on a CRT monitor necessitates either turning on borders or the Game Gear extended screen in GPGX while masking the border area with image-adjustment, or running Super Game Boy via cores like bsnes. For Game Boy Color and a couple more, there are no clear options to aid in this endeavor. At least not AFAIK.

Which begs the question: is it possible? Can I pad the input resolution so that the 160x144 of a GBC reaches a vertical res of 192, 200, 224 etc.?

I understand it’s a niche question. I also understand that I could just run something like ‘interlacing’ to get scanlines (doesn’t really do it for me). I just wanna know if I’m missing something. :slightly_smiling_face:

Thanks in advance!

#2

Are you using Switchres? Otherwise, I don’t see how this question makes sense, if I’m understanding it right, since you can feed a custom resolution manually to a CRT display and use whatever core you want with it.

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#3

When I run handhelds on my CRTs, I use something like the sgba border shader to set a border image around the native-res image inside of a 240p screen. You can also use the autobox shaders to accomplish the same thing without the image. I suppose most of the border shaders should work, actually…

But yeah, if you’re using switchres, it should pad anything less than 200 automatically, AFAIK, so you should be able to use integer scaling to center it or a shader as mentioned.

#4

All right guys. I’m going to try out some of your suggestions. It’s entirely possible I was just too tired/sick when trying this the other day. I run some other cores by manually forcing a low res, so if I forgot about that… well, lol

All I know is both GPGX running Game Gear & Gambatte running GBC will crash immediately upon turning on Switchres if their input vertical resolution is 144. Trying some options soon, will report back.

Update So I tried the sgba, gb player, autobox etc. shaders. While they did produce a border, it seemed to only limit the visible area rather than affect the input resolution in any way, as RA still reported 160x144.

Concerning the manual forcing of low resolution: Getting a CRT to display 144 pixels high is impossible I believe, so forcing a vertical resolution of for example 200 without padding is effectively going to give me nasty shimmering artifacts. I feel like I am still missing something.

Update 2 Aaaaand tried it with Neo Geo Pocket Color which worked beautifully. Just set a super resolution of 1920, turned that Switchres on and made sure the aspect ratio was all right. Seems there’s an issue with how Gambatte and GPGX deal with this stuff, maybe? Specifically really low res, since I have no problems whatsoever with running Genesis games etc.

Update 3, yes 3 Attempted to run Gambatte by manually forcing 224x1920. It worked. I mean, I always knew it would display, but… I didn’t notice any shimmering on the vertical axis. Not really. I suppose my problems are no more, although, just to be sure: is there an explanation as to why I couldn’t notice any scrolling artifacts? 224 isn’t an even multiple of 144, clearly, so unless there’s some hidden padding going on I’m at a loss.

#5

Getting a CRT to display 144 pixels high is impossible I believe, so forcing a vertical resolution of for example 200 without padding is effectively going to give me nasty shimmering artifacts. I feel like I am still missing something.

Assuming no Switchres involvement in all of this: Forcing a manual res in this context means setting the CRT to that res, not scaling it up. The core res is going to be padded if the scaling settings are right (e.g. 1:1 par for 320x240 res if using GBC), resulting in borders if the CRT res is higher ( a given for most handhelds, I’m just noting that RA is flexible enough that it will also accept a CRT res that’s lower than a core res, which is also useful). You can of course shrink borders through the monitor controls.

I don’t exactly know what you did in you third try, but it’s also possible to force eg. 288p at 60 hz (120) if you’re using an 31 Khz Monitor.

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#6

You know what? I think I just forgot that I was dealing with a CRT and not an LCD. Of course the output res isn’t equivalent to the input.

Thank you for the explanation, and boy I can’t wait until the virus is completely out of my system and my head starts working 100% again. Yeesh. :sweat_smile: