Some emulators do not fill the screen in full screen mode

RetroArch General
#1

Hi,

Some of my emulators only use half the screen when in full screen mode ( https://i.imgur.com/CzhdxSr.jpg )

How do I fix this?

This is on a 4:3 screen.

Thanks!

#2

We need more information. Which cores? Which RA platform (Windows, linux, etc.)? if Windows, are you using OpenGL or D3D?

#3

Windows, DirectX and genesis_plus_gx_libretro.dll.

Thanks

#4

Ok, yeah, this is a thing that seems to be happening with the D3D driver in RetroArch. Can you try switching to OpenGL instead?

#5

same thing is happening with me :frowning:

Platform: Windows

Cores: NES: bnes = working fine SNES: snes9x(bottom not filled), bsnes, bsnes-mercury (top and bottom equally not filled)

My driver is set to gl, and Im using monroe88’s config file for 3840:480 fullscreen.

Any help would be hugely appreciated!

#6

I believe your issue is that settings > video > crop overscan is disabled. If you’re using a CRT, you probably want to leave it this way and then use your hardware knobs to adjust the overscan area yourself.

#7

Crop overscan is disabled. However, if I use the hardware knobs to adjust the image to the game, the menu ui goes out of bound :frowning:

If I do enable the setting, the interlacing.CG shader I’m using gets all messed up…

#8

Yeah, that’s because with it enabled, the screen gets stretched, which breaks the interlacing shader. You need the full frame.

EDIT: another option could be to use a 3840x448 modeline, which will expect your cropped resolutions.

unrelated: why are you using bnes? any of the other NES emu cores is better than our old, outdated bnes fork.

#9

I had a similar problem happen when trying to use Video Filters of any kind. If I disengaged the video filter (by highlighting the option in the Settings > Video > Video Filter and pressing Start), the “half screen” weirdness went away.

Cg shaders do not produce this effect.

#10

[QUOTE=hunterk;36827]Yeah, that’s because with it enabled, the screen gets stretched, which breaks the interlacing shader. You need the full frame.

EDIT: another option could be to use a 3840x448 modeline, which will expect your cropped resolutions.

unrelated: why are you using bnes? any of the other NES emu cores is better than our old, outdated bnes fork.[/QUOTE]

How can I utilize the 3840 448 modeline? (Tried to look for instructions but couldn’t find one)

Nestopia was also cropped, and bnes wasn’t…so…yeah…will try other cores tonight!

#11

I don’t know what your setup is with modelines/resolution-switching, but it would probably be something like this: “3840x448@60” 123.48 3840 3872 4336 4368 448 457 462 471 -HSync -VSync

#12

I’m sorry to be keep asking, where do I set those? Is it within retroarch settings file or Windows? I’m new to the very concept, so forgive my ignorance.

#13

Windows. How did you set the 3840x480 resolution?

#14

I set it with custom resolution utility (CRU)

#15

I would assume you can set the new resolution/modeline with it, as well, then.

#16

What im guessing i’m supposed to do is: add another resolution in CRU (and do the reset driver thing), in this case, 3840x448, while leaving the default choice as 3840x480. By doing this, retroarch will change the monitor resolution to 3840 448 when the SNES emulation is launched?

#17

Yeah, I think so, but you would also need to make an SNES config override (or use a per-core config, depending on your setup) that has video_fullscreen_x = “3840” and video_fullscreen_y = “448” and then it would switch to that resolution when you load those games.

#18

Ahh… I think im starting to understand how to achieve this.

  1. SNES’s native resolution is 224p (The reason only snes emulations are cropped in the first place)
  2. I’ll need retroarch to switch to 3840x448 (which is a multiply of 224p) when loading snes emulators
  3. For retroarch to do this, windows has to “know” the 3840x448 resolution, and to do that, use such tools as CRU.
  4. After above is done, the "video_fullscreen_x = “3840” and video_fullscreen_y = “448"” setting should be set to snes core only (hence the per-core config option).
  5. After all is done, retroarch will change resolution that matches SNES’s native resolution whenever SNES roms are loaded

I can’t wait to try this after work :slight_smile: i’ll post the results here as soon as i try the above procedure!

#19

Yeah, that’s how it should work, but YMMV :slight_smile:

Really, all consoles use the full ~240px frame but a lot of it was just dead space that was filled with nothing (or, frequently in older systems like NES, with a bunch of garbage pixels). ~224px was considered the normal visible area, so a lot of emus include cropping options to shave off the unused area and leave just the active ~224.

In fact, the SNES has modes with 239px and 478px vertical resolution, which can get cut off if you force 448 res. However, games that use those modes are rare and you can use game-specific overrides that fall back to the full 480 frame for those few, if necessary.

When I emulate on a 31khz CRT monitor, I leave the full frame and just deal with the black borders to avoid the hassle of switching modes all the time.

#20

Jamjyo, you realize 3840x448 would be a thin super-wide strip, right? The game would look tiny in the middle of your screen because the video driver won’t just cut off the rest of the image. You need to set the horizontal resolution to something reasonable like 512 (double the SNES horizontal resolution to match the 448 you’ve used for vertical).

Alternatively, the sane way to do it is to use your monitor’s native resolution and have RetroArch upscale, which it does properly with the right settings.