FIXED!!! thanks to toniosj, see the gitlab link at the beginning of this post.. but essentially it's due to my 4K tv and he had me change some setting in config.txt, so visit the gitlab issue for specifics

https://gitlab.com/recalbox/recalbox/-/issues/1384#

Edit your "config.txt" file on /boot folder:
-If you're using PuTTy use "mount -o remount,rw /boot" commmand.
-If you're using WinSCP open console (Ctrl + T), enter command "mount -o remount,rw /boot" and click Execute.
From this file search for hdmi_group and hdmi_mode and set both as following :
hdmi_group=1
hdmi_mode=4
Don't forget to remove '#' char on those lines if present.