Unsolved How to change resolution per-game?

[tonificante]

Even if development team takes this feature, you will sit a long time for it to be done. Last recalbox release took ten months or so..
You could try asking at batocera, they usually release every two months. Or stick to retropie. Or maybe recalbox developers will shorten release periods, who knows..

[OyyoDams]

@tonificante what is this troll post ? If you know nothing about Recalbox development, please just don't post.

[tonificante]

Sorry, didn't want to troll or hurt sensibilities, just give some information to the user. Please remove my previous post, I tried but I don't find any option.

[Zing]

@Lumbeechief081 Sorry, I'm not a developer, maybe @Bkg2k or @OyyoDams can help you.

[Lumbeechief081]

@tonificante RecalBox is more optimized than RetroPie, that's why I switched in the first place. Running at 240p with Black Frame Insertion I would get flickering on certain games. For example, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island on the SNES I would get flickering on the title screen which is Super FX heavy. With RecalBox I don't get that at all and other games I tested between the two OS's.

[tonificante]

@lumbeechief081 Maybe you can find some video option which corrects that. I would try for example to disable the vertical video sync first. Hope it helps

[Bkg2k]

@lumbeechief081 we'll try to add such options ASAP. It won't be available from EmulationStation, at least in the first versions, but most likely through configuration files per rom and per rom folder.

[greenalex]

Alphanu is working on a very interesting feature for Retroarch : « switchres ».
More information on his Github, or his dedicated forum

Basically, it changes the resolution and the refresh rate automatically for each system, and possibly each game. The feature is already on the last Retroarch, but not really working on Raspberry yet. We’ll have to wait a bit for this ultimate feature...

[greenalex]

Other informations on the Libretro forum

[Bkg2k]

@lumbeechief081 We just finished implementing the resolution override on a per rom and/or per folder basis. This also works for emulators/libretro cores, shaders, ratio and a few other keys. We'll test this feature as well as other changes in the next days.

[Lumbeechief081]

@greenalex I'm using a VGA CRT monitor therefore 15khz isn't possible.. Even though "Switchres" is present in Retroarch on both RecalBox/RetroPie it would be cool if it actually worked on a Raspberry Pi through an HDMI to VGA adapter.

[Lumbeechief081]

@bkg2k That is so awesome!!!! Thank you so very much and the rest of the team for adding this very important feature!!! Now I just have to wait for it to be merged and then update my RecalBox.

[Surface]

@lumbeechief081 said in How to change resolution per-game?:

@greenalex I'm using a VGA CRT monitor therefore 15khz isn't possible.. Even though "Switchres" is present in Retroarch on both RecalBox/RetroPie it would be cool if it actually worked on a Raspberry Pi through an HDMI to VGA adapter.

The switchres setting does have a 31khz option that you could try. I'm using a 15khz monitor and the switchres 15khz setting (and 1920 as the super resolution) already seems to be working on the current Recalbox via HDMI to VGA adapter (and then combining HV sync to S for the monitor), after setting up config.txt as detailed here: https://github.com/recalbox/recalbox-os/wiki/Connect-your-recalbox-to-a-CRT-with-HDMI-(EN)

It looks to be working since loading different games/systems with different resolutions and refresh rates results in smooth scrolling (as long as the game's vertical resolution does not exceed 240 by too much), and the OSD notification does show different refresh rates being set. I've only been testing this for a couple of days though. Is it really not supposed to be working yet?

It also seemed to work the same way using Lakka, but that whole frontend seemed less stable than Recalbox using the above configuration.

[Lumbeechief081]

@surface That guide didn't even work correctly for me on my VGA CRT monitor. When ever I launch a game I would get "signal out of range". I believe the best solution for me would be the "resolution override on a per rom and/or per folder basis" that @Bkg2k says will be implemented in 6.1.

[Surface]

@lumbeechief081 I thought we could already set per-system resolution overrides by adding them to the recalbox.conf file. For example for games that have a vertical resolution of 224 or 256 instead of 240 I add:

segacd.videomode=hdmi_cvt 1920 224 60 1 1 0 0
x68000.videomode=hdmi_cvt 1920 256 60 1 1 0 0

which overrides the global 1920x240 custom hdmi video mode.

And then for per-game resolution configs you can go to the retroarch configs folder and add name of rom.cfg with

aspect_ratio_index = "22" (custom, or maybe it's 23 can't remember)
custom_viewport_width = whatever you need
custom_viewport_height = whatever you need

If that guide did not work for you perhaps your VGA monitor is simply not compatible with that custom hdmi mode. It could also be due to the HDMI to VGA adapter you're using. It might also help to put a sync processor in between the adapter and the monitor, such as an Extron RGB interface.

[Surface]

I just realized I probably misunderstood what you're trying to do. If what you want is to set the video mode (screen resolution) rather than the game resolution on a per-game basis, then yes it does look like there's still no way to do that. The best thing to do for now seems to be to set a video mode that works well with the game resolution you want, and display the game's native resolution (via custom config) within that video mode. For example, I think a 320x224 game fits nicely on a 640 (or any multiple of 320)x240 screen.

You still need to figure out a way to get custom video modes over to your VGA monitor though. If HDMI is not working for you then a hat for VGA output like the Retrotink would be a good solution for you.

[ultraover]

Just saw this post and i will try to get an answer to my question here since it seems more people knowing the issue is gathered around here.

here is what I am trying to achieve:

OVER COMPOSITE, allow emulation station AND Kodi to run in interlaced ntsc (sdtv 0) but run emulators in progressive ntsc (sdtv 16).

Config.txt is set to interlaced, but i cant make emulators to start using any global.videomode setting in recalbox.conf (tried "NTSC 4:3 P", no good, it doesnt start).

What should I do?

[Pol]

@Bkg2k as developers kindly said they intend to take care of the per-game resolution changes, please take a look at this from a retropie user who created a fully customized set of configs to display the closest to pixel perfect for almost all systems. It takes care of horizontal scaling and vertical centering and It does 480i on ES and kodi and 480p on games launch (still no PAL customization).
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/18624/custom-configs-for-crt-using-the-built-in-composite-out
Maybe its useful for you and if you implement It it would mean an easier alternative for CRT users to have the closest representation of retro games with just a cable, being able to use PAL/NTSC switching per system/game without having to switch sdcards.
The results are great as one can ser un that post, even people which used HDMI to RGB are saying they switched to composite for the more authentic feel on some consoles which used composite video