Author Topic: Attract Mode not running at 4:3  (Read 2295 times)

tonberryhunter

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Attract Mode not running at 4:3
« on: January 19, 2021, 03:02:02 PM »
I have a weird bug with Attract Mode on Retropie.  The screen and Raspberry Pi are set to 1024x768 but for some reason Attract Mode is acting like its still running at 1080p 16:9.  So everything in Attract Mode is essentially squished down from 16:9 to 4:3.  My theme backgrounds are fine since they are formatted to 4:3 but Video snaps and game logos are all being squished.  Also the settings menu is clearly being squished down as well.

Is there anyway to force Attract Mode to run at 1024x768 or at least at a 4:3 aspect?  I suspect Attract Mode is confused since the displays hardware does support 1920x1080 but its a 4:3 display with a native res of 1024x768. 

mahuti

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Re: Attract Mode not running at 4:3
« Reply #1 on: January 19, 2021, 06:59:23 PM »
Probably the layout(s) have a specific width and height defined  which creates a different aspect.

I've run into the same problem.

What layout are you wanting to run?

tonberryhunter

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Re: Attract Mode not running at 4:3
« Reply #2 on: January 19, 2021, 08:19:31 PM »
A heavily modified Robospin.  Ive also noted Retroarch is setting everything to 1920x1080 because this is the maximum supported res of the display even though ideally it looks best at its native res of 1024 x 768.  So this might be more an issue with Retropie or Linux and the display.  An error in what the display is reporting to the system and software.  Ive had to force each emulator and Retroarch to run at 1024 x 768.  The boot.config is also setup to that res as well.  I can tell the resolutions are switching between the Retropie cmd line and Attract Mode.  Like Attract Mode is forcing the screen to switch to 1920 x 1080 but when a game loads its switching back down to 1024 x 768.  The screen is blanking out between Retropie and Attract Mode which usually indicates a resolution change.


Probably the layout(s) have a specific width and height defined  which creates a different aspect.

I've run into the same problem.

What layout are you wanting to run?


tonberryhunter

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Re: Attract Mode not running at 4:3
« Reply #3 on: January 19, 2021, 08:24:09 PM »
All of this could be easily remedied if we could set a custom resolution in the Attract Mode config.  Im surprised at how stagnant Attract Mode development has been.  Ive been looking at CoinOps and a few other front ends wondering if it was time to move on.  Ive invested so much time into my Attract Mode builds that Id hate to abandon ship.  Admittedly Ive never gotten comfortable with the Squirrel code language Attract Mode uses.   

mahuti

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Re: Attract Mode not running at 4:3
« Reply #4 on: January 20, 2021, 01:30:36 AM »
What do you have set in your boot.cfg? Just curious. I've got one machine running a very weird resolution and haven't had any problem having the resolution change in AM, though many of the layouts have their widths and heights manually set which causes awful font stretching as well as asset stretching. For myself I solved this by making a scaling module so its easier to make layouts that work on multiple resolutions. Its not a drop-in solution for existing layouts though.

As for development, Oomek has a fork where he is working on a bunch of stuff. Check out the Attractmode discord if you want to read up a bit on what he is working on. Interesting stuff.

https://discord.gg/86bB9dD

If you want to post your modified layout I can do a quick check and see if I can throw my scaling stuff at it and see if it makes a difference
« Last Edit: January 20, 2021, 01:33:33 AM by mahuti »