Display issues / unable to properly configure vertical layout

[fippi]

Hi there

I am working on getting my cabinet set up with a pi 3 and arpicade. I have followed the instructions to set a vertical layout in the config.txt file, however this doesn't seem to modify the rotation of my CLI. Here is a video to show what I mean. If i cancel out of arpicade into the CLI after it has initialised, the CLI still remains the wrong way around:

https://youtu.be/OeEQijAD2uI

I am using the SDArcadeMod Vert layout.

I am also having problems in which my monitor seems to zoom in and the image is not being contained within the monitor. See what I mean here (DK photo). When I try to enter the Mame menu, i can't see any options either as the font is strange: https://imgur.com/a/jiv3mQs

[dee2eR]

Are you using ARpiCADE 3.84? I ask because you shouldn't be seeing the CLI while it's booting on a Pi 3, unless you've changed some settings to do so. Not really important, just noticed it in your video.

The CLI will not rotate, that's perfectly normal. The rotation is actually done in the emulators and menus rather than the whole system. Rotating the whole system 90 degrees using config.txt has a performance hit (although it's probably pretty minor on the newer Pis compared to on the earlier models, every CPU cycle mattered back on a Pi1). If you do want to use the CLI rotated you could rotate the system 90 degrees in config.txt but the rest of the system would probably not behave as intended... I haven't actually tested it though.

If your monitor doesn't have enough horizontal size adjustment on the chassis you can adjust it in config.txt near the top of the file to suit your monitor, it's the overscan settings part. Don't adjust the vertical as it will severely impact image quality due to the games no longer running on the correct number of scanlines. On your setup the horizontal adjustments will be the top and bottom of screen due to the rotated monitor.

The MAME menus text issue is a known bug in 172 and 203 in ARpiCADE (not sure if it exists elsewhere too), some games/monitor settings it works better than others. Changing the font MAME uses for the menu can help but it's already set to the smallest one I have (or at least it should be). Sorry I don't have a solution for this one, as a workaround swapping the system to horizontal may produce a readable menu in the same game if you just need to adjust control settings or something. Switching between horizontal and vert is pretty quick if you use the service menu rather than doing it by hand in config.txt but it's a pretty awkward workaround...

[fippi]

Are you using ARpiCADE 3.84? I ask because you shouldn't be seeing the CLI while it's booting on a Pi 3, unless you've changed some settings to do so. Not really important, just noticed it in your video.

The CLI will not rotate, that's perfectly normal. The rotation is actually done in the emulators and menus rather than the whole system. Rotating the whole system 90 degrees using config.txt has a performance hit (although it's probably pretty minor on the newer Pis compared to on the earlier models, every CPU cycle mattered back on a Pi1). If you do want to use the CLI rotated you could rotate the system 90 degrees in config.txt but the rest of the system would probably not behave as intended... I haven't actually tested it though.

If your monitor doesn't have enough horizontal size adjustment on the chassis you can adjust it in config.txt near the top of the file to suit your monitor, it's the overscan settings part. Don't adjust the vertical as it will severely impact image quality due to the games no longer running on the correct number of scanlines. On your setup the horizontal adjustments will be the top and bottom of screen due to the rotated monitor.

The MAME menus text issue is a known bug in 172 and 203 in ARpiCADE (not sure if it exists elsewhere too), some games/monitor settings it works better than others. Changing the font MAME uses for the menu can help but it's already set to the smallest one I have (or at least it should be). Sorry I don't have a solution for this one, as a workaround swapping the system to horizontal may produce a readable menu in the same game if you just need to adjust control settings or something. Switching between horizontal and vert is pretty quick if you use the service menu rather than doing it by hand in config.txt but it's a pretty awkward workaround...

Sorry for the late response! I should note that I eventually managed to get this sorted. I played with rotating 90° in config.txt but it proved to be more trouble than it was worth. I've resorted to using SSH to do things in the CLI if I need to.

Sadly my CRT doesn't have any horizontal or vert adjustment (it's pulled from a TV). I managed to adjust the overscan which solved my screen size issues also (there's a handy script for doing this which saves the trial and error: https://github.com/ukscone/set_overscan).

Thanks for the help!!