Advice about screen

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pegoncology
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri 29 Sep 2017 22:36

Advice about screen

Post by pegoncology »

Hello.
My Raspiboy is working perfect but I'm little disappointed by the quality of the LCD screen.
I find the image is a little out of focus. It's not like other portable pi builds like GB Zero.
I edited well the config.txt (copy-paste) but I used the 4.2 version on Retropie 4.3. The image is well fitted but not very beautiful.
Does anyone have the same thing ?
Thanks
pegoncology
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri 29 Sep 2017 22:36

Re: Advice about screen

Post by pegoncology »

Here are 2 pics. Difficult to show with a camera but I think it looks like I see. What do you think ? Normal ?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwu2a1 ... p=drivesdk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwu2a1 ... p=drivesdk
Guillaume WERLE
Posts: 5
Joined: Sat 7 Oct 2017 13:13

Re: Advice about screen

Post by Guillaume WERLE »

I'm not really happy either but I think that it is normal.
Here's a pic of my setup.
https://ibb.co/eAvJmG
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Pietze
Posts: 29
Joined: Tue 10 Oct 2017 17:59

Re: Advice about screen

Post by Pietze »

@Guillaume WERLE You should try to install a suited theme for 320x240 pixel resolutions. It's difficult to judge the screen quality with a scaled down EmulationStation menu.

How does the screen hold up to an old GameBoy Advance screen? Are you sure you turned of HD screen settings like "linear filtering"? https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Se ... -Smoothing

Let's say the screen itself is not good enough: Aren't there other 3,5" screens for RaspberryPi for sale? Wouldn't they fit as well, or is the connector here unique?
Telev
Posts: 17
Joined: Sat 26 Aug 2017 14:45

Re: Advice about screen

Post by Telev »

Because the screen is connected on the composite video out.
Here some comparaison between composite and rgb out
If you connect your raspiboy on the tv via hdmi, the picture must be fine.
pegoncology
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri 29 Sep 2017 22:36

Re: Advice about screen

Post by pegoncology »

It's weird because I also have a Gameboy Zero and its screen is much more comfortable than the one of Raspiboy.
And GB Zero is also a Pi0 hardware so....
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Pietze
Posts: 29
Joined: Tue 10 Oct 2017 17:59

Re: Advice about screen

Post by Pietze »

Telev wrote:Because the screen is connected on the composite video out.
Here some comparaison between composite and rgb out
If you connect your raspiboy on the tv via hdmi, the picture must be fine.
I see! Thank you for this information.

Yeah, on my Rpi3 I'm using Pi2Scart and throwing some RGB image on my CRT TV. Before, I used to get a 240p image from the headphone jack with a rca cable. That was a huge improvement!
Guillaume WERLE
Posts: 5
Joined: Sat 7 Oct 2017 13:13

Re: Advice about screen

Post by Guillaume WERLE »

Pietze wrote:@Guillaume WERLE You should try to install a suited theme for 320x240 pixel resolutions. It's difficult to judge the screen quality with a scaled down EmulationStation menu.
Thanks, I've since installed the GBZ35 theme and now the configuration screen is readable.

I think that @Telev is right, the issue comes from the composite video out. It's blurry, washed out with a bit of ghosting.
I don't know if it's fixable on the RaspiBoy.
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Pietze
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Joined: Tue 10 Oct 2017 17:59

Re: Advice about screen

Post by Pietze »

Yeah, far away from "pixel perfect":
Image

I used "integer scaling" but the overall quality isn't very nice :(
Vinc3Has3
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri 10 Nov 2017 08:07

Re: Advice about screen

Post by Vinc3Has3 »

From what I've read, the Pi Composite out is a fixed resolution (720x480@60i for NTSC, 720x576@50i for PAL), and there's no real way to change that, overall. I've adjusted everything that I can (so far, I keep looking...), and, unfortunately, all the actual gameplay screens (playing a game), even set for the resolution of the RaspiBoy screen are still being fed to the screen as 720x480, so the game image is still being shrunk down to fit the screen and is still blurry.

Frankly, its a sticking point for me - I'm not enjoying the system, and I'm back on the hunt for something different. A higher resolution screen would actually be more appropriate, even though the concept of a lower resolution screen makes sense for older games - it's unfortunately thwarted by the Pi's composite out. And that's too bad, because it's very well-designed, otherwise.

I would love to know of a higher resolution display that might be compatible - perhaps the company that makes the current one?

Unless I'm missing something - and I very well could be - but I've got proper resolution for the boot screen, even great, clean text for the information when a game starts and FPS info (you know, the little yellow text at the bottom when a game starts up?), but I can't get the actual gameplay to be clean when playing. I think Retroarch is trying to fill the perceived composite out resolution for the game, no matter how I set it.
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