Noob question about resolution and scaling

[Koolhass]

Hello guys!

I received yesterday my Mister and i couldn't be happier. I currently have a lot of retro consoles hooked with an OSSC to a 4k TV. I want Mister to display scaled images just like the OSSC, in 4x or 5x modes. However i can't find the exact settings to do so. I currently made it to display 1600 x 1200 and 1920 x 1080p resolutions, but that's it? Do i need to configure something else? The images it's just stretched to that resolution, or is some scaling process involved? Please help this n00b

Thanks in advance

[WiteWulf]

Check out atrac17’s custom screen modes for each core: https://www.patreon.com/atrac17
A good place to start…

[Koolhass]

Thanks a lot for the tip!!!

[Yim]

For a 4K I’d stick with 1920x1080, because then it’s a clean double to match the TV’s resolution. If you use 1200p then the TV will have to upscale it unevenly. That said, at that kind of resolution the unevenness might not be obvious. Anyways, at 1920x1080 with vscale_mode=0 in mister.ini then you should get a menu option for 5x scaling in the OSD of most console cores. Depending on the internal resolution of the core, 5x may be larger than 1080 and you’ll lose a few lines of picture, but you’ll have the whole screen filled vertically with integer scaling. For 4x, you can set vscale_mode=1 in mister.ini, which will result in integer vertical scaling which will usually be 4x for console cores because it goes to the largest multiple that doesn’t exceed the screen size, which is often 224x4=896. Alternatively in the OSD under “audio & video” (location might depend on core) there’s an option for scale. Setting it to V-integer will scale to the largest vertical integer that will fit. HV integer will also do horizontal integer scaling.

[Yim]

I remembered another option for 4K using 240p cores: set the mister to 720p and turn integer scaling on. This will triple the resolution, and then the TV will upscale it a further 3x for a final multiplication of 9x, the highest integer multiple that will fit in 4K without cropping. Which option looks best probably depends on the TV’s upscaler and also personal preference.

[Koolhass]

I remembered another option for 4K using 240p cores: set the mister to 720p and turn integer scaling on. This will triple the resolution, and then the TV will upscale it a further 3x for a final multiplication of 9x, the highest integer multiple that will fit in 4K without cropping. Which option looks best probably depends on the TV’s upscaler and also personal preference.

Thanks for the tips! I tried atrac17's custom screen modes and none of them worked in my LG B9 , so i sticked with the 1920 x 1080 settings with 5x crop and i'm pretty happy with the results. 720p looks a little softer than 1080p on my TV.

[Koolhass]

For a 4K I’d stick with 1920x1080, because then it’s a clean double to match the TV’s resolution. If you use 1200p then the TV will have to upscale it unevenly. That said, at that kind of resolution the unevenness might not be obvious. Anyways, at 1920x1080 with vscale_mode=0 in mister.ini then you should get a menu option for 5x scaling in the OSD of most console cores. Depending on the internal resolution of the core, 5x may be larger than 1080 and you’ll lose a few lines of picture, but you’ll have the whole screen filled vertically with integer scaling. For 4x, you can set vscale_mode=1 in mister.ini, which will result in integer vertical scaling which will usually be 4x for console cores because it goes to the largest multiple that doesn’t exceed the screen size, which is often 224x4=896. Alternatively in the OSD under “audio & video” (location might depend on core) there’s an option for scale. Setting it to V-integer will scale to the largest vertical integer that will fit. HV integer will also do horizontal integer scaling.

I managed to get almost every game to look right, i have two more questions:

Can i set Arcade cores, like CPS2 to 1920 x 1080 and 5x vertical crop like console cores?

If i want to set a custom resolution for a specifc core (like New Rally X) where do i find the name i must use in the ini?

[Yim]

I think you’ve seen this in another thread, but the 5x crop has to be added to each core’s implementation. I think most of the consoles have it, not sure how many if any of the arcades do. In the cores which do have it, I think you have to have vscale_mode=0 and the resolution set to 1920x1080 for it to show up as an option.

For custom resolutions, if you open the OSD while running the game, the name you need for the ini will be written vertically at the left of the display (nrallyx for New Rally X). Alternatively you can use the rbf file name sometimes - I’m not sure exactly when. I was able to put in settings for all cps2 games with [jtcps2], but [rallyx] didn’t do anything to New Rally X.

Maybe you know this already but you can’t choose a resolution directly (unless you mean the video_mode), but you can do it indirectly: the vertical resolution can be set either by turning integer scaling on (giving you the largest integer multiple that will fit) or by using vscale_border to set how much blank space there is above and below (so by subtracting the blank space from the resolution set in video_mode you get the resolution of the display area). The horizontal resolution can then be set using a custom aspect ratio of <desired horizontal resolution>:<the vertical resolution you set>