MiSTer FPGA Forum

That means the video mode isn't tuned for your display. I don't know what is wrong, but I do know that direct video off is the only possible way you can even use a video mode line in the ini. With direct video on you just have to live with whatever resolution the core gives you.

It sounds like you have a consumer grade TV (if a decent one) so it might be more restrictive about what it can handle than a PVM. 224 tall/60hz is a bit short for example, you might need 240 or 244 for something stable (but then you are back to squished picture...)

Ok, thanks, I just tried it on the off-hand chance it might work, but didn't hope for much. Perhaps it has something to do with Direct Video itself.
I was surprised to see this core actually displays something at all on my TV, before it was strictly 31Khz. So, maybe one day...

For now I'm super happy that the VGA output has improved substantially anyway.

Instead of vga_scaler=1, you can also try vscale_mode=1

vga_scaler=1 gave me big black lines on most resolutions.
with vscale_mode=1 all resolutions seem fine.