A slightly hacky workaround for games that are too "zoomed in"

[pjedavison]

I saw that editing the per-game options on The400 Mini created a .cfg file on the USB stick to go along with the disk image/executable, so I wondered if it would be possible to tweak the settings beyond what the menu offered.

 

It is!

 

To get the "correct" proportions for a real Atari screen with the full overscan border, edit these lines to read the following in the relevant game's .cfg file:

 

display_start_line = 0;
display_height = 240;
display_width = 336;

 

Tested this on Bosconian, and it works perfectly. No reason why it wouldn't work on other stuff too.

 

Then save the file where it is on the USB stick, pop the stick back into The400 Mini and run the game. DO NOT open the Game Settings menu, as this will overwrite this manual change, which also means you will probably want to set up your control mappings before you do this little trick. A side-effect of doing this also appears to be that the "suspend" functionality no longer works for the game in question, which means you can't use save states.

 

But for arcade-style stuff or demos that you don't need to save in, this is an interim solution for until Retro Games ups the maximum limits on the cropping settings in a firmware update.

[FaberfoX]

Can you post the full .cfg for a game, ideally with most of the tweaks enabled? I don't see the format documented on the manual, unlike on their previous minis where there were a lot of available settings.

[Fred_M]

1 hour ago, pjedavison said:

I saw that editing the per-game options on The400 Mini created a .cfg file on the USB stick to go along with the disk image/executable, so I wondered if it would be possible to tweak the settings beyond what the menu offered.

 

It is!

 

To get the "correct" proportions for a real Atari screen with the full overscan border, edit these lines to read the following in the relevant game's .cfg file:

 

display_start_line = 0;
display_height = 240;
display_width = 336;

 

Tested this on Bosconian, and it works perfectly. No reason why it wouldn't work on other stuff too.

 

Then save the file where it is on the USB stick, pop the stick back into The400 Mini and run the game. DO NOT open the Game Settings menu, as this will overwrite this manual change, which also means you will probably want to set up your control mappings before you do this little trick. A side-effect of doing this also appears to be that the "suspend" functionality no longer works for the game in question, which means you can't use save states.

 

But for arcade-style stuff or demos that you don't need to save in, this is an interim solution for until Retro Games ups the maximum limits on the cropping settings in a firmware update.

GREAT FIND!

 

I tested it with Operation Blood and it works perfectly. 😁

 

Personally I would increase the display width to 350 (the maximum number the Game Settings screen allows) or even more. With start_line=0 and display_height=240 you get the full height but with display_width=336 not the full width.

 

Thank you! Now I am going to take a good look at all the settings in the cfg-file 🙂

 

 

Edited March 29 by Fred_M

[pjedavison]

6 minutes ago, Fred_M said:

GREAT FIND!

 

I tested it with Operation Blood and it works perfectly. 😁

 

Personally I would increase the display width to 350 (the maximum number the Game Settings screen allows) or even more. With start_line=0 and display_height=240 you get the full height but with display_width=336 not the full width.

 

Thank you! Now I am going to take a good look at all the settings in the cfg-file 🙂

 

 

I went with 336 as the width as that's what Altirra uses by default (scaled up to your display) and that looks "right" to me. Any wider and you risk introducing "garbage" that wouldn't have normally been visible on an old TV or monitor. Feel free to tweak according to your own preferences though!

 

26 minutes ago, FaberfoX said:

Can you post the full .cfg for a game, ideally with most of the tweaks enabled? I don't see the format documented on the manual, unlike on their previous minis where there were a lot of available settings.

Sure, here's the full .cfg I used for Bosconian. The only stuff I changed manually was the above. I don't know if additional settings beyond what is included here are possible, but it's a starting point for people to investigate.

 

emulator_machine = "130xe-pal";
emulator_artefact = 0;
emulator_force_pal = false;
input_analogue_rate = 100;
input_analogue_curve = "linear";
input_analogue_autocentre = "off";
display_start_line = 0;
display_height = 240;
display_width = 336;
controller_0_a = "joy_a";
controller_0_b = "start";
controller_0_x = "option";
controller_0_y = "select";
controller_0_up = "joy_up";
controller_0_down = "joy_down";
controller_0_left = "joy_left";
controller_0_right = "joy_right";
controller_0_sl = "space";
controller_0_sr = "joy_a";
controller_0_menu = "option";
controller_1_a = "joy_a";
controller_1_b = "start";
controller_1_x = "option";
controller_1_y = "select";
controller_1_up = "joy_up";
controller_1_down = "joy_down";
controller_1_left = "joy_left";
controller_1_right = "joy_right";
controller_1_sl = "space";
controller_1_sr = "joy_a";
controller_1_menu = "option";
controller_2_a = "joy_a";
controller_2_b = "start";
controller_2_x = "option";
controller_2_y = "select";
controller_2_up = "joy_up";
controller_2_down = "joy_down";
controller_2_left = "joy_left";
controller_2_right = "joy_right";
controller_2_sl = "space";
controller_2_sr = "joy_a";
controller_2_menu = "option";
controller_3_a = "joy_a";
controller_3_b = "start";
controller_3_x = "option";
controller_3_y = "select";
controller_3_up = "joy_up";
controller_3_down = "joy_down";
controller_3_left = "joy_left";
controller_3_right = "joy_right";
controller_3_sl = "space";
controller_3_sr = "joy_a";
controller_3_menu = "option";

 

[Fred_M]

LOL,

 

In the400mini topic I just posted a message that the help key is missing on the virtual keyboard and is not mapped to any key of my USB keyboard.

 

In the cfg-file I changed

 

controller_0_menu = "option";

 

to

 

controller_0_menu = "help";

 

and now the left button on the back is recognized as the Help key in my keyboard test software 😀

[pjedavison]

18 minutes ago, Fred_M said:

LOL,

 

In the400mini topic I just posted a message that the help key is missing on the virtual keyboard and is not mapped to any key of my USB keyboard.

 

In the cfg-file I changed

 

controller_0_menu = "option";

 

to

 

controller_0_menu = "help";

 

and now the left button on the back is recognized as the Help key in my keyboard test software 😀

Perfect. If you figure out what key on a USB keyboard is mapped to the Atari/Inverse Video key that would be super-helpful, as I couldn't find it on mine!

[Fred_M]

5 minutes ago, pjedavison said:

Perfect. If you figure out what key on a USB keyboard is mapped to the Atari/Inverse Video key that would be super-helpful, as I couldn't find it on mine!

Sorry, I could not find it either 😞 We could probably map it to one of the joystick buttons like I did with the Help key, but it is weird the Inverse key is not mapped.

 

I ran this program and tried every combination....

 

Tester v3.2 McQyver.XEX

Edited March 29 by Fred_M
Added keyboard test software

[pps]

Here the settings for most possible view area of screen:

display_start_line = 0;
display_height = 239;
display_width = 350;