Aspect Control, Fullscreen Resolution & NGC Boot Animation

[Infinite Josh]

Greetings all! While having the pleasure to play around mostly with build 5.0-6467 and a couple of later ones, I've been reacquainted with a long-known reality that all of my NTSC GC Sonic games, and likely the entire Sonic line-up were made to display in some strange ~3.8:3 aspect ratio which has the effect of horizontally squishing the frame somewhat. Characters look thinner, circles are ovals, etc. (load up SA2:B, go into "Extras"... now you can't un-see it haha). Months ago I thought, "Fine, setting the aspect to Force 4:3 should stretch it out", but somehow this option does not stretch any of these games in window or fullscreen and only compresses 16:9 games to 4:3. Luckily the Stretch to Window aspect option actually does stretch these not-so-4:3 Sonic games... to the entire width of my 1920x1080 monitor while fullscreened. It was then I realized I at least had some control over the fullscreen resolution, and by making it display at something 4:3 like 1440x1080 while the "stretch" option was selected, the game would appear perfectly 4:3! While this did work, the omission of the fullscreen resolution option from the UI meant I'd have to monkey with the FullscreenDisplayRes value in the Dolphin.ini file every time I wanted to play something Wii-related.

Is there a better way!? Being able to set up solutions for specific games using the game ini overrides I learned about recently would be terrific, but as discussed, just changing the "aspect" option on its own won't fix this particular issue... yet. Assuming there are no hidden aspect options that will stretch narrow-aspect content to 4:3, could a command line via a shortcut be used to change FullscreenDisplayRes to anything I want? Using this section's instructions I tried adding a bunch of versions of a --config command which was supposed to point at that setting in the Dolphin.ini, but either I couldn't get the syntax right or this command just isn't supported.

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Ok so that's the most important thing. The other is more of a curiosity than anything and regards the GameCube BIOS boot via selecting Tools > Load GameCube Main Menu > (region). (I'm absolutely delighted someone added that function by the way!) Now recall that animation of the tumbling cube that plays after loading a game, when that IPL.bin file is where it should be and Skip BIOS is unchecked on the GameCube tab in Config. I've noticed that this doesn't occur in any Dolphin when booting through the Tools menu. On a real NGC, this animation would play upon booting and would then go to the game if a disk was detected (like when Skip BIOS is unchecked in Dolphin), and the main menu if no disc is detected. Would it be at all possible for that animation to be implemented into the Tools boot method without fundamentally breaking something more important? I'm nostalgically interested in that prospect.

Well those are the points I'd like clarified. Since this is my first post and I don't want to bloat that "Thank You!" thread, I want to use this space to type "Thankyou": thanks to all the Dolphin contributors the internet over for helping me and many others retrieve part of their childhood from the proverbial lavatory called "time"! Haha.

[mstreurman]

Greetings all! While having the pleasure to play around mostly with build 5.0-6467 and a couple of later ones, I've been reacquainted with a long-known reality that all of my NTSC GC Sonic games, and likely the entire Sonic line-up were made to display in some strange ~3.8:3 aspect ratio which has the effect of horizontally squishing the frame somewhat. Characters look thinner, circles are ovals, etc. (load up SA2:B, go into "Extras"... now you can't un-see it haha). Months ago I thought, "Fine, setting the aspect to Force 4:3 should stretch it out", but somehow this option does not stretch any of these games in window or fullscreen and only compresses 16:9 games to 4:3. Luckily the Stretch to Window aspect option actually does stretch these not-so-4:3 Sonic games... to the entire width of my 1920x1080 monitor while fullscreened. It was then I realized I at least had some control over the fullscreen resolution, and by making it display at something 4:3 like 1440x1080 while the "stretch" option was selected, the game would appear perfectly 4:3! While this did work, the omission of the fullscreen resolution option from the UI meant I'd have to monkey with the FullscreenDisplayRes value in the Dolphin.ini file every time I wanted to play something Wii-related.

Is there a better way!? Being able to set up solutions for specific games using the game ini overrides I learned about recently would be terrific, but as discussed, just changing the "aspect" option on its own won't fix this particular issue... yet. Assuming there are no hidden aspect options that will stretch narrow-aspect content to 4:3, could a command line via a shortcut be used to change FullscreenDisplayRes to anything I want? Using this section's instructions I tried adding a bunch of versions of a --config command which was supposed to point at that setting in the Dolphin.ini, but either I couldn't get the syntax right or this command just isn't supported.

---

Ok so that's the most important thing. The other is more of a curiosity than anything and regards the GameCube BIOS boot via selecting Tools > Load GameCube Main Menu > (region). (I'm absolutely delighted someone added that function by the way!) Now recall that animation of the tumbling cube that plays after loading a game, when that IPL.bin file is where it should be and Skip BIOS is unchecked on the GameCube tab in Config. I've noticed that this doesn't occur in any Dolphin when booting through the Tools menu. On a real NGC, this animation would play upon booting and would then go to the game if a disk was detected (like when Skip BIOS is unchecked in Dolphin), and the main menu if no disc is detected. Would it be at all possible for that animation to be implemented into the Tools boot method without fundamentally breaking something more important? I'm nostalgically interested in that prospect.

Well those are the points I'd like clarified. Since this is my first post and I don't want to bloat that "Thank You!" thread, I want to use this space to type "Thankyou": thanks to all the Dolphin contributors the internet over for helping me and many others retrieve part of their childhood from the proverbial lavatory called "time"! Haha.

You should be able to add the fullscreen resolution thing to the GameIni as well (I think, I have never tried it )

Um... why would you want to boot through the Tools menu when it works without issues through the game list or am I missing something?

Do you want to see the BIOS where you can change the settings like on a real cube. There is a possibility to do so... Just hold the "A" button on the (emulated) controller while the animation is playing and you should enter the IPL.
If you want to be able to "Insert" a disk if you have only loaded the IPL (thus running from the Tools menu) you have to go to your Dolphin game list and right click the game then select "Change disk"

[Infinite Josh]

mstreurman: that's all purely for aesthetics. I'm aware of the "hold A" at game boot function. What I was curious about was the effect that resembles the booting of an NGC with no disk.

[JosJuice]

You should be able to add the fullscreen resolution thing to the GameIni as well (I think, I have never tried it )

Nope. It hasn't been added to the new config system yet, and nobody has added game INI support for it manually, so it doesn't work right now.

[Infinite Josh]

Well I think I figured out what I'll do about the fullscreen res. thing for now. Just make a second directory for my favorite Dolphin with the FullscreenDisplayRes in Dolphin.ini set to what I want for those squished games. If I had to do this with the one containing the Wii menu I may start getting nervous about used space, but I think I can live without that menu especially since that particular Dolphin is just for stretching those GameCube Sonic games currently. It's not too big a change since I already have version 5.0 Stable alongside them for when I want to make Sonic Riders play... at all. ;) I'm still happy to see details from anyone who knows if slipping that GC boot animation into the Load GameCube Main Menu process is possible in the future.

Nope. It hasn't been added to the new config system yet, and nobody has added game INI support for it manually, so it doesn't work right now.

Thankyou very much for verifying that. I've seen reference to this "new config system" in discussions before so I tried to find out more about it. Information on it seems scant in the progress reports but a developer in a thread referred another to the Github page dolphin / Source / Core / Core / Config /  so they could keep tabs on which settings had been "ported" to the new system. Since I'm interested in how this development could relate to having control over fullscreen resolution with command lines, this raises a few questions:

1. Are commands like --config=<System>.<Section>.<Key>=<Value> that are run from Dolphin shortcuts entirely dependant on the new configuration making them functional, or can these commands already do whatever we want?

If the former, do you have any tips for where I should be looking on that Git page to ascertain whether the ability has been implemented for using commands to set something like FullscreenDisplayRes?

Whether it's the former or latter, should a shortcut with --config=Dolphin.Display.FullscreenDisplayRes=1440x1080 at the end of the target line properly change the fullscreen resolution? That hasn't worked for me but I don't know if it's because of syntax or the feature just not existing.

2. Is the functionality of the [game].ini text somehow linked to the recent changes to the Core / Config section, or are the two systems mostly unrelated at this point?

[JosJuice]

1. Are commands like --config=<System>.<Section>.<Key>=<Value> that are run from Dolphin shortcuts entirely dependant on the new configuration making them functional, or can these commands already do whatever we want?

That only works with settings that are implemented in the new config system.

If the former, do you have any tips for where I should be looking on that Git page to ascertain whether the ability has been implemented for using commands to set something like FullscreenDisplayRes?

Open the .cpp files in the folder you linked to and look at all the statements that start with "const ConfigInfo". Those statements will tell you the names of all settings in the new config system.

Whether it's the former or latter, should a shortcut with --config=Dolphin.Display.FullscreenDisplayRes=1440x1080 at the end of the target line properly change the fullscreen resolution? That hasn't worked for me but I don't know if it's because of syntax or the feature just not existing.

Something like that should work once the setting gets moved to the new config system.

2. Is the functionality of the [game].ini text somehow linked to the recent changes to the Core / Config section, or are the two systems mostly unrelated at this point?

All settings that are implemented in the new config system are automatically usable in game INIs. There are also some settings that can be used in game INIs even though they aren't implemented in the new config system.