I re-setup my screen geometry using the SNES and made some new screen modes for ao486 that are wider and fill the screen. New Best has a slight border and New Best Wider has no border on my screen in DOS. 320x200 games use the center 200 pixels of the 240 to maintain pixel perfection. You can change the vscale_mode to 0 if you want to fill the screen but you will be upscaling and it won't have 1 to 1 pixel mapping.
[ao486]
; Set it to "Variable" in the ao486 core instead of 60Hz
direct_video=0
vga_scaler=1
vsync_adjust=1
vscale_mode=1 ; Set this to 0 if you want to fill the screen but lose 1 to 1 pixel mapping on 320x200 games
;video_mode=1280,170,140,244,240,2,0,22,29020 ; Old Best for ao486 12-8-2020
;video_mode=1280,138,140,216,240,2,0,22,28070 ; New Best 06-25-2021
video_mode=1280,120,140,202,240,2,0,22,27565 ; New Best Wider 06-25-2021
I also applied it to the Menu because the overscan is so large. I noticed that there are borders on the left and right until you let it sit there and it turns down the brightness eventually and then it fills the screen. I may decide to make a new menu mode that is wider to fix that. (Edit: I think my screen just gets wider when the image is less bright. I noticed this in Monkey Island 2 when digging the grave and the lightning struck).
[Menu]
direct_video=0
vga_scaler=1
vsync_adjust=1
vscale_mode=1
video_mode=1280,120,140,202,240,2,0,22,27565
Adjusting the width and positioning of these modelines is quite easy. Here are the steps:
- Start with a working mode like video_mode=1280,170,140,244,240,2,0,22,29020 and plug them into
https://www.epanorama.net/faq/vga2rgb/calc.html
- If you want to make it wider, decrease the fourth number (244) - I usually use multiples of 8 (8, 16, 24, etc.)
- Press the calculate button
- Adjust the pixel clock frequency in the tool until the vertical sync frequency is 59.94 and keep hitting calculate to check it
- Usually decreasing the fourth number (244) leaves a gap on the right side, so you need to move it to the right. Press the Right button to see how it adjusts two of the numbers. If you need to adjust it by different amounts than 8 at a time, you can do this manually. Just adjust both numbers by the same amount and make sure the refresh rate stays at 59.94 (It should not change as you move it left or right).
Hope y'all love the new video modes and find this useful.