libretro / libretro/RetroArch

Make Retroarch Default to the Aspect Ratio of the Screen

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#10,689 5 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Dominant language
C
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Avg merge
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Description

Description

The vast majority of screens that users will be running RetroArch on are 16:9, but when you start RetroArch it defaults to a 4:3 window. There's nothing inherently wrong with 4:3, however, when switching to fullscreen it will result in a different amount of visible menu items displayed. I think it would be more seamless to use the same aspect ratio in both cases by default because that would simply result in the contents being scaled up. I think 16:9 is the most sensible default, but it would be even better if RetroArch could detect the aspect ratio of the screen and default to that.

Expected behavior

A common default aspect ratio, regardless of running in windowed or fullscreen mode.

Actual behavior

RetroArch switches between 4:3 and 16:9 in the most common use case.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

No file, test, or entry point is named in the issue. Search the repository for the default 4:3 aspect-ratio setting and the window or fullscreen initialization path, then inspect how screen dimensions are available across platforms. Done means windowed and fullscreen startup use a common default, ideally matching the detected screen ratio, with the behavior verified in both modes.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
c
Domain
frontend
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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