07054: nes and clones, and related systems: Visible area is cropped

ID	Category [?]	Severity [?]	Reproducibility	Date Submitted	Last Update
07054	Graphics	Minor	Always	Jul 26, 2018, 22:22	Apr 27, 2023, 19:27

Tester	ICEknight	View Status	Public	Platform	MAME (Official Binary)
Assigned To		Resolution	Open	OS
Status [?]	Acknowledged			Driver	nintendo/nes.cpp
Version	0.200	Fixed in Version		Build	64-bit
		Fixed in Git Commit		Github Pull Request #

Summary	07054: nes and clones, and related systems: Visible area is cropped
Description	As can be seen in the example pictures and captured footage, NES-based systems including VS and Playchoice-10 feature some visible overscan areas to the sides and a few extra lines at the bottom (not dissimilar to MAME's PC Engine emulation), which are currently being cropped: Also at 1:37 here: &t=1m37s VS Excitebike (at 2:10): Note that the crisper footage is using RGB mods and hence the colors might be off, and also the capture hardware might be still cropping a bit of he overscan area (the VS Excitebike footage seems to be showing some orange lines at the bottom), so the full screen size should still be checked on real hardware.
Steps To Reproduce	Load nes megaman2u, select Air Man and compare with the example. Alternatively: Load pc_smb and compare with the example.
Additional Information	Related to #6892 and #7271, similar issue but different systems.
Github Commit

Flags	Verified with Original
Regression Version
Affected Sets / Systems	nes and clones, and related systems

Attached Files	mm1.png (4,765 bytes) Apr 21, 2023, 20:40 Uploaded by ICEknight MAME
	mm4.png (331,414 bytes) Apr 21, 2023, 20:40 Uploaded by ICEknight AV Famicom with composite cables
	mm2.png (310,888 bytes) Apr 21, 2023, 20:41 Uploaded by ICEknight NES with RGB mod 1
	mm3.png (280,189 bytes) Apr 21, 2023, 20:41 Uploaded by ICEknight NES with RGB mod 2
	0002.png (9,165 bytes) Apr 21, 2023, 20:47 Uploaded by ICEknight MAME
	120576376_10214200990257576_2654208715735907720_n.jpg (12,092 bytes) Apr 21, 2023, 20:47 Uploaded by ICEknight PlayChoice-10
	120580693_10214200990017570_2864036003124372203_n.jpg (20,300 bytes) Apr 21, 2023, 20:48 Uploaded by ICEknight PlayChoice-10
	P81.mp4 (1,183,464 bytes) Apr 27, 2023, 19:16 Uploaded by ICEknight Real hardware capture by dev
	P13.mp4 (1,153,796 bytes) Apr 27, 2023, 19:26 Uploaded by ICEknight Real hardware capture by dev
	P14.mp4 (1,042,744 bytes) Apr 27, 2023, 19:27 Uploaded by ICEknight Real hardware capture by dev

No.15299 ICEknight Tester Jul 28, 2018, 19:42	Something I've noticed: Both the composite and RGB captures seem to be slightly uncentered in different ways: -Composite shows the full (?) vertical resolution, but is shifted to the right, so there's an empty white column to the left while some of the right border is cropped. -RGB shows the full (?) horizontal resolution, but it's shifted upwards, so it shows that small border at the bottom while cropping some actually drawn pixels on the top of the screen (like also seems to happen with current PC Engine emulation). (Again, some additional cropping may be happening due to the scaler+capture hardware combination, so there may be even more actual screen space that we're not seeing)
No.15300 B2K24 Senior Tester Jul 28, 2018, 22:07	I honestly don't remember having my Nintendo unit connected to my NTSC TV via composite looking that way. Some videos on YT support what you have presented and others do not such as this one: My opinion is there isn't enough evidence presented at this time to change anything. It would be helpful if someone with access to unmodified hardware could do some tests/measurements or show proof of the following.
No.15301 ICEknight Tester Jul 28, 2018, 23:54 edited on: Jul 28, 2018, 23:58	That video seems to have been cropped so that the border doesn't take any space needed for the speedrunning stuff, programs like OBS let you move things around easily. It's also cropping a couple of pixels by the right side of the screen. TVs hide the overscan area for any signal they receive, including a small part of the NES drawn area as I've just verified on my PAL system (exactly how much, depends entirely on each TV set), that's why you didn't see these back then. Also, old emulators had a tendency to artificially crop any borders or even actually drawn areas in the overscan (in the case of NES emulators) so that you wouldn't see what you weren't supposed to, but they weren't striving for emulation accuracy like MAME is. So, if anything, any unwanted screen area could be just hidden with a "crop overscan" option (https://i.imgur.com/8zlyCBQ.png) which would avoid any complaints about the borders, make horizontally-scrolling NES games look better, "solve" BTANBs like #7030 and hide any problems that may happen in those early Neo Geo games that were designed with a slightly smaller visible screen size. The weirdest thing here is once again (as in #7048) the bottom border which can only be seen sometimes and causes the topmost drawn pixels to be cropped whenever it's visible (which also happens in MAME's current PC Engine emulation). And this doesn't only seem to happen when using modded systems, but also with Nintendo's official implementation for the VS arcades... PS: Just checked my unmodified PAL NES and it indeed doesn't show any colored border at the bottom, while it correctly shows the topmost drawn pixels (there's of course some additional black borders ar the top and bottom). Also, found some FDS non-RGB footage (I'm guessing it's a composite-modded Famicom?) which shows both the colored bottom border and the white column on the left side, while it crops the topmost pixels (and presumably some pixels at the right side) due to the screen shifting:
No.15341 ICEknight Tester Aug 24, 2018, 10:50 edited on: Apr 19, 2023, 18:46	Some captured footage of the unreleased VS game Lionex has surfaced and it seems to show a similar display layout to the AV Famicom's: What we can see here: -Game window is 240x256, the topmost pixels are not being cropped here -Left colored border is 15px wide -Leftmost differently-colored column is 1px wide -Right colored border is 10px wide (+1px black extra column? See below) -Colored border at the very bottom is 2px tall (consistent with the VS Excitebike footage?) I've re-checked and these measurements are consistent with the previous AV Famicom examples, with the exception of the right border seemingly showing an additional 11th colored column for the AV Famicom which shows up as a last black 1px-wide column in the VS footage. Now, remember the white 1px column on the left side? Thanks to the clearer picture, it can be seen that it actually changes colors depending on the border's (or some other palette index?). (Once again, it's possible that the capture card is cropping the borders a bit) Border measurements, for reference: https://imgur.com/a/KioQZvB EDIT: This is how the cropped display looks like in an actual monitor: http://web.archive.org/web/20210719065212/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JFTOlpzOOM Side-by-side comparison: https://imgur.com/a/9HcXxEg
No.21336 ICEknight Tester Apr 21, 2023, 20:34 edited on: Apr 21, 2023, 20:51	Just found some pics that confirm the colored borders being visible on PlayChoice-10 cabinets as well: https://www.facebook.com/commerce/listing/659720274678606/ Also, reuploaded the images that were hosted on imgur since they might get auto-deleted soon.
No.21338 Fujix Administrator Apr 22, 2023, 08:14	My personal opinion is that this problem is similar to the NeoGeo display area problem. The old TVs had a large cropped area, so I don't see a problem with using the current MAME display area as the default setting. Adding an option for a larger display area would be a good idea, but some scrolling games would reveal the screen rewrite and not practical.
No.21340 ICEknight Tester Apr 22, 2023, 17:15 edited on: Apr 22, 2023, 17:16	Scrolling games are already revealing everything, it's just the colored border around the screen that's missing. Any cropping can be done with shaders such as crt-geom already. You can adjust them to simulate a TV that crops the screen in a certain way, but that cropping will be inconsistent between systems if the drivers for some of them already crop part of their full output.
No.21365 ICEknight Tester Apr 27, 2023, 19:18 edited on: Apr 27, 2023, 19:34	Just added some direct captures made by Masahiro Sakurai (taken from a Twin Famicom?) which, interestingly, also feature the differently-colored column on the left side. `P13.mp4` also seems to show the tiny colored border at the bottom, when the characters rise from below. Source: https://www.famitsu.com/news/201705/17132636.html