Tips for best video output

[sd_dracula]

Hi guys,
I have a PAL GC with gcloader running swiss and also a GCPlug.
I am not sure what settings to use with swiss and with the gcplug (on the remote control menu) to be able to get the best quality from my LG OLED tv.
I know you can do a force 16:9 on the gcplug but the image looks too stretched.
I am not too familiar with swiss other than the basics so wondering if someone can assist with tweaking the video settings a little.
The GC is connected via HDMI to a pretty decent Denon AV receiver.

Thanks

[cearp]

You'll always want to force 480p, as long as the games you have can handle that.

Don't force to widescreen, unless you are using widescreen patches for games.
How widescreen patches work:

• Hacks the game to draw a wider 16:9 view
• Resulting image in 4:3 output will look squashed
• So you will force the output to 16:9, stretched to look normal.

This will technically reduce quality, since you are packing in more information into the same image size, then stretching it out - but should not be so noticeable.

Not all widescreen hacks take in account the 2D elements, so although the 3D view will be great, things like the HUD or text can look a little stretched.

You can look into getting an mClassic cable, they are a little expensive but they really do make games look great!

[Papy.G]

Force 576p in the general games settings, on NTSC games, it will end up in 480p, and in PAL games supporting it, you'll be able to set them to 480p, pressing B at launch, so you'll never get weird things in the display (such as what can happen when forcing 480p in a PAL game still thinking it is displaying in 576 lines).

For the rest, disable overscan (on the TV), set the display to 720px (or less as long as it fits the screen in 16/9) in SWISS, then:
When a game supports 16/9, enable it and set the TV accordingly.
When a game doesn't support 16/9, set the TV in "Zoom 4/3" or something (RCA TVs have the "Cinerama" zoom option).

16/9 hacks in SWISS are generic and still far from perfect, there are AR hacks (or ROM hacks) that are much more fine tuned on a per-game basis.

[Extrems]

Do not follow Papy.G's advice.

[Papy.G]

Can you be more precise about what advice not to follow?

Ok, forcing 576p can seem awkward, but forcing 480p in the general settings can lead to much more weird things, as long as a PAL user can be more likely to mainly use PAL games, the few NTSC games I use are just happy with it.

[sd_dracula]

I actually have a lot of ntsc games also
And yes I agree with cearp, the games look nicer with 4:3 + black bars than with 16:9 hack and gcplug force widescreen

[Papy.G]

I would be happy to see what your mileage will be with NTSC games forced to 576p, since it seems to be the better way to force progressive scan in general settings (compared to 480p), as long as we don't have a way to force progressive mode and number of lines separately (Which may end up beeing automaticly activated with Digital AV device detection).

What I don't like playing 4:3 games without zooming, is having black border all around, when games don't use the full height. Overscan can reduce this, but on my TV, it is set for all the input sources at once, and needs to go deep in the settings sub-folders, while zoom can be switched straight from remote keys, and each input keeps its own setting.