Retro and gaming

Aspect ratio

See how large a retro game can display on your screen, with sharp image quality through whole-number scaling.

Console or system

Width (px)

Height (px)

Aspect ratio

Your screen

Screen width

Screen height

What does this mean?

Old consoles had a small image that was stretched on a 4:3 TV. On a modern screen you can enlarge the image by a whole number of times (2×, 3×, 4×) so that each pixel is exactly the same size: that gives the sharpest image. That rarely fits your screen exactly, so black borders remain. The correct ratio for many systems is 4:3, because the pixels of old TVs were not square.

In RetroArch, turn on Integer scaling (under Video → Schalen) and choose the aspect ratio the core recommends. On a 4K screen you can choose higher magnifications and combine them with a CRT filter.