Nes display. Full screen?

[James app-2008]

Hello

 

the other day i was testing my rgb modded nes on an ikegami crt monitor. 
 

my question is about the display. My display does not fill the entire screen. The video looks great its just that a little of the left side isnt used. And even more of the right part of the screen isnt used? 
 

i think i read atari’s have different displays on different tv’s 

 

im wondering if the nintendo is similair? 
 

i put in mario bros/duck hunt. The startup select screen is good. But when i go to play the game the video doesent take up the whole screen

 

and the right side has more area cut off

 

is there away to have my nes take up the whole screen? 

[James app-2008]

Hi

 

i wanted to say. When i played double dribble it took up the whole screen, but im going on memory

[James app-2008]

Hello

 

really just trying to see if this is normal or if i should fool around with the monitor video settings? 
 

is it normal for lets say mario bros to be cut off on left and right side of the monitor?

[newtmonkey]

It depends mostly on the geometry settings of your TV.  NES and other console games back in the day often appeared to take up the entire screen because consumer TVs were often set with a lot of overscan (that is, the picture was zoomed in so that several lines of pixels were "off screen").  The NES in particular has an actual internal resolution of 256x240, though most if not all games run at an actual resolution of 256x224 with the top and bottom 8 lines either blank (black) or full of visual garbage, depending on the game.

 

Nintendo documents from the time apparently initially indicated that developers should keep all important information within 224x192, but this was ignored or relaxed as time went on and consumer TVs had less and less expected overscan.

This would be more noticeable on modern TVs (or even professional grade TVs/monitors) as they are often set for little or no overscan.

 

Edited April 1, 2021 by newtmonkey