Gaming

SOLVED: Game Boy Advance (GBA) Games Blurry On RG350M

Solution: Blurry / Soft reGBA Game Boy Advance Games on Anbernic RG350M. Make your GBA scale properly on the higher resolution display.

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Anbernic RG350M reGBA
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Why do GBA Games Look Blurry & Soft on my shiny new Anbernic RG350M (reGBA emulator)?

Is exactly what I was thinking when I received what has to be the coolest retro gaming machine for my birthday, the Anbernic RG350M (Amazon).

After searching the Reddit forums and OpenDingus website, I couldn't find an answer to the reGBA scaling issue I was facing. The original Anbernic RG350 has a lower resolution display and doesn't suffer from blurriness or softness issue.

The new RG350M (Retro Gaming 350 Metal) having a higher 640x480 resolution, just doesn't look right. The edges are too soft & everything's a little blurry... the inbuilt software is seriously making a mess of my childhood nostalgia...

So I tried everything setting in ReGBA settings by pressing the 'power button' in-game and entering 'Display Settings' then 'Image Scaling'.

  • None - Looks great. But only half of the display used.
  • Hardware - Blurry / Soft
  • Aspect & Full Linear - Blurry / Soft
  • Full Scan - - Blurry / Soft
  • Aspect Bilinear - Blurry / Soft
  • Aspect & Full sub-pixel - Blurry / Soft

And got nothing... I couldn't fix the issue at all. The only way to get the GBA games pixel perfect on this retro handheld was to use the 'None' option which adds a GBA frame around the edge making the playable area half the size.

Blurry reGBA - The Solution

It turns out that reGBA automatically adds a pretty strong default sharpness every time you load it up. To change the sharpness on your RG350M, you hold the 'Power' button and the use 'Up & Down' on the DPad.

Turn the sharpness off completely: Hold with Power + Down.

As for the 'Image Scaling' setting, leave this set to 'Hardware'.

Now bask in the glory of perfectly sharp, pixel-perfect scaled Game Boy Advance games!

Yeah, I know it's not the original 240x160 resolution, but it looks great scaled up on the RG350M's larger 3.5" IPS panel!

And before you ask, no. I've not got a clue how you get the ReGBA emulator to save the sharpness level. Comment below if you have the answer, but for now, you have to follow these quick & simple steps each time you start reGBA.

Leave a comment if this helped you and share your top RG350M tips below! : )

 

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