VMM, CRTEmuDriver, and NTSC Overscan

[chinagreenelvis]

On every NTSC TV I own, the generated modelines produce an image where, if the picture is perfectly centered, the center dots in the red squares at the top and bottom of the 240p test suite background are outside the visible area of the television screen.

Am I mistaken that this is actually how it should be? That consoles were designed to place all of the important information in the "white square" area and the red squares represent potential overscan?

This seems to be true when I run 8 and 16-bit gen cores in Retroarch; they look correct. But what I'm noticing is that running cores for later gen consoles - generally ones that run in 480i - results in having important parts of the game/UI/etc extended into those overscan areas.

A good example is Soul Calibur II for GameCube, running on the Dolphin core. Text that appears at the top and bottom of the screen gets cut off. But if I connect an actual GameCube to the same television set, I don't have this issue.

I've tested with multiple TV sets - two 13-inch, a 20-inch, and a 27-inch.

I don't understand what the deal is.