New Version ArcadeVGA 3000

[AndyWarne]

The ArcadeVGA card is now updated with a new version.
This is in response to those who require a faster 3D card for PC games such as SF4.
We benchmarked against SF4 during development to ensure 60FPS at full foreground and background detail setting.
Details here http://www.ultimarc.com/avgainf.html

There are new drivers which integrate the Tri-Sync utility so the monitor type (standard res or multi-frequency) can be selected on install.
Drivers for Windows 7 32 and 64 , Vista 32 , 64 and XP included.

The price of the older AGP card is now halved, while we clear stocks. We will no longer be supplying an AGP card when out of stock.
 

[SlayerAlex]

wow thats amazing news.

[UberCade]

Definitely! I was really worried when the previous version PCI-E card was sold out because I was finally ready to buy one, and they were all gone. I was really excited to see this new version, and I already bought one. My cab is near completion and I'll be ordering the parts to build the PC for it next week, so hopefully everything will come together around the same time. Really looking forward to enjoying my cabinet rather than working on it everyday!

[TPB]

Wow Andy, it looks great.   

I'll have to russle up an order soon, and get one for my SF II cabinet.  The ArcadeVGA was looking a bit dated, I've been wondering whether you'd release an update.

I'm glad to see the answer is YES, and here we have it !!

[Thenasty]

Hi Andy,
 
Great work on updating the video cards.
How about us using Advmame ?

I ask this same question when you got the newer PCI-e/AGP cards made.

My old AGP AVGA card is working good. I was just concern about updating in the foture when AGP migh not be supported any longer and have to purchase a AVGA PCI-e card, but I need it to work with ADVMAMe (DOS).

[FrizzleFried]

To be 100% clear... you have drivers for Windows XP x64?

[Bender]

To be 100% clear... you have drivers for Windows XP x64?

I had the same question

[mytymaus007]

Now here is a company that keeps progressing Thank you Andy Cant wait to upgrade 

[rlehm]

Just curious about a couple things. One being, it's advertised for computer monitors and arcade monitors. Is there any benefit if you use a tv? Also, I am thinking of upgrading from a tv to the VGA Arcade Monitor D9800 from Wells Garner. What makes this graphics card superior to those at say Best Buy? Some of those have a gig of memory etc etc..

I see the biggest benefit is "Allows DOS MAME or MAME32 to run almost all games at their native resolutions without hardware stretching, scan converters or other degradation." Can't the newer cards do this?

Sorry, I am in the market to buy a card and the price of this is low compared to what I was going to buy and would leave money for the Wells Garner, but I want to make sure I won't regret it

will this card display hyperspin nicely too?

[FrizzleFried]

Right there on Andys site it says:

Vista/Windows 7 32 and 64 bit drivers included. Also XP 32.

Sounds like us XP x64 users are,  once again,  ass-out.

That sucks too... bigtime.  I'll NEVER own Vista and if I ever do get Windows 7 it will be for my office PC.  Oh well... I suppose I have to stick with soft15khz...

 

[Epyx]

I'll NEVER own Vista and if I ever do get Windows 7 it will be for my office PC

FrizzleFried...as an IT professional I agree with you on Vista..it is utter crap...but honestly, Windows 7 *IS* the new XP...it is everything Vista should have been but wasn't. I would strongly urge you to get a copy of 7 Pro and give it a shot.

Andy...this is awesome news!  I will be ordering one *very* soon.

[Haze]

I'll NEVER own Vista and if I ever do get Windows 7 it will be for my office PC

FrizzleFried...as an IT professional I agree with you on Vista..it is utter crap...but honestly, Windows 7 *IS* the new XP...it is everything Vista should have been but wasn't. I would strongly urge you to get a copy of 7 Pro and give it a shot.

Andy...this is awesome news!  I will be ordering one *very* soon.

To be fair, Vista is a bit crap, but mainly because the default settings for services etc. are awful.

Windows 7 inherits the majority of the crap from Vista, but is better configured by default, and is much more up-to-date out the box, so it seems less crap.

A slipstreamed Vista install including all the latest service packs and updates with services etc. fine tuned isn't really any better / worse than a Windows 7 install.  I don't like some of the changes they made to explorer etc. in Vista / 7, but they're not going away any time soon.

Windows 7 is what Vista should have been when it came out, but isn't really a radical step away from what a nice clean install of a fully up-to-date Vista is now.  Windows 7 just has even more changes to come to terms with if you're used to the XP interface.  Neither OS is really what I'd call progress, but, as you've seen, support for XP64 is pretty much 0.

[wp34]

Vista with the latest SP is actually pretty good.  I ran the 64-bit version for about 6 months and was very happy with it.  I've been on Windows 7 for about two months and am even happier.  Both were very stable--especially Windows 7.  Oddly enough the only issues I've had have been with Microsoft products.  Visual Studio, SSMS and Visual Source Safe would hang occasionally until I moved all source files off the network onto my local drive.   Windows 7 is definitely worth trying.

[helpmebuild]

Wow - looks like I ordered my card 2 weeks too early.

Would have been nice to know something was "coming soon" before I purchased the older version.

Ouch...

[AndyWarne]

To cover all questions:

I will consider XP64 drivers but its a real handful supporting 5 versions already. I have resisted XP64 as it is no longer supported by MS nor virtually all hardware manufacturers.

Advanced MAME I dont believe works with any Radeon cards. Not sure why use Advanced Mame?
On this subject, although the card supportd DOS, I would never recommend anyone use DOS for Mame on modern hardware. It will be very limited, slow, no hardware stretch (in case you do need it for some games), very difficult to get sound support etc etc. Modern motherboards are pretty useless at running DOS.

There is no benefit in using a TV as these cannot support any other resolution other than TV res. The exception is SCART RGB connected TV which will work just like an arcade monitor.

Using a W-G D9800 at VGA-only resolutions is a huge waste because these monitors are designed (expensively) to be able to run at standard resolution (15Khz) and 25 and 31 Khz (VGA) as well. So you might as well buy a VGA monitor if you are not using the D9800 at anything other than VGA resolutions.

 

[DashRendar]

Wow - looks like I ordered my card 2 weeks too early.

Would have been nice to know something was "coming soon" before I purchased the older version.

Ouch...

Doh- I'm in a similar boat.

Bought my ArcadeVGA about 4 months ago, which is still new in the box, while I have been amassing the parts for my project.  Bugger all!   

That said, I am glad to see this new version come out- it's good for everyone in this hobby.

[Havok]

Just do a tweaked Tiny7 install; that way you get the latest driver support and 64bit for maximum Mame performance...

It is a shame about XP64, but considering the lack of support, really the new windows is the way to go. We're talking about contemporary hardware, so the performance hit is negligible.

[raungst]

Wow - looks like I ordered my card 2 weeks too early.

Would have been nice to know something was "coming soon" before I purchased the older version.

Ouch...

Wow. I'm in the exact same boat. I would have waited 2 weeks to have a new version, especially after waiting for it to be in stock so long. 

[rlehm]

Using a W-G D9800 at VGA-only resolutions is a huge waste because these monitors are designed (expensively) to be able to run at standard resolution (15Khz) and 25 and 31 Khz (VGA) as well. So you might as well buy a VGA monitor if you are not using the D9800 at anything other than VGA resolutions.

 

I do not understand your answer. When you say I might as well buy a vga monitor I get confused. The D9800 is a vga monitor. What 27" monitor do you suggest with your card?

[deadsoulz]

Using a W-G D9800 at VGA-only resolutions is a huge waste because these monitors are designed (expensively) to be able to run at standard resolution (15Khz) and 25 and 31 Khz (VGA) as well. So you might as well buy a VGA monitor if you are not using the D9800 at anything other than VGA resolutions.

 

I do not understand your answer. When you say I might as well buy a vga monitor I get confused. The D9800 is a vga monitor. What 27" monitor do you suggest with your card?

I just got mine a week or two ago as well    Wish some warning would have been out of one coming out and to wait. 

[Havok]

Using a W-G D9800 at VGA-only resolutions is a huge waste because these monitors are designed (expensively) to be able to run at standard resolution (15Khz) and 25 and 31 Khz (VGA) as well. So you might as well buy a VGA monitor if you are not using the D9800 at anything other than VGA resolutions.

 

I do not understand your answer. When you say I might as well buy a vga monitor I get confused. The D9800 is a vga monitor. What 27" monitor do you suggest with your card?

Computer VGA monitors typically don't go lower than 60Hz refresh, which isn't low enough for true arcade monitors, which are typically 15 or 25 or 31Hz.

What he is saying is that if you are only going to run at Windows resolutions with higher refresh rates,  save your money and buy a cheaper monitor or tv. The main reason to get a D9800 is to run at the same resolution and refresh rate of an arcade monitor from the good old days. Yes, it will run windows resolutions (lower ones at least), that's not the main reason to use one.

And to address your other question about cards from local stores; no - most if not all of the cards will not run (natively) a refresh rate lower than 60Hz, which kind of defeats the purpose of again having a D9800

[AndyWarne]

Just to correct above:

Its not the vertical refresh rate of 60Hz thats the issue. Its horizontal refresh which on a VGA picture is 31Khz but standard resolution arcade monitor is 15Khz.

The D9800, or equivalent multi-frequency monitor is the perfect monitor for use with the ArcadeVGA card.

[UberCade]

The D9800, or equivalent multi-frequency monitor is the perfect monitor for use with the ArcadeVGA card.

Yeah basically the issue is if you're going to spend the money on a D9800 or other tri-sync arcade monitor, you will only be wasting your money if you don't have the proper hardware to support native arcade resolutions and refresh rates. In other words, if you use a standard graphics card with a D9800, you will only be able to output a 31 KHz 640x480 resolution (or 800x600, not sure what the D9800 supports) and all arcade games that were designed to run at 15 KHz or 25 KHz at lower resolutions will not look as good as if you were outputting a true 15 KHz or 25 KHz signal. What he's saying is if you're going to buy a standard graphics card, don't bother spending the money on an arcade monitor because the extended features of it will be wasted unless you use an ArcadeVGA card which CAN output 15 Khz and 25 KHz signals, as well as the 31 KHz mode the standard Windows desktop uses. It's plug-n-play simplicity and will make the most of an arcade monitor, and the price is VERY reasonable for what you get. I'd still buy it if it cost twice as much.

Also you're overlooking one very important fact regarding emulation, MAME in particular. A high-end video card will do NOTHING to improve MAME emulation, because MAME games are emulated completely by the CPU - game hardware, video, audio, controls and all. The only reason you would want to use a high-end graphics card is if you also wanted to play PC games, in which case you wouldn't want an arcade monitor for that anyway because of its limited resolution support. Bottom line, if you're going to buy an arcade monitor, buy an ArcadeVGA.

[FrizzleFried]

Well Andy,

If you do come out with XP x64 support I'll buy one... if not,  I won't...

[joeH]

I still don't understand what the obsession is about hanging onto a 9 year old OS...

XP was great for it's time...but XP64 was so horribly under-supported. 

I thought Vista was a step up (used since beta), and never had one issue with it.  I really think it received a lot of bad press for nothing.  I've been using 7 since beta as well and found it to be absolutely fantastic to work with. 

Good to hear about the new card.  My MAME machine is still a 2.4 P4, with the original AGP card.  Whenever I replace my desktop, the C2D 8400 will take it's spot, and I'll need a new PCI-x card to go with it. 

Keep up the good work!

[UberCade]

Whenever I replace my desktop, the C2D 8400 will take it's spot, and I'll need a new PCI-x card to go with it. 

Hmm.. I didn't know anybody ever made a PCI-X graphics card.  I do know of hardware RAID expansion cards and other server implementations which make use of a 64-bit PCI-X slot, but never a graphics card. You made a classic error in confusing PCI-X with PCI-Express, which are two very different technologies. A semantic error I'm sure, but I just had to point that out because it can cause some confusion.

I also don't see much benefit of using XP 64-bit for a MAME build, except for the option to use more than 3 GB of RAM, in which case I don't think it would make much if any difference in how well MAME runs. I think for most instances XP 32-bit is perfect for a MAME only PC, because Vista really is a buggy, bloated pig of an OS, and XP (especially an nLite build) has a much smaller footprint and is much more stable than Vista. I use Windows 7 on my main PC and I love it, but it's entirely too much for a MAME only PC. XP 32-bit can do everything I will ever want my MAME cabinet to do and can run all the software I'll ever use on it. The only reason I can think of for using Windows 7 on a MAME PC is if it's also a multi-purpose PC. Other than that, XP is where' it's at.

[joeH]

Good catch.  Yes, I meant PCIe (or PCI express).  I was in a hurry and had a typo. 

I believe from reading the old Taz-nz thread, that the 64-bit optimized versions of Mame had generally higher FPS than compared with the 32-bit versions.  I think that is why some people are were asking for an XP x64 build.

[Havok]

The 64bit Mame versions performance blows away 32bit on the same hardware, hence the desire to run XP64. Even though I love my Win 7 machine, it's still the case that the newer O/S requires more horsepower than XP, that's why you still see people using  XP. Although, in Frizz's case he's got a pretty beefy system, so going to Win 7 wouldn't be that much of an issue. Unless of course, you actually pay for your Windows install...
 

[DeLuSioNal29]

Perhaps I overlooked it, but does anyone know how much RAM the AVGA 3000 has on board?

Also, here's a link to the issues people were having with the SF4 and the older AVGA2 cards.  Kudos to Andy for the upgrade!
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=93345.msg989249#msg989249

DeLuSioNaL29

[AndyWarne]

Perhaps I overlooked it, but does anyone know how much RAM the AVGA 3000 has on board?

You didnt overlook it as I forgot to mention it on the website! Its 512 Mb.

Andy

[Jefferson]

Wooo! I remember wrestling with it til I saw Delusionals thread and let SF4 go. I was going to buy an AVGA in the next week or 2 for my TMNT4P> MAME!

Let the scope creep continue!

[Jefferson]

Will SF4 be inhibited at all by my 25-27" WG7100 standard res monitor? how bad we talkin?

Has anyone run SF4 on a non-HD-or-LCD, traditional arcade monitor?

[Bender]

one more vote for XP64 support Andy

[FrizzleFried]

For those not in the know...

Going from Windows XP 32-bit to Windows XP 64-bit running a 64 bit compile of MAME saw a gain of approximately 20% in framerate .... basically making Blitz, Gauntlet Legends,  etc... actually playable rather than non-playable.

I have a single PM running Windows XP x64,  and that is my horizontal MAME cab... that is all it does... plays MAME... I don't care about compatibility issues as long as it works for MAME.... because that is it's sole job.  MAME.

[UberCade]

Interesting. I had no idea MAME64 made that much of a difference. I was planning on using XP 32-bit but maybe I'll have to reconsider now. I'm building a pretty decent MAME PC for my cabinet and it will be able to run Windows 7 well enough, so maybe I'll do that instead. That is, of course, unless we get an XP 64-bit driver. I use XP 64-bit on my file and FTP (yes I still use FTP  ) server at home and I love it. It definitely has its place among some users. You can always slim Windows 7 down too, by choosing not to use aero, and I think vLite will work on a Windows 7 installation to remove any excess crap you won't need.

By the way, I received the ArcadeVGA cards I ordered today so thanks for the fast shipping Andy! Took only a few days to get from the UK to the west coast here in the US.

[Epyx]

Anyone have one of these yet that can post some ST IV benchmarks? I trust Andy (having purchased a lot from him)  but want to ensure I do my due diligence before plunking down my coin on the new AVGA 3000.

The research I have done is that the RV630 is just an ATI HD2600 from 2007. Every benchmark I have seen with this card shows pretty poor performance in ST IV.  Was there another model made?  What am I missing?

[ahofle]

Andy, is there any possibility of adding some more multisync resolutions? 
With Soft15khz, I have been able to add some useful ~300 line modes which work great for newer vertical shooters.  Also a 1024x768 mode (interlaced 25khz) works very well.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=79547.msg830538#msg830538

[Lilwolf]

I'm guessing it runs at 640x480 (or 640x280 if possible at 15khz) on the card.  But you shouldn't expect much at higher resolutions.  But guessing.

Anyone have one of these yet that can post some ST IV benchmarks? I trust Andy (having purchased a lot from him)  but want to ensure I do my due diligence before plunking down my coin on the new AVGA 3000.

The research I have done is that the RV630 is just an ATI HD2600 from 2007. Every benchmark I have seen with this card shows pretty poor performance in ST IV.  Was there another model made?  What am I missing?

[redhorse]

Drivers for Windows 7 32 and 64 , Vista 32 , 64 and XP included.
 

Is there also driver support for Win7 64 for the old PCIe version of the ArcadeVGA card?
I plan to switch my cab to Win7 64 because of the improved performance with mame64.

[FrizzleFried]

Any news on XP x64 support?