Juddery MAME?

[kvncooper]

I have tinkered with my mame settings in the last few months, and ever since, I am seeing a distinct lack of smoothness in the games. It's difficult to describe but it's like there is a slight horizontal split in the screen whenevr characters etc move around or when there is some action. Very weird and very noticeable.

Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this?

I am using 0.126 version mame.

Thanks.

[Smeghead]

PC Specs? Graphics Card? monitor type?
Or was it fine before you tinkered

[kvncooper]

PC Specs? Graphics Card? monitor type?
Or was it fine before you tinkered

I'm pretty certain that it was fine before tinkering. In fact, I don't even know if it's the tinkering that has caused it. I have mame on a few different pc's (all same spec) and its doing it on each one.

Specs anyway:

1Gb Ram
2.8 processor
in-built graph card
monitor - happens on both 19" 4:3 and 26" 19:10

[RayB]

the split is called "tearing" and you fix it by turning on "Vertical Sync" ( AKA "sync with monitor refresh")

[bkenobi]

Assuming you are using a mame.ini file, if you find anything broken, just rename this file and recreate a new one.  In doing so, everything will go back to default.  You can then either tinker again or see what settings you changed/broke.  The command is:

Code: [Select]

mame.exe -cc

[kvncooper]

the split is called "tearing" and you fix it by turning on "Vertical Sync" ( AKA "sync with monitor refresh")

There is an option under Default Game Properties, Advanced, called 'Wait for vertical sync'. Is this what you mean?

Thanks.

[kvncooper]

the split is called "tearing" and you fix it by turning on "Vertical Sync" ( AKA "sync with monitor refresh")

There is an option under Default Game Properties, Advanced, called 'Wait for vertical sync'. Is this what you mean?

Thanks.

I went ahead and ticked it. Seems to have fixed it. You're a diamond RayB!!

[nitz]

Is that working really well for you on a PC monitor? When I tried this, it certainly got rid of the tearing, but it made the games really jumpy (I think because it drops frames on each refresh cycle or something like that) which bugs me more than the tearing. Just wondering if there are any other settings I should be using along with it or any settings on my monitor that might help.

Failing that, I think I'm going to give Cabmame a shot when I get my cab going again. Out of all the choices - screen tearing, jumpy games, sound stuttering, and sound pitch shifting, I think the pitch shifting would bother me the least, all the other stuff just drives me nuts! 

[kvncooper]

Is that working really well for you on a PC monitor? When I tried this, it certainly got rid of the tearing, but it made the games really jumpy (I think because it drops frames on each refresh cycle or something like that) which bugs me more than the tearing. Just wondering if there are any other settings I should be using along with it or any settings on my monitor that might help.

Failing that, I think I'm going to give Cabmame a shot when I get my cab going again. Out of all the choices - screen tearing, jumpy games, sound stuttering, and sound pitch shifting, I think the pitch shifting would bother me the least, all the other stuff just drives me nuts! 

Only tested it on a few games so cant say.

[RayB]

It depends on your PC's speed, version of MAME and the particular game.  V sync tells the screen renderer to "wait" until the monitor is ready to draw the next frame. If your PC is too slow, the next frame refresh on the monitor might have already started, which then means the renderer is waiting an extra frame. In this case, you're better off tolerating tearing, rather than losing frame rate. Just turn on frame rate (F11 ?) and judge for yourself.

OH and don't forget that various other things like special graphics filters, triple buffering, etc, etc adds to the processing, so if you want V sync, but lose frame rate, maybe try disabling some of those other extras first.

[nitz]

Hey thanks, good to know. When I tried this it was on my old PC which was slow, so that may have had something to do with it then. I'll play around with V sync on my new PC and see how that works for me.

[RayB]

On my 1ghz MAME box, I had to leave V sync off by default, as it affected frame rate of most side-scrollers.