Main > Linux
32/64bit Groovy Arcade Linux LiveCD/Install
Calamity:
--- Quote from: ufoufo512 on March 20, 2011, 12:27:29 pm ---As far as I can tell the output for games looks like output with Advancemame when the video card was pressed to too low pixelclock value. So it might well be a problem with my video card.
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I've long been interested in knowing if the issue with low dotclocks that affects some ATI families (the X series, the HD3000 ones, etc.) was hardware related or just a software/driver thing. It's interesting than since HD4000 they don't have that problem anymore.
At some point, it could be interesting to add this "dotclockmin" feature I've been testing with VMMaker. So if the calculated dotclock of a given modeline turns out to be below some minimum value, say 7.00 MHz, then we'll double the horizontal resolution and recalculate the modeline (so 256x224 would become 512x224). Mame makes a great job scaling the game with no artifacts when the resolution is an integer multiple of the requested one, so the result is indistinguishable. This could be a good workaround for these rebel ATI models.
ufoufo512:
--- Quote from: Calamity on March 20, 2011, 02:17:28 pm ---
At some point, it could be interesting to add this "dotclockmin" feature I've been testing with VMMaker. So if the calculated dotclock of a given modeline turns out to be below some minimum value, say 7.00 MHz, then we'll double the horizontal resolution and recalculate the modeline (so 256x224 would become 512x224). Mame makes a great job scaling the game with no artifacts when the resolution is an integer multiple of the requested one, so the result is indistinguishable. This could be a good workaround for these rebel ATI models.
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Horizontal scaling by x2 would be a very good feature to have. I will get a ATI Radeon 9200 SE soon though. I found a spare hard drive yesterday evening and played some more with the software. Some observations:
* Can anyone recommend a (cheap) WLAN card that "just works" ;D ? I tried 3 yesterday (2 PCI and 1 USB). One of them didn't get recognized at all and two others ended up with error messages when I did select them (RTNETLINK or something). I wasn't planning to network the cab, because I didn't have before, but now that it is possible, it would be great thing to have. Components are so crammed in the cab that remote maintanance would be great.
* I think I might get bluetooth (or other wireless) keyboard and mouse also for MESS and general configuration. Are there any compatibility issues I should know about?
* The image with Linux booting messages, the configuration menu and for Advmenu are too wide for my monitor. (I am using Wells Gardner K7000). There is no control for the image width in the monitor chassis, is it possible to adjust it in the software.
* I had quite a customized Advancemenu configuration before with the Advancemame. Mostly for the key mapping. I am planning to use it for the Groovy Arcade Linux also. Are there any settings that I shouldn't change on the default supplied configuration?
* With Advancemame DOS I used to shut down the cab by turning of the power from the cab, which in turn turned off the power from the computer. With DOS this was OK, I guess with Linux it isn't?
bitbytebit:
--- Quote from: ufoufo512 on March 21, 2011, 05:14:36 am ---
--- Quote from: Calamity on March 20, 2011, 02:17:28 pm ---
At some point, it could be interesting to add this "dotclockmin" feature I've been testing with VMMaker. So if the calculated dotclock of a given modeline turns out to be below some minimum value, say 7.00 MHz, then we'll double the horizontal resolution and recalculate the modeline (so 256x224 would become 512x224). Mame makes a great job scaling the game with no artifacts when the resolution is an integer multiple of the requested one, so the result is indistinguishable. This could be a good workaround for these rebel ATI models.
--- End quote ---
Horizontal scaling by x2 would be a very good feature to have. I will get a ATI Radeon 9200 SE soon though. I found a spare hard drive yesterday evening and played some more with the software. Some observations:
* Can anyone recommend a (cheap) WLAN card that "just works" ;D ? I tried 3 yesterday (2 PCI and 1 USB). One of them didn't get recognized at all and two others ended up with error messages when I did select them (RTNETLINK or something). I wasn't planning to network the cab, because I didn't have before, but now that it is possible, it would be great thing to have. Components are so crammed in the cab that remote maintanance would be great.
* I think I might get bluetooth (or other wireless) keyboard and mouse also for MESS and general configuration. Are there any compatibility issues I should know about?
* The image with Linux booting messages, the configuration menu and for Advmenu are too wide for my monitor. (I am using Wells Gardner K7000). There is no control for the image width in the monitor chassis, is it possible to adjust it in the software.
* I had quite a customized Advancemenu configuration before with the Advancemame. Mostly for the key mapping. I am planning to use it for the Groovy Arcade Linux also. Are there any settings that I shouldn't change on the default supplied configuration?
* With Advancemame DOS I used to shut down the cab by turning of the power from the cab, which in turn turned off the power from the computer. With DOS this was OK, I guess with Linux it isn't?
--- End quote ---
Here's one database of compatible linux hardware, there are quite a few, just google for it and you should somewhat find information. http://www.linuxcompatible.org/compatdb/lists/hardware_linux.html Usually they just work, some don't but are usually cheaper ones or no names. The 3com ones usually work, intel ones.
Blue tooth should be fine, it should work in theory out of the box if supported by Linux, I have blue tooth on mine to talk to a wii remote.
That's strange about the monitor, I didn't expect it to not fit but I'm guessing that's one of those issues with certain arcade monitors. Calamity might have more ideas on that, but I've been somewhat trying to keep the menus as small as possible in width, seems that's more important than I had thought. So your monitor is horizontal, doing 640x480 interlaced, I 19" or smaller? I just thought that would always work, very strange, but again Calamity probably has more insight into why and the technical ways possibly to adjust that. I will need to think about that more.
Well mostly the advanced menu setup should just move over, there might be a few little changes to specify how the setup is but I'd try yours and then if doesn't work possibly do a `diff -ru old.config new.config` and see what that shows, that should give an idea hopefully what is different. I think it'll be fine, but I'm not sure, or another way would be to go through your config, pick the things you know you changed and tweaked, and copy them to the new config and go from there.
Nope, you will not want to turn off Linux, although it is much more bullet proof than Windows with this, I mean you probably won't damage the system and most likely it'll always just take a long time to boot doing a disk repair since it is journaled and the system generally will not even lose data doing that. Yet you don't want to, it is very risky, just not as risky as say turning off an XP system every day like that :). Now you could, in theory with Linux, (and maybe Windows I guess) setup the off switch to trigger the reset button and have the reset button setup to send a ACPI signal to start an automatic shutdown of the system. It can do that, I am not sure how I have the stuff setup but it's probably more possible in Linux than anywhere else to have the system respond to a power switch event (or a relay signal to some kind of input/usb device/sensor) to run shutdown. I'm sure this hasn't been explored before for Arcade systems and Linux, but I would guess we have a much more chance with a Linux system to wire into the on/off switch somehow to trigger the system to shutdown nice and cleanly every time.
ufoufo512:
Thanks for the answers. I think I have enough info to go forward.
I think the monitor is 19", I am not sure. I haven't measured it and the manual for it I have, is a generic for all sizes for this monitor. It is actually rotatable, but with width I mean the larger dimension in this case.
Edit 1:
Here is the service manual for the manual:
http://www.dosmame.mameworld.info/data/_uploaded/image/dos.other.wg-k7000.pdf
And, yes I think the display modes I have seen are interlaced. Probably 640 x 480 as you said.
Edit 2: The service manual talks about both horizontal and vertical size adjustments are possible, but I don't have similar controls on my model. Strange...
dmarcum99:
you guys are sure making it hard not to give this a try on linux now!!!
How would I go about setting this up for a hard drive install? I have a empty 500GB HD that I could move my roms and snaps to if need be.
I burned the CD (1.515 64bit) and was able to get the packed in games to work...just wasn't smart enough to figure out how to get it to see my NTFS drive where my roms and snaps have been for my XP setup. I wasn't able to figure out how to get it to boot from the HD either...I thought I had it, but everytime I rebooted to the 500GB HD it stalled.