ArcadeVGA3000 Vs Soft 15KHz - What's your take?

[Hituro]

OK, so I own an ArcadeVga3000, and I do love all of Ultimarc's products, and I think Andy is genius.  However, Recently I was debating whether or not I should update my Video Card.  While I like the ArcadeVga for giving me authetic Arcade Quality resolutions, I'm limited on the games I can play.  So my question is, is there really a huge difference between Soft 15Khz and Ultimarc's ArcadeVGA3000?  Should I stick with my ArcadeVGA?  I am using a Wells Gardner D9800 arcade monitor, which I love to pieces :p  So I'm just curious what you guys suggest.  Since I value the opinions of my fellow arcade cab builders

[Paul Olson]

I had an original AVGA and liked it. Then when I upgraded my computer, I couldn't use it anymore. I used soft15KHz for quite a while, and also liked it just fine. The only real problem with it is the lack of Windows 7 support. I just bought a AVGA 3000 so I could upgrade.

That would be my main consideration. You would need to make sure the video card you buy is compatible with soft15KHz as well. I haven't been keeping up with it much lately, but I think there are quite a few cards that don't work correctly.

[bitbytebit]

I got an arcade vga 3000 card when I first got into this and also a d9800 monitor.  I wasn't happy with the inability to customize each resolutions refresh rate to the game, or use more exact resolutions that the d9800 could do.  Since that time, I've found ways to do this with a combination of Soft15khz and ATI cards in general.  The sad thing is this method Doesn't work with Arcade VGA cards because they are non-standard ATI cards with hacked video bios's in them.  So They are actually limited compared to other ATI cards, wish they would open up the API to control them the same as normal ATI cards to dynamically alter the refresh rates.  They do have a new utility, and it looks interesting, but  oddly seems to be a direct copy of what I and others have been working on for all other ATI cards.  So it's not really to me a plus unless they allow us to do what we've been able to do with normal ATI cards on the AVGA card too.  So I feel that you can buy an ATI card cheeper than any AVGA card, that has way more power, and use Soft15khz and get much more diverse resolutions with it.  Although of course they allow the API to be used by 3rd party software, then the cards will be a bit of an advantage just since they do have the BIOS show before booting into the OS.   To me it would be awesome for them to open that API up, and allow my switchres program to work with the cards like it does with every other ATI card.   Currently with my d9800 and any normal ATI card, with switchres Soft15khz plus some ATI drivers accepting more custom modelines from Calamity, I can perfectly match any games original resolution/refresh rate.  Something that AVGA could not do currently, and seems they are now attempting to do the same as what we've achieved, yet not an open API which I think would be the best to allow competition in software development on setting up the modelines on the cards.

[Hituro]

I got an arcade vga 3000 card when I first got into this and also a d9800 monitor.  I wasn't happy with the inability to customize each resolutions refresh rate to the game, or use more exact resolutions that the d9800 could do.  Since that time, I've found ways to do this with a combination of Soft15khz and ATI cards in general.  The sad thing is this method Doesn't work with Arcade VGA cards because they are non-standard ATI cards with hacked video bios's in them.  So They are actually limited compared to other ATI cards, wish they would open up the API to control them the same as normal ATI cards to dynamically alter the refresh rates.  They do have a new utility, and it looks interesting, but  oddly seems to be a direct copy of what I and others have been working on for all other ATI cards.  So it's not really to me a plus unless they allow us to do what we've been able to do with normal ATI cards on the AVGA card too.  So I feel that you can buy an ATI card cheeper than any AVGA card, that has way more power, and use Soft15khz and get much more diverse resolutions with it.  Although of course they allow the API to be used by 3rd party software, then the cards will be a bit of an advantage just since they do have the BIOS show before booting into the OS.   To me it would be awesome for them to open that API up, and allow my switchres program to work with the cards like it does with every other ATI card.   Currently with my d9800 and any normal ATI card, with switchres Soft15khz plus some ATI drivers accepting more custom modelines from Calamity, I can perfectly match any games original resolution/refresh rate.  Something that AVGA could not do currently, and seems they are now attempting to do the same as what we've achieved, yet not an open API which I think would be the best to allow competition in software development on setting up the modelines on the cards.

A lot of that kind of went over my head. lol.  Sorry I don't know a whole lot about the workings of video cards.  I'm assuming you're saying Soft 15Khz is better?  Also, which graphics card would you recommend?  and if I did go the soft 15Khz route, would I need a jpac?

[Epyx]

I wasn't happy with the inability to customize each resolutions refresh rate to the game, or use more exact resolutions that the d9800 could do

I have the same combo and have no problem with this?

[bitbytebit]

I got an arcade vga 3000 card when I first got into this and also a d9800 monitor.  I wasn't happy with the inability to customize each resolutions refresh rate to the game, or use more exact resolutions that the d9800 could do.  Since that time, I've found ways to do this with a combination of Soft15khz and ATI cards in general.  The sad thing is this method Doesn't work with Arcade VGA cards because they are non-standard ATI cards with hacked video bios's in them.  So They are actually limited compared to other ATI cards, wish they would open up the API to control them the same as normal ATI cards to dynamically alter the refresh rates.  They do have a new utility, and it looks interesting, but  oddly seems to be a direct copy of what I and others have been working on for all other ATI cards.  So it's not really to me a plus unless they allow us to do what we've been able to do with normal ATI cards on the AVGA card too.  So I feel that you can buy an ATI card cheeper than any AVGA card, that has way more power, and use Soft15khz and get much more diverse resolutions with it.  Although of course they allow the API to be used by 3rd party software, then the cards will be a bit of an advantage just since they do have the BIOS show before booting into the OS.   To me it would be awesome for them to open that API up, and allow my switchres program to work with the cards like it does with every other ATI card.   Currently with my d9800 and any normal ATI card, with switchres Soft15khz plus some ATI drivers accepting more custom modelines from Calamity, I can perfectly match any games original resolution/refresh rate.  Something that AVGA could not do currently, and seems they are now attempting to do the same as what we've achieved, yet not an open API which I think would be the best to allow competition in software development on setting up the modelines on the cards.

A lot of that kind of went over my head. lol.  Sorry I don't know a whole lot about the workings of video cards.  I'm assuming you're saying Soft 15Khz is better?  Also, which graphics card would you recommend?  and if I did go the soft 15Khz route, would I need a jpac?

Shouldn't need a Jpac with the d9800 and a radeon with Soft15khz.

It depends on first your system and video card, Soft15khz doesn't support all cards and must use XP 64/32 bit, but then again you can get a 40 dollar Radeon 4350 and use Soft15khz and you've only spent half the money.  Second it depends on the detail of emulation display output you desire, yes you can get close with games using an ArcadeVGA but you can get exact with games using Soft15khz and custom resolutions.  The ArcadeVGA card is more plug and play, the Soft15khz card requires some tinkering (although if you read posts, ArcadeVGA doesn't install easy for eveyone).  It just depends on those factors.  

Yes you can use a d9800 and get close with ArcadeVGA cards, although trust me on it not being anything compared to what I've seen with my radeon 4350 card and my d9800 using custom resolutions which are not possible on the ArcadeVGA.  I can do this in Linux or Windows, either through xrandr or Soft15khz, they are exactly the correct HxWxR and run without any tricks like triplebuffer or slight slowdowns in game speed, requiring different tricks to make it less noticable.  I'd say for a person just starting out, and not needing to use Windows 7 or Vista, the best plan is XP 64 or 32 bit and Soft15khz and a cheap Radeon 4350.  You just can't beat the price, the fact it's pretty much only going to be better in output because it can do way more custom resolutions (130+ with Calamity's patched ATI driver, which is the newest version).  So I don't know how an ArcadeVGA can beat that, 130 resolutions, all with fully customizable refresh rates, and a d9800, you'd match anything just about (and I do this in Linux right now and Calamity has done it in Windows).

I have an Arcade VGA 3000, and it'd be a great card if it let normal ATI drivers use it (since the irony is that if you buy an Arcade VGA, then you can't use Soft15khz, definitely a bummer to not be able to have both options), if it let me really custom program it with modelines I created myself, then it'd be definitely the way to go.  I'm hoping Andy will open the API someday so that'll be true, like the Arcade Perfect utility seems to be able to access it and do modelines, so would be awesome if that was possible for programs like my switchres to use it too.  Then I'd say it was the card to get, that is if the modelines are not restricted by HxW of the existing ones, I'm still not sure if that utility can change that part or if it's doing what we are doing in switchres and just changing the refresh rate of existing modelines.

[AndyWarne]

I got an arcade vga 3000 card when I first got into this and also a d9800 monitor.  I wasn't happy with the inability to customize each resolutions refresh rate to the game, or use more exact resolutions that the d9800 could do.  Since that time, I've found ways to do this with a combination of Soft15khz and ATI cards in general.  The sad thing is this method Doesn't work with Arcade VGA cards because they are non-standard ATI cards with hacked video bios's in them.  So They are actually limited compared to other ATI cards, wish they would open up the API to control them the same as normal ATI cards to dynamically alter the refresh rates.  They do have a new utility, and it looks interesting, but  oddly seems to be a direct copy of what I and others have been working on for all other ATI cards.  So it's not really to me a plus unless they allow us to do what we've been able to do with normal ATI cards on the AVGA card too.  So I feel that you can buy an ATI card cheeper than any AVGA card, that has way more power, and use Soft15khz and get much more diverse resolutions with it.  Although of course they allow the API to be used by 3rd party software, then the cards will be a bit of an advantage just since they do have the BIOS show before booting into the OS.   To me it would be awesome for them to open that API up, and allow my switchres program to work with the cards like it does with every other ATI card.   Currently with my d9800 and any normal ATI card, with switchres Soft15khz plus some ATI drivers accepting more custom modelines from Calamity, I can perfectly match any games original resolution/refresh rate.  Something that AVGA could not do currently, and seems they are now attempting to do the same as what we've achieved, yet not an open API which I think would be the best to allow competition in software development on setting up the modelines on the cards.

The ArcadeVGA card does not have a "hacked" BIOS, no hacking was involved in its development. In fact the BIOS was developed by ATI to our specs.
The new Arcadeperfect utility is not a copy of anything. In fact I was not even aware of the utility you mention. The question is, can it change vertical refresh and other timings on the fly with hotkeys?
It would be possible to create infinite resolutions using the Arcadeperfect utility but there is not really any point in doing this because tweaking existing has the same results.
I have not found any way of dynamically changing the size of the windows desktop but if there is one I could add this.
I could also produce a DLL which could be used to communicate directly with the card (the Arcadeperfect program bypasses the drivers) but not convinced it would be all that beneficial.

There is another issue which needs to be considered, the ArcadeVGA card allows a lower minimum pixel clock value than standard cards, which do not go low enough for most of the arcade resolutions.

[bitbytebit]

I got an arcade vga 3000 card when I first got into this and also a d9800 monitor.  I wasn't happy with the inability to customize each resolutions refresh rate to the game, or use more exact resolutions that the d9800 could do.  Since that time, I've found ways to do this with a combination of Soft15khz and ATI cards in general.  The sad thing is this method Doesn't work with Arcade VGA cards because they are non-standard ATI cards with hacked video bios's in them.  So They are actually limited compared to other ATI cards, wish they would open up the API to control them the same as normal ATI cards to dynamically alter the refresh rates.  They do have a new utility, and it looks interesting, but  oddly seems to be a direct copy of what I and others have been working on for all other ATI cards.  So it's not really to me a plus unless they allow us to do what we've been able to do with normal ATI cards on the AVGA card too.  So I feel that you can buy an ATI card cheeper than any AVGA card, that has way more power, and use Soft15khz and get much more diverse resolutions with it.  Although of course they allow the API to be used by 3rd party software, then the cards will be a bit of an advantage just since they do have the BIOS show before booting into the OS.   To me it would be awesome for them to open that API up, and allow my switchres program to work with the cards like it does with every other ATI card.   Currently with my d9800 and any normal ATI card, with switchres Soft15khz plus some ATI drivers accepting more custom modelines from Calamity, I can perfectly match any games original resolution/refresh rate.  Something that AVGA could not do currently, and seems they are now attempting to do the same as what we've achieved, yet not an open API which I think would be the best to allow competition in software development on setting up the modelines on the cards.

The ArcadeVGA card does not have a "hacked" BIOS, no hacking was involved in its development. In fact the BIOS was developed by ATI to our specs.
The new Arcadeperfect utility is not a copy of anything. In fact I was not even aware of the utility you mention. The question is, can it change vertical refresh and other timings on the fly with hotkeys?
It would be possible to create infinite resolutions using the Arcadeperfect utility but there is not really any point in doing this because tweaking existing has the same results.
I have not found any way of dynamically changing the size of the windows desktop but if there is one I could add this.
I could also produce a DLL which could be used to communicate directly with the card (the Arcadeperfect program bypasses the drivers) but not convinced it would be all that beneficial.

There is another issue which needs to be considered, the ArcadeVGA card allows a lower minimum pixel clock value than standard cards, which do not go low enough for most of the arcade resolutions.

Wow, that's really cool, I didn't realize that about it being developed by ATI, definitely a good selling point there.  I had the experience with it in Linux (using the newest DRM/KMS the AMD guy has been working on) of not even working, total blury text and out of range frequencies.  So from that, and asking him about it and him acting like the card couldn't be supported because it was an 'unofficial' bios, I got the idea it was no known by them.  

Off topic, but possibly if you had ATI help the employee they have doing Linux development, Alex Deucher, at least make the card work under Linux normally.  I'm guessing there's some setup for the ATOM bios they are missing, it's even missing the correct ID for it which I fixed in a patch I have but then it has other issues (just the AVGA 3000, older ones work decent in Linux).  Just to me with the test of running in Linux, it should act as a normal video card, although also this means in theory it'd be able to possibly take some advantage of the bios there too for Arcade purposes.

I like the minimum clock idea of the card, although general many older Nvidia and Radeon video cards can go down to 3Mhz that I've tested, but of course there's a few bad eggs and newer ones don't in the drivers it seems.  Also the AVGA has the different OS support and can really do 15khz at boot start.  So that's why the AVGA is very interesting to me, and this tool is the thing it was missing, I've just been wanting more control of it so this is good stuff seeing this utility come about.  The missing part of it is just that extra mile of being able to not use the utility, or if so have the utility take a full modeline (I need to look at the .rsi file format to see, do you have an example?  I don't have a Windows test box up right now to play with it. It might already be something I could create .rsi files and really push the full desired resolution/modeline into the card, seeing an example would help me know.).

Can you have a very large modeline table on the AVGA, how many modelines?, in testing we found that around 130 probably is a modeline table size that can fully push a d9800 monitor to completely match each game in mame (of course some a little off here and there).  So it's limited by HxW entries, and changes the timings of each of those predefined ones, or can it add more of them or change existing ones?  I figured the HxW entries are static, or can't be changed unless you would reboot, same as a normal Radeon cards registry custom resolution table.  Although you are saying it could produce infinite resolutions on the fly, so I'm guessing it basically should be able to do what we do with switchres and normal radeon drivers, but do it better with the AVGA .  So does it really need modeline tables at all then, guess I'm not fully understanding if there's a fixed table in the card it's working off of or the card can really be setup to output without the need to work off that table.

I think it'd be great to see a DLL to allow us to give it a shot at working with the card, might not seem like there'd be a benefit but you never know what people can produce when given the chance.  I think we can show that with this kind of control of the card, we should  be able to do the resolution tweaking on the fly itself and avoid any users having to mess with it too much at all.  A lot of the advantage is in the modeline calculation combined with the monitor specs, which for the most part there's just a handful of different monitor specs (like generic CGA, CGA that's a little higher freq slightly, EGA, d9800 that can continuously range between 15.25-38KHz) That's what we've done with switchres already, and so seeing this on an AVGA card would be interesting. I do think we can produce something that you'll find really useful from such an API/DLL.  

I guess to the key about the D9800 you must realize is it really can do full range of 15.25-38KHz, I talked to the Wells Gardner guy about it and he confirmed it's true and fine to do so, so we can really match any resolution with it and it can utilize many different modelines that are quite out of the 15.75KHz range to display vertical games on in horizontally and other things.  I can display pacman perfectlyk at 400x288 on it at 60.61Hz (and it's 18.9KHz), so we should be able to do that with the AVGA too using an API (can your tool do this currently, is this possible  to do in the future?).  

Here's an example, can we program a modeline of this type into the AVGA?  This is what the d9800 can do and make pacman look very nice...

# pacman 400x288@60.61 18.9091Khz
   ModeLine          "400x288x60.61" 10.286545 400 424 472 544 288 291 295 312 -HSync -VSync


There's a few tricky video timing settings in the ranges for it you must use for the front porch/backporch/sync pulses in each range inside of that 15-38KHz larger range, a user would have to do a lot of tweaking to get there and we can do this all automatically with calculations in switchres.  So that is a good example where we definitely could benefit, and also shows you the reason it's needed and it's already working currently so it's tested and looks good.

[AndyWarne]

# pacman 400x288@60.61 18.9091Khz
   ModeLine          "400x288x60.61" 10.286545 400 424 472 544 288 291 295 312 -HSync -VSync


There's a few tricky video timing settings in the ranges for it you must use for the front porch/backporch/sync pulses in each range inside of that 15-38KHz larger range, a user would have to do a lot of tweaking to get there and we can do this all automatically with calculations in switchres.  So that is a good example where we definitely could benefit, and also shows you the reason it's needed and it's already working currently so it's tested and looks good.

The Arcadeperfect utility will do this. All the user needs to do is run the game at the next largest res, then tweak as required using the hotkeys, then save. In fact in this particular case all he would need to do is use the utility to increase the vertical refresh rate from 50 to 60. The H refresh will of course increase because of this, to your 18 figure, which the D9800 is OK with.

The .rsl files do not contain all of the information needed for a modeline because the other info is already known. So they wont understand modeline info.

I dont know why the ArcadeVGA card will not work in Linux, there is no reason I can think of.

[bitbytebit]

# pacman 400x288@60.61 18.9091Khz
   ModeLine          "400x288x60.61" 10.286545 400 424 472 544 288 291 295 312 -HSync -VSync


There's a few tricky video timing settings in the ranges for it you must use for the front porch/backporch/sync pulses in each range inside of that 15-38KHz larger range, a user would have to do a lot of tweaking to get there and we can do this all automatically with calculations in switchres.  So that is a good example where we definitely could benefit, and also shows you the reason it's needed and it's already working currently so it's tested and looks good.

The Arcadeperfect utility will do this. All the user needs to do is run the game at the next largest res, then tweak as required using the hotkeys, then save. In fact in this particular case all he would need to do is use the utility to increase the vertical refresh rate from 50 to 60. The H refresh will of course increase because of this, to your 18 figure, which the D9800 is OK with.

The .rsl files do not contain all of the information needed for a modeline because the other info is already known. So they wont understand modeline info.

I dont know why the ArcadeVGA card will not work in Linux, there is no reason I can think of.

Sounds great then, definitely interesting that it'll do that just using a larger resolution.  I'll have to play around with it eventually and work in some support for using it in switchres.  It of course would be neat to be able to directory do things in switchres, since executing programs from other applications in Windows is always a headache :-).  I'm glad that this utility is available and hope to see it improve, and of course it'd be great to possibly be able to eventually use the same methods it uses in my switchres application to basically make decisions for the user and choose automagically the settings to pass to a tool like that or to the AVGA card ports/DLL API layer.  

The second issue is that it does with the older depreciated user level X windows drivers, but since AMD hired Alex Duecher to specifically work on the Linux kernel ATI support they've moved all that into the kernel directly to work with the ATI Atom BIOS in the 'correct' way.  That is the part that seems to do really odd things with getting the vertical frequency totally wrong, while the VGA port is totally unusable and the DVI port works on boot  up but gets weird when using any 15khz type mode (which normal ATI cards can handle fine there).  So I am guessing it's something they are doing wrong when working with the chip on the card and expecting registers or something to contain values they don't.  Not sure, it's strange and I really think it should work too, kind of mind boggling and of course bothers me because I wish I could use mine in Linux because the normal ATI cards work fine and I'd like the bios boot actually and as you say the card probably can handle lower dotclocks technically better because it was meant for that.

It'd be neat if ATI/AMD would have Alex do something to fix it, since they developed that firmware for you they should be able to support it in Linux and maybe it's just an oversight of a card they didn't think about supporting there in the newer kernel code.  It definitely would help you out too I could see, since then it's not any detraction to at least be able to use the card in Linux, right now it basically is a dead fish in the water when you boot Linux with KMS support and that doesn't seem like a good thing for anybody.

[Epyx]

Can someone throw up a link for the arcadeperfect utility? Thanks!

[Gray_Area]

Can someone throw up a link for the arcadeperfect utility? Thanks!

It's on the Main page. Look for Andy as topic starter, and you'll find it.

[markronz]

While I like the ArcadeVga for giving me authetic Arcade Quality resolutions, I'm limited on the games I can play.

What did you mean by this?   I will soon be working on an arcade machine that has a real arcade monitor in it.  I was going to get an ArcadeVGA3000 to do this.   I plan to emulate MAME, NES, SNES, Genesis, Gameboy and Atari 2600.   I just wanted to know if I will have any problems emulating these different systems using the ArcadeVGA3000.  So could you clarify what you mean exactly that you are limited on the games you can play please?

[Hituro]

While I like the ArcadeVga for giving me authetic Arcade Quality resolutions, I'm limited on the games I can play.

What did you mean by this?   I will soon be working on an arcade machine that has a real arcade monitor in it.  I was going to get an ArcadeVGA3000 to do this.   I plan to emulate MAME, NES, SNES, Genesis, Gameboy and Atari 2600.   I just wanted to know if I will have any problems emulating these different systems using the ArcadeVGA3000.  So could you clarify what you mean exactly that you are limited on the games you can play please?

Oh, with old games you'll be completely fine no worries.  I was referring to newer games   For example, I can run House of the Dead 3, but it runs a bit choppy in parts.  And I know if House of the Dead 4 ever comes to PC, I will never be able to run it with that card.  I was simply just referring to a lot of the newer arcade/PC games.  All the old stuff plays great!  So no worries It's just after getting things working, I decided I want to put MORE on my cab :p

[markronz]

Ok, great!  Thanks!

[Dragonman73]

what benefits will the arcadevga card have over a traditional card when used with a CRT or LCD computer monitor? If any?

Thanks

[robertsig]

what benefits will the arcadevga card have over a traditional card when used with a CRT or LCD computer monitor? If any?

I'd like to know this too.  I currently use MAME on XP with a CRT monitor but wanted to know how easy it would be to use a ArcadeVGA in conjunction with it to enable native resolutions.

[bitbytebit]

what benefits will the arcadevga card have over a traditional card when used with a CRT or LCD computer monitor? If any?

I'd like to know this too.  I currently use MAME on XP with a CRT monitor but wanted to know how easy it would be to use a ArcadeVGA in conjunction with it to enable native resolutions.

Normal computer monitor, LCD or CRT?  There's really nothing your going to benefit from that, should just buy a normal ATI Radeon 5-6xxx card and also get a lot more powerful GPU on the card plus the ability to use the latest ATI CCC drivers too. 

[clutch]

Normal computer monitor, LCD or CRT?  There's really nothing your going to benefit from that, should just buy a normal ATI Radeon 5-6xxx card and also get a lot more powerful GPU on the card plus the ability to use the latest ATI CCC drivers too. 

Correct me if I am wrong, but the GPU on the card won't have any benefit for MAME, right?

[bitbytebit]

Normal computer monitor, LCD or CRT?  There's really nothing your going to benefit from that, should just buy a normal ATI Radeon 5-6xxx card and also get a lot more powerful GPU on the card plus the ability to use the latest ATI CCC drivers too. 

Correct me if I am wrong, but the GPU on the card won't have any benefit for MAME, right?

They do a little bit of GPU usage in mame, but not a ton, but yet you have to realize that an arcade VGA card can't output of the VGA port anything but 15khz and also can't use normal modern ATI drivers for video output on either output port.  So if your not using an Arcarde monitor, then just get a normal ATI card because there's really not any advantage because your monitor can't even do arcade resolutions anyways and an AVGA card is really tuned and meant for arcade resolutions.

[AndyWarne]

you have to realize that an arcade VGA card can't output of the VGA port anything but 15khz and also can't use normal modern ATI drivers for video output on either output port.  So if your not using an Arcarde monitor, then just get a normal ATI card because there's really not any advantage because your monitor can't even do arcade resolutions anyways and an AVGA card is really tuned and meant for arcade resolutions.

This is not correct, the ArcadeVGA sends 31Khz via the VGA port for resolutions above 288 lines if you configure it for a tri-sync monitor. It can also output native arcade resolutions to a standard PC monitor via the DVI port using doublescan without any configuration. The drivers are "modern".
Andy

[clutch]

A lot of good info coming out of this.  I'm hoping the AVGA will solve my display headaches once and for all.  BTW, Andy, any ideas on having both 15 & 31 jumpered on the JPAC causing a split screen?  I posted in the monitor section, but so far no comments.

[bitbytebit]

you have to realize that an arcade VGA card can't output of the VGA port anything but 15khz and also can't use normal modern ATI drivers for video output on either output port.  So if your not using an Arcarde monitor, then just get a normal ATI card because there's really not any advantage because your monitor can't even do arcade resolutions anyways and an AVGA card is really tuned and meant for arcade resolutions.

This is not correct, the ArcadeVGA sends 31Khz via the VGA port for resolutions above 288 lines if you configure it for a tri-sync monitor. It can also output native arcade resolutions to a standard PC monitor via the DVI port using doublescan without any configuration. The drivers are "modern".
Andy

I'm sure it can, but is it really what you'd recommend to a person with a normal LCD monitor compared to much more powerful and cheaper ATI/Nvidia cards.  Normal ATI drivers technically can do all this stuff and normal ATI cards for an LCD monitor too.  I just thought it was aimed at arcade monitors, didn't realize it was doing anything special for an LCD one compared to what the other cards and drivers do.  I thought it was tuned for lower dotclocks and booted in 15khz mode on the VGA port, which for monitor resolutions that would work on an LCD, even in doublescan mode which all the other drivers/cards can do, it really doesn't matter.  Some modern LCD screens can't go down to 31.5 khz, so that won't work for my monitor I just bought actually, it goes down to 51khz.  Plus the widescreen factor, that also requires a different resolution or else things will not look correct if you use a normal arcade resolution width for it.

[clutch]

Got my ArcadeVGA in and it kicks all manner of bootie.  I'm attempting to get by the auto-censor and should be beaten after I re-read the rules--.  Once you figure it out and know what it can and cannot do, you won't regret buying one.  For me personally, it has been a progression.  Mame on the LCD monitor - cool.  Mame on a real arcade monitor - very cool.  Mame on a real arcade monitor running through the AVGA - awesome!  

[Brenry]

it.

Man.  If there was a pdf that had 300 tested freqencies to pluck in for all of D9800 I would pay for that XD

I dont use soft15khz ... Nvidia has allowed people to add custom lines for years now and I just put them in manually on my gtx9800 and gtx480 systems not using line doubling.  But I only have around 30 plugged in.  How old of cards are you talking about ?  9800 is like 2-3 years old?  I know on my gtx480 i can only go down to 17.9hz but i get my 288 and 240 resolutions

Do you get irritating flickering doing 50hz pal modes for Amiga and c64 modes on your Wells d9800 ?

[bitbytebit]

it.

Man.  If there was a pdf that had 300 tested freqencies to pluck in for all of D9800 I would pay for that XD

I dont use soft15khz ... Nvidia has allowed people to add custom lines for years now and I just put them in manually on my gtx9800 and gtx480 systems not using line doubling.  But I only have around 30 plugged in.  How old of cards are you talking about ?  9800 is like 2-3 years old?  I know on my gtx480 i can only go down to 17.9hz but i get my 288 and 240 resolutions

Do you get irritating flickering doing 50hz pal modes for Amiga and c64 modes on your Wells d9800 ?

Here's what I use...

[JoeB]

For the Linux users in the crowd,

Ati (AMD) support in Linux in general is horrible.  If you use Linux as a day to day system (as a lot of my employees do) then the only choice you have is nVidia.  For both companies, they didn't open source their Linux drivers (you must use their close source drivers) and nVidia does a much better job at updating their closed source drivers. I have employees that hold on to older laptops just because they have nVidia GPUs rather than update to newer core7 laptops just because they have AMD!!

If they have poor support in Linux, what hope do we have with getting good 15khz Linux support from AMD? (in the IT company I work, people have the choice of what OS they run, and a lot format the windows XP HD images, and install Linux, much easier to do hard core C++ and Java development in Eclipse)

As a manger, I live in excel and have windows7, and support from AMD is top notch in their drivers on this platform.

[bitbytebit]

For the Linux users in the crowd,

Ati (AMD) support in Linux in general is horrible.  If you use Linux as a day to day system (as a lot of my employees do) then the only choice you have is nVidia.  For both companies, they didn't open source their Linux drivers (you must use their close source drivers) and nVidia does a much better job at updating their closed source drivers. I have employees that hold on to older laptops just because they have nVidia GPUs rather than update to newer core7 laptops just because they have AMD!!

If they have poor support in Linux, what hope do we have with getting good 15khz Linux support from AMD? (in the IT company I work, people have the choice of what OS they run, and a lot format the windows XP HD images, and install Linux, much easier to do hard core C++ and Java development in Eclipse)

As a manger, I live in excel and have windows7, and support from AMD is top notch in their drivers on this platform.

ATI support is open and being done currently by Alex Duecher who is an AMD employee specifically working on the Linux drivers.  It's been just the last few months that it's gotten to be really nice working, so that's why it's not well known.  He's gotten all the newest cards working pretty much and old ones.  I have patches to the Linux kernel and a LiveCD/Install supporting 15khz with AMD/ATI cards, completely works with vsync and page flipping support now.  So yeah if you use a normal Linux distribution then no they aren't up to date and the DRM/KMS/Linux frame buffer stuff is not 15khz there.  Also the setup of it all to work with 15khz is rather complicated, hence why I have basically built a complete install based on Gentoo but easy to use from a LiveCD, so I've done all the work for people.  Hopefully in the future all the distributions eventually will contain the newest kernel DRM/ATI drivers from ATI, but for now my setup has it all put together for you.

Some news, since then they've actually gotten the support in the Linux kernel for some of the chips they are talking about. 
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ODk4OQ

[Zebra]

I wanted to add some info to this old thread.

I just changed over to a windows XP (32 bit) machine with soft 15khz plus Radeon HD4890. I was using a windows 7 machine with an Arcade vga 5000 card previously.

I couldn't live with the limitations of the arcade vga card which I bought because playing old games at native resolutions is important to me. The arcade perfect utility mentioned in this thread is no longer supported so you are stuck with a fixed list of resolutions that the arcade vga card is hard-coded with.

You can find a resolution that is close to the original in most cases but there are a large number where you can't use an accurate native resolution. A lot of important games (like most of the capcom classics) use 384 x 224 but on the arcade vga, you have to use either 392 x 240 or 368 x 240, for example.

You are also limited to exactly 60hz for most resolutions even though many arcade games vary slightly. A slightly innacurate refresh rate means screen tearing. You can use tripple buffering in mame to stop this but it seems to cut frames and add lag.

The advantages are meant to be that an avga is "plug in and play", it outputs 15khz before windows loads and it works with Windows 7.

I actually found that soft 15khz was a little easier to install than my arcade vga card which has temperamental drivers. I can believe than it was designed by AMD / ATI. All of their products are temperamental. Soft 15khz installed first time with one click. It took 6 attempts and a few tricks to install the arcadevga drivers.

My arcade vga does output 15khz before windows loads but not with any usable image. It won't damage my monitor but I can't read the bios screen on my motherboard.

For windows 7 users, CRT EMU drivers work with radeon HD 4000 series cards and older, so an arcadevga is not the only option. I had trouble using CRT EMU drivers with my HD4890 but others have made it work with the same setup so I know I'm doing something wrong.

The key point is that crt emu and soft 15khz makes games look and play better. The difference looks small on paper but I can see a noticable improvement in how it looks on screen. Games like Final Fight and Street Fighter 2 look slightly pixelated on my screen at 392 x 240 (on avga) but they look like how I remember the arcade version when I use 384 x 224.

At first I thought that I was just getting a softer image than I had with the avga but it actually looks more vibrant. The jagged edges I was seeing (with avga) were not a result of a clearer image, just artifacts from non-native resolutions.

I use powerstrip (a free download) to add custom resolutions with soft 15khz. It is very quick and fairly easy.

I use a tri-sync arcade monitor. My avga only has one EGA and one VGA resolution. 400 line games like Narc had the bottom of the screen cut off and model 2 games like Sega Ralley looked terrible. I can make perfect resolutions and refresh rates for all of these now.

My Radeon hd4890 can output component video directly so it can be used on a US crt tv directly without an adapter. This has no benefit for me with my arcade monitor but a lot of people use old tv's as monitors. A vga to component adapter is an extra $50-$80.

[bulbousbeard]

Neither. CRTEmuDriver + GroovyMAME.

[AndyWarne]

The key point is that crt emu and soft 15khz makes games look and play better. The difference looks small on paper but I can see a noticable improvement in how it looks on screen. Games like Final Fight and Street Fighter 2 look slightly pixelated on my screen at 392 x 240 (on avga) but they look like how I remember the arcade version when I use 384 x 224.

This is strange because there should be no noticeable difference. If you run a game with a native resolution of 384 x 224 on a base resolution of 392 x 240 the game pixels should still be 100% 1:1 mapped and look identical to original. The difference is small borders at the sides which would only be 4 pixels each side so not noticeable. There would also be top/bottom borders but you would get these anyway when running a 224 line resolution if the screen height is adjusted for 240 lines.
The only way it would look different would be if Mame were trying to stretch the game resolution onto the screen resolution, which it should not do, if configured correctly.
On the current ArcadeVGA card, utilities such as Powerstrip should work fine.

[Zebra]

The difference between 384 x 224 and 392 x 240 is noticable to me on games that I am familiar with (I.e. where I remember what they should look like).

You can stretch the screen to make it fill the width (using the pots on the monitor) but it doesn't look exactly the same. It looks slightly squashed. This is more noticable in some games than others.

Even small changes can make a noticable difference with arcade games. The frame rate, in particular, is important to how the graphics look. If you select the 384 x 288 mode on the arcade vga for street fighter 2 and then stretch the image to fill the screen (on the monitor, not hardware stretch), you will notice a much softer image due to the reduced framerate. You don't want that there.

On the other hand, Double Dragon has a 57hz refresh rate at 256 x 240. The only 256 x 240 option on the arcade vga is 60hz. The result, while it sounds like a small difference, looks pixelated. It doesn't look like you are playing at native res on a crt at all.

There are a number of games that don't have an acceptable mode on the arcade vga. I think that a patch to allow the user to add or change modelines would make the arcade vga much easier to live with. If the problem was only with a few obscure titles that nobody ever played, then I probably wouldn't have noticed but we are talking about issues with major classics. There are some games where you literally have to put up with losing part of the screen because there is no suitable mode.

Currently, the best options is crt emu with groovy mame as it gives users what they want. It allows native res and refresh from a handful of modes. It sounds far better than having to choose a mode that is close but always a little bit different. You have to assume that people who still use bulky CRT's these days, are probably going to care about authenticity.

I have the arcade vga 5000 which I believe is the current model. I was unable to add new modelines with it, even with powerstrip. Are you saying that there is a way to modify the modes?

[Minwah]

Even small changes can make a noticable difference with arcade games. The frame rate, in particular, is important to how the graphics look. If you select the 384 x 288 mode on the arcade vga for street fighter 2 and then stretch the image to fill the screen (on the monitor, not hardware stretch), you will notice a much softer image due to the reduced framerate. You don't want that there.

On the other hand, Double Dragon has a 57hz refresh rate at 256 x 240. The only 256 x 240 option on the arcade vga is 60hz. The result, while it sounds like a small difference, looks pixelated. It doesn't look like you are playing at native res on a crt at all.

I might be misunderstanding what you're saying but I don't see how refresh rate affects the image - ie being 'softer' or 'pixelated'. A different refresh rate of the video card vs emulated system may affect how the game runs (cause stuttering or tearing), but should not affect the image quality.

[MushiMaster]

OK this thread has left me very confused!

I Was about to order an arcadeVGA for plug and play, The current 5000 model is more than enough for any games i want to play and i don't mind the extra cost for the plug and play, however im concerned about not getting native resolutions.

The main plus for me with the arcadeVGA is dual monitors is the fact that i can could the arcadeVGA to my RGB SCART CRT TV and at the same time still use my normal pc monitor for my usual web browsing etc.

Isit possible to have a dual monitor set up with CRT_EmuDriver, an arcade monitor and normal pc lcd at the same time?

[Xiaou2]

Even small changes can make a noticable difference with arcade games. The frame rate, in particular, is important to how the graphics look. If you select the 384 x 288 mode on the arcade vga for street fighter 2 and then stretch the image to fill the screen (on the monitor, not hardware stretch), you will notice a much softer image due to the reduced framerate. You don't want that there.

On the other hand, Double Dragon has a 57hz refresh rate at 256 x 240. The only 256 x 240 option on the arcade vga is 60hz. The result, while it sounds like a small difference, looks pixelated. It doesn't look like you are playing at native res on a crt at all.

I might be misunderstanding what you're saying but I don't see how refresh rate affects the image - ie being 'softer' or 'pixelated'. A different refresh rate of the video card vs emulated system may affect how the game runs (cause stuttering or tearing), but should not affect the image quality.

 If I were to theorize...  Remember that arcade CRTs are Phosphor based.     Its easiest to understand this from the point of a Vector monitor...  For example, in Asteroids... the bullets you shoot are WAY brighter than anything in the game.   This is part due to the fact that they are drawn more often and this excites the area far more.   It takes time for the excitation to die down... and so you see things like glow and trails... as well as a fading effect.    A typical Arcade CRT acts similar, just not as exaggerated as a Vector CRT.   The excitation causes a certain brightness level..  as well as probably different color values due to this.

 If excitation causes the phosphor light to spill over the shadowmask gridlines... you can get the typical bleeding that causes nice color blending, and also reduces jagged edges.   There are Arcade art pixel effects which are timed and spaced specifically.. to take advantage of this... such as certain games which make it appear there are translucent shadows.. by spacing black pixels every other or so apart from each other.  You cant see the actual dotted pattern of black pixels on an Arcade Crt... only the translucent shadow effect.   Yet on a modern LCD or PC monitor... its too clean.. and you see that dot pattern instead.   Other effects like specially timed flickering for bullets and explosions, and or fast moving blur effects...  may also look incorrect when the proper timing isnt used.

 Even the very monitor itself can be a factor...  as not all arcade monitors are made the same.  Older arcade monitors have larger dot pitch. (larger shadowmask holes, with the non hole screen lines being thicker and more visible) The image displayed on them will always look different than on a monitor that uses a smaller dot pitch... no matter what you do.   Additionally, the very colors may be different as a result too... because the colors you see are partly based on looking through that screen-door shadowmask.  Larger mask holes, mean larger and brighter phosphor Triad groups, and thus possibly greater light spiling over the mask.. bleeding into other areas.

 Anyways.. there is a lot more going on then people realize.   Its bad enough to have improper refresh for the games cycle accuracy... let alone the visual degradation.

[jmcginley]

This has been really helpful! Thank you Zebra for the information. I have a Wells Gardner monitor from an old Gauntlet cabinet (model WGM2792-U0TS30A) .

Here are all the stats I could find online.

Size : 27"
Resolution : CGA-SVGA, 15.5 kHz-38.5 kHz
Frame Type : Universal (U0)

With this monitor, would a CRT EmuDriver with a radeon HD 4000 series card and GroovyMAME be the best option?

I just want to be able to play games so they'll feel natural. I'm not concerned about it being EXACTLY like the original, just enough to where a normal person couldn't tell the difference. Not sped up with black bars on top and bottom or any screen tearing, etc.

Thanks again for all the help! I've been stuck trying to figure all this out for weeks!

[Dawgz Rule]

I have a cabinet with an ArcadeVGA 3000 and it works great.  My build in progress is with soft 15khz and it also works great.  I went soft 15khz on my most recent build only because the motherboard I was using just didn't seem to like the ArcadeVGA 3000.   Just couldn't get the drivers to work.

[Paradroid]

With this monitor, would a CRT EmuDriver with a radeon HD 4000 series card and GroovyMAME be the best option?

Yes, definitely the best option.

[jtslade]

What are you all using to protect the arcade crt at pc boot? Atom15? Jpac??


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Dawgz Rule]

For the second build, nothing.  It is a Sony TV.