GroovyMame for arcade monitors version 0.146u4_013f

[gabe]

Games look awesome, however I have found a couple oddities. Most notably, if multithreading is enabled, many games run at break-neck speed; unplayably fast. I'm not sure what the common thread is here, but it spans several different drivers. I'm not too concerned about it, however I find it interesting as multithreading worked fine using a vanilla install of sdlmame.

I am also experiencing this issue.  The game I'm testing all this on it UMK3.  However, I noticed that when you press the tab key to bring up the options, the game returns to normal speed.  Press Tab again and it's breakneck speed again.

Set:

multithreading 0
syncrefresh 0

or

multithreading 1
syncrefresh 1

As for settings - this review links to a service manual for your monitor:
http://retroblast.arcadecontrols.com/files/KT-XX14X-SM.pdf

I don't have time to look closely at the moment, but hopefully there will be enough information there to setup a custom monitor_specs line in mame.ini formatted as follows:

Code: [Select]

HfreqMin-HfreqMax,VfreqMin-VfreqMax,HfrontPorch,HsyncPulse,HbackPorch,VfrontPorch,VsyncPulse,VbackPorch,HorPolarity,VerPolarity,ActiveLinesLimit,VirtualLinesLimit
Example (from my config):

Code: [Select]

monitor_specs0            15100.00-16800.00,47.00-63.00,2.187,4.688,6.719,0.190,0.191,1.018,0,0,288,448
EDIT: I should mention that it is possible to damage your display by editing these settings - so be very sure, and very careful before you start plugging in strange numbers.

[dmarcum99]

Games look awesome, however I have found a couple oddities. Most notably, if multithreading is enabled, many games run at break-neck speed; unplayably fast. I'm not sure what the common thread is here, but it spans several different drivers. I'm not too concerned about it, however I find it interesting as multithreading worked fine using a vanilla install of sdlmame.

I am also experiencing this issue.  The game I'm testing all this on it UMK3.  However, I noticed that when you press the tab key to bring up the options, the game returns to normal speed.  Press Tab again and it's breakneck speed again.

Is this the same type of issue that I was experiencing with Wayne Gretksty 3D Hockey & Mace...?  They ran at 200-400% until I tabbed the menu screen...then it backed down to 100%.  It never was resolved so I wrote these two games off...

[jimmy2x2x]

Have you tried toggling throttle on/off?

[Calamity]

Games look awesome, however I have found a couple oddities. Most notably, if multithreading is enabled, many games run at break-neck speed; unplayably fast. I'm not sure what the common thread is here, but it spans several different drivers. I'm not too concerned about it, however I find it interesting as multithreading worked fine using a vanilla install of sdlmame.

I am also experiencing this issue.  The game I'm testing all this on it UMK3.  However, I noticed that when you press the tab key to bring up the options, the game returns to normal speed.  Press Tab again and it's breakneck speed again.

As a quick fix, try enabling -triplebuffer, that should make the games run at normal speed.

Anyway that's not the solution. I really need to know if that issue happened before with GroovyMame v0.142 or has been introduced with the new patch present in v.0143.

It's likely that ddraw acceleration is not enabled in your system. Unlike vanilla Mame, GroovyMame relies absolutely in the vsync feature of your video card to properly achieve correct timing, so if the vsync feature is missing (ddraw acceleration disabled), it will result in the emulator running full speed.

Run dxdiag, screen tab, and check if ddraw acceleration is enabled.

[Calamity]

Is this the same type of issue that I was experiencing with Wayne Gretksty 3D Hockey & Mace...?  They ran at 200-400% until I tabbed the menu screen...then it backed down to 100%.  It never was resolved so I wrote these two games off...

That should be a different issue, as the one you are referring affects the Linux version if I'm right, and only to these games that share the same driver and resolution (640x480@57). Unfortunately they are chd games which I don't have here to test, however I'll try to get them, thanks for reminding that.

[Gray_Area]

Make sure you donate too.  I encourage anyone who is using GroovyMAME and/or the custom ATI drivers to donate.

I donated and don't even use it.

[esaelectrionics]

hi,
im currently using advance mame for Dos and also a later hacked version of vsync mame,
just wondering ,would this groovymame be nearly as good for getting the right resolutions
and smoothness?,im v.happy with what ive got but there is always room for improvement.

[bitbytebit]

hi,
im currently using advance mame for Dos and also a later hacked version of vsync mame,
just wondering ,would this groovymame be nearly as good for getting the right resolutions
and smoothness?,im v.happy with what ive got but there is always room for improvement.

Could try the ISO liveCD to see, and from that choose if it's worth it and if to use Windows or Linux.  The liveCD should give a quick view of if things are going to be acceptable or not, then from there Windows is close to the same and Linux installs are a duplicate in how it'll look.

[esaelectrionics]

cheers,ive been watching these threads about this project for a while,
i was thinking sooner or later a better way of dealing with mame resolutions must
come!, there are some really nice front ends and things under windows too,
so i will have to try when i get some time.

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

Can GroovyMame be used on an Nvidia card?? I know it wont be able to do the generated resolutions, but want to use it for the timing and screen tearing tweaks that is uses??

I would suggest that if this discussion goes anywhere, it should be branched into its own thread.

[caskad]

Hello,

thx for this, i can't use groovymame on WIn7 (and i know why), but hyperspin launch fine with soft CRT driver AND soft 15khz (not without)!

Don't know why but advmame run fine too ^^ (pretty impressive since vgawin doesn't like soft 15khz)

i don't like Xp, so, any version for win7 coming soon??

Really want to test GM, even if i 've calculate my modelines


Thx for your hard work !!

sorry for my english

cheers from France

[Calamity]

Hi,

Hello,

thx for this, i can't use groovymame on WIn7 (and i know why), but hyperspin launch fine with soft CRT driver AND soft 15khz (not without)!

If you run Soft-15Khz over CRT_Emudriver it will install its own list of video modes, around a total of 30 I believe, so that's why HS works, because the list is much shorter. Keep in mind that CRT_Emudriver is just a slightly hacked Catalyst driver in order to allow more than 100 video modes, so if you're only going to use 30 then you'd better stick to regular Catalyst drivers (GroovyMAME will still work, although not that cool).

Don't know why but advmame run fine too ^^ (pretty impressive since vgawin doesn't like soft 15khz)

i don't like Xp, so, any version for win7 coming soon??

Really want to test GM, even if i 've calculate my modelines


Thx for your hard work !!

sorry for my english

cheers from France

Even if not posting much lately I'm still actively researching the video mode subject in case there's room for any breakthrough. However, I'm still focusing on WinXP and ATI cards. The reason is practical: there's a limitation in the platforms I can test simultaneously. In order to get consistent results, the tests need to be painstaking. It's even a nightmare to support four versions of the same thing (XP 32/64, 6.5/9.3).

We need to understand that operating systems and their video drivers are not designed to allow what we are doing here. Even if our desire would be to support all cards and operating systems, that gets really difficult to achieve for a project like this. Win7 is not appealing a priori because it sets even more restrictions than WinXP. However, this is an open source project so anyone could research on that system and eventually add support for it.

[caskad]

If you run Soft-15Khz over CRT_Emudriver it will install its own list of video modes, around a total of 30 I believe, so that's why HS works, because the list is much shorter. Keep in mind that CRT_Emudriver is just a slightly hacked Catalyst driver in order to allow more than 100 video modes, so if you're only going to use 30 then you'd better stick to regular Catalyst drivers (GroovyMAME will still work, although not that cool).

ok, thanks for this explanation but arcade os give me 162 modeline and HS word

anyway If i could help, i will do, but im just a noob in code

merci !

[Calamity]

ok, thanks for this explanation but arcade os give me 162 modeline and HS word

That's interesting. So you used a custom modeline list for Soft-15khz?

[caskad]

Hello,

Yeah, create my custom list for my monitor, calculate and try with modeline soft under winxp. Hyperspin doesn't lauch under Xp but work on win7 with your driver and soft15khz.

cheers

[Calamity]

Hello,

Yeah, create my custom list for my monitor, calculate and try with modeline soft under winxp. Hyperspin doesn't lauch under Xp but work on win7 with your driver and soft15khz.

cheers

Are you using CRT_Emudriver with Win7???!!!! Please tell me more, which version? does it even install there?
How many modelines are you using for your custom modeline list?

[caskad]

hello,

Are you using CRT_Emudriver with Win7???!!!! Please tell me more, which version? does it even install there?

i just install the driver (force it, not recognized with setup.exe 9.3X 32 bits).

How many modelines are you using for your custom modeline list?

will tell you later work for now.

cheers

update Arcade OSD:

54 modelines for my personnal usermodes soft 15 khz:

crt drivers : 202 modelines (arcade OSD) hyperspin failed
crt drivers + soft 15 khz (54 modelines) :  total 142 modelines (arcade OSD) hyperspin OK

modelines generates with Vmmaker (a lot) + usermodes (personnal) + crt drivers: total 162 modelines hyperspin works

used modeline for custom freq eg double dragon @ 57 khz

[dmarcum99]

Can you detail what you did to force win7 to accept Calamiy's driver?  I'm using the linux groovymame, but I have another pc just begging to be put to good use.

Which driver were you using.  ver 6.XX or ver 9.XX  ??

[caskad]

Can you detail what you did to force win7 to accept Calamiy's driver?  I'm using the linux groovymame, but I have another pc just begging to be put to good use.

Which driver were you using.  ver 6.XX or ver 9.XX  ??

9.xx for hd4350, device manager, upgrade driver and point the *.inf

[lettuce]

An idea what monitor i should select in the mame.ini file for my Pentranic 29" Multi-sync monitor?? These are the only spec i could find in the pdf manual...




Or though it states 800x600 it actually does 1024x768

[lettuce]

Just done a fresh install of windows xp on my mame cab. And have installed groovyMame and installed the 9.3 custom drivers for my 4 series ATI card. But i dont appear to be getting scanlines on the games, for instance when loading Aliens, dos reports that switchres is stating the game as 288x224@60.00 but my monitor reports its displaying 640x480. Do i need to change anything in the default created mame.ini file??

EDIT: Sorted now need to run VMmaker.exe

[lettuce]

Is there a work around yet to get the CRT_EmuDriver 9.3 xp 32bit drivers to work with HyperSpin??

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

They do work with Hyperspin, just at a lower limit of mode lines.

Edit VMMaker to limit the lines to somewhere around 90; run, reboot, launch HS. If it works, bump it up by 10. Keep going until HS fails to load, then back it down until it works. I'm not sure if it's been pinned down why there is a variable number of lines that HS will work with under various configurations.

[krick]

I'm not sure if it's been pinned down why there is a variable number of lines that HS will work with under various configurations.

Hyperspin uses a product called SWF Studio from Northcode, Inc. ( http://www.northcode.com/ ).

SWF Studio takes an Adobe Flash SWF file and turns it into a Windows executable by wrapping it in a Flash runtime environment.  The environment has hooks that you can use to allow your SWF to interact with the outside world including graphics, sound, and interface controls.

My understanding is that there is a problem where the SWF Studio flash runtime crashes when enumerating resolutions when the number is too high.  I don't know if this issue has been reported to Northcode as the Hyperspin folks are fairly tight-lipped regarding their development.

I wish that I had the time and/or resources to develop some test cases to help nail down this bug for Northcode.  My gut feeling as a software developer is that this is some sort of overflow issue.  Possibly they didn't allocate a large enough array to hold the list of resolutions or something along those lines.

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

Right, but why would different numbers overflow on various systems? That was more my point than "we don't know why it crashes".

Has anyone contacted Northcode and just asked "Hey, got an app crashing when there's lots of resolutions. Think its the compiler or the end program?"

[Calamity]

I wish that I had the time and/or resources to develop some test cases to help nail down this bug for Northcode.  My gut feeling as a software developer is that this is some sort of overflow issue.  Possibly they didn't allocate a large enough array to hold the list of resolutions or something along those lines.

I'm almost sure that's the issue indeed, because after spending some time debugging HS I found that when the crash happens the EnumDisplaySettings API address is still shown in the stack, so it seems it crashes right after that function is called. The problem is, as you say, that the bug might probably be located in some external library they're using. So if a fixed array is used, it's likely to be overflowed as the number of video modes more than doubles the ones you'll expect to find in a normal system.

I uploaded somewhere in this thread a possible workaround, a modified version of VMMaker that allows to only create 32 bit modes, so this shortens the list quite a lot a probably help in some cases. I don't know if someone else than cotmm68030 actually tested it. I'll repost it within the next days in a separate thread.

Probably, the reason why different number of modes work in different systems is that the actual total number of modes changes depending on your setup, so even if we always add 120 custom modes, the driver will add some native modes, and depending on the monitor's edid some of them will be added or not.

The driver has a built in mechanism to allow the user restrict some modes, but due to the nature of the patch, in version 9.3 I needed to disable that feature, that's why we can't restrict those unneeded modes.

There is a way I'd like to explore at some point, it's to create a custom edid to override the one in the monitor, that would be an alternate way to tell the driver which modes we don't want.

At the moment, I'm concentrating in finding a way to enable custom resolutions on the fly, without rebooting. This would solve all the problems once and forever, as we wouldn't need to store a precalculated mode list any more. The probabilities of success are scarce, but anyway... I've dropped a message on the AMD board, in case there's someone on the other side:

http://forums.amd.com/devforum/messageview.cfm?catid=347&threadid=153032&enterthread=y

AMD drivers have an API called ADL that allows enabling custom resolutions on the fly, indeed, since Catalyst 9.3. We have some problems however:

- Available headers (2.0 and 3.0) don't seem to work with old Catalyst 9.3
- Even if they worked, this API rejects anything below 640x480

[krick]

I'm almost sure that's the issue indeed, because after spending some time debugging HS I found that when the crash happens the EnumDisplaySettings API address is still shown in the stack, so it seems it crashes right after that function is called. The problem is, as you say, that the bug might probably be located in some external library they're using. So if a fixed array is used, it's likely to be overflowed as the number of video modes more than doubles the ones you'll expect to find in a normal system.

EnumDisplaySettings is part of the Windows API...
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd162611%28v=VS.85%29.aspx

The SWF Studio runtime "wrapper" does all the interaction with the underlying operating system, so I'm fairly certain that's where the bug lies.

What I'm not sure of is whether the bug still exists in the latest version of SWF Studio.  For all I know, this bug may have been reported and fixed a long time ago, but still after the latest version of Hyperspin.

I uploaded somewhere in this thread a possible workaround, a modified version of VMMaker that allows to only create 32 bit modes, so this shortens the list quite a lot a probably help in some cases. I don't know if someone else than cotmm68030 actually tested it. I'll repost it within the next days in a separate thread.

I'll have to check that out.

[Calamity]

Some bugs fixed, I've attached a diff...

- Fixed this issue:

- TO DO: fix the changeres patch for the case of a vertical game displayed on horizontal monitor which changes resolutions (i.e. aerofgts). The issue here is that after a resolution change the display size obtained by the changeres patch is already rotated, say 240 x 320, but as the stored game info says it's a vertical game, the resolution is rotated again in the modeline generator producing a chopped display.

- Fixed an existing bug when using multiple monitor_specs lines, now all of them are actually used.

- Fixed possible bug in the m2929 monitor definition.

[Calamity]

I've opened a new thread for reporting problematic games in GroovyMAME:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=113382.0

Please use that one so the bugs you find are not forgotten and can be addressed at some point. I remind krick reported Gauntlet Legends and possibly some others.

[bitbytebit]

Some bugs fixed, I've attached a diff...

- Fixed this issue:

- TO DO: fix the changeres patch for the case of a vertical game displayed on horizontal monitor which changes resolutions (i.e. aerofgts). The issue here is that after a resolution change the display size obtained by the changeres patch is already rotated, say 240 x 320, but as the stored game info says it's a vertical game, the resolution is rotated again in the modeline generator producing a chopped display.

- Fixed an existing bug when using multiple monitor_specs lines, now all of them are actually used.

- Fixed possible bug in the m2929 monitor definition.

Thanks, I've updated the git repository and patch with these changes, binaries will be up shortly. 

[Calamity]

I've attached a patch that should fix the Gauntlet Legends issue. It just forces to refresh the video options (hwstretch, etc.) right after new modeline is calculated. I think the same thing should be done on the Linux side.

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

What's the d2929 issue?

[bitbytebit]

What's the d2929 issue?

Bug in way I added the definition, so it wasn't being setup for the most part.

[Higgs79]

Hi guys

Groovymame really is an awesome piece of work.

Please could someone help me out with monitor settings for a Hantarex Polo?

The service manual doesn't give a lot away.

Many thanks

[krick]

Please could someone help me out with monitor settings for a Hantarex Polo?

I'm running a Hantarex Polo 25.  It's a standard 15KHz arcade monitor so the default GroovyMAME settings work great.

The only thing I usually enable that isn't enabled by default is the "SoundSync" option.

[Higgs79]

Thank you for your reply krick  

Would I need to set the MonitorType in VMMaker.ini to GENERIC? or do I not need to run VMMaker at all?

Also I'm getting lots of screen tearing even after enabling SoundSync.  I do not get this tearing in CabMame143.  Perhaps this is because I set SyncRefresh and Multithreading to 0 due to having the issue where games run too fast.  Any ideas?

P.S I'm new here, so thank you for being so welcoming.

[krick]

Would I need to set the MonitorType in VMMaker.ini to GENERIC? or do I not need to run VMMaker at all?

Also I'm getting lots of screen tearing even after enabling SoundSync.  I do not get this tearing in CabMame143.  Perhaps this is because I set SyncRefresh and Multithreading to 0 due to having the issue where games run too fast.  Any ideas?

I have never run VMMaker.   I've run GroovyMAME two ways...

1) ArcadeVGA 3000 + Ultimarc drivers

2) Generic ATI card + CRT_EmuDriver

Both work great with GroovyMAME.  In fact, option #2 is a little better in terms of accuracy, but it is not compatible with Hyperspin FE due to too many resolutions.  So I'm sticking with my ArcadeVGA for now.

You should rename your old mame.ini file and create a clean, new one by running...

GroovyMAME -cc

...from the command line in your MAME directory.

As long as your games run full screen, GroovyMAME should sync to the monitor refresh rate and prevent the games from running too fast.

[Calamity]

Thank you for your reply krick  

Would I need to set the MonitorType in VMMaker.ini to GENERIC? or do I not need to run VMMaker at all?

Also I'm getting lots of screen tearing even after enabling SoundSync.  I do not get this tearing in CabMame143.  Perhaps this is because I set SyncRefresh and Multithreading to 0 due to having the issue where games run too fast.  Any ideas?

P.S I'm new here, so thank you for being so welcoming.

Hi Higgs79,

The settings for Hantarex MTC 9110 (H9110) might more or less be fine for you. Select that MonitorType, run VMMaker and reboot.

The soundsync option can't be causing any screen tearing by itself. Make sure the directdraw acceleration is enabled (run dxdiag, check screen tab). If its disabled, that's the cause of all the other issues: you need to reinstall the drivers until directdraw acceleration works (use catunistaller, etc.). You may need to repeat the process several times.

[krick]

The settings for Hantarex MTC 9110 (H9110) might more or less be fine for you. Select that MonitorType, run VMMaker and reboot.

Calamity,  

I'm confused.  Why does he need to run VMMaker at all?

When I was using a generic ATI card with my Hantarex Polo 25, I just installed your custom ATI drivers and ran GroovyMAME with the default settings and it worked great for the games that I tried.  I never ran VMMaker.  Should I have?

[Calamity]

Well, that's not really necessary, just convenient. If you use the default settings, generic CGA monitor timings are used, that means you are constrained to a narrower hfreq range around 15.7 kHz, what is fine for most games.

However, if you are possitive your monitor supports a wider range of hfreq then it's worth setting GroovyMAME so that it makes use of that extra horizontal frequency available. This is highly useful for running vertical games on horizontal monitor closer to their native vfreq.

For instance, 1942 won't run at 60 Hz with CGA settings. 256 are too many lines, it will only reach 58 Hz or so. However, if you use the H9110 settings, that game will be rendered at 16.6 kHz hfreq, so it will run at exact 60 Hz.

Anyway this can be selected from mame.ini, so why running VMMaker?

The reason is that the optimal video mode list is monitor dependent. In Windows, GroovyMAME can't create video modes on the fly, it (unfortunately) needs to rely on the list of modes available on the system. If we change the monitor type settings, GroovyMAME will be expecting a somewhat different mode list.

Although it can work just fine with the existing one most of the time (as well as using a fixed table as with the AVGA3000), it's a good idea to recalculate the mode list. This is specially true for "virtualized" resolutions.

Virtualized resolutions (interlaced + stretched) are used by vertical games which number of lines exceeds our monitor's capabilities. We need as much vertical resolution as our monitor can give us, so those resolutions are chosen by VMMaker/GroovyMAME depending on our monitor's definition.

Games like twincobr or donpachi, look incredibly better when using the H9110 settings on a monitor that supports that, than with the default settings, although you'd probably need to adjust your vertical amplitude potenciometer to get all the lines into the screen.