Arcadevga and Mortal Kombat II Monitor

[leapinlew]

I recently purchased a Mortal Kombat II with a 25" monitor and a ArcadeVGA 2400 PCIe card. I've done the following:

• Downloaded the drivers at: http://www.ultimarc.com/avgadrivers.html for Windows XP. There were no previous drivers installed.
• Plugged the monitor into the VGA port and booted up the computer. Once booted into windows the screen has a flicker and reading any text is difficult. Windows says it found new hardware and I cancel out of the found new hardware menu and install the setup from the ArcadeVGA file
• ArcadeVGA drivers install fine and after a reboot I have the galaga icon to change resolutions

The flicker is still there at 640x480 and 800x600. If I change the resolution to 1024x768, the windows desktop is so large it will not display properly on the screen.
At any resolution the text is very difficult to read in Mala
About 2 inches on the Right and Left side of the monitor are not displayed. It's like black bars on the sides. Using the adjustments, it won't fill in that area. Top and bottom is fine.

So what am I doing wrong? I just recently started on this and I'm fairly new to arcade monitors. The flicker looks like a hertz issue, but I am unable to change the hertz from 59.

[Nephasth]

Could you post a video of the flicker?

[RandyT]

The flicker is still there at 640x480 and 800x600. If I change the resolution to 1024x768, the windows desktop is so large it will not display properly on the screen.
At any resolution the text is very difficult to read in Mala
About 2 inches on the Right and Left side of the monitor are not displayed. It's like black bars on the sides. Using the adjustments, it won't fill in that area. Top and bottom is fine.

So what am I doing wrong? I just recently started on this and I'm fairly new to arcade monitors. The flicker looks like a hertz issue, but I am unable to change the hertz from 59.

You probably aren't doing anything wrong.  The flicker you are seeing is likely interlace flicker.  MKII uses a standard 15kz monitor, which means that in order to get resolutions above 320x240, it needs to use interlace.  The card you are using may have an interlace flicker reduction feature, but even so, this tends to muddy things up.  Small text is just not easy to read on standard res monitors, but you may be able to improve it a little by tweaking the focus control a bit.  Also, set your colors to something that is contrasty, but not too much.  A very dark grey background with very light grey text, for example, helps readability by cutting down the "bloom" you might experience with bright text. 

The 1024x768 resolution may be using "panning".  If you can move the screen around with your mouse, then it's "panning" and mostly useless.  Honestly, I have never seen any standard-res monitor which could be used at resolutions above 800x600, and even that would be pushing it.  Usually 720x480 is the highest usable resolution, except when using technology which "approximates" the image (upscalers, etc).

The odd thing, if I understand you correctly, are the black bars on the side. Is this experienced with every resolution?  Have you ever had this monitor up and running properly on a gameboard?  You should be able to adjust these away with the horizontal size control.  If you can't, then there may be an issue with the monitor.

RandyT

[MonMotha]

Anything above ~288 lines on that monitor is going to be interlaced.  Interlace causes flicker.  Even worse, at 800x600, the refresh rate is only going to be about 50Hz.  This will flicker quite badly (it's like European TV - high res but flickery).  The sharp, thin lines common to PC graphics can make the issue quite apparent where the smoother lines of photo-realistic images found on e.g. TV can serve to hide it.

1024x768 is well outside the capabilities of the monitor, even interlaced, and so it is going to have to be a "virtual" desktop size, and you pan the viewport (which is probably 800x600 or 640x480) to view part of the screen at a time.

This is just the way these old arcade monitors are.  They're not nearly as high res as people want for normal desktop usage, but they look beautiful when displaying the low resolution arcade games they were originally designed for: way better than a crisp, sharp PC CRT does.

That said, someone was just mentioning something about 640x480 being inordinately flickery (even more so that should be expected) on the ArcadeVGA 3000.  Apparently Andy has a driver update that makes it somewhat better.  It may apply to your model, as well.  You might want to contact him and ask about this.

[Malenko]

change the res to 320x240 and tell me if the flicker is there

[leapinlew]

I see.

What about the black bars on the right and left of the monitor? Is the image supposed to fill out the entire monitor, or is it normal to have 1.5" bars on the right and left?

change the res to 320x240 and tell me if the flicker is there

No flicker! So I suppose everything is working properly? Nothing to see here?

What resolution should I run this monitor at? Is 800x600 ok or should I keep it at 640x480?

[RandyT]

What about the black bars on the right and left of the monitor? Is the image supposed to fill out the entire monitor, or is it normal to have 1.5" bars on the right and left?

The odd thing, if I understand you correctly, are the black bars on the side. Is this experienced with every resolution?  Have you ever had this monitor up and running properly on a gameboard?  You should be able to adjust these away with the horizontal size control.  If you can't, then there may be an issue with the monitor.

What resolution should I run this monitor at? Is 800x600 ok or should I keep it at 640x480?

That, or 720x480 would be best, if offered.

[MonMotha]

That, or 720x480 would be best, if offered.

720x480 would be non-square pixels (so things will look a bit squished horizontally), though it would let you cram a little more onto the screen.  The reports I've heard also indicate that the AVGA's flicker is reduced in this resolution compared to 640x480 for reasons not strictly related to the actual resolution.

I'd not recommend 800x600 if flicker/eye strain is a concern.  640x480 would probably be the most "correct" resolution for this monitor above 320x240, but 720x480 is not appreciably different aside from the things noted above.

[kalars123]

Andy over and ultrimarc and I have talked at length about this with this specific monitor, what you need to do is adjust your screen size H pos,V pos,V size, for 640x480 then all your other resolutions will be more or less correct "up to .5 black bar's on top or sides of picture", at 640x480 you MAY get some over-scan at the top or bottom of the screen you can use the 50/60z pot on the monitor main board to adjust it out, be careful it is very sensitive and just a little bit will do you.

As others have said the flickering is from interlacing, there is no way to get rid of it for some people it's not bad for others instant migraine it just depends on the person i run my desktop and FE at 320x240 and it's crystal clear and if i need to make any adjustment's then i pop it up to 640x480, the only time the resolution bother's me is in street fighter 4, I'm trying to find a way to lock that game to a certain resolution but so far it always play's at whatever my desktop resolution is.

[leapinlew]

Andy over and ultrimarc and I have talked at length about this with this specific monitor, what you need to do is adjust your screen size H pos,V pos,V size, for 640x480 then all your other resolutions will be more or less correct "up to .5 black bar's on top or sides of picture", at 640x480 you MAY get some over-scan at the top or bottom of the screen you can use the 50/60z pot on the monitor main board to adjust it out, be careful it is very sensitive and just a little bit will do you.

As others have said the flickering is from interlacing, there is no way to get rid of it for some people it's not bad for others instant migraine it just depends on the person i run my desktop and FE at 320x240 and it's crystal clear and if i need to make any adjustment's then i pop it up to 640x480, the only time the resolution bother's me is in street fighter 4, I'm trying to find a way to lock that game to a certain resolution but so far it always play's at whatever my desktop resolution is.

Thanks...

I can adjust the vertical by adjusting 2 different knobs. 1 of the knobs allows me to stretch the image and the other knob allows me to recenter the image. But for horizontal, I only can recenter the image and both the left and right portions of the monitors with black bars are unaccessible. Is there another horizontal knob somewhere which will allow me to stretch the horizontal size of the image to fill out the complete monitor?

As for resolution, I don't think I have a skin that is 320x240 so I'm going to try 640x480. I tried the 320x240 resolution that Malenko suggested and it works great. I will finish configuring Mame and see how it does. I appreciate everyones suggestion and help.

[kalars123]

does the entire screen fill up horizontally with a real game board hooked up? if not there could be something wrong with your monitor, if not then it's a refresh setting someplace most likely or a driver problem, one solution is to use andy's arcade perfect utility. Also to the best of my knowledge i don't think there is a H size control on our monitor's at least none that i have found, maybe someone that know abit more about the WGk7k series could say yes or no for sure

[AndyWarne]

On most arcade monitors all the ArcadeVGA resolutions should fill the screen pretty closely. There definitely should not be 1.5in bars left/right.
If its not possible to adjust the H Size to eliminate the bars, there might be some other issue with the monitor. If the B+ voltage is too high for some reason this can cause this issue.

Andy