Hi need help with my arcade monitor and groovy mame

[lodoss118]

Hi I have this arcade monitor http://www.giz10p.co.uk/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=309
here is some more info http://www.rodotron.com.tw/CH-M666A-29-Chassis.htm

Now the problem i am having is when i install the modified catalyst drivers it defaults to 16bit colour and if i select another
resolution with higher color it goes out of frequency.

Here are my pc specs

core 2 duo 2.8ghz quad
8gb ddr2
ati 4850 series 512mb


So i am not sure how to get this to work for my system, can anyone help?

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

What OS are you running?

Have you set up any of the information on your monitor in the VMMaker.ini? You'll need to run that to set up the display modes.

[lodoss118]

I have windows xp installed. I have not touched VMMaker? Not sure what i am supposed to do.
I thought i insatll the modified drivers then see what resolutions i can select in the list all display button

[Calamity]

I have windows xp installed. I have not touched VMMaker? Not sure what i am supposed to do.
I thought i insatll the modified drivers then see what resolutions i can select in the list all display button

Use provided Arcade_OSD app to test and select resolutions (not the Windows display dialog), it will pick 32 bits resolutions.

[lodoss118]

but why is it when i select 640x480 32 bit 60hz it goes out of sync?

[Calamity]

but why is it when i select 640x480 32 bit 60hz it goes out of sync?

Where are you selecting that?

[lodoss118]

in the display settings

[Calamity]

in the display settings

We don't know what the display settings dialog is picking internally, I never use that when working with arcade monitors. Better use Arcade_OSD, select 640x480@60i, check if it's highlighted, test it and apply it to the desktop if you like. If your monitor still gets out of sync then we'll see what's going on.

[lodoss118]

ok thanks will do that now

[lodoss118]

this is strange, so installed the crt drivers again restart it goes out of sync straight away. I then booted in vga mode, insatlled soft 15khz and now it works, i also now see all the resolutions, how do i remove ones that don't work?

[lodoss118]

when i ran any game in mame its always out of sync?

[Calamity]

Are you using a j-pac?

[lodoss118]

nope, i have a jav naomi cab

connected monitor straight the video card.

[Calamity]

Ok. Don't know exactly what's going wrong.

It's strange that default video modes installed by the driver don't work with your monitor - I see it's a multisync 15/24/31KHz so it should work fine with those modes - I assume the driver is properly installed. So did you test the modes with Arcade_OSD? All of them are out of sync?

You only have to test the ones marked as custom, which are the 15Khz ones. Modes marked as native are the default ones created by the driver which are 31KHz and above, so you shouldn't use that ones unless your possitive your monitor can handle them. No native modes can be deleted. On the other hand custom modes can be recalculated to fit your monitor, by means of the VMMaker app - edit vmaker.ini with your monitor type (you might try the D9800 preset for yours), run vmmaker, restart).

If this fixes the out of sync issue, then use the same monitor type inside mame.ini so GroovyMAME uses the right values for modeline generation. Pleas report your logs by doing this: groovymame toki -v -md 4 >toki.txt, there's vital info there about the possible source or the problem that we need to check.

If you still have your monitor out of sync after restarting, then it might be a sync polarity problem: these modelines have fixed negative sync. That problem might be fixed buy installing CCC and enabling composite sync. Use this CCC version:

https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.com/drivers/9-3_xp32-64_ccc_lang1.exe

[lodoss118]

i htink i nearly got it to work, how do i delete the custom modelines that don't work, which looks like quite alot lol.
Also where in the mame ini should i put d9800, i don;t see an obvious place?

[Calamity]

i htink i nearly got it to work, how do i delete the custom modelines that don't work, which looks like quite alot lol.
Also where in the mame ini should i put d9800, i don;t see an obvious place?

Hmm, it doesn't work like that... there shouldn't be "modelines that don't work" if your settings are right. Could you paste some examples of modelines that don't work? That will help us figure out your monitor specs.

Anyway you can't delete modelines with this version of VMMaker. That wasn't in the design as the task of calculating a proper mode list ready for GroovyMAME was something the user didn't need to mess with.

However I'm going to add a "delete modeline" option in next release as it's requested all the time. By now, you can use Winmodelines to manually delete those modelines.

In mame, use "monitor d9800" under the # CORE SWITCHRES OPTIONS.

[lodoss118]

Thanks Calm, I will today test all modelines and send u the debug log. I really appreciate your help

[lodoss118]

Hi calm, I have attached some tests i did in the ModelineTest log. Basically anything 16khz, 25khz, and 32khz works.

[Calamity]

Hi calm, I have attached some tests i did in the ModelineTest log. Basically anything 16khz, 25khz, and 32khz works.

Thanks for the logs! Curious monitor... it won't accept 15Khz but 16khz??

Try recalculating the modelines with VMMaker adding these lines to vmmaker.ini

   monitor_specs_0 = "16200-18000, 49.50-65.00, 2.000, 4.700, 8.000, 0.064, 0.160, 1.056, 0, 0, 288, 448"
   monitor_specs_1 = "25000-25800, 49.50-65.00, 2.910, 3.000, 4.440, 0.451, 0.164, 1.048, 0, 0, 480, 768"
   monitor_specs_2 = "31000-32200, 49.50-65.00, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.318, 0.064, 1.048, 0, 0, 576, 768"

... and set MonitorType = "CUSTOM"

Restart...

Then in mame.ini, add the same lines with this format

   monitor_specs_0   16200-18000, 49.50-65.00, 2.000, 4.700, 8.000, 0.064, 0.160, 1.056, 0, 0, 288, 448
   monitor_specs_1   25000-25800, 49.50-65.00, 2.910, 3.000, 4.440, 0.451, 0.164, 1.048, 0, 0, 480, 768
   monitor_specs_2   31000-32200, 49.50-65.00, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.318, 0.064, 1.048, 0, 0, 576, 768

and set "monitor cga"
(make sure to replace the default "modeline_specs auto" lines otherwise it won't work).

That should produce modelines that are between the ranges your monitor seem's to like.

[lodoss118]

Hi Calm, did what u said.

The resolutions seem to work now, but another problem i have that the games never stretch to the full screen? There are always borders when i run the games?

[Calamity]

Hi Calm, did what u said.

The resolutions seem to work now, but another problem i have that the games never stretch to the full screen? There are always borders when i run the games?

Borders above and below or left and righ?

[lodoss118]

left and right

so [B [] B]

B = border

[Calamity]

left and right

so [B [] B]

B = border

Good. That can be fixed.

Run Arcade_OSD, select one mode, go to Horizontal Geometry, and dynamically adjust H Front Porch and H Back Porch until the picture fits the screen. You might need to adjust H Sync Pulse too. When you're ready, write down the values and edit the ones here with them:

monitor_specs_0 = "16200-18000, 49.50-65.00, 2.000, 4.700, 8.000, 0.064, 0.160, 1.056, 0, 0, 288, 448"
... in this order H Front Porch, H Sync Pulse, H Back Porch

Now, do this for one 16 kHz mode, one 25 KHz, and one 31 KHz mode, as the values will be different for each range, and edit each of your monitor specs line with the corresponding values.

Edit both vmmaker.ini and mame.ini.