Groovy Arcade Linux Live-CD, based on Arch Linux (official update)

[dmarcum99]

Hi all!

I'm using the last GM linux version before Ves took control of the Linux side.

I'm using a WGD9200 and having trouble with vector games...(blank screen)..would upgrading fix the issues?
Will I see any other benefits upgrading to the new iso?
Is there an easy way to upgrade?
It took forever to get advmenu to get my sounds and config all sorted out(gave up on WAHCade).  Will the upgrade force me to redo everything (file/directory structure) since it's on ARCH and my version I'm currently using GENTOO?

[ves]

Hello dmarcum99, groovyarcade can update without erasing the partition HOME, which normally keeps the settings, and so you can use your old preferences mame.ini advmenu.rc etc..

[dmarcum99]

I saved my advmenu files off line in case something wrong turned out...I had issues and decided to start over. 
The new install went OK,but my files I want to move over are on another Windows PC on my network.  With earlier version I used, I had an interface and could move files back and forth.  On the new setup, I can see my cab from the windows PC on the network, but don't have permission to move/edit files.

How do I get permission so I can move my advmenu settings and 89gigs of roms?

[ves]

Hello, can you prove this?

chmod 777 * /home/arcade/
chmod 777 .* /home/arcade/

chmod 777 * /home/roms/
chmod 777 .* /home/roms/

[dmarcum99]

I'll have to locate another hard drive to check your request.  My whole intent was to update the system as I was getting ready to hand this cabinet over to my friend.  Now he has to wait a while until I can get it back to the previous state.

For the time being, I had to ditch the arch-linux version of the live-cd.  I believe my hardware is messing with your build and I couldn't figure it out.  I have pretty standard equipment, nothing dodgy in the least.  I had a long weekend, and after 48 hours of non-stop re-intalls and tweaking, I could not get a reliable setup.  This was after replacing the power supply, video card, and RAM.   

1)The pre-configured modelines for my D9200 would not function correctly.  Many of the games that came packed with the distro would display at 36khz horiz freq.  Victory was one that stood out right now in particular.  I could select the D9800 setting, and the native res's would kick in, but my D9200 only goes to 640X480, so I was leary to leave it that way.  I tried using all the setting at the boot-up (DVI1 15khz, VGA1 15KHZ...except the PAL setup....but all the way through the buggy motherboard settings.  Only a couple of games played in the native rez.  On top of that, they all played too fast.  an F11 would report 300-400% game speeds.

2)On a new install, it would reboot into the front-end, but after I rebooted after that, I would get one of three scenarios A)On reboot, my monitor would report a "NO SIGNAL" on it's OSD and hang  B)It would come up to the boot animation screen, and a large portion of screen corruption would be in the lower left corner of the screen....I could see what looked to be a progress bar, but would hang at what looked around the 70% area.  3)I would get a "OUT OF RANGE" on it's OSD but suddenly a screen would appear that looked like a dump screen.  It would freeze here and do nothing else.

3)When the front-end was up and running, all my fans were running at full blast...it was loud.  So I went into LXD, and discovered my CPU was running at 90% at...I had 2 processes, chewing up 80% of the processor.

None of this happened on the Gentoo distro...not that it didn't have quirks as well.  I had trouble getting some vector games to work...getting an out of range error on the OSD.  I was hoping your distro with the new groovymame builds would help the issues.

This is not an attempt to try to flame your work.  I'm sharing my experience so maybe it might lead to a bug discovery or something.  I am so thankful you and Calamity are working on the groovymame builds and improving them constantly.  If I had different hardware, it might be a different story.  On either live-CD, I have tried 4 different ATI 9200-9250's that I cannot get to run on an AMD motherboard.  I can use the videocards, if I run an intel processor, but not on my AMD setup.
Wells Gardner D9200 arcade monitor
AMD Phenom II 840
4gb ddr2800
Gigabyte mobo with AMD on-board ATI4200 graphics(disabled and also tried to use without success)
HIS ATI 4670 1GB (fanless)
420watt PSU

[mamenewb100]

3)When the front-end was up and running, all my fans were running at full blast...it was loud.  So I went into LXD, and discovered my CPU was running at 90% at...I had 2 processes, chewing up 80% of the processor.

I have the same thing. Except 2 processes using 100% of the processor in LXDE. Each using an even 50%. I'm assuming one out of the two cores. Strange.

[Calamity]

Hi dmarcum99

Sorry to hear that! I'm rather sure that your hardware is OK. Thanks for your report as it will help fixing things. I recommend to test the iso installing it in a pendrive before installing it to the harddrive.

I've been trying the latests isos and here and there I needed some manual adjustments to get things going.

As for your issues:

1) I think this has to do with your previous configuration, if you just copied it. You were using an old version and some options have changed, now -throttle needs to be on to get speed right, and the monitor_specs format may have changed slightly. If you copy here your monitor_specs I might adapt them to the new version.

2) I have no idea of this one.

3) That's the background tasks for the wiimote, for some reason they eat all the cpu cycles, I needed to kill them permanently (Ves told me how to do this, I need to find it). This has been reported already, hopefully it can get fixed.

As for the vector games, they have the same problem with current versions, please wait until I can fix that. The good thing about the new iso is that it allows you to keep GM updated without the need of upgrading the whole installation.

[Ansa89]

Just a communication for linux users: here you can find the 15KHz patches for linux 3.5.

[dmarcum99]

Would I have any issues just copying the current groovymame linux binary while using bitbytebit's old iso?

[Ansa89]

Maybe or maybe not.
It depends on which version of libraries are been used to compile the new groovymame and which version of these libraries are on your installation.

My suggest: just try it out (backupping the old executable) .

[Calamity]

Hi dmarcum99,

I'm with Ansa89, it's a matter of trying. Just make sure to generate a new mame.ini for the version you're using (groovymame -cc).

As for the problems you found, I talked with Ves about this and indeed there is a bug in the kernel version that live cd is based on, that only affects some hardware configurations, and produces the problems you explained. This has been fixed recently.

The wiimote daemons using all CPU cycles is another issue that seems to have been fixed.

So hopefully next release of the live cd will have all these issues sorted out, paired with new options in the menu that will make it easier to have everything setup without the need to type a line.

Thanks for your tests!

[dmarcum99]

I will try to update gm on my machine...my buddies build is almost done so I am leaving this one alone...just need some advice if possible.

I've tracked down my vector game issues...some are trying to use a vert refresh rate too low for the d9200.  I made ini's for the games to run at double the refresh rate,(star wars -640x480x32@80.00) but now obviously they play too fast.  What do I need to include in the .ini files to get the game back to speed?  I tried "throttle 1" without success and "triplebuffer 1" without success.  Keep in mind I'm using bitbytebits final gm linux distro.....

Thanks!

[Calamity]

Hi dmarcum99,

The -triplebuffer option is Windows only. What you need is to use the -redraw option, (i.e. -redraw 2). That will make all frames to be drawn twice, and still be synced to your double vertical retrace.

[mamenewb100]

I think I have the same problems Dmarcum is having on my other computer build that I want to use in my cabinet. GA runs fine on the live-CD but after I install it to the hard disk, Sync Refresh will not work and speed is way too fast. If I disable sync refresh then the speed is fine but scrolling is ugly.

 
UPDATE: For some weird reason if I set syncrefresh to 0 and reboot Linux, it doesn't have boot problems and the games run at right speed with smooth scrolling. If I reboot with syncrefresh on, then it goes back to messed up speed and scrolling. Interesting Bug that I thought was worth mentioning.

Just to help you guys on the future build, my motherboard is a Gigabyte EP35C-DS3R. Using a Core 2 Duo processor. I have a trackball issue on both PCs during games but it works fine on the Desktop.

Each version is looking better and I applaud the efforts hoping Groovy Arcade will make it into my cab soon. 

[mamenewb100]

I forgot to add that occasionally the sound goes out of sync and there is a very loud static noise that doesn't go away until you restart the game. Don't know if others have had this issue.

People shouldn't rip on VES for this project. He is doing it for free on his own time.

[torm3nt8r]

i also have the problem with sound sync, the sound is crackling and i must quit the game and restart. hope someone can help us....
greets
torm3nt8r

[MonkeyJug]

i too have been experienced distorted sound issues with the newest x64 iso.

sometimes a game restart doesn't fix it, and sometimes it does.  it seems to be random too...

[MonkeyJug]

i managed to solve this today.  i went into the volume settings in the groovy main menu, where it appears that the mics are turned on by default, so i reduced all mic volumes to 0, and turned down some of the other bars to below the red line, and it's now perfect!

[torm3nt8r]

@MonkeyJug
nice, i will try this on weekend...
but there are the following problems with groovy arcade linux arch, which are not on groovy arcade 1.565 on my machines:
sound problems
mouse, trackball, spinner does not function in mame
usb joystick (ultrastick 360) also
minor vsync problems in all games (every 2 or 3 minutes)

but i'm very happy with the linux version (so much better than windows) - i've tried many versions on windows on my arcade monitors, but none of them works so great.
thanks for the great work

[ves]

Hello,

Sound broken, not linux problem, it is a mistake of the new patch.
With gentoo based groovyarcade not because uses old groovymame.

Vsync Error occurs in some games, the resolunciones miscalculates, only problem groovymame new updates.
With gentoo based groovyarcade not because uses old groovymame.

Joystick error, try disabling demon wiimote, and reconfigure mame.

Torm, which monitor and vga using? have configured good monitor?

[torm3nt8r]

hi ves,
thanks for the help,
i'm using a blast city (nanao ms-2930 with 15khz)
settings used from monitor presets in this forum
(but under windows i tested with arcadeosd - my monitor sync from 15250-16300, 48-65)
vga - testet 3 cards under linux
ArcadeVGA3, HD4670 and HD 4350 (all 3 works fine with groovy arcade linux)
resolution switching runs perfect (also vertical games with 288 lines runs on horizontal)
but while testing the games - all run smooth without tearing - after 2 or 3 minutes there are hiccups for 1 or 2 secondes and then goes to normal (it's hard to describe - but very often when the hiccups begins, also sound is broken - not always - later then hiccups begin and sound goes crazy and i must quit the game)

greets
torm3nt8r

[Calamity]

minor vsync problems in all games (every 2 or 3 minutes)

This is not due to GM patches but the wiimote daemons eating all CPU cycles, I'm 99% sure of this as I had also the same issue here until I killed those daemons and everything got smooth again. The interesting thing about Linux is that even with those processes abusing CPU you only get occasional hiccups. I know Ves is targeting this problem.

The problem with sound getting corrupt is due to the patch I made for OS independent soundsync. The problem, as far as I understand, is that during emulation of some games, the speed percentage may drop during an instant, and if it's below 40%, that is translated to the sound buffer, corrupting it. This also happens when you pause a game. In order to fix this, I need to set up my system to be able to compile and test Linux binaries, that will help me trace the problem. By now, it might help reducing audio latency to the minimum through mame.ini audio options.

[androtaz08]

Maybe a dumb question but after messing with groovy arcade on an olm laptop I finally got it working and setup with my snes roms. how do I enable the video out on my laptop using archlinux? 

[Calamity]

Hi guys,

So after 4 days struggling with the code I think I found out the issue that made the sound get corrupted in SDL after we applied the new soundsync patch, specially when a game is resumed after pause. It seems it's a bug in the SDL sound code of MAME. Fortunately I've created a diff that seems to fix it for me.

Please Ves and Ansa and others try this patch out and see if it fixes the issue for you too. If that's the case I'll submit the patch to the mamedevs.

[Ansa89]

Wow! Thanks a lot!
Unfortunately I'm on holiday right now, but I will try the patch ASAP .

[Rockman]

I want test the patch, but i don't have the way to compile it. Can anyone compile a linux 32 bits version and share to comunity to try it?

Thanks Calamity!

[danger]

hi...

I have download GroovyArcade-Arch2012.06.09-i686.iso and after install to disk it gives me an error booting "unable to find root device"
the grub boot line as root=/dev/disk/by-label/GA

anyone can help me ?

[Ansa89]

If you have only one hard disk installed and installed groovyarcade on the first partition, you can try with "root=/dev/sda1".

[danger]

already try it and did't work
tnkx anyway

i just installed now on virtualbox and i don't get that error strange

[danger]

on version GroovyArcade-Arch2012.03.25-i686.iso i did't add this problem on boot ...i had a problem with advmenu some "illegal..." at start

[Ansa89]

Please Ves and Ansa and others try this patch out and see if it fixes the issue for you too.

Is there a known way to reproduce the "fuzzy sound" issue?

[Calamity]

Please Ves and Ansa and others try this patch out and see if it fixes the issue for you too.

Is there a known way to reproduce the "fuzzy sound" issue?

Yes, actually the bug is in vanilla MAME (SDL). Just use the option -speed with any factor different from 1.0, say 0.9. Then pause/resume, pause/resume a few times and the sound will go corrupt.

[Calamity]

hi...

I have download GroovyArcade-Arch2012.06.09-i686.iso and after install to disk it gives me an error booting "unable to find root device"
the grub boot line as root=/dev/disk/by-label/GA

anyone can help me ?

What shows the first line in grub?  (hd0,0) etc

[Ansa89]

the bug is in vanilla MAME (SDL).

Groovymame is aware of this bug?
Nobody reported it under groovymame?

[Calamity]

the bug is in vanilla MAME (SDL).

Groovymame is aware of this bug?
Nobody reported it under groovymame?

Well if I remind right you did report it!

Some Linux users have been experiencing sound problems like static noise since the new soundsync patch was added to GM. What I found is that the soundsync patch is just exposing a previous bug in vanilla MAME SDL sound code.

In GM the bug happens when pausing/resuming, or in some games it just happens spontaneously.

But in vanilla MAME you need to explicitly use the option -speed with a factor different from 1.0 and then pause/resume in order to expose the bug.

In other words, GM is using the -speed feature internally to adjust the sound to the current video speed, that's why it automatically makes the problem appear.

[Ansa89]

Well if I remind right you did report it!

I don't remember .

In GM the bug happens when pausing/resuming, or in some games it just happens spontaneously.

But in vanilla MAME you need to explicitly use the option -speed with a factor different from 1.0 and then pause/resume in order to expose the bug.

In other words, GM is using the -speed feature internally to adjust the sound to the current video speed, that's why it automatically makes the problem appear.

Ok, so I can test the patch with GM without enabling exotic option .

[danger]

hi...

I have download GroovyArcade-Arch2012.06.09-i686.iso and after install to disk it gives me an error booting "unable to find root device"
the grub boot line as root=/dev/disk/by-label/GA

anyone can help me ?

What shows the first line in grub?  (hd0,0) etc

the grub.conf as:

default 0
timeout 0
title Groovy Arcade Linux
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/disk/by-label/GA quiet splash vga=785
initrd /initramfs-linux.img

[Ansa89]

Hi guys,

So after 4 days struggling with the code I think I found out the issue that made the sound get corrupted in SDL after we applied the new soundsync patch, specially when a game is resumed after pause. It seems it's a bug in the SDL sound code of MAME. Fortunately I've created a diff that seems to fix it for me.

Please Ves and Ansa and others try this patch out and see if it fixes the issue for you too. If that's the case I'll submit the patch to the mamedevs.

By some preliminar tests, the bug seems fixed.
The test-machine was slackware64 13.37 with groovymame 0.146u5.

[Calamity]

By some preliminar tests, the bug seems fixed.
The test-machine was slackware64 13.37 with groovymame 0.146u5.

Thanks a lot for your tests Ansa. Did you test a 32 or 64 bit binary?

[Ansa89]

I tested a 64 bit binary compiled by myself ("slackware64" means 64 bits ).