Trying to create monitor presets for KT-2914 (Betson-Kortek) MultiSync

[RetroACTIVE]

There are a couple of threads here on this particular monitor.  I would like to get the monitor presets done for it but its a little vague to me on how these records are determined.

I can gather the info from the manual [p.8] Looking at GroovyMAME monitor presets entries there is some overlap in each of these preset lines (as I am looking at the D9800 for reference).  I'm trying to figure out how the overlap is determined...

I've begun playing with GroovyMAME with my HD4890 using the D9800 as the monitor type and I'm not sure the D9800 monitor type setting works well enough.  It could be other things but what I find happening its that its not picking the correct resolution.  I used to run an ArcadeVGA setup and had most games working at their native resolutions so I'm pretty sure the monitor can handle most of what I need to throw at it.

Of course the difficulty I'm having could just be me getting my feet wet here

Thanks for your help!
Jim

PS. GroovyMAME is cool    BTW

[Calamity]

It could be other things but what I find happening its that its not picking the correct resolution.  I used to run an ArcadeVGA setup and had most games working at their native resolutions so I'm pretty sure the monitor can handle most of what I need to throw at it.

But is the "correct resolution" actually available in your system? Just in case you didn't, check that the same monitor specs (or monitor type) are selected both in VMMaker and GroovyMAME. Unlike in Linux, Window's GroovyMAME can't create *new* resolutions on the fly, just modify the ones it finds in the system, so you need to create the basic list of resolutions before running GroovyMAME, by means of VMMaker, and that list will depend highly on the type of monitor you select.

Whatever. I'll help you produce those monitor specs, so this post can be used for reference in the future.

[RetroACTIVE]

Thank you.

As far as correctness ... Yeah I get what you are saying.  With my old system I would tune each game to work "well enough".  All my horizontal CGA games used to work well enough and verticals were always a challenge to get them to work rotated to fit... but they worked well enough... there were always a couple that were problematic and I would default them to 640x480 or something reasonable.

I've ran VMMaker it seems like it defaults to 640x480 interlaced in the desktop and I get a blank screen when trying to run any game.

In all fairness I am probably doing something wrong.   I'm just getting acquainted with this.

I really appreciate the help with the monitor specs.

[Calamity]

Just post here a log of a random game that produces a blank screen, by doing this:

groovymame.exe romname -v -md 4 >romname.txt

I'll have a look at it before we go any further. When you have your system up and running we'll start with the monitor specs.

[RetroACTIVE]

Just post here a log of a random game that produces a blank screen, by doing this:

groovymame.exe romname -v -md 4 >romname.txt

I'll have a look at it before we go any further. When you have your system up and running we'll start with the monitor specs.

Will do... I will have time this evening.

Thanks again
Jim

[RetroACTIVE]

Ran test using mk

[Calamity]

Hi RetroACTIVE,

You seem to be using 'magic' resolutions. Switch your video options to -video d3d inside mame.ini.

[RetroACTIVE]

Hi RetroACTIVE,

You seem to be using 'magic' resolutions. Switch your video options to -video d3d inside mame.ini.

Now we are getting somewhere!

Games are now showing video!  MK is using the wrong resolution as it looks like only the top quadrant of the screen is in view... In other words the image is too big to fit the screen.

I tried Frogger, that seemed to fit fine.  Pacman was too large to fit (top and bottom were outside the visible area).

I'll post more debug files later if need be.

I've been around a long time and can I say based upon reading this whole topic and your responses to myself and others here you are likely one of the most helpful and well mannered people I've seen in a long time!

Thanks so much!

[Calamity]

Thanks for your kind words.

Well, there seems to be something wrong there. Assuming you started with a fresh created mame.ini (groovymame.exe -cc), make sure you're not storing any atwork inside the corresponding folder, try renaming the folder just in case. Others have experienced issues with artwork when using magic resolutions. You can also active the -artworkcrop option.

Indeed, GroovyMAME's binary should be placed in an empty folder and start from there. Old cfg files could mess with its behaviour.

If this didn't solve your issues we'll need to use the standard methods: dynamic video mode table.

[RetroACTIVE]

Definitely was a clean install.  I started with a completely new computer and hard disk.  The only thing I took from my old system were rom files.

I will double check to be sure.

[RetroACTIVE]

One more thing...

My monitor supports 640x480 and 800x600 non interlaced and these modes are no longer selectable after installing the drivers.

[Calamity]

Don't worry about the progressive 640x480 and 800x600 modes, they'll be back once the correct monitor_specs are used.

This 'magic' resolution thing has been a problem from the beginning because it doesn't seem to work for every system. In some systems, it works fine for both ddraw and d3d, in others it only does for d3d, while still in others it doesn't seem to work at all. Being the driver software a constant, the only possible variable feature that comes to my mind is the DirectX version.

However, unless you intend to use Hyperspin, you can just get rid of the magic resolutions by deleting them from your ReslList.txt file and runnig VMMaker. Then the normal resolutions will be used instead and you should have no issues.

Make sure to edit vmmaker.ini and set the MonitorType option to D9800 before executing VMMaker, that will create more suitable resolutions for your monitor.

[RetroACTIVE]

Yup... Hyperspin was-is my plan.  Im not sure what DirectX version I'm running.

I did set the monitor type as D9800 in VMMaker.ini

[Calamity]

Before you test anything else: go back to -video ddraw. Go into display properties/advanced/monitors and uncheck the option "Hide modes this monitor can't display". Reboot and try again.

Also, use Arcade_OSD to navigate and test the 1234x resolutions individually.

[RetroACTIVE]

Before you test anything else: go back to -video ddraw. Go into display properties/advanced/monitors and uncheck the option "Hide modes this monitor can't display". Reboot and try again.

Also, use Arcade_OSD to navigate and test the 1234x resolutions individually.

The dialog doesn't let me select the choice to hide...that option is not selectable.

All of the 1234x are tolerated by the monitor and work

1024x768 60p is out of range (no surprise here)
1280x720 60p is out of range (no surprise here either)

[RetroACTIVE]

I was thinking a bit more about this and I don't believe this particular monitor actually reports its capabilities.... in fact I'm pretty sure it doesn't.

[Calamity]

I was thinking a bit more about this and I don't believe this particular monitor actually reports its capabilities.... in fact I'm pretty sure it doesn't.

Yeah it was just to be sure, because I've only seen the blank screen issue once, and it was because Windows was filtering some modes. If Arcade_OSD, which uses DirectDraw BTW, can show those modes, then MAME should.

So if the magic resolutions don't work in your system (I'd pay just to know why in the world they don't), you'll need to get rid of them, otherwise GroovyMAME will insist on picking them. Edit ReslList.txt, delete those resolutions and run VMMaker again.

By know you can just try that way. As soon as you want to use Hyperspin you'll need to trim your resolution list to something around 80 resolutions, using the TotalModes option in vmmaker.ini.

Hopefully HS 2 will fix this issue and we'll free to use as many resolutions as we want.

[RetroACTIVE]

I was thinking a bit more about this and I don't believe this particular monitor actually reports its capabilities.... in fact I'm pretty sure it doesn't.

Yeah it was just to be sure, because I've only seen the blank screen issue once, and it was because Windows was filtering some modes. If Arcade_OSD, which uses DirectDraw BTW, can show those modes, then MAME should.

So if the magic resolutions don't work in your system (I'd pay just to know why in the world they don't), you'll need to get rid of them, otherwise GroovyMAME will insist on picking them. Edit ReslList.txt, delete those resolutions and run VMMaker again.

By know you can just try that way. As soon as you want to use Hyperspin you'll need to trim your resolution list to something around 80 resolutions, using the TotalModes option in vmmaker.ini.

Hopefully HS 2 will fix this issue and we'll free to use as many resolutions as we want.

Ok... let me start over... this time I will not use magic resolutions (assume for now I won't be using Hyperspin) and try to get it working all properly.

[RetroACTIVE]

Tried again... This time I turned off the 32bpp opinion in VMMaker.ini.

Now it works with both d3d and ddraw options in the same manner.  I dont get a blank screen and MK doesn't fit and pacman is too long.

[Calamity]

So are you still using magic resolutions?

Oh the 32bpp option, that one should not be used, I just included it at some point for experimenting.

Anyway, can you see if pacman is actually overflowing the framebuffer or is it possible that you have a real 288 lines resolution but your monitor adjustment is just chopping it? You can just check 1234x288 in Arcade_OSD.

Do some horizontal games look fine (toki, goldnaxe, etc)?

[RetroACTIVE]

Toki and golden axe are perfect.

I should not be using magic res anymore.  I removed the 1234x entries from ReslList and re-ran VMMaker without 32bbp and with monitor set to d9800

[RetroACTIVE]

Many games look great!

V: Phoenix, Scramble, Burger Time
H: Berzerk, Missile Command

Caveman Ninja and the MK series have the same fit problem.

I played with the monitor adjustments and I can adjust pacman to fit but it really compresses the image in other modes.  Can't really adjust MK to fit... it severely compresses and distorts the image.

[RetroACTIVE]

More experiments...

If I run MK with -resolution 399x256@60 it works great because it keeps the refresh rate at 60Hz 

If I run it without the resolution param it appears to set the refresh rate to 54.82Hz

Similar with Caveman Ninja... switchres is choosing 58Hz, when I specify 60Hz it fits perfect!

[Calamity]

Does the fit problem with mk have something to do with the one you had before when using magic resolutions or are they different issues?

It would be of help to see both logs of mk with and without forcing 60 Hz. I guess it's making it jump from an interval to another and that will help us start finding your monitor limits.

BTW, mk's real refresh is 54.82 Hz, indeed.

[RetroACTIVE]

Does the fit problem with mk have something to do with the one you had before when using magic resolutions or are they different issues?

It would be of help to see both logs of mk with and without forcing 60 Hz. I guess it's making it jump from an interval to another and that will help us start finding your monitor limits.

BTW, mk's real refresh is 54.82 Hz, indeed.

I believe these are the same fit issues regardless of magic resolution at this point.

Yeah I'm not sure what my monitor is doing with the 54.82 Hz refresh rate. Even though that is correct, it certainly appears to be problematic.

I will post a log of each case this evening.

I would love a block diagram or picture of the various pieces of Groovy/VMMaker/SwitchRes/Driver so I can get a better understanding as to what the interfaces are and how modes are determined and how the gmame chooses.  I feel a little in the dark and truly hope I'm not coming across as ignorant.

Thanks for all your help!

[Calamity]

I believe these are the same fit issues regardless of magic resolution at this point.

Well that's great. That means magic resolutions were probably working! 

Yeah I'm not sure what my monitor is doing with the 54.82 Hz refresh rate. Even though that is correct, it certainly appears to be problematic.

Probably we just need to push 256 lines modes to the next monitor_specs frequency range.

I would love a block diagram or picture of the various pieces of Groovy/VMMaker/SwitchRes/Driver so I can get a better understanding as to what the interfaces are and how modes are determined and how the gmame chooses.  I feel a little in the dark and truly hope I'm not coming across as ignorant.

I've just drawn a little diagram that might help visualizing all this (see attachment), it could be handy to have it posted somewhere.

[RetroACTIVE]

LOVE the diagram!  That helps TREMENDOUSLY!

[RetroACTIVE]

Here are the two log files... with and without the resolution switch...

[Calamity]

Fine. Let's see if this works: add these lines in mame.ini, they will override the d9800 settings.

monitor_specs0    15250-15900, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 248, 448
monitor_specs1    18001-19000, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.140, 0.191, 0.950, 0, 0, 320, 448
monitor_specs2    20001-29000, 40-80, 2.910, 3.000, 4.440, 0.451, 0.164, 1.048, 0, 0, 384, 576
monitor_specs3    29001-32000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.318, 0.064, 1.048, 0, 0, 576, 768
monitor_specs4    32001-34000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 576, 768
monitor_specs5    34001-38000, 40-80, 1.000, 3.200, 2.200, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 600, 768

Notice that they're still the same specs but for the first line. I want to force everything above 248 lines to jump to the monitor_specs1 range. Try mk, loht, 1942, etc. and let me know if it works.

[RetroACTIVE]

almost... it fits but the screen is bowed like ( ) and it doesn't look like the resolution is right... not pixelated enough (no visible scan lines).

[Calamity]

almost... it fits but the screen is bowed like ( ) and it doesn't look like the resolution is right... not pixelated enough (no visible scan lines).

Yeah, the modeline scoring system is moving that video mode to the 31 KHz range instead of the 18-19 KHz that's what I intended. I'll look for a solution.

[RetroACTIVE]

Yeah, the modeline scoring system is moving that video mode to the 31 KHz range instead of the 18-19 KHz that's what I intended. I'll look for a solution.

Ok great, thanks again!

[Calamity]

Hi RetroACTIVE,

Try mk now:

monitor_specs0    15250-15900, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 248, 448
monitor_specs1    18001-19000, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.140, 0.191, 0.950, 0, 0, 320, 448
monitor_specs2    20001-29000, 40-80, 2.910, 3.000, 4.440, 0.451, 0.164, 1.048, 0, 0, 384, 576
monitor_specs3    29001-32000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.318, 0.064, 1.048, 0, 0, 496, 768
monitor_specs4    32001-34000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 576, 768
monitor_specs5    34001-38000, 40-80, 1.000, 3.200, 2.200, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 600, 768

[RetroACTIVE]

Interesting... almost... it still doesn't quite fit... its goes off the screen on bottom and left edges.

Probably irrelevant but...

Now if I try to set the resolution with the -resolution switch it no longer works properly... (scan lines are not there and it doesn't fit right).

If I create a new mame.ini without these montior_specs I can get the -resolution command to work the way it did.

[Calamity]

Try now:

monitor_specs0    15250-15900, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 248, 448
monitor_specs1    16700-19000, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.140, 0.191, 0.950, 0, 0, 320, 448
monitor_specs2    20001-29000, 40-80, 2.910, 3.000, 4.440, 0.451, 0.164, 1.048, 0, 0, 384, 576
monitor_specs3    29001-32000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.318, 0.064, 1.048, 0, 0, 496, 768
monitor_specs4    32001-34000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 576, 768
monitor_specs5    34001-38000, 40-80, 1.000, 3.200, 2.200, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 600, 768

[RetroACTIVE]

Not yet, same issue with the bottom and right sides... but the -resolution switch works again with these monitor specs.

[Calamity]

Does this help at all?

monitor_specs0    15250-15900, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 248, 448
monitor_specs1    16700-19000, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 320, 448
monitor_specs2    20001-29000, 40-80, 2.910, 3.000, 4.440, 0.451, 0.164, 1.048, 0, 0, 384, 576
monitor_specs3    29001-32000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.318, 0.064, 1.048, 0, 0, 496, 768
monitor_specs4    32001-34000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 576, 768
monitor_specs5    34001-38000, 40-80, 1.000, 3.200, 2.200, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 600, 768

[RetroACTIVE]

Mk is still not quite (same fit issues)... albeit a bit better.  

I can correct the mk issue with the -resolution switch with these monitor settings.

Unrelated tests:
This actually fixed a problem I had with Williams games.  Defender, Joust, Stargate, Robotron etc... they were squished in the middle of the screen, almost as if the orientation was wrong.  Now they work perfect!
 
pacman, galaga are squished vertically and warped on the sides.  Phoenix, Frogger and 1943 are perfect.

Thanks!!!!!!

[RetroACTIVE]

Played a little more with various games... So so many work just fine.

Those funky games with H res around 400-500 are the ones that need tweaking.

[Calamity]

Well, I wanted to have some time to get the values directly from your monitor's manual. These values are shown in the 'Timing chart' at page 8. Here they are:

Code: [Select]

15750, 50.00, 6.72, 8.67, 7.27, 0.128, 0.444, 0.825
                                  2      7      13

15750, 60.11, 6.72, 8.67, 7.27, 0.064, 0.444, 0.825
                                  1      7      13

24827, 55.61, 3.04, 3.04, 3.80, 0.282, 0.322, 1.260
                                  7      8 31.28

31469, 59.94, 0.64, 3.81, 1.91, 0.318, 0.064, 1.048
                                  20     2      33

37880, 60.32, 1.00, 3.20, 2.20, 0.030, 0.110, 0.610
                                  1      4      23
The numbers I added below are the vertical values expressed as number of lines. You get those by dividing each vertical value by the Line Time Total (A) in the chart.

As you see, that chart describes the values for several standarized modes but not the actual frequency ranges accepted by the monitor.

On the other hand, the manual says your monitor supports a horizontal frequency range of 15-40 KHz. This multisync monitor seems to accept a continuos range, according to this description. This is not true for other multisync monitors, like the Hantarex Polostar, that has a banded range (15/25/31 KHz) so a frequency in the middle, like 18 KHz, wouldn't be supported.

Now, the chart suggests different porch and sync values for different horizontal frequencies. That's why we don't do a single 15-40kHz monitor_specs line but we divide it in separate sub-ranges where different porch values apply.

Anyway, the values suggested for the 15 kHz range seem too odd for me. I'd keep using the ones we have.

At this point, if you want to find the actual ranges and the corresponding values, your only option is by trial and error through Arcade_OSD and GroovyMAME.

I'd use Arcade_OSD to tweak one of the problematic resolutions. Try 400x288 and see if you can adjust it to a point where it looks good. We'll then use these values to adjust the corresponding monitor_specs line.

[RetroACTIVE]

Boy... I am just not getting this...

If I run Arcade_OSD I can see all of the mode lines in a table and can select each one of them for testing...

The one that works with mk is :

XRes  YRes   Vfrq  Vfreq (Hz)   Hfreq(kHz)      Type
400    256    60p   59.918       16.717           custom

gmame is setting 400 x 256 @ 54.82

so... gmame chooses the resolution that is closest to the native resolution of the game but it doesn't consider the Vfreq in that algorithm?  It seems like its setting the refresh rate to 54.82 and the monitor handles it fine (other than the fact it doesn't fit properly). 

I'm confused as to why it would pick that frequency if  its not listed in Arcade_OSD table of modes?

Thanks for your patience 

[Calamity]

so... gmame chooses the resolution that is closest to the native resolution of the game but it doesn't consider the Vfreq in that algorithm?  It seems like its setting the refresh rate to 54.82 and the monitor handles it fine (other than the fact it doesn't fit properly). 

I'm confused as to why it would pick that frequency if  its not listed in Arcade_OSD table of modes?

What we do with VMMaker is genarating a single refresh per resolution, usually the one that's as close to 60 Hz as our monitor_specs allow. This avoids wasting space in the mode table, otherwise we'd need to generate several refresh rates per resolution and each of them would account for a different video mode from the OS point of view (this was the case before GM). So we'd run out of space very soon.

GM picks the 400x256@60 video mode and recalculates it's modeline on the fly to match mk's refresh of 54.82. If you run 1942 in your horizontal monitor, the exact same mode will be picked, but this time it will be recalculated with 60.00 Hz. That's how it works.

So what you'd need to do is get the modeline that mk is using from GM logs, then run Arcade_OSD and set 400x256@60, and enter the "edit modeline" menu to edit the values with the ones you got from the log. That's how you'll reproduce mk's issues inside Arcade_OSD. Now, by tweaking the geometry there, you may come up with the corrections that need to be done. That's something that can only be done on the real hardware. Your results might help us tuning those monitor_specs.

[RetroACTIVE]

Ok... getting there.

I went into Arcade_OSD selected 400x256@60 mode line.  I adjusted the values according to the log file and bingo!  I was able to get the screen to match what I'm seeing in mk.

Default modeline values for this is:
8.83  400 424 464 528 256 259 262 279

Groovy is adjusting it to:
8.82  400 424 464 528 256 272 275 305

[Calamity]

I went into Arcade_OSD selected 400x256@60 mode line.  I adjusted the values according to the log file and bingo!  I was able to get the screen to match what I'm seeing in mk.

That's good. So, once you reproduced the issue, did you try tweaking the vertical geometry to see if something improves? I'd try with the vertical centering adjustment to see if you find some values which work. Actually at this point I'd like to see a picture of it, I'm not sure how much it's cropped, whether it's a matter of a few lines or more.

[RetroACTIVE]

I went into Arcade_OSD selected 400x256@60 mode line.  I adjusted the values according to the log file and bingo!  I was able to get the screen to match what I'm seeing in mk.

That's good. So, once you reproduced the issue, did you try tweaking the vertical geometry to see if something improves? I'd try with the vertical centering adjustment to see if you find some values which work. Actually at this point I'd like to see a picture of it, I'm not sure how much it's cropped, whether it's a matter of a few lines or more.

Ok... here are some pics of what I have going on...

This is the geometry of the default 400x256@60 modeline:



This is the geometry of the 400x256@60 modeline adjusted to the mk settings:


Here, I played with the geometry of the mk settings.  I was able to get the image to snap back into the frame... the edges are warped a bit as compared to the default settings:

Its not perfect but this monitor isn't known for super terrific linearity across all modes either.

[Calamity]

Well this is getting interesting. It's a pity you didn't capture the vertical settings once fixed, though by your frequencies I can see you're still using the same 305 total lines.
So, did you need to perform any vertical centering or you fixed it by touching the horizontal geometry??

Seems like you only changed Hfront Porch and the DotClock.

Unfortunately you didn't lock Vfreq once the problematic mode was introduced, so the resulting Vfreq after tweaking things is 53.9 Hz, too far from the original one of 54.7 Hz

In other words, it's obvious that your monitor is using some sort of autoadjustment (multisync monitors do) but, could you tell if it's Vfreq driven?

[RetroACTIVE]

I actually didn't mess with the vertical settings one bit.  I'll go back and check to be sure.

[Calamity]

I actually didn't mess with the vertical settings one bit.  I'll go back and check to be sure.

That's possible. The interesting thing is that by just correcting the Vfreq and probably the Hfront porch a little bit the vertical geometry is also affected.

[RetroACTIVE]

Screenshot of vertical settings:



Just a note... messing with the porch settings really didn't pull the pic in enough... when I was tweaking it it really didn't snap into place until I messed with the dot clock setting.

[Calamity]

Just a note... messing with the porch settings really didn't pull the pic in enough... when I was tweaking it it really didn't snap into place until I messed with the dot clock setting.

You mean the vertical porches don't you? But did you just use the vertical centering or you tried increasing each porch individually, increasing the total number of lines by doing so? What I'd do is to keep vfreq locked at 54.7 and increase the vertical front porch.

[RetroACTIVE]

Just a note... messing with the porch settings really didn't pull the pic in enough... when I was tweaking it it really didn't snap into place until I messed with the dot clock setting.

You mean the vertical porches don't you? But did you just use the vertical centering or you tried increasing each porch individually, increasing the total number of lines by doing so? What I'd do is to keep vfreq locked at 54.7 and increase the vertical front porch.

Yeah... I just tried out your suggestion of locking the vfreq... I couldn't get the image any better than this:



I then tweaked the horizontal settings (leaving freq. locked) and got the image to align properly... but it had an affect on the modeline settings:


   seriously... thanks for all the help!

[Calamity]

Oh, I didn't mean that. I'd suggested locking Vfreq *once* you are ready on this state (Vfreq = 54.7 Hz):



Maybe explaining a little bit what I think it's going on helps. Usually, multisync arcade monitors need different geometry adjustments depending on the Hfreq value. So we'd group different video modes that more or less share the same horizontal frequency inside a monitor_specs range, and we'd find the right porch values for them. This works very well for my analog Hantarex Polostar, and the digital WG seem to work similarly.

But yours is the first case of a monitor that I've seen which seems to need different settings depending on the VERTICAL frequency. If you look at the pictures in your post from February 10, there we have two modelines for 400x256, with horizontal frequencies of 16.717 and 16.690 each, which are very similar values, but despite of that they show rather different geometry. It's not only that the one with 54.7 Hz is shifted down, but it looks as if the vertical amplitude was much wider. It seems like the fact that its vertical frequency is 54.7 Hz instead of 60.00 Hz is making a difference.

That's why we need to determine which values make the picture all right when working at 54.7 Hz, so lock the Vfreq there and play with vertical porches until you find the sweet spot, that might show the way.

[RetroACTIVE]

This doesn't work the way I am expecting it to...

I set the modeline settings to the mk settings and the frequency is 59.877 not 54.7 Hz as shown in the previous photo... so I don't know what I did before... probably messed something up.

Tweaking the vfront porch values doesn't create a sweet spot and ends up adding more lines if I go back and look at the modeline values.

I've got to double check what I did.  I need a day to sit down as work on this... I'm trying to squeeze it in my day and am not giving it its due.

[Calamity]

Hi RetroACTIVE,

The process is:

1-> Unlock Vfreq
2-> Enter modeline values, including DotClock. Vfreq should become 54.7
3-> Lock Vfreq
4-> Tweak geometry, porches, etc. Vfreq should keep close to 54.7 despite the changes.

[RetroACTIVE]

Hi RetroACTIVE,

The process is:

1-> Unlock Vfreq
2-> Enter modeline values, including DotClock. Vfreq should become 54.7
3-> Lock Vfreq
4-> Tweak geometry, porches, etc. Vfreq should keep close to 54.7 despite the changes.

Got it...

I've locked the freq... Then go back into vertical geometry and as soon as I touch V front porch... it jumps to 59.xxx.

In other words it's not staying locked... Is there a step I'm missing?

[Calamity]

I assume you're accepting the changes before leaving the modeline submenu, by pressing "1" (testing the mode)?

[RetroACTIVE]

I assume you're accepting the changes before leaving the modeline submenu, by pressing "1" (testing the mode)?

Yes I just double checked to be sure.

[RetroACTIVE]

You're dealng with an idiot here

Enter didn't save the changes... After I tweaked the values and backed up a screen... then I selected save.  That locked the freq...

I tweaked V settings:


I tweaked H settings:


Here is where it all landed


Image is ok... looks like monitor is having a difficult time though.

[Calamity]

Wow, I thought you would find the right values lowering Hfreq (removing lines), not adding them!
18.35 KHz is way much more than required, anyway. So what happens if you add this line?

monitor_specs1    18300-19000, 40-80, 8.300, 2.750, 9.000, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 320, 448

Test mk, loht, but also games like pacman, dspirit, contra, etc.

[RetroACTIVE]

Ok... MK much better... I adjusted my monitor settings with my OSD and got it to fit just fine.  loht... same as MK... real good now.

Contra fits perfect with little OSD tweak... and others still look great!  

Pacman and dspirit don't fit well, they are not the right ratio and proportion and the bottom is far off the screen.  The screen is all wavy too.

Side note...

Now Scramble and Galaxian are using the wrong resolution... higher res is selected:  
SwitchRes v0.013: [scramble] (1) vertical (256x224@60.61)->(400x256@60.61)->(800x512@60.61)


But its starting to look much better overall!!!

[Calamity]

Now Scramble and Galaxian are using the wrong resolution... higher res is selected:  
SwitchRes v0.013: [scramble] (1) vertical (256x224@60.61)->(400x256@60.61)->(800x512@60.61)

The resolution isn't wrong (perfect x2 scaling), it's the range being used what's wrong. This is because the change we did modified the scoring for that resolution when calculated inside its original range. I'd need a log to see what's happening. Also some logs for the pacman/dspirit games will help.

I'm guessing it's going to be very difficult to create monitor presets for this monitor by the usual ways. I'm not sure if it would require some new features in GroovyMAME or it'll be just a matter of dividing the range in enough sub-ranges.

By now we're going to add a new range to try to force scramble/galaxian to pass through it (monitor_specs1), also we'd like to make pacman go to monitor_specs3:

monitor_specs0    15250-15900, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 248, 448
monitor_specs1    16000-17000, 58-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 256, 448
monitor_specs2    18300-19000, 40-58, 8.300, 2.750, 9.000, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 280, 448
monitor_specs3    20001-29000, 40-80, 2.910, 3.000, 4.440, 0.451, 0.164, 1.048, 0, 0, 384, 576
monitor_specs4    29001-32000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.318, 0.064, 1.048, 0, 0, 496, 768
monitor_specs5    32001-34000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 576, 768
monitor_specs6    34001-38000, 40-80, 1.000, 3.200, 2.200, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 600, 768

[RetroACTIVE]

I will run again and get the logs for pacman and dspirit.

I will add the new changes to the monitor_specs and re run the tests and get logs from those as well.

Thanks so much for being so very helpful.  Sorry this monitor and (me) for being a pain!

 

[RetroACTIVE]

pacman and dspirit are perfect... mk is now not correct.  Re-tried caveman ninja and its also well beyond the screen.

I've attached the original pacman.txt (before this last change) all others with _latest represent runs since the last update to monitor_specs

[Calamity]

Hi RetroACTIVE,

I'm afraid you didn't copy the monitor_specs properly, as I can see in your logs (16000-17000 and 18300-19000 ranges are missing). Please double check it, specially the subindex part. Make sure there's no duplicated label for any monitor_specs. Fortunately it's been useful to discover the right range for the 288-lines games (pacman, dspirit).

I've done some additional changes, try the same games with these new settings:

monitor_specs0    15625-15900, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 248, 448
monitor_specs1    16000-17000, 58-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 256, 448
monitor_specs2    18300-18800, 40-58, 8.300, 2.750, 9.000, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 280, 448
monitor_specs3    18800-19000, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.140, 0.191, 0.950, 0, 0, 320, 448
monitor_specs4    24000-29000, 40-80, 2.910, 3.000, 4.440, 0.451, 0.164, 1.048, 0, 0, 384, 576
monitor_specs5    31000-34000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 576, 768
monitor_specs6    34001-38000, 40-80, 1.000, 3.200, 2.200, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 600, 768

[RetroACTIVE]

Ok thanks... I went back and fixed the error in mame.ini

Attached are the corrected logs.  contra, pacman and dspirit are not quite there... all others look good

[RetroACTIVE]

Here are the logs for the last set of monitor_specs changes...

I THINK YOU DID IT!!!! 

Sorry for being such a challenge

[RetroACTIVE]

Ok I tried a couple more... see attached logs...and had some issues.

Its looking so good though... there are so many vertical and horizontal working now than I've ever had... ever!!!

I think I can adjust btime with OSD...

[Calamity]

Try phoenix and tapper now:

monitor_specs0    15625-15900, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 248, 448
monitor_specs1    16000-17100, 58-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 256, 448
monitor_specs2    18300-18800, 40-58, 8.300, 2.750, 9.000, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 280, 448
monitor_specs3    18800-19000, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.140, 0.191, 0.950, 0, 0, 320, 448
monitor_specs4    24000-29000, 40-80, 2.910, 3.000, 4.440, 0.451, 0.164, 1.048, 0, 0, 384, 576
monitor_specs5    30000-34000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 576, 768
monitor_specs6    34001-38000, 40-80, 1.000, 3.200, 2.200, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 600, 768

For paperboy, you need to use Arcade_OSD to center the video mode 512x384@60, and then use the values obtained as a feed back for the monitor_specs4 line, as we've done before.

[RetroACTIVE]

Well now... I think we are about done here.  

I've not gone back and tweaked the monitor_spec4 but here are the adjustments needed to fix the geometry of 512x384@60 modeline







Thanks sooooooooo much for holding my hand throughout this.  I now have my new PC up and running sufficiently!  All these games look terrific!  I have way better overall accuracy than I ever did.

I will be testing more... If I run into anything weird or something I can't figure I'll post here.  But for now I would say you are ready to add the Betson/Kortek KT-XX14-SM monitor to the list of monitors that work with the totally awesome and most excellent GroovyMAME!!!!!

And again... 

[Calamity]

Sounds great, thanks for your perseverance too

[RetroACTIVE]

Tried two more oddballs... taito/midway space invaders and qbert... I think they fall into the same range

[Calamity]

For qbert, I think it should be fine like this:

monitor_specs0    15625-15900, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 248, 448
monitor_specs1    16000-17200, 58-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 256, 448
monitor_specs2    18300-18800, 40-58, 8.300, 2.750, 9.000, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 280, 448
monitor_specs3    18800-19000, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.140, 0.191, 0.950, 0, 0, 320, 448
monitor_specs4    24000-29000, 40-80, 2.910, 3.000, 4.440, 0.451, 0.164, 1.048, 0, 0, 384, 576
monitor_specs5    30000-34000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 576, 768
monitor_specs6    34001-38000, 40-80, 1.000, 3.200, 2.200, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 600, 768

For invaders, instead of tweaking these monitor settings and possibly breaking other stuff I think it could be enough to create an ini for that game just containing the option: monitor_specs5 auto

[RetroACTIVE]

Sounds perfect.  I will give this a shot in a bit.

On the paperboy 512x384 settings... specifically the H settings, how are these translated into the monitor_specs line?  V settings seem to make sense to me but H settings seem way out there to me... Is it a units issue?

Thanks
Jim

[Calamity]

On the paperboy 512x384 settings... specifically the H settings, how are these translated into the monitor_specs line?  V settings seem to make sense to me but H settings seem way out there to me... Is it a units issue?

Ok, did you need to change the vertical part to make it fit the screen or just adjusted it horizontally?

[RetroACTIVE]

On the paperboy 512x384 settings... specifically the H settings, how are these translated into the monitor_specs line?  V settings seem to make sense to me but H settings seem way out there to me... Is it a units issue?

Ok, did you need to change the vertical part to make it fit the screen or just adjusted it horizontally?

Both needed to be adjusted.

[Calamity]

Both needed to be adjusted.

Please be more precise. Was the vertical part overscanned or just shifted up/down, or both, how much, etc.
(I can just use the values you got, don't worry, it's just to be sure).

[RetroACTIVE]

Both needed to be adjusted.

Please be more precise. Was the vertical part overscanned or just shifted up/down, or both, how much, etc.
(I can just use the values you got, don't worry, it's just to be sure).

Ahh ok.  Let me re-test.

I want to say the bottom right of the screen was in proper location, the top and left edges were well out of view.

[RetroACTIVE]

That did it for qbert!   

I went back and checked mk and it appears to have gone out with the change made for tapper and phoenix.

[Calamity]

This should put mk back into its range:

monitor_specs0    15625-15900, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 248, 448
monitor_specs1    16000-17200, 58-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 256, 448
monitor_specs2    18300-18800, 40-58, 8.300, 2.750, 9.000, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 280, 448
monitor_specs3    18800-19000, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.140, 0.191, 0.950, 0, 0, 320, 448
monitor_specs4    24000-29000, 40-80, 2.910, 3.000, 4.440, 0.451, 0.164, 1.048, 0, 0, 384, 576
monitor_specs5    30000-34000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 576, 800
monitor_specs6    34001-38000, 40-80, 1.000, 3.200, 2.200, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 600, 800

[RetroACTIVE]

same...

[Calamity]

Yes you're right, I think it should work now (test mk and tapper):

monitor_specs0    15625-15900, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 248, 448
monitor_specs1    16000-17200, 58-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 256, 448
monitor_specs2    18300-18800, 40-58, 8.300, 2.750, 9.000, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 280, 448
monitor_specs3    18800-19000, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.140, 0.191, 0.950, 0, 0, 320, 448
monitor_specs4    24000-29000, 40-80, 2.020, 2.820, 6.460, 0.890, 0.148, 1.373, 0, 0, 384, 576
monitor_specs5    30000-34000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 496, 768
monitor_specs6    34001-38000, 40-80, 1.000, 3.200, 2.200, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 600, 768

I've also fixed the 25 KHz range for paperboy, using your adjustment, let me know how it works.

[RetroACTIVE]

Yup that fixed it!!!  

toki and cninjau are very wide and cannot be brought in with monitor settings.

[RetroACTIVE]

Whoops those look like old log files from when I had VMMaker setup for magic resolution/HS.

I also have been struggling with my 4890 card lately.  I have graphics artifacts periodically that occur, and sometimes windows fails to start.  I have swapped it out for a 4550 and the issues have gone for now.

I'll have to make sure everything is properly installed / configured and retest.

[RetroACTIVE]

Ok... back to square one.. 

Still we have a fit issue with toki and caveman ninja

and on a side note... my 4890 is crap!  Its totally messed up... I had artifacts showing up at boot time and sometimes windows would not boot at all.  So i swapped it out for my 4550 and now everything is working perfectly.

Kind of ticks me off... probably the last time I buy a video card from ebay!

[Calamity]

Do these games: mslug, goldnaxe, sf2, bublbobl, snowbros

... have similar fit issues??

[RetroACTIVE]

Yes they do actually.

[Calamity]

... so you need to find the right horizontal porch values for the 15 KHz range (monitor_specs0). At this point you should have learned how to do this

I'll be helping anyway... 

[RetroACTIVE]

... so you need to find the right horizontal porch values for the 15 KHz range (monitor_specs0). At this point you should have learned how to do this

I'll be helping anyway...  

Yeah I think I can do this.

The screen is horizontally perfect.  It's far off the left and right sides.

Thanks again

[RetroACTIVE]

Oh it did work before the scramble tweak.

[RetroACTIVE]

ok... I went back and retested each of the monitor settings we used and could not get these two games to work with any of them... I must have been smoking something when I tested them before  


So here is the modeline as it is selected by the game:





H-Settings


V-Settings


Here is what I adjusted the V settings to get the image to correctly size:


Here is where it all landed:



Now I tweaked the monitor_specs0 line to the following:
monitor_specs0    15625-15900, 40-80, 3.090, 4.630, 7.720, 0.648, 0.194, 1.297, 0, 0, 248, 448

... and it didn't seem to change a thing... what did I miss?

[RetroACTIVE]

Ok... so here is the monitor_specs0 line I configured (which had no effect)...
monitor_specs0    15625-15900, 40-80, 3.090, 4.630, 7.720, 0.648, 0.194, 1.297, 0, 0, 248, 448

This is what I think each of the fields mean... am I right?  Question marks mean I don't have a clue what they mean...
monitor_specs0    HFreq, VFreq, H-FP, H-SP, H-BP, V-FP, V-SP, V-BP, ?, ?, ?-max x lines, ?-max y lines

Thanks again

[Calamity]

- I'm assuming you added the line to mame.ini
- Check there's no duplicated label for monitor_specs0
- Check some log to see that your monitor_specs0 are actually read (or attach it here).

I'll be with your issue today, your latest results really puzzled me...

[RetroACTIVE]

- I'm assuming you added the line to mame.ini
- Check there's no duplicated label for monitor_specs0
- Check some log to see that your monitor_specs0 are actually read (or attach it here).

I'll be with your issue today, your latest results really puzzled me...

Yeah... I'm pretty sure I added it and I FORGOT to post the logs... i did see it in there.  But... you never know with me 

I'll double check this evening.

[Calamity]

There are several odd things in your report:

- You said "So here is the modeline as it is selected by the game:" so I understand you copied the full modeline data produced by GM into Arcade_OSD's 256x224@60 video mode and then took the photos. The odd bit is that the modeline shows hfreq = 15.243 even if we limited hfreq by means of monitor_specs0 to a minimum of 15.625, so something is wrong here. It would help if at this point you add the same monitor_specs into vmmaker.ini to recalculate the resolutions and reboot. That will produce modelines that are already closer to the ones calculated by GM.

- Instead of editing the horizontal porches in order to correct horizontal amplitude so the picture fits the screen (as I suggested), you tried the seemingly wrong idea of tweaking the vertical porches instead, but contrary to the logic *it did work*. Considering that horizontal timings among both modes are almost the same, that jump in horizontal geometry can't only be explained if your monitor is somewhat "correcting" the horizontal amplitude by itself based on hfreq.

So, make sure you adjust the right modeline in Arcade_OSD, this should be in the range of 15.6 - 15.7 KHz if the monitor_specs0 line is being considered. Then get the horizontal porches for it. Keeping inside that hfreq range (15.6-15.7) should ensure these porch values will still be valid when used by GM, as it'll be calculating within those ranges. Let the vertical values alone by now (keep the ones we had before: 0.190, 0.191, 1.018).

[RetroACTIVE]

There are several odd things in your report:

- You said "So here is the modeline as it is selected by the game:" so I understand you copied the full modeline data produced by GM into Arcade_OSD's 256x224@60 video mode and then took the photos. The odd bit is that the modeline shows hfreq = 15.243 even if we limited hfreq by means of monitor_specs0 to a minimum of 15.625, so something is wrong here. It would help if at this point you add the same monitor_specs into vmmaker.ini to recalculate the resolutions and reboot. That will produce modelines that are already closer to the ones calculated by GM.

Ok. I updated VMMaker.ini with monitor_spec entries.  I tried to run the VMMaker.exe and its crashing.  Please look at my .ini file to see what is wrong.

- Instead of editing the horizontal porches in order to correct horizontal amplitude so the picture fits the screen (as I suggested), you tried the seemingly wrong idea of tweaking the vertical porches instead, but contrary to the logic *it did work*. Considering that horizontal timings among both modes are almost the same, that jump in horizontal geometry can't only be explained if your monitor is somewhat "correcting" the horizontal amplitude by itself based on hfreq.

Sorry about that... this time I adjusted only H settings and got 4.580, 4.580, 7.630

This was enough to correct the image.

So, make sure you adjust the right modeline in Arcade_OSD, this should be in the range of 15.6 - 15.7 KHz if the monitor_specs0 line is being considered. Then get the horizontal porches for it. Keeping inside that hfreq range (15.6-15.7) should ensure these porch values will still be valid when used by GM, as it'll be calculating within those ranges. Let the vertical values alone by now (keep the ones we had before: 0.190, 0.191, 1.018).

There is no modeline within that frequency range at the desired resolution, I suspect the problem will be corrected when I get VMMaker to run.


Again, thanks sooooo much for the help.

[Calamity]

I've attached a new VMMaker's beta that fixes the bug you were seeing. It's already setup with your monitor specs (notice that now it uses the same format as GroovyMAME).

[RetroACTIVE]

I've attached a new VMMaker's beta that fixes the bug you were seeing. It's already setup with your monitor specs (notice that now it uses the same format as GroovyMAME).

Awesome thanks!

When I first tried it, it behaved like the time I was experimenting with the Hyperspin stuff, it warped my desktop on exit of mame and ddraw was not working.

I looked into the .ini file and found these settings:

   ModeTableMethod_Custom = 0
   ModeTableMethod_XML = 2

Previous version had ModeTableMethod... looks like this has been extended.  I changed them both to 1 and re-ran VMMaker

This cleared up my problem with the funky modes and the desktop corruption as well as it works in ddraw now.

So then I re-ran the toki test... with the same results.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong but reading the toki.txt log file it looks as if its choosing the following modeline:

SwitchRes: Index 5/130 modeline DALDTMCRTBCD256x224x0x60 score 98.00 matches
SwitchRes: Got Custom modeline 256x224@59.970015 - DALDTMCRTBCD256x224x0x60:
        "256x224@60" 5.760000 256 288 320 368 224 234 237 261 -HSync -VSync
SwitchRes: Setting modeline registry entry for DALDTMCRTBCD256x224x0x60
SwitchRes: Set Registry mode DALDTMCRTBCD256x224x0x60 with:
SwitchRes: (63278/63281/63278) Modeline 5.760000 256 288 320 368 224 235 238 263


When I run Arcade_OSD and select that same modeline the geometry is perfect in Arcade_OSD:







The timing numbers I had before for the H settings were not the same with this new configuration... it appears that in Arcade_OSD they are different from before.  I tried those new numbers in monitor_specs0 to see if they would make a difference and they did not.

I re-tested all the other games we've tested so far and all are working as they were with the previous version of VMMaker.



I don't want to get off topic here but initially my desktop was not filling up the full vertical of the screen... like the image is missing pixels on the top and bottom.  I believe it was set to 640x416...so I went into Arcade_OSD set the desktop to 640x480@60p and that corrected it.  

Also FWIW 800x600 doesn't appear to be a valid mode anywhere, not in Arcade_OSD nor available in windows as a desktop setting.

[Calamity]

Well, this is getting interesting. Now you have two modelines which just differ in two lines. They both have the exact same hfreq, but due to the different total number of lines their vfreq differs by 0.5 Hz.

The first one is the one created by VMMaker, that you've tested in Arcade_OSD and fits the screen properly.
The second one is created by GroovyMAME for toki and seems to be overscanned in the horizontal.

Modeline "256x224@60.02" 5.760000 256 288 320 368 224 234 237 261 -HSync -VSync
Modeline "256x224@59.57" 5.760000 256 288 320 368 224 235 238 263 -HSync -VSync

So, what I'd like you to test is to launch Arcade_OSD with its default 256x224@60 modeline, which should fit the screen. Then, edit the modeline, unlock vfreq and start decreasing the dotclock step by step. The vertical frequency will decrease by doing this. Now, the interesting part is to check if at a given point, the overcanned picture suddenly happens.

If this is the case, please report the value of vfreq when this happens. After that, and with the decreased vfreq still active, try to increase the horizontal porches in order to compesate for the overscan you're seeing. Then report these values too.

[RetroACTIVE]

Ok... got it.

I adjusted the dotclock and it over scanned (like in game) at 59.941 Hz



Then I went to the H porch settings and these are the settings before I tweaked them:


After only a couple of increments to the H front porch setting and bingo:

[RetroACTIVE]

Hey Cal... did I mess something up here?  Does it make sense to you?

[Calamity]

Hi RetroACTIVE, sorry I'm too busy lately.

I saw your results. I'll try to explain what I think it's happening.

Your monitor seems to apply different settings depending if vfreq is lower or higher than 60 Hz. If it's below 60 Hz, normal settings produce huge overscan. If it's above 60 Hz, the results are quite reasonable. The important thing to understand is that the behavour is not linear, there's a point nearby 60 Hz were the monitor decides to jump to either one of the modes. The way to solve this will involve creating two separate monitor_specs lines to deal with each case, so we can compesate for the overscan in modes below 60 Hz by using bigger horizontal porches, etc. But we already knew that.

Fortunately, from your last test we can guess that the trigger vfreq value is somewhere between 59.941 and 59.981 Hz.

When you entered the toki values, you had a huge overscan. Then you increased horizontal porches (well done). But as the vfreq was locked, Arcade_OSD updated the dotclock in order to keep a frequency as close as the original as possible. Being this a low resolution (worse precision) and due to dotclock granularity, the closest resulting vfreq happens to be 59.981 Hz.

However, this new vfreq seems to have triggered the 60 Hz adjustments. We know this because the resulting borders are HUGE. You just increased the porches by two characters and the results are not proportional to what you did. The good thing is that now we have a good guess of where the limit is.

Now, you'll need to redo all the steps, right to the state shown on your third pic. Once you're there (59.981 Hz), unlock vfreq and start decreasing the dotclock step by step, so vfreq gets equal or below 59.941. Let me know if you find the sudden jump I'm talking about.

Check the horizontal overscan. If you need to readjust, repeat the process (lock vfreq -> increase horizontal porches -> check if we're under 59.941 otherwise unlock vfreq -> decrease dotclock, etc.) until you get a good adjustment for games under 60 Hz.

[RetroACTIVE]

Allrighty... we'll see if I got this corect...

I have to go back and double check what I did...but here it is.

Now, you'll need to redo all the steps, right to the state shown on your third pic. Once you're there (59.981 Hz), unlock vfreq and start decreasing the dotclock step by step, so vfreq gets equal or below 59.941. Let me know if you find the sudden jump I'm talking about.

Decreasing the vfreq didn't cause it to jump to another mode... It just immediately produced the over scan.



I went back and forth with locking vfreq and adjusting porch values and was able to get this geometry worked out pretty darn good...



Hopefully I didn't miss a critical step here.

[Calamity]

Decreasing the vfreq didn't cause it to jump to another mode... It just immediately produced the over scan.

Yes, that's the jump that I meant: a sudden jump in geometry not proportional to our settings. There it is.

So, these settings in your last pic are the ones we need for resolutions below 60 Hz. Now, they're still not quite right because the hsync pulse is artificially big, it should be around 4.7 microseconds. It just works fine because HFP + HSP + HBP total time is the right one, but I'd try to redistribute the individual values to something like HFP = 7, HSP = 4, HBP = 7.

[RetroACTIVE]

Hey Cal,

I went back to try and tweak the values... its really not cooperating below 59.981Hz while I'm trying to keep the sync pulse around 4.7us

This is the closest I could get without the monitor popping into some other mode:



I need to go back and check, but generally to get it to go below 59.941Hz the best I can do is get it adjusted to the settings you see above, otherwise the image pops it into the center of the screen and the margins are really large.  Then when I try to adjust the porch values, it pops back out beyond the edges.  

I'll post more photos to show you what is going on.

[Calamity]

That's a perfect fit so I'd use those values. You won't get a 4.7 value for h sync pulse because you're working with a very low resolution, that's normal.

I need to go back and check, but generally to get it to go below 59.941Hz the best I can do is get it adjusted to the settings you see above, otherwise the image pops it into the center of the screen and the margins are really large.  Then when I try to adjust the porch values, it pops back out beyond the edges.  

Interesting. However, can you double check if adjusting the exact same settings you have above, but just changing the horizontal values to 7, 4, 7, makes the image pop into the center of the screen?? I'm working on the assumption that what triggers the mode change is the vfreq value, but the settings I'm suggesting should leave the vfreq alone, it's just that the picture would be a bit shifted to the left.

[RetroACTIVE]

Finally got back to this... Here is the 7-4-7 setting, it didn't jump or do anything weird... it was just off to the left a bit:



Then, keeping the VFreq locked, I incremented the back porch settings to get the image to fit... but that moved V Horizontal freq up above 59.941Hz to 59.947Hz.  Even though it's just above the 59.941Hz, it seems the geometry here is very good and the monitor is happy

[Calamity]

Well, that makes sense now. Let's try with these settings:

monitor_specs0    15625-15900, 40-59.97, 7.800, 4.700, 10.600, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 248, 448
monitor_specs1    15625-15900, 60.00-80, 3.000, 4.700, 7.700, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 248, 448
monitor_specs2    16000-17200, 58-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 256, 448
monitor_specs3    18300-18800, 40-58, 8.300, 2.750, 9.000, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 280, 448
monitor_specs4    18800-19000, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.140, 0.191, 0.950, 0, 0, 320, 448
monitor_specs5    24000-29000, 40-80, 2.020, 2.820, 6.460, 0.890, 0.148, 1.373, 0, 0, 384, 576
monitor_specs6    30000-34000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 496, 768
monitor_specs7    34001-38000, 40-80, 1.000, 3.200, 2.200, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 600, 768

Now the 15 Khz range is divided in two ranges depending on vfreq, the limit is 59.97 Hz, let's see how it works.

Try toki, snowbros, bublblobl (< 60 Hz)

Then try goldnaxe (60 Hz)

[RetroACTIVE]

Got it!

They all look great now!!!!... goldnaxe has large margins with geometry like http://home.comcast.net/~retro-active1/pwpimages/256x224-modeline-h-porches-after.JPG but it looks absolutely fine.   I don't have the logs for it... but I don't think its a problem.  Besides I think I have been through this enough with you and have learned a lot through osmosis

I think this captures most if not all of the modes perfectly for this monitor!!!  I think we are done with this      

As far as the desktop... I can't seem to select 800x600 or 640x480 properly anymore. In windows setting there is a 641x480 and a 1024x1024 setting?  When I ran VMMaker with the D9800 monitor setting I could set to 640x480 and 800x600.

Thanks again... this is totally awesome!

[Calamity]

Hi RetroACTIVE, it's good that it works...

Try modifying the limits slightly until you reach the point where each game goes to its right settings:

monitor_specs0    15625-15900, 40-59.96, 7.800, 4.700, 10.600, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 248, 448
monitor_specs1    15625-15900, 59.98-80, 3.000, 4.700, 7.700, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 248, 448

Again... try toki, snowbros, bublblobl (< 60 Hz) ; then goldnaxe (60 Hz)

Paste here your ModeList.txt and Modeline.txt files so I can see why you're missing those desktop modes.

[RetroACTIVE]

Hi RetroACTIVE, it's good that it works...

Try modifying the limits slightly until you reach the point where each game goes to its right settings:

monitor_specs0    15625-15900, 40-59.96, 7.800, 4.700, 10.600, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 248, 448
monitor_specs1    15625-15900, 59.98-80, 3.000, 4.700, 7.700, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 248, 448

Again... try toki, snowbros, bublblobl (< 60 Hz) ; then goldnaxe (60 Hz)

Paste here your ModeList.txt and Modeline.txt files so I can see why you're missing those desktop modes.

You are a perfectionist!  I'll definitely go back tweak those values and post the mode .txt files.
Thanks again

[RetroACTIVE]

I had a chance to try the updated monitor_specs... goldnaxe is still the same.

I've attached a log for that and ModeList.txt and Modeline.txt files.

 

[milhouse]

Just post here a log of a random game that produces a blank screen, by doing this:

groovymame.exe romname -v -md 4 >romname.txt

I'll have a look at it before we go any further. When you have your system up and running we'll start with the monitor specs.

I posted in another thread and just saw this.  Since this is the monitor I have, I figured its better posted here...

The issue is Tempest.  ATI HD4650.

[RetroACTIVE]

Hey Cal... I've been busy and haven't had a chance to get back to this... Did you get a chance to look at my attachments?

Thanks

[Calamity]

Hey Cal... I've been busy and haven't had a chance to get back to this... Did you get a chance to look at my attachments?

Thanks

Hi RetroACTIVE, yes I looked at your results. My conclusion is that the monitor_specs are already fine, but I need to fix GroovyMAME's modeline scoring system. If you have a look at your log, the right modeline is actually calculated in range 2, but GM is still picking the one from range 1 because it doesn't notice the second one is any better. That needs to get fixed.

[RetroACTIVE]

Hi RetroACTIVE, yes I looked at your results. My conclusion is that the monitor_specs are already fine, but I need to fix GroovyMAME's modeline scoring system. If you have a look at your log, the right modeline is actually calculated in range 2, but GM is still picking the one from range 1 because it doesn't notice the second one is any better. That needs to get fixed.

Ok cool thanks

[milhouse]

Hey Cal... I've been busy and haven't had a chance to get back to this... Did you get a chance to look at my attachments?

Thanks

Hi RetroACTIVE, yes I looked at your results. My conclusion is that the monitor_specs are already fine, but I need to fix GroovyMAME's modeline scoring system. If you have a look at your log, the right modeline is actually calculated in range 2, but GM is still picking the one from range 1 because it doesn't notice the second one is any better. That needs to get fixed.

Any idea if this is the same issue with Tempest and other 640x480 games?

Thanks.

[Calamity]

Any idea if this is the same issue with Tempest and other 640x480 games?

No, it's a completely unrelated issue.

[RetroACTIVE]

Hi RetroACTIVE, yes I looked at your results. My conclusion is that the monitor_specs are already fine, but I need to fix GroovyMAME's modeline scoring system. If you have a look at your log, the right modeline is actually calculated in range 2, but GM is still picking the one from range 1 because it doesn't notice the second one is any better. That needs to get fixed.

Ok cool thanks

I'm picking this back up... I need to update my copy of groovymame and get my brain around where I left off.

[RetroACTIVE]

Allrighty... downloaded latest copy of VMMaker and groovy...

Re-ran my tests with new my old monitor settings (previous tests).  Created a new mame.ini and the good news is, it is behaving exactly the same.

tempest is still a blank screen and toki, snowbros, bublblobl (< 60 Hz) still have the geometry issue (goes beyond the left and right edges) games like goldenaxe (60Hz) are fine.

[Calamity]

That's good RetroACTIVE,

I'm *right now* in the process of coding the new patch that should fix, among other things, the issue mentioned here:

Hi RetroACTIVE, yes I looked at your results. My conclusion is that the monitor_specs are already fine, but I need to fix GroovyMAME's modeline scoring system. If you have a look at your log, the right modeline is actually calculated in range 2, but GM is still picking the one from range 1 because it doesn't notice the second one is any better. That needs to get fixed.

It will take me one ore two weeks at least, please be patient 

[RetroACTIVE]

That's good RetroACTIVE,

I'm *right now* in the process of coding the new patch that should fix, among other things, the issue mentioned here:

Hi RetroACTIVE, yes I looked at your results. My conclusion is that the monitor_specs are already fine, but I need to fix GroovyMAME's modeline scoring system. If you have a look at your log, the right modeline is actually calculated in range 2, but GM is still picking the one from range 1 because it doesn't notice the second one is any better. That needs to get fixed.

It will take me one ore two weeks at least, please be patient 

Hey Cal...no problem I have oodles of patience and time

[Banacek]

I have the same monitor, but I'm using a ArcadeVGA as a video card. I'm having some issues with games like dkong and pacman running at like 88%. Looking at the output it's not picking the right resolution. I included my mame.ini and dkong output.

I'm just starting out, so I haven't played with anything yet. Wanted to check in before I did.

Thanks!

[RetroACTIVE]

Not sure if there would be a difference between a straight up ATI vs. the ArcadeVGA.  I think there might but I would check with Calamity.

I've not yet had a chance to check the latest version of GM against my setup yet.  I'm excited because I think it has addressed my issues

[Banacek]

Not sure if there would be a difference between a straight up ATI vs. the ArcadeVGA.  I think there might but I would check with Calamity.

I've not yet had a chance to check the latest version of GM against my setup yet.  I'm excited because I think it has addressed my issues

Well that's good to hear. I read that the ArcadeVGA doesn't have the resolution options that you can get with a regular ATI card and the specialized drivers.

[Calamity]

I have the same monitor, but I'm using a ArcadeVGA as a video card. I'm having some issues with games like dkong and pacman running at like 88%. Looking at the output it's not picking the right resolution. I included my mame.ini and dkong output.

I'm just starting out, so I haven't played with anything yet. Wanted to check in before I did.

Thanks!

Hi Banacek,

It's picking the right resolution indeed, 400x256, it's only that this resolution has a refresh rate of 52 Hz, that's where the slowdown comes from. Try enabling -triplebuffering for that game, that will keep it at 100% speed regardless the refresh.

There's another resolution marked as 352x256@60, have you tried forcing that resolution?

[Banacek]

I have the same monitor, but I'm using a ArcadeVGA as a video card. I'm having some issues with games like dkong and pacman running at like 88%. Looking at the output it's not picking the right resolution. I included my mame.ini and dkong output.

I'm just starting out, so I haven't played with anything yet. Wanted to check in before I did.

Thanks!

Hi Banacek,

It's picking the right resolution indeed, 400x256, it's only that this resolution has a refresh rate of 52 Hz, that's where the slowdown comes from. Try enabling -triplebuffering for that game, that will keep it at 100% speed regardless the refresh.

There's another resolution marked as 352x256@60, have you tried forcing that resolution?

I'll try that today. Thanks!

[Banacek]

Yup, that did the trick! Thanks! All the games I've tried so far look great. What are some games I should try that usually give problems?

[timply]

Well, that makes sense now. Let's try with these settings:

monitor_specs0    15625-15900, 40-59.97, 7.800, 4.700, 10.600, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 248, 448
monitor_specs1    15625-15900, 60.00-80, 3.000, 4.700, 7.700, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 248, 448
monitor_specs2    16000-17200, 58-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 256, 448
monitor_specs3    18300-18800, 40-58, 8.300, 2.750, 9.000, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 280, 448
monitor_specs4    18800-19000, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.140, 0.191, 0.950, 0, 0, 320, 448
monitor_specs5    24000-29000, 40-80, 2.020, 2.820, 6.460, 0.890, 0.148, 1.373, 0, 0, 384, 576
monitor_specs6    30000-34000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 496, 768
monitor_specs7    34001-38000, 40-80, 1.000, 3.200, 2.200, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 600, 768

Now the 15 Khz range is divided in two ranges depending on vfreq, the limit is 59.97 Hz, let's see how it works.

Try toki, snowbros, bublblobl (< 60 Hz)

Then try goldnaxe (60 Hz)

I found this thread after doing some searching for modelines for my monitor. I just recently switched from a AVGA card to a HD4350 after the AVGA started to have artifacts on the screen. I swtched from win 7 to win xp. After putting these modelines into vmmaker, monitor_specs7 gave me an error but still produced 120 modes. Calamity do you see any reason for monitor_specs7 to give an error?

[Calamity]

Hi timply,

You're probably using a dated VMMaker version, that was limited to 7 presets. Grab the version 1.3c here: http://mame.3feetunder.com/windows-ati-crt-emudriver/

[timply]

I have the latest version. Its just saying "vmmaker.ini error in line 81: MONITOR_SPECS7" I included my vmmaker.ini

All but a couple of games i've played so far worked pretty well. The 2 being Pac-man and DoDonPachi. They are squished vertically and if I make them bigger using v-size then games like donkey kong are to big.
I made logs for both games.

If you don't mind looking over these things, it would be much appreciated.

WinXP 32bit
HD4350
Kortek KT-2914
crt_emudriver 9.3 1.2a 32bit

[DeLuSioNal29]

Sorry for reviving and old topic.  It was a good read though!

Calamity, any plans on adding Betson to the monitor types in the ini files?

DeLuSioNaL29

[Calamity]

Calamity, any plans on adding Betson to the monitor types in the ini files?

It would be great as the work in this thread is unfinished. But the presets need to be ported to the new format used by GroovyMAME, and someone with the actual monitor would need to test them.

[DeLuSioNal29]

I have a Betson. With both XP64 and Win 7 hard drives that I can swap back and forth if needed for testing.

I'm using an ATI Radeon HD4670 card. Let me know if you need other specs.

[RetroACTIVE]

I would so like to finish this... and am very grateful for it to be done.  Calamity really worked so well with me but I have had a few detours in my personal time that will indefinitely take me away from finishing the job  

[DeLuSioNal29]

Retroactive, would you mind sharing your current setup?  I'd like to mimic what you have. I can set up a Dropbox folder if you need to drop any files in.

Let me know...

DeLuSioNaL29

[RetroACTIVE]

Retroactive, would you mind sharing your current setup?  I'd like to mimic what you have. I can set up a Dropbox folder if you need to drop any files in.

Let me know...

DeLuSioNaL29

I've backed it up because I tore down my setup... I do have it all.  I'll fire it up and pull it for you.

[DeLuSioNal29]

Any updates Retro?  I'm a bit more familiar now that I've beta tested the Win 7 emu driver.

Let me know and thanks in advance!

DeLuSioNaL29

[Calamity]

Hi DeLuSioNal29,

This is an attempt to port the old monitor_specs lines to the new format used by GM. Please test so we can eventually add this monitor preset to GM:

crt_range0    15625-15900, 40-59.96, 7.800, 4.700, 10.600, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 192, 248, 448, 496
crt_range1    15625-15900, 59.98-80, 3.000, 4.700, 7.700, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 192, 248, 448, 496
crt_range2    16000-17200, 58-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 249, 256, 498, 512
crt_range3    18300-18800, 40-58, 8.300, 2.750, 9.000, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 257, 280, 514, 560
crt_range4    18800-19000, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.140, 0.191, 0.950, 0, 0, 281, 320, 0, 0
crt_range5    24000-29000, 40-80, 2.020, 2.820, 6.460, 0.890, 0.148, 1.373, 0, 0, 384, 400, 768, 800
crt_range6    30000-34000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 448, 496, 0, 0
crt_range7    34001-38000, 40-80, 1.000, 3.200, 2.200, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 512, 600, 0, 0

[DeLuSioNal29]

Hi Calamity,

I did some testing over the last couple of days with some random games.  I wanted to reply only when I had a thorough answer.  I tried two different setting in the custom section of mame.ini.  The column GM (Betson Test) is the one mentioned here.  The column GM (D9800 50Hz custom) is the one mentioned here.

Game |	Native MAME Res |	GM (Betson Test) |	F11 Game speed |	GM (D9800 50Hz custom) |	F11 Game speed
Aero Fighters	320x224	2560x320	100%	2560x240	100%
Bomb Jack	256x224	2560x256	100%	2560x256	100%
Caveman Ninja	256x240	2560x240	100%	2560x240	100%
Centipede/Millipede	256x240	2560x800	84%	2560x464	100%
Circus Charlie	256x224	2560x256	100%	2560x256	100%
Do Don Pachi	320x240	2560x800	68%	2560x464	100%
Do Don Pachi Dai-Ou-Jou v101	448x224	2560x448	100%	2560x448	100%
Mad Planets	256x240	2560x800	80%	2560x464	100%
Q*Bert	256x240	2560x800	80%	2560x464	100%
Raiden Fighters	320x240	2560x800	70%	2560x464	100%
Raiden Fighters 2	320x240	2560x800	70%	2560x464	100%
Raiden Fighters Jet	320x240	2560x800	70%	2560x464	100%
Rampage	512x480	2560x800	100%	2560x464	100%
Satan's Hollow	512x480	2560x800	80%	2560x464	100%
Space Invaders '95	320x224	2560x320	100%	2560x320	100%
Super Space Invaders	320x224	2560x320	100%	2560x320	100%
Spy Hunter	480x480	2560x800	80%	2560x464	100%
Tapper	512x480	2560x800	100%	2560x464	100%
Toki	256x224	2560x240	100%	2560x240	100%
Zookeeper	256x256	2560x264	100%	2560x256	100%

The GM resolution that were at 2560x800 ran slower.  Not sure why GM chose that resolutions.  With the exception of Rampage and Tapper.   

As an experiment, I removed the Super Res of 2560x800 from the ReslList.txt file and rebooted.  GM then chose 2560x768 for those games.  (So I switched it back for now until we troubleshoot).

DeLuSioNaL29

[Calamity]

Hi DeLuSioNal29, thanks for your report. Simply replace this line:

crt_range5    24000-29000, 40-80, 2.020, 2.820, 6.460, 0.890, 0.148, 1.373, 0, 0, 384, 400, 0, 0

[Calamity]

Also, apply the minimum 50 Hz limit, not related with your posted results but it should be required to avoid your previous issues with starwars:

crt_range0    15625-15900, 50-59.96, 7.800, 4.700, 10.600, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 192, 248, 448, 496
crt_range1    15625-15900, 59.98-80, 3.000, 4.700, 7.700, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 192, 248, 448, 496
crt_range2    16000-17200, 58-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 249, 256, 498, 512
crt_range3    18300-18800, 50-58, 8.300, 2.750, 9.000, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 257, 280, 514, 560
crt_range4    18800-19000, 50-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.140, 0.191, 0.950, 0, 0, 281, 320, 0, 0
crt_range5    24000-29000, 50-80, 2.020, 2.820, 6.460, 0.890, 0.148, 1.373, 0, 0, 384, 400, 0, 0
crt_range6    30000-34000, 50-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 448, 496, 0, 0
crt_range7    34001-38000, 50-80, 1.000, 3.200, 2.200, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 512, 600, 0, 0

[8BitMonk]

Hey Delusional, were you able to test again with these updated values? Mind sharing your .ini files? Happy to run with testing if still needed, I have the same setup.

Thanks!

[Calamity]

Hi 8BitMonk,

If you have the same monitor, I'd be great if you could test the settings in my last post: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,117489.msg1445684.html#msg1445684

Just put those in their corresponding place in mame.ini, and set the monitor option as "custom".

[8BitMonk]

Hi Calamity, thanks for the response

I tested these settings last night with a bunch of games, all of the ones Delusional listed as well as some I took from the 'Games with ISSUES' thread. Overall the results were great with only a handful of remaining issues. Most of the game speed problems were gone, mk still has an issue with the picture bowing as RetroACTIVE reported.

How would you prefer I report back for troubleshooting, text grid like Delusional, rom.txt files, screenshots?

Can someone tell me how people are taking mame in-game screenshots that are full screen and include the mame osd menu. f12 does just the game and no menu, print screen doesn't seem to work at these odd resolutions.

Thanks!

[8BitMonk]

I was able to test about 60 games with the most recent settings posted by Calamity. I'm keeping the results in a shared Google spreadsheet, link below.

--> GROOVYMAME BETSON-KORTEK TEST RESULTS GOOGLE SPREADSHEET CLICK HERE<--

Green=Good  Yellow=Minor Problems  Red=Major Problems

Next I'll try to recreate the display issues in ArcadeOSD, adjust for them and report better values back as was suggested to RetroACTIVE. If anyone has any other suggestions to fix please let me know. Hopefully with a little trial and error we can get them all ironed out.

Thanks! 

[8BitMonk]

I was able to do some more testing tonight and think I've made good progress towards troubleshooting the Mortal Kombat issue.

First thing was to recreate the issue in ArcadeOSD and try to compensate with the geometry controls. I ran a log of mk and then looked at the modeline values gm was applying...

gm starts with the basic super resolution 2560x256_60 16.74KHz 60.00Hz:
"2560x256_60 16.74KHz 60.00Hz" 55.31 2560 2680 2936 3304 256 259 262 279

then to match Mortal Kombat better calculates 2560x256_60 15.65KHz 54.71Hz:
"2560x256_60 15.65KHz 54.71Hz" 52.07 2560 2664 2912 3328 256 262 265 286

So this value is what I put into ArcadeOSD to match the issue and voila, it's janky.



As you can see it's bowed at the top and offset down and to the right just like when I run the game so time to try to compensate with geometry controls. I could easily center it but nothing I adjusted would change the bowing effect.

Since the Vres of Mortal Kombat is actually 54.81Hz I next tried dropping the Vres in ArcadeOSD settings from 256 to 254 and the bowing immediately goes away, 255 works as well. That fixes the geometry issue but as a side effect mk runs at 110% and it also affects games like 1943 that share that Vres, it looked a little blurry.

Since I couldn't come up with a universal solution and don't know how to make presets I decided to try an ini file for mk. Using the basic super resolution modeline "2560x256_60 16.74KHz 60.00Hz" 55.31 2560 2680 2936 3304 256 259 262 279 mk runs great though I'm sure it's not perfectly emulated since it's at 60hz. Oddly even though I only added mk.ini with this edit it applies it to every version of mk I run so mk2 and mk3 use it as well.

I tried the custom calculated gm value in an ini file with a minor alteration changing the 256 to 254 to prohibit the bowing like so: modeline "2560x256_60 15.65KHz 54.71Hz" 52.07 2560 2664 2912 3328 254 262 265 286 but it tells me it can't find a suitable resolution. I guess even though groovymame creates the custom modeline on the fly you can't do it from ini file, it must need to be added somewhere.

Hope that helps for troubleshooting Mortal Kombat res. Maybe with this info Calamity can come up with a modification to the preset or a more universal solution, or coach me on how to do it. At least I can use the mk.ini file with the basic super resolution in it as a temp fix.

[8BitMonk]

Disregard my last couple posts, I just noticed I had left the monitor setting to arcade_15_25_31 so they'd apply to that setting and not Calamities custom preset.

When I use Calamities preset values (below) and the monitor set to custom I get an 'out of range - ignoring' error when launching groovymame. It says it applies to the preset in bold, specifically 248.

crt_range0    15625-15900, 50-59.96, 7.800, 4.700, 10.600, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 192, 248, 448, 496
crt_range1    15625-15900, 59.98-80, 3.000, 4.700, 7.700, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 192, 248, 448, 496
crt_range2    16000-17200, 58-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 249, 256, 498, 512
crt_range3    18300-18800, 50-58, 8.300, 2.750, 9.000, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 257, 280, 514, 560
crt_range4    18800-19000, 50-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.140, 0.191, 0.950, 0, 0, 281, 320, 0, 0
crt_range5    24000-29000, 50-80, 2.020, 2.820, 6.460, 0.890, 0.148, 1.373, 0, 0, 384, 400, 0, 0
crt_range6    30000-34000, 50-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 448, 496, 0, 0
crt_range7    34001-38000, 50-80, 1.000, 3.200, 2.200, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 512, 600, 0, 0

I'll have to retest after figuring out why the second part of the split 15Khz preset is out of range.

[Calamity]

Hi 8BitMonk,

Thanks for your report.

You're right, the preset is wrong, unfortunately nobody had reported it before. Try replacing it with this:

crt_range1    15625-16240, 59.98-80, 3.000, 4.700, 7.700, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 192, 248, 448, 496

The good thing is that GroovyMAME is smart enough to check these things and at least gives an error message. This was the error:

Code: [Select]

(progressive_lines_max + hfreq_max * vertical_blank) * vfreq_min > hfreq_max
The way it was before: crt_range1    15625-15900, 59.98-80, 3.000, 4.700, 7.700, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 192, 248, 448, 496

(248 + 15900 * (0.190 + 0.191 + 1.018) / 1000) * 59.98 = 16234 (we had 15900 as hfreq_max so we were out of range).

Thus increasing hfreq_max to 16240 fixes the range.


Regarding your issues with sound stuttering, I'd say you're forcing -syncrefresh in mame.ini. Don't do it, just keep -syncrefresh, -waitvsync and -triplebuffer as 0 (default), so GM can choose which one to use in each case.

Besides, I'd say you're using -frame_delay. Bear in mind -frame_delay *disables* sound synchronization. If the target refresh doesn't match the original with several decimal figures you'll have sound glitches for sure. The -frame_delay option has become popular but I want to remark that it is still experimental and it shouldn't be applied as a general option. It is recommended to enable it in a per game basis, trying to find the greater value that doesn't cause issues for that game and then creating a custom modeline (read: modeline, NOT crt_range) for that game to better tweak the frequency by manual fine tuning of the timings. So it is something you do once you have all up and running.

Regarding the problems with MK, notice the trick you did by reducing the active lines to 254 is not doing what you think it is. Windows 7 doesn't allow you to do that. The active lines/active horizontal size of the modeline must match the logical resolution, otherwise the modeline is ignored and the default timings will apply, that is why automatically the 60 Hz refresh is activated, it seems to be fixing the geometry but actually it's just picking another modeline. As you see the game runs at 110% so it's ignoring your timings.

This monitor is probably the most complicated monitor we have worked with, as we just noticed by the beginning of this thread. It behaves different depending on the vertical refresh, rather than just the horizontal frequency. For this reason, we had to divide the 15 kHz range in two subranges (50-59.96) (59.98-80). Maybe we need an extra subrange.

[8BitMonk]

Hi Calamity,

Thanks for the update and additional info!

Code: [Select]

(progressive_lines_max + hfreq_max * vertical_blank) * vfreq_min > hfreq_max
The way it was before: crt_range1    15625-15900, 59.98-80, 3.000, 4.700, 7.700, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 192, 248, 448, 496

(248 + 15900 * (0.190 + 0.191 + 1.018) / 1000) * 59.98 = 16234 (we had 15900 as hfreq_max so we were out of range).

Thus increasing hfreq_max to 16240 fixes the range.

Thanks for this, I was curious how the math worked out. I had tried changing some values to correct with no luck.

Regarding your issues with sound stuttering, I'd say you're forcing -syncrefresh in mame.ini. Don't do it, just keep -syncrefresh, -waitvsync and -triplebuffer as 0 (default), so GM can choose which one to use in each case.

-syncrefresh was already at 0 but sync_refresh_tolerance was at 2. I set sync_refresh_tolerance to 0 for my new tests and most of the sound issues are gone. Not sure if this is due to the preset edit or this setting.

Besides, I'd say you're using -frame_delay. Bear in mind -frame_delay *disables* sound synchronization. If the target refresh doesn't match the original with several decimal figures you'll have sound glitches for sure. The -frame_delay option has become popular but I want to remark that it is still experimental and it shouldn't be applied as a general option. It is recommended to enable it in a per game basis, trying to find the greater value that doesn't cause issues for that game and then creating a custom modeline (read: modeline, NOT crt_range) for that game to better tweak the frequency by manual fine tuning of the timings. So it is something you do once you have all up and running.

Good to know. I left frame_delay at 1 for the time being for this round of tests, wanted test the preset edit alone first before tweaking this.

Regarding the problems with MK, notice the trick you did by reducing the active lines to 254 is not doing what you think it is. Windows 7 doesn't allow you to do that. The active lines/active horizontal size of the modeline must match the logical resolution, otherwise the modeline is ignored and the default timings will apply, that is why automatically the 60 Hz refresh is activated, it seems to be fixing the geometry but actually it's just picking another modeline. As you see the game runs at 110% so it's ignoring your timings.

Ohhh of course, I totally missed this.

This monitor is probably the most complicated monitor we have worked with, as we just noticed by the beginning of this thread. It behaves different depending on the vertical refresh, rather than just the horizontal frequency. For this reason, we had to divide the 15 kHz range in two subranges (50-59.96) (59.98-80). Maybe we need an extra subrange.

Based on my new testing I think you are correct.

----- NEW TESTS -----
I plugged in the new preset and ran through my groovymame test game list again.

The results at the link below. Note there are also links to screenshots in the right column:
groovymame tests 2 - custom preset

I left the original arcade_15_25_31 test results intact. Thought it might still be useful for comparison purposes as some of the settings had better results than the custom:
groovymame tests 1 - arcade_15_25_31

Similar to RetroACTIVE's results some things improved and some that worked with the arcade_15_25_31 developed issues. Pacman, loht and paperboy are the ones that come to mind that worked better in 15_25_31. ddonpach, though it had a little clipping at the top before was closer with the 15_25_31 setting than the custom.

Another really strange difference I noticed that was for games like msh and neogeo games like mslug... even though the 15_25_31 and custom presets appear to set the same modeline the 15_25_31 fills the screen much better with less black around it. I ran logs of msh from both (attached) for comparison, you can also see it in the screenshots.

[8BitMonk]

I've been doing a little more testing to try and create some new preset subranges and fix up the problem resolutions but it looks like I'm going to need a little coaching.

I figured the easiest place to start would be with a another preset I knew worked (and that worked with certain games) so I took the 15khz preset from arcade_15_25_31 and added it (bold below) to the custom ones from Calamity.

crt_range0  15625-16200, 49.50-65.00, 2.000, 4.700, 8.000, 0.064, 0.192, 1.024, 0, 0, 192, 288, 448, 576
crt_range1    15625-15900, 50-59.96, 7.800, 4.700, 10.600, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 192, 248, 448, 496
crt_range2    15625-16240, 59.98-80, 3.000, 4.700, 7.700, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 192, 248, 448, 496
crt_range3    16000-17200, 58-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 249, 256, 498, 512
crt_range4    18300-18800, 50-58, 8.300, 2.750, 9.000, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 257, 280, 514, 560
crt_range5    18800-19000, 50-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.140, 0.191, 0.950, 0, 0, 281, 320, 0, 0
crt_range6    24000-29000, 50-80, 2.020, 2.820, 6.460, 0.890, 0.148, 1.373, 0, 0, 384, 400, 0, 0
crt_range7    30000-34000, 50-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 448, 496, 0, 0

As I expected this fixed up loht (384x256@55hz), it selects range 0, takes up most of the screen with the right refresh rate. My confusion is that I expected pacman to select range0 as well since it seems to fall within the parameters, ie. the min/max progressive lines are 192/288 which pacman falls within, 60hz is also within the range. Instead it selects range5. If I comment out range5 it selects range0 and runs and looks good though it runs at 52.427hz and I'm not sure if this is an issue or not. Everything looks, sounds and plays good but it's not 60hz.
 
Before I do any further testing I'd like to get a quick overview of how groovymame selects the preset ranges, does it match the progressive line values, the horizontal refresh rate or a combination of both?

Calamity I'm hoping you might have time to explain the best way for me to test and troubleshoot this. I'm happy to do the legwork if you can get me going in the right direction.

Thanks!

[8BitMonk]

Bump. Any further advice on troubleshooting Calamity?

Thanks!

[8BitMonk]

I was able to figure out the process through trial and error and going back and carefully re-reading all of Calamities instructions and commentary in the thread.

Below is version 1 of my presets for the Betson. It works great for nearly all of the games on my test list (see google spreadsheet). They run at perfect speed and look fantastic. I have to tweak the porches and/or create a new subrange for Paperboy as it's an odd one, I believe it uses range6. Diehard stutters a bit but I'm pretty sure it's not the modeline, it's the emulation, it's a 3d game. The range0 games (mvsc, neogeo, goldnaxe, robotron, shinobi) still have a little more black space around them than I'd like, need to tweak the porches a bit more on them. Even though the border in Arcade_OSD is right up the edge with my current porch settings it still comes up a bit short all around for those games and some range1 games.

crt_range0    15625-15900, 50-59.96, 2.512, 6.195, 5.023, 0.135, 0.202, .404, 0, 0, 192, 248, 448, 496
crt_range1    15625-16240, 59.98-80, 3.000, 4.700, 7.700, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 192, 248, 448, 496
crt_range2    16029-17200, 50-80, 1.220, 4.728, 7.626, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 249, 256, 498, 512
crt_range3    18300-18800, 50-58, 8.300, 2.750, 9.000, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 257, 280, 514, 560
crt_range4    18448-22000, 50-80, 3.945, 4.052, 3.839, 0.551, 0.230, 0.827, 0, 0, 281, 320, 0, 0
crt_range5    24000-29000, 50-80, 1.549, 2.820, 6.502, 0.225, 0.150, 2.021, 0, 0, 384, 400, 0, 0
crt_range6    30000-34000, 50-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 448, 496, 0, 0
crt_range7    34001-38000, 50-80, 1.000, 3.200, 2.200, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 512, 600, 0, 0

Delusional and RetroACTIVE let me know if you do any more testing and find games with issues and I will continue to test and tweak.

Thanks!

[RetroACTIVE]

I've got to reinstall my system, had a major crash and burn.  I am thrilled you guys kept this going... it's a challenge for sure!  Maybe if I'm lucky I can get back up and running this week and get into this again.

[8BitMonk]

Below is version 2 of my presets for the Betson. This fixes all of the games on my original testing spreadsheet including games like Paperboy, 720, Sprint and 240x240 games like Burger Time. The preset isn't complete yet but covers the most common games, I've tested a lot more games and they all look and play better than they ever have on my cab, it's amazing. I was able to get rid of most of the black border with games that fall into range0 like neogeo games and Marvel vs. Capcom. The remaining space is due more to the aspect ratio of the original games, they are supposed to be a little more rectangular. Mortal Kombat fills the entire screen now.

crt_range0    15625-15900, 50-59.96, 3.03, 6.134, 6.763, 0.067, 0.200, .532, 0, 0, 192, 248, 448, 496
crt_range1    15625-16240, 59.98-80, 3.000, 4.700, 7.700, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 192, 248, 448, 496
crt_range2    16029-17200, 50-80, 1.220, 4.728, 7.626, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 249, 256, 498, 512
crt_range3    18300-18800, 50-58, 8.300, 2.750, 9.000, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 257, 280, 514, 560
crt_range4    18448-22000, 50-80, 6.278, 2.058, 7.410, 0.799, 0.828, .876, 0, 0, 281, 320, 0, 0
crt_range5    24000-25000, 50-80, 1.163, 3.595, 1.798, 0.081, 0.162, 0.889, 0, 0, 384, 400, 0, 0
crt_range6    24000-29000, 50-80, 1.549, 2.820, 6.502, 0.225, 0.150, 2.021, 0, 0, 384, 400, 0, 0
crt_range7    30000-34000, 50-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 448, 496, 0, 0
crt_range8    34001-38000, 50-80, 1.000, 3.200, 2.200, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 512, 600, 0, 0

OTHER NOTES:

The Betson OSD settings are per horizontal refresh rate. Maybe this is common knowledge and something all arcade monitors do but something I didn't know. I assumed the OSD adjustments were one universal set. Anyway, when you adjust the OSD on the Betson the settings are particular to that horizontal refresh rate only. This is very important for getting your monitor dialed in. The best way to adjust is outlined in the steps below:

• Run a game from the command line with a log file (ie. groovymame64.exe -v mk > mk.txt)
• Look in the log write down the modeline values. The modeline is near the bottom, the one that says updating, like this: Switchres: updating  DALDTMCRTBCD2560x256x0x60 - Modeline "2560x256_6015.65KHz 54.71Hz" 52.07 2560 2664 2912 3328 256 262 265 286   -hsync -vsync.
  
• Write the values in bold (above) down on a sheet of paper.
• Open ArcadeOSD and go to the resolution used in the modeline, ie. above it was 2560x256, and select it.
• Go to edit modeline and turn off the locking on the vertical.match the values for the dot clock and horizontal and .
• Change the rest of the values to match the numbers from the modeline, starts with the dot clock then 2560, they go in order from top to bottom.
• Hit the number 1 key to see the changes applied
• Lock the vertical refresh rate
• Hit esc to go back a menu, you will see the 'save' line has turned red. Select it and hit return to save.
• Now using the Betson OSD adjust the image so there’s no bowing, it’s near the edge etc.
• You need to do this for each range used.

About vector games.
I’m not using Groovymame for vector games, I plan on running a vanilla version of mame with HLSL turned on for vector games.

Strange pacman adjustment.
For some reason with pacman even though the screen adjustment looked perfect in ArcadeOSD I was getting a weird ripple effect going through the screen. I tried various adjustment in the preset values, turning on frame delay and vsync etc. but nothing seemed to work. Finally I played with the Betson OSD and found that if I shifted the image to the left slightly (setting of 72) or less it goes away. Not sure if it’s just my monitor or all Betsons, I haven’t noticed anything like it in any other game. The fix is easy though and the slight left offset isn’t noticeable.

After doing this the games look friggin amazing, better than they ever have on my monitor, and play silky smooth. I couldn't be happier with the results.

Happy testing, hope this helps some other Betson owners out there.
 

[Calamity]

Hi 8BitMonk,

Sorry for my lack of feedback these days, I'm in the process of house moving. Hopefully by next week things will be back to normal.

I'm impressed again with how well you have figured out the whole process by yourself, congratulations.

I have my doubts however that this preset will achieve the same exact results with another Betson monitor. For this model, it seems that as you have explained the particular adjustment of the monitor itself plays an important role on the resulting picture.

For instance your crt_range0 has much more reasonable horizontal porches than our previous one. For some reason RetroACTIVE's monitor needed huge porches for that range in order to get he picture properly sized.

Your statement that this monitor has memory presets for different hfreq ranges and reacts accordingly also makes much more sense than our previous belief that it was the vertical frequency the critical factor. I had never quite digested that idea, but it's difficult to figure out the actual behaviour from the distance.

[8BitMonk]

Hi Calamity,

No worries, I figured you must've been tiew up with something. Thanks for the kudos, I feel like I'm finally starting to grasp it.

I think these presets, once complete, should still be applicable to all Betsons. A big part of the problem is that if you've tweaked the Betson OSD in the past the 'bowing' affect you get or it being extended off screen can look similar to the break point for the porches. The fact that each hfreq setting is separate compounds the confusion until you realize it. I went back and stepped through the porches to find the break points and then finished with the Betson OSD and it seemed to work really well.

Once these are final I think it's just a matter of people going into ArcadeOSD and plugging in the numbers for each range and then adjusting with the Betson OSD. I have two friends with this monitor and plan on transferring my results to their setups so we'll see how it goes.

I've had to break off of testing for a couple of days myself but I'll be back at it soon and post more results.

[AMDman13]

Thanks to 8BitMonk and of course Calamity for all the work that has gone in to this. This is my first go using the software with my Betson. I had originally used ArcadeVGA and then later soft15khz, but had read so much about this I decided to give it a try. I have a question. Should I select D9800 for Monitor type in VMMaker or Custom? I know in Groovymame INI I should select custom, so I can apply all of 8bitMonk's custom resolutions. I guess I am asking should the settings match each other?

[Calamity]

Should I select D9800 for Monitor type in VMMaker or Custom?

I guess the D9800 preset in VMMaker will be good enough for mode table generation purposes. Later GroovyMAME will do its thing to adjust those modes to the specs show here.

[8BitMonk]

Hi AMD, yep  I stuck with the D9800 out of VMMaker to begin with. As Calamity mentioned groovymame does it's thing later in the process so as long as you're in the ballpark to begin with it's fine.

I've got a new version of my presets I will post tonight, the values have changed as I've done more testing. There are also ini files that go along with them. The Windows version of Groovymame has some bugs that the ini files account for.

I wouldn't consider them final yet but very very close. I've gone through and tested a handful of vertical and horizontal games in every monitor range. I will outline what I tested in a future post as well.

[AMDman13]

I've got a new version of my presets I will post tonight, the values have changed as I've done more testing. There are also ini files that go along with them. The Windows version of Groovymame has some bugs that the ini files account for.

Sweet! I can't wait to give them a try! Thank you! I have to say it does look pretty awesome. I've almost got my Betson OSD dialed in. My problem as you mentioned, I have messed with these settings to match other set ups. Too bad there isn't a reset to default option.

[8BitMonk]

Below are the current presets I'm working from along with the ini's attached.

crt_range1    15625-16240, 50-65, 3.000, 4.700, 7.700, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 192, 248, 0, 0
crt_range2    16029-17200, 50-65, 1.220, 4.728, 7.626, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 249, 256, 0, 0
crt_range3    18300-18800, 50-65, 8.300, 2.750, 9.000, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 257, 280, 0, 0
crt_range4    18448-31000, 50-65, 6.278, 2.058, 7.410, 0.799, 0.828, .876, 0, 0, 281, 360, 0, 0
crt_range5    24000-29000, 58-65, 1.163, 3.595, 1.798, 0.081, 0.162, 0.889, 0, 0, 376, 384, 0, 0
crt_range6    24000-29000, 57-65, 1.549, 2.820, 6.502, 0.225, 0.150, 2.021, 0, 0, 392, 400, 0, 0
crt_range7    30000-34000, 58-65, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 432, 496, 0, 0
crt_range8    33001-38000, 58-65, 0.942, 3.062, 2.827, 0.471, 0.118, 0.972, 0, 0, 512, 588, 0, 0

You're going to want to find a game that uses each of the presets below and adjust the display. Finding a game that uses each preset and entering the modeline info in ArcadeOSD would be the most thorough as you can see all edges. You may be able to get away with just loading each game and adjusting though probably not as reliable. A game for each preset below to get started.

1 - ninjakd2
2 - mpatrol
3 - tigerh
4 - bowlrama
5 - twinhawk
6 - gwar
7 - ddp2
8 - fnkyfish 

When I have more time I'll  give a more complete description of what i've done along with instructions. This should be good to get you started though.

[AMDman13]

Hi 8BitMonk please forgive me if I come across as a total noob. I need to enable super resolutions?

[8BitMonk]

Hey AMD, yep grab the latest driver, vmmaker and arcade osd files and you'll notice inside the vmmaker_arcade_osd_1.4 folder is a file named ReslList - super.txt with instructions at the top of it for enabling super resolutions.

One other note, in my ResList.txt file I included the 800x600 desktop resolution in addition to 640x480 and some others for consoles. Attached for reference.

*Also I noticed 2560x496 is listed twice which I think is a mistake in the original file. It doesn't hurt anyting but when you run vmmaker it will tell you there was a dupe.

[AMDman13]

Hey AMD, yep grab the latest driver, vmmaker and arcade osd files and you'll notice inside the vmmaker_arcade_osd_1.4 folder is a file named ReslList - super.txt with instructions at the top of it for enabling super resolutions

Thanks 8Bit I've got them installed. Easy enough. Now every game seems to run in a super resolution. Is this normal?

[8BitMonk]

Yep, that's what you want.

[AMDman13]

Man I am sorry for the questions. I hope someone here can answer this one. It seems so simple, but I can't find the answer anywhere. 

I don't understand where in Mame.ini to change the following settings:

resolution 2560x0
cleanstretch 2

I see cleanstretch as a setting that is under Core Switchres. Currently it is set to 0.
Do I simply add these lines somewhere? If so which heading?

[AMDman13]

Totally confused

[Calamity]

I see cleanstretch as a setting that is under Core Switchres. Currently it is set to 0.
Do I simply add these lines somewhere? If so which heading?

Simply edit the value that is "0" by default in mame.ini with a "2". The -resolution option is set as "resolution auto" by default, just search it through the file and replace "auto" with "2560x0".

[AMDman13]

Thanks Calamity!

For the resolution it is located under
OSD PER-WINDOW VIDEO OPTIONS?

[8BitMonk]

Should be the only part of the mame.ini that says 'resolution auto', search for 'resolution auto'.

[AMDman13]

Hi 8bit, thanks again for your help and  patience! I am trying to use ArcadeOSD to adjust the settings used by groovymame as you suggested. I am a bit lost. I understand how to make a video log and have the modeline settings for say ninjakd2. How do I get ArcadeOSD to display the modeline for this game exactly as groovymame? I even tried to edit the modeline.txt to reflect, but arcadeosd doesnt seem  the new modeline. Thanks again for your help!

[8BitMonk]

Hi AMDman,

Look in the log file for the game to get the modeline it's setting, should look something like this:

2560x256_60 15.65KHz 54.71Hz" 52.07 2560 2664 2912 3328 256 262 265 286   -hsync -vsync

Jot down those numbers or paste them into notepad then open up ArcadeOSD and then open the apporpriate resolution. Ie. in the example above it is 2560x256. After opening it go to Edit Modeline and you should see a screen like this:



Make sure the Vfreq is set to unlock and then use the arrows to change the numbers to match the modeline you jotted down. Press enter or 1 and you should see them applied and the geometry should match how you were seeing it when you launched the game.

Now use the Betsone OSD to adjust the positioning, pincussion etc. Note that if you exit out of ArcadeOSD you will have to enter these again when you come back in unless you save them. If you save edits to a modeline in ArcadeOSD I'm not sure how (or if) you can restore the default modeline values. Saving them in ArcadeOSD has no effect (as far as I can tell) on the actual resolutions being set by groovymame, it's merely for looking at different resolutions and modeline adjustments.

You could also adjust just by running various games but the OSD tool is more reliable since you can see a square with all the edges and a pattern. As you adjust it's important to note that certain games will share adjustments based on their horizontal and vertical refresh rates. You'll find if you adjust say a horizontal game too far that shares a Betson OSD setting with a vertical game, the vertical game may go off the screen so it's a matter of finding a happy medium. Luckily so far, even accounting for this, I haven't had a lot of blank space around games and have been pleasantly surprised at how much space (especially the vertical games) take up.

I'm trying to map all this out for my final notes as well as a better testing procedure, maybe even provide the final Betson OSD settings for the different scenarios.

[cools]

Nice instructions

[Calamity]

Yes, nice instructions. I'll just show you a shortcut:

Look in the log file for the game to get the modeline it's setting, should look something like this:

2560x256_60 15.65KHz 54.71Hz" 52.07 2560 2664 2912 3328 256 262 265 286   -hsync -vsync

When you exit GM, the last modeline that's been used is in the clipboard. So simply open notepad and press CTRL+V.
I guess the next feature that should be added to Arcade OSD is to grab the modeline directly from the clipboard, and place it back in there after it's been edited.

[8BitMonk]

Thanks, that's a fantastic shortcut! Digging through the logs is a pain.

Once you've modified a modeline in ArcadeOSD is there a way to revert it back to whatever the default non-edited version was? I guess there's no great need to go back other than if you want to see where you started from. 

[AMDman13]

8bit thanks for dumbing it down a bit for me. I finally have my Betson dialed in to a happy medium. I have noticed that for two games in your test list I need to have horizontal sizing set to max in order for the game to feel "close" to normal size.
They are tigerh and bowlrama. Do you find this as well?
Anyway thanks again. This is the best this monitor has ever looked!

[8BitMonk]

Hi AMD,

Glad you're getting dialed in and things are progessing.

Yes, I've noticed some of the vertical games (including tigerh) can be a little narrow. Unfortunately  they share Betson OSD settings with some other horizontal games so you don't really want to change the width to be max or the others will go off the edges. I'm cataloging which monitor settings affect each other so at least I can tell what affects what and I'll share what I've got when I'm done.

You can always temporarily adjust the Betson OSD when you play though this is a pita and not ideal. A custom modeline is probably the best way to go for situations like this. Have to decide how many are worth creating and what to live with as they take time.

It's normal, just the nature of the beast in trying to have a single monitor perfectly accomodate so many different games. You end up either spending hours tweaking or making concessions.

[timply]

I would like to send a big shoutout to 8BitMonk. I posted here well over a year ago trying to get settings for this monitor that apparently is rather rare in the groovymame community and he has stepped up big time and made great strides. I have been out of mame game for awhile now and trying to get back in. Glad to see Calamity still putting out quality stuff. We're getting closer and closer to becoming part of the presets!  Kudos to you guys! 

[8BitMonk]

Thanks Timply. Been busy lately but I've finally had time to complete some further testing.

I don't think the presets were the issue all along and in fact I've gone back to using the D9400/9800 presets, more explanation below.

A couple important things to know (if you don't already) about these monitors:

• There is a 'factory mode' for making OSD adjustments, you enter this mode by holding down the up key on keypad when powering up the monitor, the menu will be pink instead of blue. In this mode you can make more drastic geometry adjustments as well as access adjustments not available in the regular mode such as voltage and linearity adjustments. The settings in this mode are what are used when you hit the 'Recall' button in the regular mode, they are defaults. Before I started I calibrated my monitor at 800x600 using a monitor calibration tool while in factory mode, I would suggest this as a good start point.
• The Betson Imperial is a digital trisync meaning that is can store various geometry setting, ie. they are not universally shared by all games. I've mapped what resolutions are shared and found 14 primary unique OSD groups, see the PDF link below.

So as I was going through and testing it baffled me that monitors like the D9400/9800 and the Betson should have such drastically different preset values since they're basically the same monitor. After the newest release of groovymame came out that fixed mistakenly selecting the wrong presets I reverted back to the D9400/9800 settings, mapped out the groups that share the same geometry settings and then attempted to see if all of the visual corrections could be made using the geometry controls and not mess with changing presets.

The end result was that everything worked for me using the D9400/9800 presets and then making OSD adjustments for each group.

Below is a link to my mapping PDF that shows each group that I found. I'm not exactly sure of the determining factor for each group, it's not something as simple as 'all games with a horizontal frequecy of x', it appears to be a combination of the H/V frequencies. Maybe after looking at my PDF Calamity will be able to identify the exact determining factor.

Download Betson OSD Groups PDF

In the upper right are my OSD settings, the top row are my initial settings in case I needed to go back and the one underneath shows adjustments I made. On the left under the OSD Group letter is a list of 12 boxes where I wrote the H/V frequecies contained in the group and down below under each game I've put a number in parenthesis after the game show corresponds.

Sounds confusing but it's pretty straightforward once you take a look at it. Feel free to ask questions. Basically here's what I'd do to get dialed in:

• Put the monitor in factory mode and calibrate at 800x600
• Put the monitor back in regular mode
• Be sure you have the newest version of GM and CRTEmu drivers
• Be sure you're using the D9400/D9800 presets in your mame.ini with the minor adjustment I made (below).
• Using my OSD Groups PDF go through games in each group and make geometry adjustments that best accomodate the games. Don't try to go all the way to the edge, most games will have a little space. Test a good number of horizontal and vertical games in that group. Know that any adjustments you make within a group affect any other games that fall in that group.

Betson 9400/9800 preset with minor edit. Had to lower range 0 to 192 and range 1 280 to include certain games:
      crt_range0  15250-18000, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 192, 288, 448, 576
      crt_range1  18001-19000, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.140, 0.191, 0.950, 0, 0, 280, 320, 0, 0
      crt_range2  20501-29000, 40-80, 2.910, 3.000, 4.440, 0.451, 0.164, 1.048, 0, 0, 320, 384, 0, 0
      crt_range3  29001-32000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.318, 0.064, 1.048, 0, 0, 384, 480, 0, 0
      crt_range4  32001-34000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 480, 576, 0, 0
      crt_range5  34001-38000, 40-80, 1.000, 3.200, 2.200, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 576, 600, 0, 0

Anyone testing let me know how it works for you, everything is looking really good on mine. I think the problem up until this point has been things like groovymame not picking the right resolution, people having over adjusted the OSD dramatically in various groups without knowing the correlation etc. and not the presets.

Edit: Updated the minor edit to the D9400/9800, range0 low was supposed to be 192 and not 190

[Calamity]

What an awesome work you have done, 8BitMonk. My sincere congratulations.

I'm puzzled about the determining factor for the different groups. Because there must be one for sure. I guess I'll need to dig in the actual modelines in use.

[8BitMonk]

Thanks Calamity. I'm a bit puzzled on the common factor as well. I can see some commonality within groups but not enough to describe an exact rule. I also wonder if the groups are similar on other trisyncs like the WG 9400/9800. I was recently able to purchase a 9400 and will test it when I have some more time.

Luckily for those just trying to get their Betson to work well with groovymame it isn't absolutely necessary to know the 'why' of each group as long as they know what the basic groups are and a range of games that fall in them.

If anyone comes across a game that doesn't fall into one of these groups please post back. I tested a lot of games and think most (if not all) are covered by what I've mapped out but since I didn't test every single game it's possible there are some oddballs that aren't within a group.

I'm also working on a couple custom modelines specifically for the 448x224 Cave games that are very narrow/vertical and looked a little stretched to me that I'll post when complete.

[AMDman13]

So, far I have been very pleased with the settings that 8BitMonk has contributed. My Betson is dialed in for the most part and my games look amazing!! Best I have seen them in since owning my Betson. Easily 6-7 years.

[8BitMonk]

Good to hear it AMD. Are you using my old presets or the D9400/9800 presets and adjusting each groups geometry?

[AMDman13]

Hey 8bit sorry it's taken a bit to get back to you. Yes, I am still using your old presets and I had used Arcade OSD to tweak the monitor to the games you had listed. I briefly tried your newest ones and the results were not as good, but that's because I've currently got it working and didn't feel up to the challenge of re-working the Betson. In your post you stated that

groovymame came out that fixed mistakenly selecting the wrong presets

Which version had this error? I am running GM 155. Thanks

[Calamity]

groovymame came out that fixed mistakenly selecting the wrong presets

Which version had this error? I am running GM 155. Thanks

Version 0.155 is where this problem got fixed (Switchres 0.015c):

- Finally proper support for "super" resolutions (Windows & Linux):
    - Fix for modeline scoring to properly select the best available "super" resolution.
    - Fix for blank UI due to wrong scaling when in rotated mode and using "super" resolutions.
    - Fix for vector games that didn't show when using "super" resolutions.

You'll need to follow 8BitMonk's instructions regarding Betson's OSD adjustments in order to take advantage of his presets.

[AMDman13]

Last night, I decided to take the plunge and start 8bit's latest calibration. I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I struggled to make the 800x600 screen look perfect.

Before I started I calibrated my monitor at 800x600 using a monitor calibration tool while in factory mode

What type of calibration tool did you use? A simple grid?

Thanks for all the work you have put into this. I plan to follow your lead

[8BitMonk]

Hey AMD,

I use the EIZO free monitor test utility or there's another free one just called Monitor tester. The old Nokia one is still around too but it doesn't work with Win 7 64. You won't get things perfect by any means, these monitors are notorious for having a little bending in the corners. Give yourself a little room around the edges. 

Make sure you're using the Wells presets, In your last post you mentioned using my presets from this thread and I have abandoned those. I  don't think the porches etc. differ enough from the Wells to be worth messing with and the problems were mostly due to not understanding how the Betsons group display settings and adjusting accordingly.

After calibrating at 800x600, set the Wells presets in the groovymame Mame.ini file and then with my PDF document launch the games listed on each sheet and adjust the onscreen display. I found the quickest way to do this is straight from the command line because after running a game you can just hit the up arrow and retype another rom name in the prompt, rinse and repeat. Again I'd avoid going all the way up to the edge at first. You're going to find horizontal and vertical games in each category and since they're sharing the display settings over adjusting one game may push another one off screen. It's a bit tedious, may take an hour or more but my list includes most heavy hitters in each category so once adjusted it should be pretty dialed in.

You might want to note the settings you end up with for each group, mine are in the upper right, yours won't necessarily match. I included blank pages to print and use. Knowing what your settings are for each group allows you to reference them. If you come across a game that doesn't look right you can pull up the OSD and look at the values and find what group it falls in, what other games are within it, and how much that might allow you to adjust.

Hope that helps, good luck.

[AMDman13]

Thanks for the clarification 8Bit. It certainly helps.  Okay great I have something called Test Grid and I know I have the Nokia one, so I should be good to go.

Make sure you're using the Wells presets

So,  I need to delete my presets in GroovyMame's .ini and change the Monitor type from "Custom" to D9800?
I am assuming that since I choose the D9800 as the preset within VMmaker that the driver is already optimized for the D9800. Then I should be good to go?
 Or,  I see you slightly tweaked yours.

Betson 9400/9800 preset with minor edit. Had to lower range 0 to 192 and range 1 280 to include certain games:
      crt_range0  15250-18000, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 192, 288, 448, 576
      crt_range1  18001-19000, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.140, 0.191, 0.950, 0, 0, 280, 320, 0, 0
      crt_range2  20501-29000, 40-80, 2.910, 3.000, 4.440, 0.451, 0.164, 1.048, 0, 0, 320, 384, 0, 0
      crt_range3  29001-32000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.318, 0.064, 1.048, 0, 0, 384, 480, 0, 0
      crt_range4  32001-34000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 480, 576, 0, 0
      crt_range5  34001-38000, 40-80, 1.000, 3.200, 2.200, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 576, 600, 0, 0

Should I leave Monitor Type as Custom and add those?
Thanks for your help! I should have some time tomorrow to get started on this. I will report back. Hopefully not bombard you with too many more questions.

[8BitMonk]

Should I leave Monitor Type as Custom and add those?

Yep, exactly right, I forgot I had lowered a couple so you'll want to adjust the D9800 values and set to Custom.

Another tip is to tape down the little adjuster board to the top of your CP with temporary tape like masking tape or painters tape. It's way easier than having to constantly pick it up and have it falling off the side as you go through and adjust.

Good luck, let me know how it goes.

[AMDman13]

After much tweaking I went back to using 8bit's old presets. Both the D9800 setting and the minor tweak by 8bit cause lots of what I call "slithering" with vertical games. Its when a portion of the screen sort of twitches. I find using 8bits older presets that this problem is almost completely gone with most vertical games. If I knew more about tweaking the presets I would probably have to customize my own. Seems these monitors are finicky. No two are the same. I will say that going into the defaults and adjusting at 800x600 has helped with the overall geometry.

[8BitMonk]

Hey AMD,

I experienced this on my monitor as well, not sure what causes it, it's almost a rippling effect through a portion of the screen. It's not as noticable when playing but very noticable on the title screen and especially if it goes through lettering. I found that I could eliminate it for most games by playing with the geometry, ie. slightly moving the screen left or right or slightly reducing the vertical or horizontal sizing.

[DeLuSioNal29]

Resurrecting and old topic here, since I'm also looking to get my presets squared away for my 27" Betson Multisync monitor.  Why start a new topic right?

A quick backstory:
At one point I had it running "good enough" on version .150 of GroovyMame.  However, my hard drive took a dump last year and I'm finally getting it set up again.
I updated to .169 and (of course) the day after I copy everything, version .170 comes out.  So, I'm sticking to .169 for my sanity.

I'm having trouble getting VMMaker to select the proper modes for my Betson.  It won't let me select 800 x 600 @ 60Hz for my desktop.

Any have a copy of their VMMaker.ini and  ReslList.txt, etc with the proper settings?

I can't for the life of me remember what I did last time and my ini files are gone with the hard drive crash.

Thanks in advance all!

DeL

[Calamity]

You should consider using VMMaker 2.0 (even if you stick with old drivers). This way you can simply copy and paste current GroovyMAME crt_ranges, no need for separate configurations any more.

[DeLuSioNal29]

You should consider using VMMaker 2.0 (even if you stick with old drivers). This way you can simply copy and paste current GroovyMAME crt_ranges, no need for separate configurations any more.

I think that's what I have?  File is dated December 2015.  I'm using all the latest EmuDrivers, etc.  Good to hear that moving forward I can simply copy and past the current ranges.

Was hoping someone can point me in the right direction for the best Betson GroovyMAME crt_ranges to date.

I know I've echoed others here and said it before but thanks for doing all this Calamity.

D

[DeLuSioNal29]

Just re-read the above and I didn't realize that the 2.0 version was released this year (January 2016).

So I'm in the process of starting with a clean slate and grabbing the 2.0 beta.

Any suggestions on what I should start with for presets?  Should I start with generic, D9800 or custom?

DeL

[Calamity]

In VMMaker 2.0 settings dialog, go to the monitor settings tab and click on "Edit monitor presets". That'll open monitor.ini in Notepad. Just past the following somewhere, preferably at the top of the file:

Code: [Select]

monitor "kt-2914", "Betson-Kortek KT-2914", "4:3"
crt_range0  15250-18000, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 192, 288, 448, 576
crt_range1  18001-19000, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.140, 0.191, 0.950, 0, 0, 280, 320, 0, 0
crt_range2  20501-29000, 40-80, 2.910, 3.000, 4.440, 0.451, 0.164, 1.048, 0, 0, 320, 384, 0, 0
crt_range3  29001-32000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.318, 0.064, 1.048, 0, 0, 384, 480, 0, 0
crt_range4  32001-34000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 480, 576, 0, 0
crt_range5  34001-38000, 40-80, 1.000, 3.200, 2.200, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 576, 600, 0, 0

I've copied those presets from 8BitMonk's post. Now save the file and close. Your new preset will be available in the monitor preset drop-down.

Now go to the MAME tab and browse for your GroovyMAME directory, then check "Export monitor settings to GroovyMAME". This way, VMMaker will synchronize its settings with GroovyMAME without any extra effort on your part.

Now generate the modes, install them, etc.

[DeLuSioNal29]

I'll give that a shot tonight, Calamity.  Thanks!

Last night didn't go so well.  I opened up my machine, installed the driver and was struggling with the new driver creating multiple monitors and focusing on the wrong one.  I ended up connecting two monitors at the same time so that I can see my main desktop.

I haven't seen this before.  Is this normal behavior?  I got so frustrated after 2 hours of trying to fix it that I just left everything out, turned off the lights and went to bed.  It's not like me to just quit.

[Edit:  I'm going to check out this topic, which I didn't see until now - http://geedorah.com/eiusdemmodi/forum/viewtopic.php?id=298 ]

Hopefully tonight will fare better.  Thanks again for your help.

DeL

[Calamity]

That's the new forced monitor detection feature. It fixes monitor detection issues that have been such a big problem till now, but introduces this unusual behaviour that you need to learn how to deal with. Two monitors are required during the setup stage. Follow the guide. It does work. Just keep in mind you may see your desktop behave in a somewhat different way if you're not starting from a fresh Windows installation, because Windows remembers previous configurations and causes seamingly random behaviour. But once you learn the basics rules you will find your way through it.

This odd behaviour only applies to Ati legacy cards (pre-HD 5000). HD 5000 and newer cards are much easier to setup with CRT Emudriver 2.0.

[DeLuSioNal29]

Yeah, I have the exact one you had (legacy) so I'm good to go.  I feel I messed with it so much last night that I know how to steer through it by now.  Glad to hear that the dual monitor thing is normal.  I got this.

Thanks again and I'll report back here once I get it going.

D

[DeLuSioNal29]

OK, I added the above but it's not popping up on the drop down list.

I'm doing more research now, but I recall seeing something about changing a few things so that it's compatible with the new versions moving forward.

[Edit:  Can't seem to find it.  I recall it have some before and after values shown and what exact syntax need to be used for the new version.  Anyone?]


[Edit 2:  Got it to appear!  It was a formatting issue when cutting and pasting the values.  I'll work on this tonight and report back tomorrow]
D

[Pixelhugger]

Sorry to bump this but it's been helpful to read through all this info in one place, so here it goes...

I also have the Betson/Kortek and after years of running 800x600 decided to read up on CRT emudriver and take the plunge.

I was able to successfully install everything (Radeon HD4890/Windows7 clean install/CRT emudriver 2/vmmaker) and followed Calamitys awesome step by step instructions for the 4350. Swapping monitors went well as did VMM - generating and installing the modelines (using the Generic 15khz preset) and installing super resolutions went well too. Beautiful to see Mame running at native resolutions. At this point I was successfully at the end of Calamity's step by step guide and able to launch games at their native resolutions. Since the vertical games didn't fit (my betson is horizontal) and most games needed significant geometry adjustments I decided to load the d9800 profile in VMM and install those modelines before making the OSD adjustments per 8bitmonks guide.

However when I switched over to the d9800 preset, generated modelines and installed them, my screen went black (video black not powered off) and wouldn't come back up. I did NOT get an "out of range" mesage on the screen as I would with an unsupported resolution. I switched monitors (the temporary LCD and Betson) back and forth and got to a state where I could select Generic 15kz preset again, generate and install the modelines and the Betson monitor came back up.

Im hoping someone who has done this before me can help troubleshoot a bit.

I'm going to start over with a fresh Windows install (to avoid windows remembering previous configs and causing problems), wondering if there's something I'm missing in changing from "Generic 15" to the D9800 preset that is causing a problem? Before installing the d9800 modelines I think I recall it generated a line at the bottom of the list for a 1280 x (some number I cant recall, maybe 768) resolution which seemed high to me as I didn't think the 9800 could go past 800x600. I know my betson cant. I hadn't used 8bitmonks settings, just the built in d9800 setting in VMM. Should I have copied 8bitmonks settings over and used them from the beginning during the initial installation instead of the Generic 15?

Any help is MUCH appreciated.

Also, much appreciation to Calamity for the staggering amount of work and research put into the CRT emudriver/Groovymame project.

[buttersoft]

Hmmm, the 4890 has two analog outputs iirc. Did you try switching outputs?

[Pixelhugger]

Hey Buttersoft

Thanks for the tip. I got it working on the other (DVI) port (vs the VGA).

OMG the games look amazing. I'm assuming its normal when exiting a game for the screen to "scramble" for a fraction of a second as the resolution switches back to the desktop res? I only ask because I'm really paranoid I'm going to fry my monitor. I remember reading somewhere that as long as the screen looks good the monitor isn't being driven improperly. *crosses fingersg

Now I need to donate to Calamitys site

[jimj]

...
Below is a link to my mapping PDF that shows each group that I found. I'm not exactly sure of the determining factor for each group, it's not something as simple as 'all games with a horizontal frequecy of x', it appears to be a combination of the H/V frequencies. Maybe after looking at my PDF Calamity will be able to identify the exact determining factor.

Download Betson OSD Groups PDF

In the upper right are my OSD settings, the top row are my initial settings in case I needed to go back and the one underneath shows adjustments I made. On the left under the OSD Group letter is a list of 12 boxes where I wrote the H/V frequecies contained in the group and down below under each game I've put a number in parenthesis after the game show corresponds.
...

Does anyone have a copy of the Betson OSD Groups PDF they could share with me?  I don't have access to download it from Google Drive.

Back in 2004 with an ArcadeVGA 9200 AGP card I found five OSD groups.  Now that I'm using CRT Emudriver I'm also noticing a lot more groups.  I'd much rather copy 8BitMonk's work than re-discover all the different groups myself. 

[Silverwind]

My man.. I think this might be it?

Betson_OSD_Groups.pdf  (attached)
https://ufile.io/c7ehgvdr  (uploaded a copy here too)


Side note.. my Betson/Kortek has been out of commission for years in a spare room.. I recently got it repaired and back in action!
At the moment i'm using groovyarcade iso with generic arcade monitor settings.

Are these the currently 'best' settings I should be using for this monitor?

from http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,117489.msg1558930.html#msg1558930

monitor "kt-2914", "Betson-Kortek KT-2914", "4:3"
   crt_range0  15250-18000, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 192, 288, 448, 576
   crt_range1  18001-19000, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.140, 0.191, 0.950, 0, 0, 280, 320, 0, 0
   crt_range2  20501-29000, 40-80, 2.910, 3.000, 4.440, 0.451, 0.164, 1.048, 0, 0, 320, 384, 0, 0
   crt_range3  29001-32000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.318, 0.064, 1.048, 0, 0, 384, 480, 0, 0
   crt_range4  32001-34000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 480, 576, 0, 0
   crt_range5  34001-38000, 40-80, 1.000, 3.200, 2.200, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 576, 600, 0, 0

[jimj]

My man.. I think this might be it?

Betson_OSD_Groups.pdf  (attached)
https://ufile.io/c7ehgvdr  (uploaded a copy here too)


Side note.. my Betson/Kortek has been out of commission for years in a spare room.. I recently got it repaired and back in action!
At the moment i'm using groovyarcade iso with generic arcade monitor settings.

Are these the currently 'best' settings I should be using for this monitor?

from http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,117489.msg1558930.html#msg1558930

monitor "kt-2914", "Betson-Kortek KT-2914", "4:3"
   crt_range0  15250-18000, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 192, 288, 448, 576
   crt_range1  18001-19000, 40-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.140, 0.191, 0.950, 0, 0, 280, 320, 0, 0
   crt_range2  20501-29000, 40-80, 2.910, 3.000, 4.440, 0.451, 0.164, 1.048, 0, 0, 320, 384, 0, 0
   crt_range3  29001-32000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.318, 0.064, 1.048, 0, 0, 384, 480, 0, 0
   crt_range4  32001-34000, 40-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 480, 576, 0, 0
   crt_range5  34001-38000, 40-80, 1.000, 3.200, 2.200, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 576, 600, 0, 0

Wow, thanks for sharing that PDF.  I wasn't expecting it to be handwritten notes.  I'll post more later about what I found for OSD groups, but yes, those are the settings I used with my monitor and they worked well for me.

11AUG2022 update: I only quickly skimmed the PDF.  It looks like my settings don't match what's in that PDF, but I believe we found similar groups.  I don't know if settings from one monitor should match another monitor and I doubt we were calibrating towards the same goal anyway.

[jimj]

On the outside chance it can help anyone else I share my experience getting my Betson-Kortek KT-2914 monitor working well enough for my needs.

Note, the longer I spent doing this, the more I realized I had to settle for "good enough" to have all of my games easily playable.  For example, my crosshatch squares are rarely perfect squares.  So while my games may not display perfectly, every game I've played since doing this calibration looks good to me.

I documented the OSD (On Screen Display) groups I found in this spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eDrYEH2XjL1E2rASdNrrT1TtmmmoE_ZJpsVLVLlGl8c/edit?usp=sharing

Probably the biggest surprise/potentially new contribution I can make is that I think the Betson can only save settings for 12 different groups.  I believe there are 13 or 14 different groups, but after entered settings for my 13th group on 03APR2022 I noticed some of my other games' OSD settings had gone weird:
   -Some settings were reset back to defaults
   -Some games changed which OSD group they were a member of
I think I resolved my issue by resetting my last two OSD groups (Y and Z) to defaults and then never changing a setting in these groups again.  I'm fairly confident I could add one more group (a 12th group) without issue, but I haven't tested this yet.  Morale of the story, I won't add a new OSD group unless I'm sure I'm going to use games in that group, otherwise it's just not worth the risk.  Note: I originally planned on entering settings for every resolution in this spreadsheet, but since I'm scared of finding new groups I've quit entering new resolutions (which is why there are so many blank resolutions).



[My Beston calibration process]
-Open a game from each OSD group
-For a game in each OSD group:
-Run the game in GroovyMAME from the command line (for example run '.\mame donpachi')
-Go into the game's crosshatch test screen (if it has one)
-Adjust the screen using the Betson's OSD controls to make the screen look correct and maximize its size
   -Try to avoid using the right 1-3 cm of the screen, especially for side scrollers
      -This is to avoid the "squeezing on the right side of my Betson monitor (horizontal linearity) problem"
      -The easiest/best "fix" is to use the Betson's OSD controls to zoom out and shift the game screen to the left so you're not using the right 2-3 cm of the screen
         -This isn't perfect since right cms 4-5 still have some squeezing as do the first couple cms on the left side, but it's playable
         -To optimize this I usually need to shift the screen back to the right a bit to make the two leftmost columns match the width of the two rightmost columns
            -I.e. make the two left and rightmost columns equally squeezed
            -For example if left column 1 and column 2 are 1.2 and 1.7 cm wide, then I want the two rightmost columns to be 1.7 (inner) and 1.2 (outer) cm wide
         -After making this adjustment I probably wouldn't even notice the issue if I wasn't already aware of it
         -After I got in the groove I actually started checking the outer 3 columns on each side
   -Things to check (in order of importance, from most to least important):
      -The crosshatch pattern squares are true squares (equal width and height)
         -I like to hold a ruler with cm marks up to the screen
         -I measure from the inside of one edge of the square to the inside edge of the opposite side of the square
      -The game looks good while you play it   
      -The game's title screen looks good
      -The long vertical edges of the screen look straight (I just eyeball it)
      -The game's initial "Machine Information" screen looks good
   -Don't let perfection get in the way of getting it done!
      -For example in Don Pachi the game itself will look fine but:
         -Its service menu sub-menus (like "Input Check" and "Configuration") have very wavey text
         -Its initial "Machine Information" screen has very wavey text
         -Arcade OSD has wavey/slithering/shaking
         -Ultimately I decided all that mattered was that Don Pachi itself looked good while it was being played
      -Even on a CRT with no issues a flat picture will never look perfect due to the curvature of the screen
         -I.e. even without a horizontal linearity issues, the left and right edges of the screen fall away from you which somewhat distorts the image
         -Another side effect of this is that when the image is scooted over to the left (to avoid the "squeezing on the right side" problem) the  bottom left corner of the image may flare out a but due to the screen's curve.  If you use the Betson's OSD controls to fix this you'll likely muck up the display of other games that don't display their image so far to the left.  I.e. just live with this little imperfection.
-Go into the game's regular game play screen
-After your done with the in-game test then copy the game's modeline into Arcade OSD
   -Mainly do this to get the modeline info to copy into my spreadsheet
   -Note Arcade OSD will often show wavey/slithering/shaking while the game itself is fine
      -I.e. don't worry about or try to fix slithering in Arcade OSD
-If you run into slithering/shaking problem slightly moving/resizing the image will probably help
-Run the game in GroovyMAME again
   -To ensure it still looks good and to allow you go through and record each of the Betson OSD settings
-Update my "Betson OSD groups" Google Sheet with the final Betson OSD settings (see [Update "Betson OSD groups" Google Sheet] below)


I won't ever use these groups again (since I think the Betson can only save settings for 12 different groups):
   crusnusa   Z
   thegrid   Z
   topland   Y


Below are two quotes of info that helped me fix/improve games with the shaking/slithering/wavey problem:

After much tweaking I went back to using 8bit's old presets. Both the D9800 setting and the minor tweak by 8bit cause lots of what I call "slithering" with vertical games. Its when a portion of the screen sort of twitches. I find using 8bits older presets that this problem is almost completely gone with most vertical games. If I knew more about tweaking the presets I would probably have to customize my own. Seems these monitors are finicky. No two are the same. I will say that going into the defaults and adjusting at 800x600 has helped with the overall geometry.

Hey AMD,
I experienced this on my monitor as well, not sure what causes it, it's almost a rippling effect through a portion of the screen. It's not as noticeable when playing but very noticeable on the title screen and especially if it goes through lettering. I found that I could eliminate it for most games by playing with the geometry, ie. slightly moving the screen left or right or slightly reducing the vertical or horizontal sizing.

A higher level description of the Betson OSD problem  is here:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=28954.msg242630#msg242630

And as of GroovyMAME 0.246 it has built-in controls for geometry adjustment!  This is an additional tweaking rabbit hole you could fall down.  I haven't (updated my GroovyMAME) and tried this yet, but it sounds interesting.  For more details see:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,164449.msg1757710.html#msg1757710

[Silverwind]

Can you share your mame.ini and switchres.conf for the betson?  Thanks!

[jimj]

Can you share your mame.ini and switchres.conf for the betson?  Thanks!

If I have a switchres.conf I don't know where it is.    I've never used a standalone switchres utility, just CRT Emudriver 2.0.  I've attached (what I think are) the important CRT Emudriver files, maybe those can help?

Regarding mame.ini, I've attached my GroovyMAME 0.239 default (original) ini and my updated "super modes" mame.ini.  I believe (guess) that "Export monitor settings to GroovyMAME" makes the changes below to MAME's ini file:

Code: [Select]

[InvaderJim@myComputer mame]$ diff mame.20220111.original.ini mame.20220115.superModes.ini
271c271
< aspect                    auto
---
> aspect                    4:3
299c299
< monitor                   generic_15
---
> monitor                   custom
321,326c321,326
< crt_range0                auto
< crt_range1                auto
< crt_range2                auto
< crt_range3                auto
< crt_range4                auto
< crt_range5                auto
---
> crt_range0                15250-18000, 40.00-80.00, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 192, 288, 448, 576
> crt_range1                18001-19000, 40.00-80.00, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.140, 0.191, 0.950, 0, 0, 280, 320, 0, 0
> crt_range2                20501-29000, 40.00-80.00, 2.910, 3.000, 4.440, 0.451, 0.164, 1.048, 0, 0, 320, 384, 0, 0
> crt_range3                29001-32000, 40.00-80.00, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.318, 0.064, 1.048, 0, 0, 384, 480, 0, 0
> crt_range4                32001-34000, 40.00-80.00, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 480, 576, 0, 0
> crt_range5                34001-38000, 40.00-80.00, 1.000, 3.200, 2.200, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 576, 600, 0, 0
518a519,520
>
> orientation               horizontal

Let me know if you want anything else.