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

[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.