Strange issue with GroovyMame v.146

[mamenewb100]

Just out of curiosity, have you tried booting with the arcade monitor attached to the VGA output? Why are you using the DVI one?

You have to use the DVI port on ArcadeVGA. VGA port is only for 15 Khz.

Yes there something strange with AVGAs detection of resolutions. I had another one that went bad and it did the same thing on a different PC.

It seems to be only standard OS resolutions that give false information though. The AVGA modes work fine.

[krick]

You have to use the DVI port on ArcadeVGA. VGA port is only for 15 Khz.

The DVI port is for a PC monitor only.  The VGA port is for standard res arcade monitors or multi-frequency arcade monitors.

I thought you had a multi-frequency arcade monitor.  If so, then you should be using the VGA port.

[mamenewb100]

Edit

[mamenewb100]

Just out of curiosity, have you tried booting with the arcade monitor attached to the VGA output? Why are you using the DVI one?

AVGA only outputs 15 Khz on VGA.

I still don't get why Xorg can find the lower res modes. I suppose because Arch is using standard VESA modes instead of looking for ATI modes.

[mamenewb100]

No it is not multi-frequency sadly. Don't make me get pissed at my monitor again lol. I'm trying to make good with what I have. The games look great, it's just the desktop that isn't right.

[Calamity]

But have you actually ever *tried* the VGA output?

GroovyArcade treats the AVGA as any other ATI card, thus it should output whatever frequency we set it up to output through either one of the ports.

It's only during the boot that the AVGA specific features should make any difference.

Now the EDID block is what is breaking things I believe, this one comes from your monitor (you might check it with the MonInfo app in Windows).

[mamenewb100]

Well I just tried the VGA port and there was no display.. until it made it to the emulator. Then it worked. However it still overspecs when I try to exit to Linux.

However I took out the VGA settings.. maybe it will work now. Not going to get my hopes up.

[krick]

I'm using a Makvision 29" Arcade monitor 31 khz model with ArcadeVGA 3000

There's a windows tri-sync utility from Ultimarc (download on this page:  http://www.ultimarc.com/download.html ) that will allow the ArcadeVGA to send 31KHz signals out the VGA port.

With that said, your monitor is essentially just an oversized 29" VGA computer monitor.  There's really zero reason for you to use an ArcadeVGA card.  I would just use a normal video card with normal drivers.  It will be a lot less hassle.

You'll probably need to use Groovymame more like the way people who have LCD monitors or TVs would use it since you really have a limited selection of resolutions.

[ves]

Hello mamenewb100
Could you report files?

/var/log/dmesg*
/var/log/kernel*
/etc/X11/xorg.conf

Why is not configured grub?

"kernel /boot/vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/disk/by-label/GA"

Have you tried grub with this configuration?

"kernel /boot/vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/disk/by-label/GA splash vga=785 video=VGA-1:640x480ec"

[mamenewb100]

Have you tried grub with this configuration?

"kernel /boot/vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/disk/by-label/GA splash vga=785 video=VGA-1:640x480ec"

Well ves, I had never tried the video= option before, so I tried it out. I also added the argument "nomodeset" to the line because I've read that it disables KMS so there won't be conflicts with kernel mode. When I tried to exit to the menu, the screen displayed "Mode not supported" because for some reason it was running 15 Khz and AVGA still had control of the menu. Then I was thinking I bet it thinks it's still at a boot screen because it might be at 640x480.

I changed the VGA setting to 800x600, rebooted, exited to the menu, crossed my fingers and... IT WORKS!  

I guess last ditch efforts can pay off. Thanks so much for supplying that code.  


The only question now is how do I create modelines? The reason I ask this is because allot of games are not displayed correctly because of a resolution that does not display properly on alot of games. People say you must use the "sudo xrandr" command but when I try to use the command in shell it says "can't open display!". I've heard it's because Xorg needs to be running for it to work. But Xorg closes automatically when I exit the emulator.  

[Calamity]

That sounds great mamenewb100.

The only question now is how do I create modelines?

You don't create modelines, GroovyMAME will create them for you as they're needed. You just need to specify the right monitor settings. Getting wrong video modes in GM often means wrong monitor settings.

So did you add the line for MAKVISION 2929D to mame.ini? This line:
monitor_specs0    30000-40000, 47.00-90.00, 0.600, 2.500, 2.800, 0.032, 0.096, 0.448, 0, 0, 640, 768

note: you need to replace the existing monitor_specs0 line.

If that doesn't fix things, paste a log here of some game which doesn't display right:

groovymame romname -v -md 4 >romname.txt

[mamenewb100]

If that doesn't fix things, paste a log here of some game which doesn't display right:

groovymame romname -v -md 4 >romname.txt

That modeline you gave me didn't seem to make any difference. Problem is mostly Midway games it seems have a compressed and warped screen.

If I try to run the groovymame command it gives me "can't open display". That's because Xorg is not running from what I've been told. Haven't been able to use any commands that require use of video modes. Maybe I need to run the command in a certain directory?

The other problem is that most of the non-letter keyboard keys are mapped to the wrong keys... don't ask why. It was like that by default so > is actually not even selectable on the keyboard. Is there a way to remap keys? So sorry can't give a log until I figure out these problems.

Honestly, I don't know how I seem to run into all these odd problems.

[Calamity]

Hi mamenewb100,

Go to gasetup and enter the System menu (not sure), change the Frontend option to LXDE, this is a windows like environment. Then go to Live CD Menu, Start Emulator/Frontend and it will launch LXDE instead of AdvMenu. From there open a terminal and you'll be able to type commands and have normal video with MAME.

As for the keyboard, probably now it's mapped to the Spanish keyboard by default, there should be a way to modify this in gasetup, not sure. You should find > pressing shift and the key just on the left of letter Z.

EDIT: The above is meant to get a log, I need to check it, your last pic seems to indicate the monitor_specs line is not being used.

[mamenewb100]

Ok I got into LDE but your command with the "4" in it did not run. Also where would the text file go?

I tried the command without a space like this  4>mk.txt and it worked but couldn't find the text file.

I changed the keyboard mapping to "us" in gasetup and the correct keys work now.

Sorry for the late response. Had things to settle.

[mamenewb100]

Well good news. I figured out that the monitor settings you gave me are making a difference, they just need adjusting.

I tried Galaga without the monitorspec line by misspelling on purpose and it had that warped look with slow sound. Then I tried it with the Makvision settings and it showed fullscreen with accurate sound, however the top of the screen was cut off. Also other games that were not warped before, now are.

That tells me with the right adjustments I can probably get everything going. Now I just need to look up what all the settings mean.  

[Calamity]

Hi, that sounds promising, but I really need the logs, the file should be in your home directory where mame.ini is. Maybe you need 2 spaces in linux, not sure: groovymame romname -v -md 4 > romname

[mamenewb100]

Hi, that sounds promising, but I really need the logs, the file should be in your home directory where mame.ini is. Maybe you need 2 spaces in linux, not sure: groovymame romname -v -md 4 > romname

I tried and would not start the emulator unless there was no space between 4 and >. If I combined it, it ran but there was no text file to be found.

I was able to get all the vertical games working by adjusting some monitor numbers. I also fixed some horizontal games by changing the minimum Khz to 31. However for some reason all the Midway games just don't want to work without a bend in the screen. They never did display perfectly in Windows either. Something to do with the resolution not working well with my monitor or something.

Wish I could get that log to you. Maybe by getting another program or digging for more answers online I can figure it out.

[mamenewb100]

Ok it just popped into my head maybe why the Midway games don't display properly. The Midway games from the 90's used a 400x256 res for games like Mortal Kombat and other midway games from that era. Well doing simple math 400x256 -> 800x512. VERY close or maybe a little over the max res of my monitor(800x600). Is there a a way to have Groovymame use a slightly lower resolution for this game?

My trackball is also not working properly. When I roll the ball forward it goes to the left or right and barely moves at all. Changing the analog control settings doesn't help. It may be conflicting with the spinner. All I did was turn on mouse support in MAME.  Your probably sick and tired of my issues. Sorry I don't where else people are knowledge about this stuff and I'm not having allot of fun either.

Other than the Midway games not displaying properly and the trackball problems it's almost there. Again I know you need a log but what can I do when it won't make one?

 

[Calamity]

Hi mamenewb100,

About the Midway games. Your math is right, it should be using 800x512. BUT: look at the pic you posted,

399x256@54.82 -> 400x256@54.82 -> 400x256@???  

So it doesn't seem to be scaling the resolution for some reason. That's why I need a log to see what's happening, it's probably something silly.

Don't get frustrated. I know the feeling when moving to Linux and getting stuck by simple stuff that is trivial in Windows.

The logs must work, it must be a typo or something. If you can't get a log to a file, just run GM with -v -md 4 params and take a pic of the screen on exit, make sure to capture the relevant bits (where the switchres patch does its stuff), that should be enough for me.

If your monitor supports 800x600, it should have no problem with 800x512. After all, it's frequencies what matters, not resolutions.

On the other hand, I know nothing about trackballs, sorry.

I'm still far from getting tired of your issues. Keep posting, my answers can delay because I'm away for some days I'll be answering.

[mamenewb100]

Before I was using RUN to type commands in LXDE. Which didn't work for outputting a text file. I finally figured out that there's an option to open an X Terminal in LXDE. That brings up the bash command line and it did allow the groovy command with the 4 > mk.txt.

It appears that MK does not change res. I also included DKONG which does change res but to 400x256? Weird. Is it not creating new modelines¿

[Calamity]

Well that's something...

dkong log is corrupt for some reason.

As for mk, try setting this option in mame.ini:

monitor_doublescan        0

[mamenewb100]

It didn't do anything turning off doublescan. Here is one for Galaga(hopefully not corrupt)

As you can see some games change res but not to correct res.

[Calamity]

Are you sure there monitor_doublescan option is not duplicated in mame.ini? If disabling it doesn't work, then we've found a bug in the Linux side.

Anyway, try running it like this: groovymame mk -resolution 800x512@54.81

[mamenewb100]

I'll try it. Here's my mame.ini. (I reenabled some options just to show the ones I was originally using) The second monitor line is a dummy just so I can reference the original settings.

I tried your command and it still had the warped screen. However when the game exited the warped screen remained on the LXDE desktop. Apparently not getting the message to change back. SwitchRes did report it as changing 399x253@54.82 -> 800x512@54.81 -> 800x512@54.81

Anyway I guess I'll see if maybe these things are fixed in the next.version of groovyarcade as it appears my setup is acting funny. Thank you for your several hours of help.

[Calamity]

For some reason the doublescan option is not working (it's always on). The problem with this is that doublescan is being used instead of the first scale (x2). This is ok provided the hardware support for doublescan is good. But I'd like to disable it and this seems to be imposible in Linux.

[mamenewb100]

Yeah if I set 800x600 res for MK in mame config file, it displays properly(albiet without DS). Of course it's probably not using doublescan when I use an. ini file.

[Calamity]

Try this please:

groovymame mk -resolution 800x512@60

[mamenewb100]

Try this please:

groovymame mk -resolution 800x512@60

Genius it worked, however it runs fast of course. I thought it might be Hz problem. My monitor for whatever reason is not handling low refresh games.

[mamenewb100]

Maybe I'll keep trying lower refreshes to see when it has a problem displaying games.

[Calamity]

Good. If it's the low refresh, you may try playing with this value, go raising until it looks fine (the more you increase it the faster those games will work):

monitor_specs0    30000-40000, 55.00-90.00, 0.600, 2.500, 2.800, 0.032, 0.096, 0.448, 0, 0, 640, 768

[mamenewb100]

Hmm.. lowest it will work is 58.5 Hz in the settings but the monitor reports it at 59.8 Hz. I'm hoping it's some bug or setting that is not allowing the refresh to change. I'll be pissed if my monitor is defective that much that it can't be below 60 Hz. I'm wondering if the games that are supposed to be low Hz are actually running at 60.

It couod also be the AVGA drivers that are limiting this. I know when I installed windows the only options were basically 60Hz. However there was a 50 Hz mode that I think worked. I'm not sure.

 I'll have to test.

[mamenewb100]

Ok last update but this was important. I found out it is actually the horizontal frequency. I bumped it up to a minimum of 32Khz and MK looked great full screen and runs at original 54.8 Hz with noticable flicker.

Either my monitor can't handle a combo of low Hz and low Khz or the monitor settings are to blame. But I'm happy for now as it seems all my games are running despite higher than normal Khz.  

Now everything is perfect except the trackball not working. I'll search for help elseware on that. You were right about it being something silly.

[Calamity]

It's good to hear that! Make sure to paste here your monitor_specs once you're happy with it.

As for the trackball, I'm thinking that the wiimote support in this particular build might be influencing that, don't know. Try to disable it from mame.ini if possible, just in case.

[mamenewb100]

It's good to hear that! Make sure to paste here your monitor_specs once you're happy with it.

As for the trackball, I'm thinking that the wiimote support in this particular build might be influencing that, don't know. Try to disable it from mame.ini if possible, just in case.

32200-40000, 47.00-90.00, 0.800, 2.900, 2.900, 0.032, 0.096, 0.648, 0, 0, 640, 768

I discovered that the last part 0,0,640,768 does nothing at all when you change it. Also the higher I set the minimum Khz, the smaller and more compressed the screen becomes. 32.200 Khz is the lowest I could run low Hz games without having issues. These settings are about as good as it gets with my apparent monitor limitations, or monitor/vid card conflict. Others may be able to run at 30 Khz just fine.

The point you brought up about disabling wiimote support sounds like a good thing to try but I don't see any mention of it in MAME.ini, except under Lightgun Mapping. I changed it to auto but nothing happened.

[Calamity]

Thanks for sharing your setup.

The point you brought up about disabling wiimote support sounds like a good thing to try but I don't see any mention of it in MAME.ini, except under Lightgun Mapping. I changed it to auto but nothing happened.

I'd recommend you to wait till next release, in 146u4 they have ported the XINPUT patch into the official Linux source, that might help (or not).