Main > Monitor/Video Forum
Newbie TV walkthrough, please!
wordsworth:
Okay, that clears it up then.
BTW is that the CRT_Emudriver interface in your first new pic. If it is that's SOOO much better than S15KHz/PowerStrip.
rCadeGaming:
That's ArcadeOSD, which is included with CRT_Emudriver for adjusting resolutions, and yes, it is much much better than Soft15kHz/Powerstrip. I'd never go back.
adder:
hello Rob, aaaargh i havnt been around in ages here apart from the odd quick view here and there so only just saw the post
fantastic to see you messin about making tv's work in a way which if they could speak would say "erm, would you like to watch a dvd instead? leave me alone!" :lol
an update from me is im no longer stuck at 60hz, i was being a prat (as usual) and realised my tv is just fine with other refresh rates (eg. 55hz) and of course so is my ati video card. in fact by pure coincidence im using the same video card calamity recommends as being pretty much the best for custom resolutions ... QUOTE: "For a MAME-only setup (no HLSL) and Windows XP, my favourite is Radeon X300"
unfortunately, my 'supermarket' style beko tv bursts into tears once it hits about 15.9khz so i dont think there is much point pushing my luck. however, maybe its time for me to keep my eyes open for a sony trinitron. sidenote: atari paperboy is another interesting res.... horiz game but at 512x384 .... i wonder how eg. groovymame deals with that game's resolution
by the way, (note: you might not be interested in this if you're not a fan of playing vertical games on a horizontal tv); i found a nice easy (well, pretty easy) way in mame to override that annoying feature of only having 2 choices in mame regarding displaying vertical games horizontally (ie. 'thin in the middle' of the screen, or stretched full width...ok there's a 3rd choice also.. pixel aspect view). anyway i have it so u can simply choose the size of the side borders.. and there is no 'visible stretching' so to speak (ie. like u get when u stretch stuff vertically). ok so of course the proportion does change, but personally speaking i find that if u dont stretch too much (ie. avoid full width stretch) you get good results (in my opinion)
to do this you dont even need to do a mame custom compile (altho it can be done via custom compile if preferred)
if u are interested in the details on how to do that just shout
cheers
edit: i took some pics... prob will get flamed for these but what the hell :) see below:
mame: standard view (too thin in my opinion)
mame: pixel aspect view (better, but still too thin)
mame: my custom view: yay :) just right
mame: full view (too stretched looking)
rCadeGaming:
Paperboy used a 24kHz "medium res" or "EGA" monitor. There's no way we'll get 384 lines progressive on a 15kHz tube. By coincidence, 512x384i is the same res I made for Image Fight in yoko a few posts above, so you can see the problems there. Also, GroovyMAME can't do anything magical we couldn't do by hand. Unless it was hooked to an actual 24kHz monitor it would have to scale and compromise just the same.
I'm guessing you're setting your own aspect ratio to change the size of the side borders? I fooled with that a bit before getting into native res, but I put a higher priority on keeping the display area in proper proportions rather than worrying about the size of the borders. When you're really playing you'll be looking at the graphics, not the side borders.
I've found that most games are designed to fill a 4:3 space, regardless of the "pixel aspect" of the resolution used, simply because they would be adjusted to fill a 4:3 screen. For example, early Nintendo games like Mario Bros. ran in 256x224, which is 8:7 pixel aspect. However, the developers knew that, in the actual cabinets, monitors wouldn't be adjusted to show that aspect with a little border, they would be adjusted to fill the screen. So, this was accounted for in the way it was drawn. When 256x224 fills a 4:3 monitor, each actual pixel is no longer square, it's a little wider than it is tall; but the characters are drawn to compensate for this, so they're displayed in the proportions the artists intended. CPS1/2/3 games, like Street Fighter, are the same way. They run in 384x224, so each pixel ends up taller than it is wide, but the characters are drawn with this in mind.
In those pics it's the same principle; I'd go with the standard view (4:3). In your custom view, some of the characters are almost as wide as they are tall.
adder:
--- Quote from: rCadeGaming ---I'm guessing you're setting your own aspect ratio to change the size of the side borders?
--- End quote ---
that's it yea. mr. do (artwork expert) at mameworld forums explained to me how to do it, i will post his message he sent to me at the bottom of this post.
--- Quote from: rCadeGaming ---In those pics it's the same principle; I'd go with the standard view (4:3). In your custom view, some of the characters are almost as wide as they are tall.
--- End quote ---
this is where we differ then in the sense that i dont mind a certain amount of stretching, even if indeed the look of the sprites changes so they are 'fatter'. that said, i dont want it stretched all the way fullscreen, but personally want it bigger than mame pixel aspect ratio. anyway its no big deal is it, we all have our ideas about whats acceptable and what isnt, and i will always respect purists (after all they are the very backbone of the emulation scene :))
post from mr. do:
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to apply this to ALL vertical games, the easiest way would be to edit the default vertical.lay file, and compile your own version:
http://www.mamedev.org/source/src/emu/layout/vertical.lay.html
In line 5, change the values for "right" and "bottom" to be the aspect of how you want to run the games, then compile MAME, and every vertical game will run at the new aspect ratio (sidenote: make sure there is always a difference of '1' between your two numbers, or you will get changes to the top and bottom of your screen instead of just the sides... eg. 4:3, 5:4, 6:5, 7:6 are all ok.. but 7:5 would be bad).
If you dont compile mame yourself or just want to run certain vertical games that way, then do the same as in the paragraph above, but instead of compiling mame yourself, save a copy of the file as "default.lay" (note: dont save it as an ANSI text file or mame will reject the file), and add it to a ZIP file named "gamename.zip" (where gamename is the name of the ROM), then make a copy of that file for each vertical game you want to run that way, and put all of those zips in your artwork directory.
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