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Newbie TV walkthrough, please!
adder:
rCadeGaming can u give me any general modeline tweaking tips regarding getting as many viewable lines (height) as possible on a tv please (fyi im still using powerstrip at the moment as im kind of used to it)
talking low res modes, the problem i have with my beko tv is i feel im not seeing enough visible lines (i lose too much off the top and bottom of the picture). note: i have pulled in the top and bottom of the screen in the tv service menu by quite a lot. you can see in my Commando pics earlier in this thread that im losing the entire score area at the top of the screen, and i cant see how many grenades are remaining at the bottom of the screen. ok so the game Commando height is 256 lines so maybe i cant display it all on a horizontal tv, but id be happy with even just a couple of more lines. every single line is precious at this point :)
mainly im wondering, does the amount of visible (height) lines very between tv brands, ie. can some tv's display more than others? (eg. is scan rate a key factor, ie. a tv must be able to handle high scan rate values in order to display a lot of lines?)
also, what part does refresh rate play... can u get more visibile lines if u have a game at eg. 58hz instead of 60hz? you might think im crazy (as i know u like things looking and running as they did at the arcades), but id sooner play commando at 58hz if i can see more of the screen rather than 60hz but have the top and bottom of the screen cut off). the 2hz reduction in overall gameplay speed honestly doesnt bother me. note: i use the soundsync feature in mameuifx so gameplay-wise the game will still remain perfectly smooth the way it scrolls, and the way the music/sound is heard (no stuttering etc)
regarding modelines, is there a link between horizontal and vertical geometry/size with regards to how many lines in height u can display on a tv, or are they mostly independent so to speak
does vertical front/back porch play a key role. should both of these amounts be set very low eg. 0 or 1? and what about sync width...
im even struggling understanding the relationship between 'active' and 'total' lines tbh (im forever noob, i know :lol)
sorry this post ended up a bit long, i will mess around some more with powerstrip advanced timing and look at the tv service menu again. any tips or advice would be most welcome. cheers!
Rigby:
when you work with a tube TV that is driven by a TV chassis, you are limited to NTSC resolution. You can adjust how much shows on screen, if the chassis supports it, via picture height and width controls. Out of the factory there is always overscan; picture that you cannot see because it is covered by the frame.
The only avenue I know of for increasing the amount of lines your TV can display is to make adjustments to minimize overscan. No matter what is driving the TV, it will have to speak NTSC in order for the TV to display it, so you're going to be bound by that.
All lies. I was misinformed and this entire post is incorrect. IGNORE!
adder:
thought i would add a bit more info if that helps:
example game used: Rastan by Taito - 320x240
so as u can see in the pic below, i lose the top and bottom of the screen (where it says HIGH SCORE, and CREDIT)
and that's with my beko tv vertical size adjusted so the screen is really pulled in (in the pic u can even see that visible line thing u get at the top of tv's if u pull them in too far vertically)
my powerstrip settings are below. needless to say i suck at this stuff and cant seem to get my head around it (which is weird for me as usually if i mess around with something long enough i figure it all out through trial and error ???)
surely my tv can display 240 lines :banghead:
rCadeGaming:
--- Quote from: Rigby on July 09, 2013, 02:32:01 pm ---when you work with a tube TV that is driven by a TV chassis, you are limited to NTSC resolution.
--- End quote ---
Rigby, sorry to be a dick, but this is completely false. It is one of the big misconceptions that keeps people from understanding that a standard definition TV is a highly viable option for GENUINE classic arcade resolutions. Please read through the thread before posting misinformation, and do not spread this around any further.
Yes, North American standard definition TV's are designed primarily to display a standard NTSC signal, but this in no way means that they are strictly limited to it. They can display ANYTHING reasonably close to 15kHz horizontal scan rate and 60Hz vertical scan rate.
Case in point: The NTSC standard is 480i. Not a single game console from the ATARI to the Nintendo 64 sticks to 480i. They all ran in 240p or less most of the time. The NES outputs 256x224p, but you won't have any trouble displaying it on a standard def TV; and no, the TV was not upscaling to 480i before actually displaying. TV's did not have any scaling capabilities until hi-def CRT's and flat panels came out in the 2000's, and visible scanlines are proof that you're looking at 15kHz progressive.
Long story short, 90% of games in MAME run somewhere between 224p and 256p, and all of these can be displayed in native res on a standard def TV if you know what you're doing.
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Jadder, first are you still using Soft15kHz and Powerstrip? If you've got a Radeon X300 you need to switch to CRT_Emudriver ASAP. You'll have a MUCH better time making adjustments in ArcadeOSD than Powerstrip.
I'm working on a big write-up to answer some of your questions, but it will probably have to wait a week or so while I'm out of town. For now, make sure you're actually telling MAME to use an appropriate resolution of at least 240 lines when running Rastan. Open the options specific to that game, make sure you have the right resolution selected, and make sure switch resolutions to fit is checked.
If that is all good and you still can't get all the lines visible, then start looking for another TV. A good Trinitron will give you plenty of adjustment in the service menu to show the full 256 lines of R-Type!
adder:
cool, cheers Rob. if it is the beko tv limiting the amount of lines and not my modelines settings, then i will feel better about my lack of progress, as ive tried for hours to fit more lines in but just cant get past about 234 in height!
im not using soft15khz, all i use is powerstrip to generate the modelines which are then added to the windows registry
then in mame i choose the corresponding resolution for each of the games (eg. the 512x240 resolution for rastan).
when i set up my mame pc i cant remember if i used the crt_emudrivers when installing the video card, but i think i did. i may try arcadeOSD then but to be honest i personally only really need about 10 modelines, which is enough to run everything i like (without stretching the height of course. i dont allow any of that). anyway i have set up all of those modelines already in powerstrip and they are all sitting comfortably in my windows registry. its just a case of my tv cant handle the height of the 240 and above modelines it seems.
if i do start over in the future though with a new mame project, i would switch from mameuifx (with its soundsync feature) and powerstrip, ... to groovymame, crt_emudriver, arcade osd.. that's clearly the way forward. i'm not quite ready for that just yet, but tomorrow is a different day.. ;)
i will start looking for another tv! :)