Groovymame, Tri-sync noob help please!

[hooddoctor]

Hello,

After spending a month reserching how I was going to do my ded cab, I guess I didnt fully understand what was involved in my goal. I wanted my 100 games or so(vert and horz) to all play and fit in harmony on a new 25" Makvision tri-sync without messing with controls. I got me a ArcadeVGA3000 and found this was not the perfect solution as I would like to avoid stetching and use the closest native I can. So after wearing out the forum search, I think I MIGHT understand what I need to do if some of you more experienced folks would help me out. It seems I need custom modelines so if Im correct:

After replacing the ArcadeVGA with ATI 4350 I then

1-Put groovymame64 and the Calamity 1.3b drivers in a clean MAME folder
2-Install VMaker and Arcade_OSD app
3-Edit vmaker .ini file to point to MAME .exe file. Set it to generate an MAME XML the first time you run.
4-Paste the correct monitor specs in vmaker(which it seems no one has for the now popular Makvision)
5-Run vmaker then verify with arcade_OSD.
6-Generate mame.ini GroovyMAME -cc

Am I on the right track? I am a firefighter for a living and are building this cab for our station. We are always pulling people out of jams who are not very smart sometimes so now the not very smart part is me and was hoping one of you could rescue me from this headache. Also a few more things you might want to know:

1-I am using win XP64 and Hyperspin as frontend
2-I have now aquired a ATI R4350 video card instead of ArcadeVGA to use with the above
3-Should I use ddraw or directx?
4-Does anyone have the correct monitor specs for the newest Makvision 25" tri-sync?

I would be very greatful if anyone could help me out with this. Thanks.

Tony

[krick]

Welcome to the BYOAC forums.  I hope you enjoy your stay.

First off, there's nothing really *wrong* with the ArcadeVGA 3000.  It's a great product, it just has a more limited selection of resolutions.  You can still use it with GroovyMAME and the results are pretty good.  It certainly is easy to set up and try to see if you like it.  I used an original ArcadeVGA (AGP) in my first cabinet, and later moved to the ArcadeVGA 3000 (PCIe) when I got a more powerful computer.

There shouldn't be any abnormal stretching, though occasionally games that are very tall or an odd resolution will need to run at an interlaced resolution because there is nothing that's a close enough match in the pre-defined ArcadeVGA 3000 mode list.  However, they still look good.

If you do use GroovyMAME + ArcadeVGA 3000, note that you must use the Ultimarc ArcadeVGA drivers.  You should also use the Ultimarc tri-sync utility to get the most from your monitor.

I've only ever used my ArcadeVGA 3000 with a standard 15KHz (low res) monitor, so I have no experience with the tri-sync utility.

Another good option for an ArcadeVGA is using CabMAME instead of GroovyMAME.  CabMAME doesn't do the automatic resolution picking like GroovyMAME, so you need to use a utility like Gavin Benson's "AVGARes" to generate individual ini files for each game.  The latest version of Avres is here...

http://gavin.benson.users.btopenworld.com/Downloads/

...and you can find CabMAME here...

http://community.arcadeinfo.de/showthread.php?9555-ENGLISH-Overview


Now with that out of the way, if you've decided that you still must have the closest possible resolution/refresh match for each game, and are willing to deal with a lot more "fiddling" then GroovyMAME + CRT_EmuDriver is probably what you need.

With an ATI 4350, you're going to need to use crt_emudriver_9.3_1.2a_x64_multisync and you should also grab the updated vmmaker_1.3c_arcade_osd_1.3b from here...

http://mame.3feetunder.com/windows-ati-crt-emudriver/

Unzip CRT_EmuDriver somewhere.  It shouldn't be inside your MAME folder.  I usually put it in the root of my C drive, possibly under a folder called "drivers".  Then unzip the new versions of vmmaker and arcade_osd and copy the files over the ones in the CRT_EmuDriver folder.

If you previously had the ArcadeVGA 3000 installed, you'll need to uninstall the Ultimarc drivers and run the ATI Catalyst Cleaner to completely remove the old driver...

http://www.ultimarc.com/cat-uninstaller.exe

Once you're free of the old drivers, install the modified ATI driver in the CRT_EmuDriver folder and reboot.

Once you're running with the modified driver, it's time to deal with vmmmaker.

Edit the vmmmaker file to point at mame and put in your monitor specs.  I think I remember seeing someone working on specs for the Makvision tri-sync, but I can't find them.  Calamity will be along at some point to help with that.  Personally, I'd probably start with the Wells Gardner D9200 settings.  I wouldn't worry about getting the specs exactly right just yet.  You can always tweak that later with Arcade_OSD and re-run vmmmaker.

Generate a new mame.ini and edit the monitor specs to match what you put in vmmaker.

The default for GroovyMAME is currently ddraw unless you tell it otherwise.  As long as you're not having any issues, I'd probably stick with ddraw.

If you encounter the Hyperspin "too many resolutions" bug, you're probably going to need to use what's called "magic resolutions" in GroovyMAME.  You'll know if you hit the bug because Hyperspin will simply die when launching a game.

To use magic resolutions, you need to change this setting in VMMaker.ini and re-run it...

ModeTableMethod_XML = 2

Magic resolutions basically creates a smaller list of placeholder resolutions in Windows that are modified on the fly by GroovyMAME, which gets around the Hyperspin bug.

I can't say for sure with your card, but I was using a similar ATI 4550 card and magic resolutions didn't work with video ddraw.  I had to change it to video d3d in my mame.ini.

I think that just about covers it.  If I missed anything, I'm sure someone will jump in that point out my mistakes.

[Calamity]

Hi hooddoctor,

I can't add much to krick's excellent explanation.  Just wanted to point out that the presets for the NANAO MS-2930/MS-2931 seem like a better approach for the Makvision tri-sync, have a look at this post:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,116292.msg1232142.html#msg1232142

[hooddoctor]

Thank you for the advice. I will give this a try and report back how the Makvision handles all. Krick that was a great how to you posted and should get myself or anyone else going.

[repetto74]

Hi Krick,

As far as I understood from your detailed explanation,it is possible to use Groovymame with an old AGP Arcade VGA card (first generation) and a Tri-sync monitor?
I am not satisfied with resolutions picked by the AVresUtility so I would like to give a try to Groovymame.

What about the video drivers? Should I keep the original I got with the videocard or should I re-install them?

 

[krick]

To use a first generation AGP ArcadeVGA with GroovyMAME, you need to uninstall the ArcadeVGA video drivers, and you probably want to run the ATI Catalyst Cleaner tool afterwards just to be safe...

http://www.ultimarc.com/cat-uninstaller.exe

Then you want to install the "6.5" CRT_EmuDriver  (modified catalyst drivers) from here...

http://mame.3feetunder.com/windows-ati-crt-emudriver/

Note that you should remove the individual game ini files that were generated by the avres utility as they are not needed and will conflict with GroovyMAME's auto-resolution picking.

Then you'll have to go through the rest of the steps with VMMaker to configure your resolutions based on your particular monitor, etc...

[repetto74]

Hi Krick

Thanks a lot this is very clear 
I will give it a try then!!

Cheers
Rick