[Nanao MS9-29] Picture moves and expands etc

[Sledge]

Hi guys,
I've just completed (almost) my mamecab in a Namco Excelleena II, i've got calamity's drivers installed on a HD4850, and using groovymame, with GameEx as the FE.
My question is.. when switching games, one game is fine, then the next might be off to the right, or to the left, or it might be too big vertically for the screen, which means in order for it to look right, i need to access the v-pos, h-pos, etc dials in the cab..
Have i done something wrong? how do i set it to always be in the middle and correct size for the screen etc?
I realize it must be something to do with the resolutions being used.. but.. how do i fix it?

Thanks in advance

[Calamity]

Hi Sledge,

You need to find some custom settings that accomodate your monitor to a point where you only need to occasionally use the v-size pot. Some monitors are more picky than others, however. First you need to identify your monitor, is it multisync? Do you have its specs? Then probably use one of the ready made monitor presets to create a mode table (VMMaker) and set up mame.ini. These presets basically consist on a bunch of monitor_specs lines. Finally you will refine these monitor_specs until they perfectly fit your monitor or you're satisfied. There are plenty of threads explaining the process for particular cases.

[Sledge]

Hi Calamity,
I've got a Nanao MS9 monitor, and i've used these settings in VMMaker from the monitor presets thread:
NANAO MS9-29 (retrorepair)
monitor_specs0    15450.00-16050.00, 55-65, 3.91, 4.70, 6.85, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 288, 448
monitor_specs1    23900.00-24900.00, 55-65, 2.91, 3.00, 4.44, 0.451, 0.164, 1.048, 0, 0, 480, 768
I'm fairly sure i've done all that correctly..

but i haven't set anything in mame.ini
I'll try to find the relevant info thanks...

In VMMaker what do i set DotClockMin = 0 to for a gigabyte HD4850?

Also in VMMaker it's:
   monitor_specs_0 = "15450.00-16050.00, 55-65, 3.91, 4.70, 6.85, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 288, 448"
and in Mame.ini its:
   monitor_specs0       15450.00-16050.00, 55-65, 3.91, 4.70, 6.85, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 288, 448

Is that correct? or should it be the same way in both?

[Calamity]

Hi Sledge,

Ok, then you just need to set up mame.ini.

Leave the DotClockMin = 0 for your card.

Yes the format for the monitor_specs lines used to be slightly different in VMMaker, however the last version supports the exact same format as GroovyMAME (only difference is that you need to specify MonitorType="CUSTOM" in vmmaker.ini):

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

[Sledge]

Awesome, thanks Calamity.

One more question not related to this..
Does, or can, groovymame support servostik?
http://www.ultimarc.com/servostik.html

[Sledge]

So after making the changes suggested, it doesn't seem as bad.. but i've adjusted the screen width using bubble bobble, and the height using pacman..
however SF2 looks like this: http://www.overclockers.com.au/pix/index.php?page=image&id=z4vny
does that look normal for this sort of setup? should it have the black bars top and bottom so big?
Cheers

EDIT: Also wondering if using an ArcadeVGA will fix these issues... or will i still have to do all this as well?

[krick]

If you adjust your monitor so that vertical games will fit, then horizontal games will have black bars to varying degrees, depending on the game's specific resolution.  It works the same exact way on an ArcadeVGA card as well.

The other option is to run all your vertical games at a higher resolution like 640x480 and have MAME scale the image to fit the screen while keeping the aspect ratio.  This has the effect of making vertical games blurrier and possibly interlaced, depending on your monitor and the resolution you decide to run them at.

Create a blank file called "vertical.ini" in your mame root folder and put a resolution setting in it.  Something like...

resolution 640x480

...or 800x600 or whatever the maximum is for your monitor.  You may also need to add...

hwstretch 1
keepaspect 1

...but I'm not sure.  Just experiment.


I've heard of people wiring up a remote vertical size pot inside the coin door so that they can easily adjust the height for each game.
If you have some experience with electronics, you could probably wire up a toggle switch and some resistors to flip between two different monitor settings for the vertical size, one for vertical games, the other for horizontal games.


The bottom line is that there there's no magic bullet for this one.  Since I'm lazy, I chose to live with the letterboxing on horizontal games.  I barely notice it when I'm playing.

[Sledge]

The other option is to run all your vertical games at a higher resolution like 640x480 and have MAME scale the image to fit the screen while keeping the aspect ratio.

I was wondering about this, but wasn't sure of the options or how..
was thinking of having all games run at 640x480 (or whatever suits this approach best, maybe a lower res?), but keep their correct aspect ratio with borders somehow..

I've heard of people wiring up a remote vertical size pot inside the coin door so that they can easily adjust the height for each game.

I also thought about this too.. but again not sure how lol..
Might look into the software option first..

[Sledge]

The other option is to run all your vertical games at a higher resolution like 640x480 and have MAME scale the image to fit the screen while keeping the aspect ratio.  This has the effect of making vertical games blurrier and possibly interlaced, depending on your monitor and the resolution you decide to run them at.

Create a blank file called "vertical.ini" in your mame root folder and put a resolution setting in it.  Something like...

resolution 640x480

...or 800x600 or whatever the maximum is for your monitor.  You may also need to add...

hwstretch 1
keepaspect 1

this does seem to work quite well.. but some games like pac man/galaga look like crap..
is there a list of what resolutions various games run at? i'm thinking of finding the highest 'low' resolution that the games run at and see how it goes..
or is someone able to recommend a good resolution that would suit MOST games?
thanks for your help
edit:
what i've done for the time being is started using MameUIFX instead until i can work it out using groovymame...
obviously not using the exact correct resolution for the games, but it looks great atm
got all vertical games running at 512x384

[krick]

this does seem to work quite well.. but some games like pac man/galaga look like crap..
is there a list of what resolutions various games run at? i'm thinking of finding the highest 'low' resolution that the games run at and see how it goes..

edit:
what i've done for the time being is started using MameUIFX instead until i can work it out using groovymame...
obviously not using the exact correct resolution for the games, but it looks great atm
got all vertical games running at 512x384

When you say they "look like crap", are you referring to interlaced flicker or is there something wrong about how the actual pixels look?

Normally, when running a vertical game at a non-native resolution, you want to use the highest resolution possible so that when it stretches, it looks as good as possible.

I assume that 512x384 is not interlaced on your setup.  When using MAMEUI and that resolution, does Galaga fill the whole screen (top to bottom) or is there a border?

Have you tried setting that same resolution in the vertical.ini and using GroovyMAME?


I also just noticed your monitor specs.  Does your monitor auto-switch between 15KHz and 25KHz?  If no, then I think you might need to change your monitor specs.  The specs0 are for 15KHz, and the specs1 are for 25KHz.

[Calamity]

Hi Sledge,

If you want GroovyMAME to force vertical games to be done on the upper 25 KHz range you need to explicitly define the right ranges:

monitor_specs0    15450.00-16050.00, 55-65, 3.91, 4.70, 6.85, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 248, 448
monitor_specs1    23900.00-24900.00, 55-65, 2.91, 3.00, 4.44, 0.451, 0.164, 1.048, 0, 0, 480, 768

This should make anything above 248 go to the upper range. However I can't guarantee it will work 100% ok. Please be patient because all this is going to be re-designed for the next release.

[Sledge]

When you say they "look like crap", are you referring to interlaced flicker or is there something wrong about how the actual pixels look?

Normally, when running a vertical game at a non-native resolution, you want to use the highest resolution possible so that when it stretches, it looks as good as possible.

I assume that 512x384 is not interlaced on your setup.  When using MAMEUI and that resolution, does Galaga fill the whole screen (top to bottom) or is there a border?
Have you tried setting that same resolution in the vertical.ini and using GroovyMAME?
I also just noticed your monitor specs.  Does your monitor auto-switch between 15KHz and 25KHz?  If no, then I think you might need to change your monitor specs.  The specs0 are for 15KHz, and the specs1 are for 25KHz.

By 'crap' i mean the pixels are all blurred together.
I have no idea if that resolution is interlaced or not  but i chose that resolution because the vertical lines matches a fair number of the vertical games i play (19XX) I think it might auto switch between 15/25, but currently i have it limited to 15 only. i didn't use spec1 as i read that only a couple of games actually use it.. is that wrong? Do a fair number of vertical games use 25khz?
I tried a few resolutions with groovymame, and they all pretty much looked the same.. and yes when using MameUIFX galaga goes from top to bottom..

Hi Sledge,

If you want GroovyMAME to force vertical games to be done on the upper 25 KHz range you need to explicitly define the right ranges:

monitor_specs0    15450.00-16050.00, 55-65, 3.91, 4.70, 6.85, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 248, 448
monitor_specs1    23900.00-24900.00, 55-65, 2.91, 3.00, 4.44, 0.451, 0.164, 1.048, 0, 0, 480, 768

This should make anything above 248 go to the upper range. However I can't guarantee it will work 100% ok. Please be patient because all this is going to be re-designed for the next release.

As above, i hadn't specified anything for spec1..
i will give it another try with 25khz enabled, and see how it looks, and i will keep an eye on the next release as well.

Thanks for the help.. (i'm very new to using a PC on an arcade monitor)
If i run VMMaker again.. do i need to start fresh and remove the drivers, run CC Cleaner or whatever it is.. etc, and re install drivers again?
Or do i just run VMMaker and let it do it's thing?

[Sledge]

Hi Calamity,
I tried changing that setting and it didn't make any difference, the pixels are still all blurry..
I'll keep an eye out for the next release to see if anything changes for me..
Thanks

[krick]

Assuming your monitor can auto-switch between 15KHz and 25KHz, I would enable both sets of monitor specs in VMMaker.

Also, make sure that you're also putting both sets of specs in your mame.ini file.

And start with a clean mame.ini file generated from groovymame using this command line...

groovymame.exe -cc

GroovyMAME should be able to pick the best resolutions automatically.  If it's not and the results look less than appealing, then you should post some log files here so that Calamity can help you troubleshoot.  Here's how you get a log file...

groovymame.exe romname -v -md 4 > romname.txt

[Calamity]

Hi Calamity,
I tried changing that setting and it didn't make any difference, the pixels are still all blurry..
I'll keep an eye out for the next release to see if anything changes for me..
Thanks

I guess you're still using the ini file to force the resolution. Forcing the resolution doesn't work in GM.

GroovyMAME is designed to interlace anything above the ActiveLinesLimit value:

monitor_specs0    15450.00-16050.00, 55-65, 3.91, 4.70, 6.85, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 288, 448

We usually set it to 288 because that's barely the limit that standard arcade monitors can do in progressive mode. This offers the best possible quality, but involves adjusting v-size.

If the user can't access the v-size pot, then there's a 'second class' quality setup that consists on limiting the total number of progressive lines to something that fits, probably 248 or 256:

monitor_specs0    15450.00-16050.00, 55-65, 3.91, 4.70, 6.85, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 256, 448

This makes all games above 256 lines pick an interlaced resolution, and stretch them so they fit the new resolution.

But GroovyMAME doesn't limit to just picking a fixed interlaced resolution, it calculates the maximum resolution achievable for a given refresh rate, so it will pick 480i, 496i, 512i, 560i, etc.  depending on the target refresh, which dramatically increases the quality of some 'low' refresh games like Twin Cobra or Donpachi. But unfortunately, using a higher resolution like 576i means that the user may need to adjust the v-size pot again, and there's no workaround for this at the moment (working on it).

So basically the problem is that there's no practical way to force GM to run all vertical games at 640x480, but it's mainly because that's a highy lousy and suboptimal setup and GM was not designed with those restrictions in mind. However the new design I'm working on will hopefully support all imaginable ways to force things.

[Sledge]

hrmm yeah i think i did leave the vertical.ini in place.. i'll check again without it.

[Sledge]

yeah i definitely had tried it without the resolution being specified..
limiting it to 248 or 256 results in the picture being top to bottom, but very blurry pixels etc..
I will wait and see how the next version goes.
Thanks!

[Calamity]

But can you tell us if it's picking an interlaced resolution or not? If you're not sure, attach a log here, that will be enough for me. I'm saying this because if you're already getting a properly interlaced picture, then the next version is not going to be any better on this regard.

[Sledge]

here's galaga.txt:

[Calamity]

You probably edited vmmaker.ini and run vmmaker but didn't update mame.ini accordingly.

Make sure to edit monitor_specs0 in mame.ini like this:

monitor_specs0 15450.00-16050.00, 55-65, 3.91, 4.70, 6.85, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 248, 448

[Sledge]

no i changed it in both..
both vmmaker and mame have 248 there..
rebooted PC, then ran test..

[Calamity]

No way. Look at your log:

SwitchRes: Monitor: cga Orientation: horizontal Aspect 4:3
SwitchRes: MonitorLimits 15250.00-15700.00,49.50-65.00,2.000,4.700,8.000,0.064,0.192,1.024,0,0,288.0,448

Make sure the monitor_specs0 label is not duplicated.

[Sledge]

just uploaded ini
i did copy the specs lines, but commented them out i think? is that what the # does? so those lines shouldn't matter right?
I just left them there so i knew what i had changed...

[Calamity]

Remove the second "_" from monitor_specs_0:

It's monitor_specs0

Check the final notes here: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,116023.msg1230485.html#msg1230485

This has been fixed in latest version of VMMaker to avoid confusions, sorry for this, it's not your fault.

[Sledge]

Dang.. i thought i had.. but with how many times i've changed it.. it probably crept back in again..
bbs..

[Sledge]

Ok.. that looks better
Thank you... i told you i must be doing something wrong

[Calamity]

Good!

[Sledge]

1 small issue still though.. down the bottom of the screen, i can see what looks like 1 line from the top of the screen wrapped down to the bottom..
Any idea how to fix this?

[Calamity]

That's quite strange. Try to use Arcade_OSD to teak the values for vertical front/back porch (inside the Vertical Geometry menu) to see if it has any visible effect. If you fix it on Arcade_OSD screen I'll explain how to port the new values into mame.ini.

[Sledge]

hrmm well apart from that issue, i've also found another game that looks like crap (like before)
Tiger Heli
might just run all the vertical games at the same resolution and be done with it
Doesn't really bother me too much if they're not totally 'authentic'.

[krick]

When you find games that don't look right, post a log file...

groovymame.exe romname -v -md 4 > romname.txt

[Sledge]

hey,
so after not having used the cabinet for a while, I've come back and tried to play some games but they all use a totally wrong resolution.
I'm using hyperspin @ 640x480, and going from memory when using VMM I limited the modelines to 60 or 80. but i'm not sure what I've done wrong now...
I tried using the latest groovymame with the same result.. even from commandline
as you can see the resolution is very wide and still at 480 high..
Any chance someone can look at the attachment and tell me what is actually happening?
Is it safe to start over with installing the drivers again? Or what do I do to fix it?
Thanks

[Calamity]

Hi Sledge,

You'd better try the newest version, the one you're using is obsolete.

Create a new mame.ini with the new executable (groovymame -cc). Don't miss this step

Then edit this option: monitor ms929

Let's see how that works and then go on from that point.

[Sledge]

ok tried that with similar result, just a different resolution (dkong1.txt)
then I tried putting in my monitor specs.. not sure if they're needed in new version (dkong2.txt)
have included my mame.ini too

[Calamity]

Hi Sledge,

You didn't update GroovyMAME as adviced. GroovyMAME suffered a major transformation last year (see SwitchRes 014), now things work in a more consistent way. The 'ms929' preset is not available in the build you're using.

On the other hand, you're using 'video ddraw'. You must use 'video d3d' when working with magic resolutions.

[Sledge]

sorry... wrong folder
bbs..

[Sledge]

ok same thing...

[Calamity]

Ok Sledge, that log is perfect now. So what's wrong with the picture you get?

[Sledge]

the picture is ultra wide.. resolution is totally wrong..
Direct3D: Device created at 1234x256
and puckman:

this is viewing through teamviewer so you can see the effect.. on screen I can't see anything due to the picture being way off to the left

[Calamity]

You're using magic resolutions: 1234x256  is the supposed resolution that has to be used. GroovyMAME uses that resolution to create 400x256 dynamically, see:

SwitchRes: Modeline "400x256_60 16.05KHz 57.73Hz" 8.47 400 432 472 528 256 259 262 278   -hsync -vsync
Switchres: saving    DALDTMCRTBCD1234x256x0x60 - Modeline "1232x256_60 23.94KHz 60.00Hz" 39.26 1232 1344 1464 1640 256 319 323 399   -hsync -vsync
Switchres: updating  DALDTMCRTBCD1234x256x0x60 - Modeline "400x256_60 16.05KHz 57.73Hz" 8.47 400 432 472 528 256 259 262 278   -hsync -vsync

So if you don't get a genuine 400x256 resolution after this, then something wrong is going on. Do you happen to be running some of those programs that makes all changes to the system be temporal so that when once you reboot everything is restored (can't remember the name)?