GroovyMAME/GroovyUME 0.149 SwitchRes v0.014b

[Calamity]

He said, he never used the "-modeline" option either with previous versions, but he will try to enable it.

I understand why some users decide to disable the -modeline option but now all the resolution picking logic passes through this option so disabling it makes GM fall back to MAME's default resolution picking algorithm which does not perform any safe frequency check, etc.

I need to modify this somehow in future versions so that the -modeline option is always on and possibly add some extra option to ensure that the installed modelines are read-only if the user wants to.

Anyway, in this case the crash is due to some other reason.

The system has two video cards:
- ati 9250 pci (not pci-e) set as "primary" into bios (this is only used to prevent the boot phase to show up)
- secondary video card used for everything else

This is a problem for the current patch, it won't be able to access the registry of a secondary device (I mean when there are two or more physical cards in the system, not a single phyisical card with several internal "devices"), but it will work in next release.

Again, I don't think this is the problem.

Only thing I can say is please wait for the 'official' v0.148 build, and check if the problem is gone, sorry.

[Ansa89]

The strange thing is that with groovymame 0.174u3 all was working without errors, but upgrading to 0.147u4 he got these issues.
Anyway we will wait for the official 0.148 build (have you seen my patch above?).


A bit OT: can you upgrade the standalone binary/source of switchres, syncing it to the new patch?

[Calamity]

Yes I saw your updated patch but unfortunately haven't had a chance to make the Windows builds, the system where I used to make the builds died recently and I wanted to add a bunch of fixes to patch 014 before making the new builds, including the new stuff I've been testing with Dr.Venom.

I've attached a patched (rather than updated) version of SwitchRes that's up-to-date with the current GM patch (same monitor types, etc.). This is the one that will go in the next GroovyArcade live-cd. This version will look for 'groovyume' binary in order to get the resolutions, so make sure to have it available.

[Ansa89]

Thanks a lot.
Please consider the attached patch for your new switchres (it removes a very bad segfault and takes care of 64 bits installs).

[Calamity]

Please consider the attached patch for your new switchres (it removes a very bad segfault and takes care of 64 bits installs).

Thanks Ansa, I'll include that patch. I didn't notice the crash on my system, but if it's segfaulting in yours then there's a bug for sure.

[lettuce]

With this new version of Groovymame is it possible to get smooth vertical scrolling on an LCD screen with powerstrip? For instance Mortal Kombats title screen with the characters avatars scrolling on either side of the screen isnt smooth. I have a fresh mame ini file and the only things i have changed it monitor type to LCD, enabled PowerStrip and edited the HLSL settings.

Do the old monitor spec lines still work or are they different, i have a Samsung LCD TV so not sure what i need place in the lcd-range line now?

[Ansa89]

Do the old monitor spec lines still work or are they different, i have a Samsung LCD TV so not sure what i need place in the lcd-range line now?

See the first post:

- New format for defining custom monitor specs, now the -crt_range0-9 options are used. This is the most important change in this version from the user's point of view, as the existing custom definitions will need to be modified. Not big deal however, but make sure you understand how this works as it will guarantee your success with GroovyMAME. The usual timing values remain the same, but the line limiters are replaced by four values: ProgressiveLinesMin, ProgressiveLinesMax, InterlacedLinesMin, InterlacedLinesMax. These are used to easily define the upper and lower limits of the total logical resolutions GroovyMAME should allow, both for the progressive and the interlaced range. You may leave either one of the two ranges set as zero in case you do not want progressive or interlaced modes to be generated. So the current format is as follows:

Code: [Select]

-crt_range 0-9 HfreqMin-HfreqMax, VfreqMin-VfreqMax, HFrontPorch, HSyncPulse, HBackPorch, VfrontPorch, VSyncPulse, VBackPorch, HSyncPol, VSyncPol, ProgressiveLinesMin, ProgressiveLinesMax, InterlacedLinesMin, InterlacedLinesMax
- Automatic LCD timings generation. This is useful in combination with PowerStrip. Your current timings will be read from PowerStrip and used to recalculate modelines from them. You just need to define the range for the vertical refresh your monitor supports:

Code: [Select]

-lcd_range VfreqMin-VfreqMax

[yakk11]

i have a Nanao MS2930 monitor and am currently only running it in 15khz.  Am I to assume that i need to stick with "custom" and only enter the 15k range as before?  I'm not really familiar with the progressive and interlace limits.  what am i to enter for that?  Without entering those, only some games work, and when they do, the scanlines are gone.   Groovymame 146 was working perfectly, so i have a feeling its all of these great new features you have implemented just need to be tweaked.  Keep up the good work!  Any help?

UPDATE: I got it working by redoing my mame.ini a third time.  not sure what i changed, but it wokrs!   

[yakk11]

Calamity, can you please help me with my Nanao MS2390 setting?  I want it to only run in 15khz for now.  I do i know what values to use for the new custom monitor setting?  When i just plug in the old setting, the scanlines disappear.  Any help? 

[Calamity]

Calamity, can you please help me with my Nanao MS2390 setting?  I want it to only run in 15khz for now.  I do i know what values to use for the new custom monitor setting?  When i just plug in the old setting, the scanlines disappear.  Any help?

Just define the monitor as 'custom' and add this line:
crt_range0 15450-16050, 50-65, 3.190, 4.750, 6.450, 0.191, 0.191, 1.164, 0, 0, 192, 288, 448, 576

[Calamity]

With this new version of Groovymame is it possible to get smooth vertical scrolling on an LCD screen with powerstrip?

It is possible indeed, with a LCD screen which does support custom refresh rates (e.g. 54 Hz for mk) which unfortunately is not the case of your Samsung.

Otherwise you're stuck to 60 Hz if you want smooth scrolling. Running mk at 60 Hz means speeding things up to 110%, as we've discussed several times

Do the old monitor spec lines still work or are they different, i have a Samsung LCD TV so not sure what i need place in the lcd-range line now?

The lcd line defines the range where your monitor can truly support incoming refresh rates. Even if a fixed 60 Hz panel, it will still allow for a somewhat narrow range, rather than a fixed value. It could be something like 59.50-60.50. The only way to find it is by direct testing. So the lcd line, in this case, would be:

lcd_range 59.50-60.50

If leave it as 'auto' a default range of 60-60 is assumed.

[yakk11]

Calamity, can you please help me with my Nanao MS2390 setting?  I want it to only run in 15khz for now.  I do i know what values to use for the new custom monitor setting?  When i just plug in the old setting, the scanlines disappear.  Any help?

Just define the monitor as 'custom' and add this line:
crt_range0 15450-16050, 50-65, 3.190, 4.750, 6.450, 0.191, 0.191, 1.164, 0, 0, 192, 288, 448, 576

Thanks for the help!  Lots of games work, lots don't.  I tried creating log files for some of the games, but it is saying that -md is an unknown option.  I'm having problems with LOTS of vertical games (pacman, galaga, etc) and some midway games like MK, MK2, MK3, Wargods.  Tekken 1-3 are also not filling the screen.  Any help on any of this?  I saw that I'm supposed to run vmmaker again?  Is there a way to start fresh for that?  I have attached my vmmaker.ini and mame.ini if that helps.  Thanks!

[Calamity]

The -md option is no longer used, use just -v to get the logs. Consider opening a separate thread se we can follow there.

[yakk11]

The -md option is no longer used, use just -v to get the logs. Consider opening a separate thread se we can follow there.

ok.  i'll do that, thanks!

[Calamity]

Just a quick update.

As you may know I promised an update in sync with v0.148u1, to benefit from the tagmap cleanup performance improvement.

The fact is that I wanted to introduce some new features and the changes required are quite deep, so I need to target them on one single step, and due to their importance, probably release them as SwitchRes patch version 15. So this is going to take a bit longer than I expected. Don't frighten, it won't be too long, but I beg you some patience.

Some of the new features are: multiple window/display support (e.g. play-choice games), user-defined raw modelines, progressive/intelaced mode switching in W7, resolution masks, etc.

I just want to remind that although the currently 'official' version is still GroovyMAME 0.147u3 SwitchRes v0.014, you can build your own up-to-date version with the updated patches posted by Ansa89. Compiling MAME is a quite simple task once you know what to do.

[Dr.Venom]

Hi Calamity,

Thanks for the status update. Good to see that you can manage to squeeze in some time for GM, considering your new real real life obligations

Looking forward to the v15 release, thanks again!


Edit:

Some of the new features are: multiple window/display support (e.g. play-choice games), user-defined raw modelines, progressive/intelaced mode switching in W7, resolution masks, etc.

Does this also mean dual monitor/display support for games like Sega Outrunners? 

[rCadeGaming]

Sounds like it's going to be worth the wait.  I'd rather have greatness later than something rushed now.   I'm still looking forward to user-defined modelines, much gratitude here. 

Some quick questions:

1.  How is the frame delay option coming along?  Please forgive me if it's already out in a current version or patch, I'm waiting for the modeline control to make the switch.

2.  I noticed in the first page here that you said Linux is the best operating system to run GM right now.  Could elaborate on the differences/benefits?  Would it have a significant advantage in terms of input lag over a well-configured XP64 setup?

Thank you.

[Calamity]

Does this also mean dual monitor/display support for games like Sega Outrunners? 

Yep 

But hopefully also GM not breaking MAME's multi screen support, as it does now. So you could use the second head for a LCD marquee and stuff like that.

1.  How is the frame delay option coming along?  Please forgive me if it's already out in a current version or patch, I'm waiting for the modeline control to make the switch.

That was already implemented in the current release.

2.  I noticed in the first page here that you said Linux is the best operating system to run GM right now.  Could elaborate on the differences/benefits?  Would it have a significant advantage in terms of input lag over a well-configured XP64 setup?

The main advantages of Linux (regarding GM):

- You can create whatever video mode you need *on the fly*. As compared with Windows' cumbersome process of creating dummy resolution instances in order to use them as a base to reprogram their timings etc.

- Linux supports 15-KHz output on modern ATI cards (I've tested up to HD 6000 family). In Windows we're stuck with ATI HD 4000. (Linux NVidia support is more precarious on this regard).

On the other hand, I don't feel Linux less laggy than Windows.

[rCadeGaming]

Thanks Calamity.  Sorry for being behind the times on frame delay.  I'll stick with XP64 for now.

One more thing.  After we talked a while back, I was thinking about picking up some ATI cards to compare with my nVidia+Powerstrip setup.  My main desire is maximum flexibility for custom resolutions and timing values in a PCI-e card for use XP64, with quietness and price being secondary priorities. 

With your recommendation of a Radeon HD4XXX in mind, I was looking through the list of Soft15kHz supported cards as a starting point, and I saw that an ASUS HD4350 looked pretty good.  It has the remark of being the "first Radeon to support real 240p."  I don't know exactly what that means, or if this is only an issue with Soft15kHz and not GM, but more importantly it doesn't have any remarks about a minimum dot clock like some of the other fanless Radeon's.  What do you think of an ASUS HD4350?

http://community.arcadeinfo.de/showthread.php?7925-Getestete-Grafikkarten/page5

I found some cheap fanless ones on eBay, but they all have an HDMI output in addition to VGA and DVI, unlike the one listed for Soft15kHz.  Do you think that would cause any problems in terms of the card working differently or needing to use different incompatible drivers or something?  Basically, any compatibility problems or differences from the non-HDMI version?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ASUS-ATI-RADEON-4350-EAH4350-SILENT-DI-512MD2-LP-PLEASE-READ-BELOW-/130851766675?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item1e775f8193

[rCadeGaming]

After looking over some CRT Emudriver stuff, it looks like an HD4350 is a good option, but I'm still unsure about the HDMI port.

EDIT 3/5/13:  I picked one up to test it out and it seems to work very well.  I installed CRT_Emudriver 9.3 and ran VMMaker 1.3.  It created 27 modes which all seem to work, they just need a lot of geometry adjustments.  I got 384x240 and 320x240 dialed in in just the hour or two I've had to play with it, just need to do a some learning with VMMaker.

[cack01]

Hi Calamity,

Just wanted to say that the progressive/intelaced mode switching in W7 feature you mentioned above is very exciting to me.  I think this has caused a lot of people to stick with XP when we would all love to update to Win 7 for various reasons.

Keep up the Great Work!

[jrose78]

hey Calamity,
  I have an LCD 1600x1200 and when I load pacman it is not full screen (see picture). The old version of Groovymame I have is fine. I am running windows 7 Pro. ?



# CORE SWITCHRES OPTIONS
#
modeline                  1
monitor                   lcd
orientation               horizontal
connector                 auto
interlace                 0
doublescan                1
cleanstretch              0
changeres                 1
powerstrip                1
lock_system_modes         1
lock_unsupported_modes    1
refresh_dont_care         0
dotclock_min              0
sync_refresh_tolerance    2.0
frame_delay               0
lcd_range                 48-75
crt_range0                auto
crt_range1                auto
crt_range2                auto
crt_range3                auto
crt_range4                auto
crt_range5                auto
crt_range6                auto
crt_range7                auto
crt_range8                auto

[yakk11]

Some of the new features are: multiple window/display support (e.g. play-choice games), user-defined raw modelines, progressive/intelaced mode switching in W7, resolution masks, etc.

Does this mean we will be able to update to Windows 7?  That would be great!  Thanks for the update!

[timply]

Does this mean we will be able to update to Windows 7?  That would be great!  Thanks for the update!

Is there any news of a Windows 7 crt_emudriver?

[Dr.Venom]

Does this also mean dual monitor/display support for games like Sega Outrunners? 

Yep 

Great.

But hopefully also GM not breaking MAME's multi screen support, as it does now. So you could use the second head for a LCD marquee and stuff like that.

That would be very nice. I just experimented a bit with that in mainline UME (not being familiar with it before you mentioned it), and it's definitely a nice feature to have/use...

[mm_can]

Quick question, I can't get hiscores to save.  I have the HI folder created, I have downloaded the latest hiscore.dat file from MKChamp, I made sure the option in the INI is set as

disable_hiscore_patch = 0

Has anyone found a workaround?

Thanks

MM

[krick]

Which game?

[Calamity]

Quick question, I can't get hiscores to save.

You need to place the hiscore.dat file inside the 'hi' folder. That's all.

[mm_can]

That Worked!!
In default mame, the hiscore.dat goes in the root next to the mame.exe file, so I just assumed this would be the same.

Thanks!

MM

[cools]

I understand why some users decide to disable the -modeline option but now all the resolution picking logic passes through this option so disabling it makes GM fall back to MAME's default resolution picking algorithm which does not perform any safe frequency check, etc.

I need to modify this somehow in future versions so that the -modeline option is always on and possibly add some extra option to ensure that the installed modelines are read-only if the user wants to.

I know I'm running Groovy in an odd manner (linedoubling + scanline emulation + filtering in a single resolution on a CRT), but I'd really like to be able to keep doing this - the results are amazing and it looks exactly like running in 15KHz without any processing. Please maintain some way of disabling all the resolution switching code!

[Calamity]

Just a 'hotfix' update and resyncing to current baseline MAME.

Now the problems with mirrored games etc. should be solved for good. Just make sure to delete the files in your cfg folders and possibly the ini files if you had added -flip options in order to compensate the previous problem. Now everything should be left to default and GM will work out the right orientation in all situations. Check the new "rotate_r" and "rotate_l" types of orientation in case you have one vertically mounted monitor and due to its rotation direction vertical games appear upside-down, now you can force all games to be automatically rotated properly.

Due to increasing real-life complexity the new version #15 of the Switchres patch which will contain all the important new features that some users here have requested is not ready yet, unfortunately. These features should be ready for next release.
 

[lettuce]

Seem to be having a strange issue with 0.147u3. When i select 'LCD' as the monitor in mame.ini mame gives me this message in the attached file when loading a rom

[Dr.Venom]

Just a 'hotfix' update and resyncing to current baseline MAME.

Thanks for the intermediate update

[Calamity]

Seem to be having a strange issue with 0.147u3. When i select 'LCD' as the monitor in mame.ini mame gives me this message in the attached file when loading a rom

Hi lettuce, if you have the chance post the complete log, using -v param.

[lettuce]

An ideas why im getting the following when trying to run GroovyMame:

D:\MAME>mame ffight

SwitchRes: [ffight] (1) horizontal (384x224@59.63)->(1920x1200@59.63)
Unable to create the Direct3D device (8876086C)
Unable to initialize Direct3D.
  000000000021E6F0: 00000000016BA777 (not found)
  000000000021EBC0: 00000000023131AE (not found)
  000000000021ED20: 00000000016C1374 (not found)
  000000000021EEE0: 00000000016BF152 (not found)
  000000000021F100: 00000000016BB88A (not found)
  000000000021F410: 0000000001DD204C (not found)
  000000000021F600: 0000000001DD326D (not found)
  000000000022F3C0: 0000000001CF9F17 (not found)
  000000000022F8A0: 00000000020097BE (not found)
  000000000022FE10: 00000000016BD7F3 (not found)
  000000000022FE60: 00000000022E72EC (not found)
  000000000022FF20: 00000000004013F0 (not found)
  000000000022FF50: 00000000004014F8 (not found)
  000000000022FF80: 0000000076E7F34D (BaseThreadInitThunk+0x000d)
  000000000022FFD0: 0000000077312CA1 (RtlUserThreadStart+0x0021)
Unable to complete window creation


-----------------------------------------------------
Exception at EIP=00000000016BF3D3 (not found): ACCESS VIOLATION
While attempting to read memory at 000000000000008C
-----------------------------------------------------
RAX=0000000000000000 RBX=000000000EC0E130 RCX=000000007732F6FA RDX=0000000000000
001
RSI=0000000076E82690 RDI=0000000076E75210 RBP=0000000000000000 RSP=000000000F7DF
F10
 R8=000000000F7DFE68  R9=0000000000000000 R10=0000000000000000 R11=0000000000000
246
R12=0000000000000000 R13=0000000000000000 R14=0000000000000000 R15=0000000000000
000
-----------------------------------------------------
Stack crawl:
  000000000F7DFF50: 00000000016BF3D3 (not found)
  000000000F7DFF80: 0000000076E7F34D (BaseThreadInitThunk+0x000d)
  000000000F7DFFD0: 0000000077312CA1 (RtlUserThreadStart+0x0021)

D:\MAME>

[Calamity]

Hi lettuce,

I'm still waiting for your log from the other day.

[lettuce]

whats the command again?

[Calamity]

groovymame romname -v >romname.txt

[lettuce]

tar

Also my HP LP2065 monitor turned up today. How do i tell mame to send the game to the 2nd display at a res of 1600x1200 and 4:3 ratio

[Calamity]

The log says you're setting an illegal resolution: 1600x1200. If you want to force a resolution, you need to specify the 3 values width x height @ refresh. So it would be -resolution 1600x1200@60.

It's quite odd that GroovyMAME is reporting 0 resolutions found. Can you double check with Arcade OSD?

In GroovyMAME, to send the picture to a certain display, you do this:

groovymame romname -screen \\.\DISPLAY1              (this is for display 1)
groovymame romname -screen \\.\DISPLAY2              (this is for display 2)

To specify the aspect, just use the -aspect option as always: -aspect 4:3