Author Topic: Confusion on how to install Groovymame32... (Read 4698 times)

repetto74 · « **on:** December 13, 2012, 06:52:48 am »

Hi,

I am totally lost on how to install groovymame32 on my XP arcade cabinet machine.
I have succesfully updated the video drivers of my AVGA9200 with the one provided with groovymame and I can see now a lot more resolutions available in the quickres icon.
But I do not understand clearly what to do with the groovymame.exe file. Shall I consider it as a mame executable or shall I put it in a clean genuine Mame folder and replace the original exe???
It's confusing without a proper tutorial..

Calamity · « **Reply #1 on:** December 13, 2012, 07:04:22 am »

Just create an empty folder and place the GM's excutable inside. Rename it as mame.exe for convenience. Then go to command line, get into the folder and type "mame -cc". This will create a fresh mame.ini. Edit this new mame.ini and enter your roms path and your monitor type (down in the 'core switchres options', option 'monitor'), starting with 'arcade_15' should work for most arcade monitors.

repetto74 · « **Reply #2 on:** December 13, 2012, 08:12:08 am »

OK Calamity thanks. I'll try to proceed as you said. I assume then I will have to edit the Vmaker.ini and follow the rest of the procedure you explained in one of your later post...

I am giving Groovymame a try as I was not very satisfied with Cabmame....
Tanks I will revert!

repetto74 · « **Reply #3 on:** December 13, 2012, 09:11:36 am »

OK so I have created the mame.ini file and put the rom path.
Now on the monitor option shall I leave CGA by default or change it with 'arcade_15'???What about monitors specs? shall I leave all on auto?

My monitor is a Dual Autosync 15-25khz by the way...

repetto74 · « **Reply #4 on:** December 13, 2012, 10:03:36 am »

Ok I am starting to have something here...

I have generated modlines based on a 'custom' monitor presets and lunched a few games...they really look nice!
There is still some tweaking to be done as some of them are not fully displayed, I assume I need to fine tune this in OSD for each resolution right?

This is the presets I used
CGA
monitor_specs0 15250-15700, 49.5-65, 2.000, 4.700, 8.000, 0.064, 0.192, 1.024, 0, 0, 288, 448

My monitor can handle aslo 25khz...shall I had the specific preset also??

There is also a couple of other things I would like to set up :
- first I noticed that some games run slow. For example 'Gunsmoke' was running at 95% and I can hear that the pitch of the sound is slower
- second I do not know why the Mame onscreen menus and the built in gamelist gets fuzzy after a game is launched, sometimes it's so small and fuzzy that it's not readable at all...

It's a good start anyway, I saw for the first time many games running without hardwarestretch where this was necessary before!

Calamity · « **Reply #5 on:** December 15, 2012, 01:35:41 pm »

Hi repetto74,

I think that the preset 'arcade_15_25' is probably good for your monitor. However, you will need to manually add the presets for a dual-sync monitor in vmmaker.ini, in order to create the resolutions. VMMaker is not updated yet to the new presets, working on it.

BTW, the changes done in Arcade_OSD are overriden by GM. At the moment A_OSD is just useful as an interactive way to find specific presets for your monitor, which you can later use in GM.

Gunsmoke is a vertical game that runs at 60Hz. When you run it rotated, you can't get 256 lines at 60 Hz at a standard 15 kHz frequency, you need at least 16.7 kHz to do that. That's why it runs slow.

The menus in MAME just work at the resolution of the last game selected, so sometimes they'll look too big or too small.

repetto74 · « **Reply #6 on:** December 16, 2012, 08:54:18 am »

Hi Calamity,

Many thanks for your reply on this! I forgot to mention that I am using a mame 0.146 romset and therefore I am using groovymame146 which I believe is a lot different from the last version.
I would like to play a little bit with this version and better understand how groovymame works before upgrading to something which is again different in the way you set parameters...
I have tried with the H9110 preset, I think results are pretty good despite the fact my CRT monitor has a slight issue with the V-size (I have a full thread in the monitor video forum dedicated to it). Is there any way to be sure that Groovymame is picking the right resolution? Or is it better to generate a dedicated ini for each game?
In arcade_OSD there is an option to 'attach OSD to current monitor' but do not know how to use it and what this function do exactly....
Thanks
Rick

repetto74 · « **Reply #7 on:** December 17, 2012, 09:33:39 am »

Hi,

I am trying to fit 288 lines V games on a standard 15-25khz CRT monitor with Groovymame 0.146 and AVGA9250. Up to now all 288 lines games are cropped top and bottom. As far as I know there is a way to add a monitor presets in Vmaker.ini to generate correct resolution which allows games to display perfectly on the monitor.
This are the specs of my monitor :
Hfreq : 15.2 to 16.2 Khz
Vfreq : 45-65 Hz
Automatic switching to 25 Khz when required

I would try with Pacman first. I have logged Pacman for you to better have a look at my settings.
Thanks
RIck

Calamity · « **Reply #8 on:** December 17, 2012, 05:03:43 pm »

Quote from: repetto74 on December 17, 2012, 09:33:39 am

As far as I know there is a way to add a monitor presets in Vmaker.ini to generate correct resolution which allows games to display perfectly on the monitor.

- GM can make all your resolutions to almost fit perfectly on the HORIZONTAL, once you find your custom specs.
- No software can control the VERTICAL size of a resolution on a CRT monitor, you need to adjust it physically (potentiometers, service menu, etc.).

If you want pacman to fit in the screen, you either need to adjust your potentiometers or setup GM to create interlaced modes for resolutions above a given value (e.g. 256).

Calamity · « **Reply #9 on:** December 17, 2012, 05:14:43 pm »

Quote from: repetto74 on December 16, 2012, 08:54:18 am

Many thanks for your reply on this! I forgot to mention that I am using a mame 0.146 romset and therefore I am using groovymame146 which I believe is a lot different from the last version.
I would like to play a little bit with this version and better understand how groovymame works before upgrading to something which is again different in the way you set parameters...

I'd really appreciate you upgraded to the new version, it contains a lot of fixes and the way to define the ranges makes everything easier.

Quote

I have tried with the H9110 preset, I think results are pretty good despite the fact my CRT monitor has a slight issue with the V-size (I have a full thread in the monitor video forum dedicated to it). Is there any way to be sure that Groovymame is picking the right resolution? Or is it better to generate a dedicated ini for each game?

The new version shows the resolution picked by GM in the nag screen and info menus, so that's another reason to update. Creating inis defeats the whole purpose of using GM.

Quote

In arcade_OSD there is an option to 'attach OSD to current monitor' but do not know how to use it and what this function do exactly....
Thanks

That's only to make the menu target the current monitor, where the little OSD window is placed on (for the case where you have more than 1 monitors attached).

PD: I'm merging some topics open by the same user, please don't be too annoyed about this, it just makes it easier to me to keep track of your setup/refreshing my memory before answering.

repetto74 · « **Reply #10 on:** December 17, 2012, 07:02:03 pm »

Hi Calamity,

First of all sorry for the double thread I opened and good you merged them into one single discussion

Thank you very much for your time dedicated to my issue here. I will first of all follow your advice and upgrade to GM 0.147 if this can make things more easy to handle.

Quote

- GM can make all your resolutions to almost fit perfectly on the HORIZONTAL, once you find your custom specs.
- No software can control the VERTICAL size of a resolution on a CRT monitor, you need to adjust it physically (potentiometers, service menu, etc.).

If you want pacman to fit in the screen, you either need to adjust your potentiometers or setup GM to create interlaced modes for resolutions above a given value (e.g. 256)

In this thread
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,128623.0.html
you are helping the user on his monitor set up so that pacman and other 288 lines games will fit the screen at their native resolution. Correct me if I am wrong but maybe this is possible because his monitor can handle also 31khz which is not my case (only 15-25Khz)?

With my actual monitor adjustments I can display most of my horizontal game fine and vertical games with <=256 lines. I can understand then that number of vertical lines (256 here) is the limit and extra lines will not be displayed at native resolution. ( i don't think it is possible to adjust the V-size and fit the game right?)
My question is to know what would be the best set up to have 288 vertical games displayed nicely (limiting the nasty blurry effect of hardware stretch). How the new version of GM can handle this? Is it better to use D3D for those games with filters??
I am just trying to reach more or less an optimum considering my monitor specs.

Thanks again for your interest on this.
Rick

Calamity · « **Reply #11 on:** December 19, 2012, 05:08:12 am »

Hi repetto74,

Quote

In this thread
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,128623.0.html
you are helping the user on his monitor set up so that pacman and other 288 lines games will fit the screen at their native resolution. Correct me if I am wrong but maybe this is possible because his monitor can handle also 31khz which is not my case (only 15-25Khz)?

That user is the lucky owner of a NEC XM, those monitors are truly multisync, and they seem to adjust v-size dynamically. On the other hand, our arcade monitors are "banded" (dual-sync, tri-sync), so they accept 15/25/31 KHz, but not the frequencies in the middle, like 18 kHz, and they have a v-size preset for each of the bands/ranges which can only be adjusted manually.

Quote

With my actual monitor adjustments I can display most of my horizontal game fine and vertical games with <=256 lines. I can understand then that number of vertical lines (256 here) is the limit and extra lines will not be displayed at native resolution. ( i don't think it is possible to adjust the V-size and fit the game right?)

It is certainly possible to adjust v-size and get 288 lines fit in the 15 kHz range, that's what GM assumes you're going to do, because we always try give a chance to the user to display the resolution without any sort of stretching artifact, even if that involves messing with potentiometers.

However, it's not possible to get 60 Hz for 288 lines in 15 kHz, so you either have to renounce to v-sync or to live with an important slowdown for these games.

The workaround for both the unconvenience of messing with pots all the time and living with speed slowdowns is to use hardware stretching for resolutions above 256 lines. If you have a 25 Khz monitor you can benefit from the higher resolution available and use the upper range (25) to do the streching. If you combine that with interlace, you can achieve 1024x768i at 25 kHz, even 1024x800i, and trust me when I say it's hard to say these modes are interlaced when in MAME, because GM automatically sets the d3d filtering and you can hardly see any flicker at all.

In order to do that, you need to edit mame.ini, set 'monitor' option to 'custom' and edit these lines:

crt_range0 15625-16200, 49.50-65.00, 2.000, 4.700, 8.000, 0.064, 0.192, 1.024, 0, 0, 192, 256, 448, 576
crt_range1 24960-24960, 49.50-65.00, 0.800, 4.000, 3.200, 0.080, 0.200, 1.000, 0, 0, 320, 384, 640, 768

There's a catch however, you need to have a custom 1024x768i resolution available in your system. Unfortunately I'm in the process of updating VMMaker to the new crt_range, so you need to use somewhat different options in vmmaker.ini, combined with the MonitorType = "CUSTOM":

monitor_specs0 15625-16200, 49.50-65.00, 2.000, 4.700, 8.000, 0.064, 0.192, 1.024, 0, 0, 256, 448
monitor_specs1 24960-24960, 49.50-65.00, 0.800, 4.000, 3.200, 0.080, 0.200, 1.000, 0, 0, 384, 640

In case you don't obtain a 1024x768i custom resolution with these lines, add an explicit 1024x768@60 resolution in the ReslList.txt file before creating the modes with VMMaker. Once you see this resolution listed in Arcade_OSD, you're ready to go with the settings above for GM.

repetto74 · « **Reply #12 on:** December 19, 2012, 01:55:32 pm »

Million thanks for this clear explanation!!

I am following your suggestions with groovy147 but I cannot generate the 1024x768 modeline with VMmaker.
I added this line down the list of the Resllist.txt in the Aux section. I also edited mame.ini and Vmmaker ini as per your instructions.

1024x768@60.000000 aux

I then saved and generated modelines with VMmaker but this modeline is not in the OSD modelist
Any idea???

PS : the closest modeline available is 1024x384

Calamity · « **Reply #13 on:** December 19, 2012, 03:53:14 pm »

The ReslList.txt file is super-sensitive to white spacing, you need to use the exact same format. Anyway attach here your vmmaker's txt files (modeline.txt, modelist.txt, resllist.txt) so I can have a look.

repetto74 · « **Reply #14 on:** December 19, 2012, 05:56:31 pm »

Hi Calamity,

Here enclosed the VMmaker text files. I have another question concerning mame.ini setting : shall I use d3d or ddraw in my case or is GM automatically switching to d3d for high resolutions??

Thanks again for your help

Calamity · « **Reply #15 on:** December 20, 2012, 05:52:47 am »

Try again with this ReslList.txt...

DirectDraw and Direct3D work just the same now, I recommend d3d (default).

repetto74 · « **Reply #16 on:** December 20, 2012, 07:46:29 am »

Hi Calamity,

The Resllist file is working now!

I have the new modeline 1024x768 in OSD list. I have set up then VMmaker.ini and Mame.ini as you said (and leaving d3d) however pacman will launch in a small window in the center of the monitor...
I am trying to extract a log but I do not know why the command line to generate it is not working now!! It says -md command unknown.

This is the full line I typed in (advise if spacing is not correct) : groovymame.exe romname -v -md 4 >romname.txt

Ansa89 · « **Reply #17 on:** December 20, 2012, 07:56:55 am »

Newer versions of MAME don't have the "-md" option.
You can just simply run

Code: [Select]

groovymame.exe romname -v >romname.txt

repetto74 · « **Reply #18 on:** December 20, 2012, 08:53:48 am »

Hi Ansa89,

Thanks for your help on this now it works!

Calamity here is the pacman log txt. The game is launched at 400x320 @25Khz and as I said the result on screen is not good.

Thanks

Calamity · « **Reply #19 on:** December 20, 2012, 09:49:55 am »

In mame.ini, edit this line:

crt_range1 24960-24960, 49.50-65.00, 0.800, 4.000, 3.200, 0.080, 0.200, 1.000, 0, 0, 384, 400, 768, 800

repetto74 · « **Reply #20 on:** December 20, 2012, 10:32:24 am »

Hi Calamity,

I edited in Mame.ini (and NOT in vmaker.ini) as you said. Now pacman runs at 704x480i @ 15hkz and is quite blurry on screen.

here is the log

Calamity · « **Reply #21 on:** December 20, 2012, 10:54:54 am »

Try it now:

crt_range1 25300-25400, 49.50-65.00, 0.800, 4.000, 3.200, 0.080, 0.200, 1.000, 0, 0, 384, 400, 768, 800

Just in case it doesn't work, edit the first line too:

crt_range0 15625-16200, 49.50-65.00, 2.000, 4.700, 8.000, 0.064, 0.192, 1.024, 0, 0, 192, 256, 0, 0

repetto74 · « **Reply #22 on:** December 20, 2012, 11:43:52 am »

Hi Calamity,

I edited the crt range 1 and it looks good. Switchres uses 1024x768 but the game looks still flickery and with a high contrast. Also it is completely unplayable as the game runs dramatically slow. Let me know if you need a picture of it.
Tested also by changing crt range 0 and same issue

I assume I do not have to re-run VMmaker each time I change something in the ini's?

Calamity · « **Reply #23 on:** December 20, 2012, 11:57:25 am »

Hi repetto,

The modeline generator is now behaving as I intended, it's going to be flickery but shouldn't look so bad as 15Khz-interlaced, at least they look quite good on my monitor. The speed issue is definitely something odd, I have no idea what's going on. Try switching to -video ddraw just for testing.

BTW You don't need to run VMMaker, just once when you did to create the modes.

repetto74 · « **Reply #24 on:** December 20, 2012, 12:38:57 pm »

Hi Calamity

You are the Master! Switching back to ddraw did the trick

I have enclosed a picture for you to see the onscreen result.
As you said I do not think it would be possible to improve more. I just feel the image is stretched horizontaly but if I adjust the H amp pot then my settings will be lost on the 15khz modes...
I think I am gonna live with that

but if you have some tips for improvement I am glad to hear.

This was a good tutorial from you for dual sync monitor!

Thanks again!

Calamity · « **Reply #25 on:** December 20, 2012, 12:46:53 pm »

Hi repetto,

It's good to see it worked

I noticed in your log: Direct3D: Using StretchRect for prescaling
Which probably means the hardware support for prescaling is not available in d3d, probably because the 9250 old chipset (this is odd because I use these cards regularly and never had an issue, but who knows). In this situation old ddraw came to the rescue.

I have to remind updating the arcade_15_25 presets for this to work by default.

Thanks for testing!

repetto74 · « **Reply #26 on:** December 20, 2012, 01:08:38 pm »

Hi Calamity,

It's my pleasure, glad to give a contribution!

I may have still an issue there unfortunately. I tried to launch some vertical games and I do not know why GM will launch Galaxian (which is a 256x224) in 720x768 25khz which I do not want in this case. (it should be at 15khz native resolution)
Did I miss something in the mame.ini??

Calamity · « **Reply #27 on:** December 20, 2012, 04:31:24 pm »

This one was hard to figure out. The problem is, your specs only allow up to 58.484 Hz for 256 lines, this is because your upper hfreq limit for range0 is 16.2 KHz.

On the other hand your -sync_refresh_tolerance option in mame.ini is set to 2.0 Hz. As the absolute difference between 60.606 Hz and 58.484 Hz is 2.1223 Hz (higher than 2.0 Hz), the 400x256 video mode is penalized, and one with a true 60.606 Hz is picked instead.

So you have two options. Either raise the hfreqmax value a little bit, so that the resulting refresh difference is lower than 2.0 Hz:

crt_range0 15625-16300, 49.50-65.00, 2.000, 4.700, 8.000, 0.064, 0.192, 1.024, 0, 0, 192, 256, 448, 576

or, simply raise the -sync_refresh_tolerance option to something like 2.5 or higher.

repetto74 · « **Reply #28 on:** December 20, 2012, 04:50:45 pm »

Hi Calamity

The second option did the trick again...

I had the same issue with Qbert where the variation was at 2.9Hz so I increased the tolerance to 3.0 and it did the job.
It's really frustrating for me to not understand how to play with those different settings in Groovymame. I know only some basics about monitor, it's a pity because this version of Mame is so powerfull!

Thanks a million again! I really hope there will be one day a guide or detailed tutorial for GM


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