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Author Topic: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver  (Read 26721 times)

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rjpe

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Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« on: September 14, 2013, 12:53:15 pm »
Hi guys,

I arranged a new MAME/CRT Emu Driver setup on a Crown TV that I'm very happy with, please check the post on my blog and tell me what you think.
I know it's not perfect, but it can help some Arcade Builders achieving good results results with a Scart-TV. It worked for me, I'm pretty happy with the result.

The process is here: http://perdigaos.blogspot.pt/2013/09/testing-other-tv-on-upright-and-some.html

Cheers

rCadeGaming

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #1 on: September 14, 2013, 02:56:24 pm »
Nice work, looking good.

From your blog: "If you don't want to change the TV's geometry all the time with the Service Menu, you can't have all games displaying in their original resolution and fitting the screen- It's a fact!"

Unfortunately it's true.  Maybe you've noticed that the problem is only with vertical size though.  You can get the horizontal size to whatever you want through modeline adjustments, which is real easy in ArcadeOSD.  Unfortunately vertical size changes through modelines are much more difficult, you can't really get it to change more than 2 or 3 lines.  With the common range of vertical sizes in MAME being 224-256 lines, this obviously doesn't cut it. 

There are a few solutions to this:

1.  Just set it to a happy medium and leave it alone. Let a few lines of the 256 line games get cut off, and if you can get your edge geometry square enough, the 224 line games might not look too bad with small black borders.

2.  Use a vertical size pot to keep yourself out of the service menu.  You could either mod one into a digital chassis (still looking into this) or just use an older analog chassis.  This is a lot harder in the US, where analog chassis TV's with RGB or component input are rare.  You could use an arcade monitor, but decent ones are rare and also expensive.

3.  Find a chassis with a "size-switching" capability.  See this post:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,121491.msg1385292.html#msg1385292

"Next test will be with an Arcade VGA 3000"

I will be surprised if you like it better than CRT_Emudriver.  I'm interested in your findings.

adder

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #2 on: September 15, 2013, 07:31:10 am »
i might have mentioned this before but a nice tip is if u own a crt tv which has a 16:9 mode as well as a 4:3 mode (selectable via the remote control or pin 8 of the scart socket (see footnote)).. and if your tv allows you via the service menu to set the geometry of your 4:3 and 16:9 mode independently, you can simply adjust the 16:9 mode to make it look similar to your 4:3 mode

doing this, i now have 2 'screen modes' for my tv so to speak. i have set the 4:3 mode up so that it fits 240 line games pretty much perfectly, and then when i run 224 line games in this mode there are black borders at the top and bottom (but they are not too big to be an issue for me anyway)

for the 16:9 mode i have set it to fit about 270 lines which i use for 256 line games and above

you can then switch between the two tv modes depending on which games you are running, using your tv remote control or by a switch rigged up to scart pin 8 and eg. a resistor to change the volts being sent to the pin

rCadeGaming: the vertical size pot is an idea i have been thinking about also, im thinking it would be a very good solution to the 'getting everything to fit right' issue. its funny but i noticed some games in mame actually have built in black borders (example, double dragon (surrounding black border) and wonderboy (left and right black borders).. kung fu master: 8 black lines at the bottom of the screen... etc

-- On many TV's taking pin 8 high will auto select the SCART input. With a voltage range of 4.5V to 7.0V a compatible set will select AV input in 16x9 mode. With a voltage range of 9.5v to 12.0v the set will select AV input in 4x3 mode.









Calamity

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #3 on: September 16, 2013, 06:50:30 pm »
Hi rjpe,

I've read about your method, I think I see your point and I'll try to explain why I find your method suboptimal and how I'd improve it.

First...

Quote
A big disadvantage of GroovyMAME is: it calculates it's own modelines, even you correct them with Arcade OSD. Calamity says that we will be able to use the corrected modelines in the future, let's wait for that big improvement.

Well, what you see as a big disadvantage is actually, IMHO, its biggest strength. What you call a big improvement, will indeed mean the failure of the GroovyMAME concept. The return to the dark age of ad hoc modelines. The idea behind GroovyMAME was to prove that modeline generation can have predictable results, when everyone insisted this was not possible. The strategy is to modelize the CRT by using just the minimum possible amount of parameters. This works great for arcade monitors. Unfortunately TVs with digital chips are more complex to modelize because they implement some rudimentary logic inside, that frustrates the attempts to get all video modes centered. But this doesn't mean that this logic cannot be understood and programmed. It's only that very few users take up the challenge, so we haven't developed the required knowledge to even deal with the most common models. And I don't use TVs anyway, so...

Quote
The others that don't fit, I resize them to 1234x224 (progressive resolution, much better than resizing to 640x480i) with hardware strech set to 1.

Well this is your opinion. However, in think that downsizing everything to 224 completely ruins the detail of higher resolutions, and creates all sort of artifacts. If you are decided to resize things to a fixed resolution, better use the highest possible, and that's an interlaced resolution. Of course, that depends on the quality of the interlaced video you get on your particular monitor. My Hantarex 9110 gives an excellent quality, flicker is not very noticeable, specially when you use bilinear filtering. I'd say an interlaced mode gives about as much detail as 2/3 its vertical resolution. So 480i would provide similar detail to 320p, despite the flicker. Of course if you really can't stand the flicker this is out of question.

Quote
My R-Type INI File (rtype.ini):
screen0 \\.\DISPLAY1
resolution0 1234x224@60
hwstrech 1
syncrefresh 0

You can't do this to R-Type unless you hate it for some reason. Think that Irem games run at 55 Hz! Anyway you're forcing it to run with syncfresh off, so you're going to see lots of tearing and choppy scroll. Tearing is worse than flicker if you ask me.

Please don't get me wrong, I understand what you're trying to achieve here and I think it's a legit approach.

You can achieve similar results with GroovyMAME by using these options:

Code: [Select]
monitor custom
dotclock_min 8.0
crt_range0 15625-15750, 49.50-65.00, 2.000, 4.700, 8.000, 0.064, 0.192, 1.024, 0, 0, 192, 224, 0, 0

This will force all games to use a max vertical resolution of 224, while still preserving their native refresh, and will forbid the use of interlaced modes.
Important note: posts reporting GM issues without a log will be IGNORED.
Steps to create a log:
 - From command line, run: groovymame.exe -v romname >romname.txt
 - Attach resulting romname.txt file to your post, instead of pasting it.

CRT Emudriver, VMMaker & Arcade OSD downloads, documentation and discussion:  Eiusdemmodi

rCadeGaming

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #4 on: September 17, 2013, 11:05:50 am »
Quote
A big disadvantage of GroovyMAME is: it calculates it's own modelines, even you correct them with Arcade OSD. Calamity says that we will be able to use the corrected modelines in the future, let's wait for that big improvement.

Well, what you see as a big disadvantage is actually, IMHO, its biggest strength. What you call a big improvement, will indeed mean the failure of the GroovyMAME concept.

I don't think that it would ruin the concept.  I think the majority of users would still stick to the auto-generated modelines.  User defined modelines would be just be a very nice option for advance users who want more control sometimes.  Auto-generated modelines could still be used most of the time, but I just think it's important to be able to step in in the odd case where something doesn't come out right.  Not because the auto-generation has failed, but it could just be something it wasn't intended to encounter, like some odd logic on a digital TV chassis as you mentioned.  Or, maybe it could just be that the user wants to bias the vertical positioning for only one particular game, because there is something important at the top of the screen, like a life bar or score display that needs to be pulled out of the overscan, and not much going on at the bottom, so that can be pushed into the overscan.  On other games it's the reverse.  Or it could be something else.  I'm just saying there can be special cases that you can't expect an auto-generation feature to know about, and yes these TV's can be quirky, and I understand it wasn't designed for them.

In any case, I know I don't really have any say in the matter, but I really hope you don't mean you're having second thoughts about user-defined modelines.  If you feel that it would muddy up the concept of GM itself, could we have it as an optional patch?  Barring that, any ETA on switchres15?   :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy:

Quote
The others that don't fit, I resize them to 1234x224 (progressive resolution, much better than resizing to 640x480i) with hardware strech set to 1.
Well this is your opinion. However, in think that downsizing everything to 224 completely ruins the detail of higher resolutions, and creates all sort of artifacts.

Yeah, I didn't want to tear down RJPE's work, but I would have to agree with Calamity on this one.  Downscaling to fewer lines than native is never going to come out well.  Also, you don't need to run everything in 224 lines because that it what is visible on your TV.  You can do 240p and 256p with some lines in the overscan.

rCadeGaming

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #5 on: September 17, 2013, 11:17:51 am »
Jadder, using the 4:3 and 16:9 modes for two different sets of geometry settings is shear brilliance.  I don't know why I didn't think of that.  All of the digital chassis 15kHz 4:3 Sony's I've used have had a 16:9 mode that could be selected.

Unfortunately, I'm having trouble getting the 16:9 mode on the TV I'm working with right now to fill the whole screen, as it's originally meant to show black borders at the top and bottom.  The switch also can't be automated with a pin on the input, as we don't have that with US models, it has to be done through the on screen menu (the user one though, not the service menu).  I wish I could use European TV's.  I'll keep working on this though.

As for the black borders on certain games, you'll see that a lot with games that were designed for CRT's.  The black space is just meant to be pushed into the overscan.  Take a look at Mario 3 on NES.  There's all kinds of garbage on the side of the screen that they didn't expect anyone to ever be able to see.
« Last Edit: September 17, 2013, 03:26:51 pm by rCadeGaming »

Calamity

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #6 on: September 17, 2013, 11:41:09 am »
Yeah re-reading my post it may sound I was too hard with rjpe's method and that was not really my intention. I really appreciate people testing their own creative solutions and workarounds, because that gives new ideas on how to improve GroovyMAME in the future.

Quote
In any case, I know I don't really have any say in the matter, but I really hope you don't mean you're having second thoughts about user-defined modelines.

Of course you have things to say and I want to hear them :) I'm not having any kind of second thoughts on this. It is definitely going to be implemented. I thought it would happen sooner but this year I dedicated my scarce energies to W7 compatibility (which is still "beta") rather than Switchres 15 which was first purpose. And regarding Switchres 15, and specifically the custom modeline support, I really need to open some sort of brainstorming thread because I'm not quite sure how would be the best way to implement this (have modelines being taken as raw text in ini files? use a database?).

I don't mean it's going to ruin the concept behind GroovyMAME but it's definitely going to pervert it. Because it's true that sometimes I miss this feature too for whatever reason and advanced users will benefit from this option wisely. But the average user will see it as a shortcut to avoid understanding the crt_range model and will base everything on ad hoc adjustments. And a new family of lame features will be requested subsequently, because obviously the average user will demand not having to adjust 500+ unique modelines, ehehe... Finally some people will come up with a 30-modeline setup and we will be happily back in 2007 after years of work  ;D

Important note: posts reporting GM issues without a log will be IGNORED.
Steps to create a log:
 - From command line, run: groovymame.exe -v romname >romname.txt
 - Attach resulting romname.txt file to your post, instead of pasting it.

CRT Emudriver, VMMaker & Arcade OSD downloads, documentation and discussion:  Eiusdemmodi

rCadeGaming

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #7 on: September 17, 2013, 04:34:09 pm »
I don't mean it's going to ruin the concept behind GroovyMAME but it's definitely going to pervert it. Because it's true that sometimes I miss this feature too for whatever reason and advanced users will benefit from this option wisely. But the average user will see it as a shortcut to avoid understanding the crt_range model and will base everything on ad hoc adjustments. And a new family of lame features will be requested subsequently, because obviously the average user will demand not having to adjust 500+ unique modelines, ehehe... Finally some people will come up with a 30-modeline setup and we will be happily back in 2007 after years of work  ;D

I see what you mean, it can be a slippery slope.  It can be difficult convincing the average user to put in the effort to acheive the optimal result, rather than taking shortcuts to a mediocre result.  One obvious but simple thing to help would be to continue to push the performance, and especially the convenience, of the auto-generation, with suggestions, testimonials, evidence, etc.

I think a more difficult, but more comprehensive solution would be to have a more complete selection of presets for exact models of monitors and TV's available.  I know this takes a lot of work and feedback from owners of each model though.  I could at least help with some TV's.

regarding Switchres 15, and specifically the custom modeline support, I really need to open some sort of brainstorming thread because I'm not quite sure how would be the best way to implement this (have modelines being taken as raw text in ini files? use a database?).

For me, I think inserting the raw text of the modeline into the ini, and letting it behave like any other ini setting would be optimal.  You could insert it into a driver's ini to set the modeline for any game for that driver, or insert it into the ini for just a specific game, and all the same rules for what takes precedence would apply.

I can see how using other methods could make it more powerful and convenient, but just to have it working for now it would be plenty effective, and I wouldn't complain if it just stayed like that.  Making it too convenient could get beginners overusing it too.  Maybe the auto-generation settings could ultimately be incorporated into some highly user-friendly UI, while discrete modelines could remain in raw text.

I look forward to the brainstorming thread.  Thanks for being so receptive to input  :cheers:

rjpe

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #8 on: September 17, 2013, 08:19:15 pm »
Hello,

Thanks for the feedback.
Lot's of good information to help others setting their setups with Scart-TVs.

The main scope of the method I posted is "MAME on NTSC/PAL SCART-TVs", and the main objectives are:
- Generating NTSC Modelines with VMMaker (more close to 60Hz);
- Fit the screen to 224 resolutions, so that games like bobble bobble, golden axe, black tiger and others x224 will be displayed in their original resolutions in full screen;
- Have everything else fitting the whole screen.

Calamity, don't worry man, I respect your comments, and I understand them. Just for the record, I love R-Type, I played it a lot on the Speccy 48K.  ;D Regarding the syncrefresh parameter set to 0, if I don't do that, I have problems with sound and frame rate when using 1234x224 (at least with official MAME, I'll try later on with GroovyMAME).
I understand that GroovyMAME is more focused on Arcade Monitors. I hope you realize that SCART-TV's are very important to a lot of Arcade Revivalists that don't have easy access to Arcade Monitors. This method is something simple that worked for me, and might help others. I know that it's not optimal, but it's the only method I see that allow us to fit everything and having the best classic horizontal games (in my opinion...) in original res fitting the whole screen, on a SCART-TV.

I would love to get a better setup (I'm still open to changes), using GroovyMAME, but this was the one until now that better fits my requirements.
During this week I'll try to test your suggested settings.

Regarding the user-defined modelines on GroovyMAME, for SCART-TV setups I think it is a must. I tried the PAL and NTSC options on both VMMaker and GroovyMAME and it never fitted either vertically or horizontally for 4 different TV sets I've been testing. I always needed to edit the generated modelines on ARCADE OSD. Maybe we need to implement a wizard for Scart-TV's? A Checklist? I'm sure that there are lot's of BYOAC'ers willing to test SCART-TV's for you (I have 6 different TV sets to test). What do you need to start this? Will this kind of testing be interesting for you, or want to limit the scope to Arcade Monitors?

rCadeGaming, thanks for the feedback. Regarding the solutions you posted, I tried the 1st, and I really think that the best is to choose the number of lines of your preferred game and fit the whole screen. It's a matter of taste. The 2nd option is very interesting, but I don't have the skills to do that. I already thought in getting some CRT TV expert installing an Arcade Monitor Chasis on a few TV's, I didn't find anyone yet.  :) I'll be watching size-swicthing chassis as well.
ArcadeVGA 3000 is something I'm very curious about because of the "Arcade Perfect Utility"... I wonder if it works well for Scart-TV's.

jadder, I confirm that your method works. For this TV, it's not possible, but on the BEKO Chassis (the one I have that interlaces everything), I have a different geometry sub-menu for 16:9, that I needed to adjust for 60Hz resolutions.






rCadeGaming

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #9 on: September 18, 2013, 10:49:04 am »
the main objectives are:
- Generating NTSC Modelines with VMMaker (more close to 60Hz);

I think this is a point of confusion.  That's exactly what you don't want to do. 

What is the need to run things at 60Hz?  Most NTSC TV's can do anything in the range of 60Hz, maybe +- 3Hz.  If you're using something capable of both PAL and NTSC, it likely has a very wide range its capable of.  Not just 50 and 60Hz, but probably everything in between, and a little above and below that range too.  You should take advantage of that.

Maybe I'm wrong and you have a really strict chassis, but have you tried it?  My KD-27FS170 can do about 45-65Hz.

The reason that you should is that native resolution is only half the picture.  Native refresh rate is really important as well.  Matching the actual output refresh rate to the native rate of each game is the only way to get exact frame for frame emulation at the correct game speed.  It's also the best way to avoid tearing and sound issues.

If you were having issues with syncrefresh, it's probably because your output refresh wasn't matched to native.  Turn on syncrefresh once it's correctly matched.

- Fit the screen to 224 resolutions, so that games like bobble bobble, golden axe, black tiger and others x224 will be displayed in their original resolutions in full screen;
- Have everything else fitting the whole screen.

Last night I spent some time looking over all the games I consider worth playing in MAME.  A few hundred if you really stretch the definition of "worth playing."  What I found is that among the 15kHz games (which are the great majority), anything over 240p is actually pretty rare.  224p is by far the most common, with 240p in a distant second, and a few odd resolutions in between 224-240 lines being third.  There's not a lot that's notable over 240 lines, except the Irem m72.c games (R-Type I and II, Ninja Spirit, Image Fight, X-Multiply, all 256p), and various Midway hardware games (NBA Jam/TE/Hangtime, MK I-III if you're into that, all 253p).  Let me know if you can think of anything else (not sarcasm, I'd seriously like to know).

Anyhow, what I'm driving at is that if you must squash 256p stuff like R-Type, that's your preference.  You'll be missing some lines, but I understand if you think 32 lines is too much to leave in the overscan.  However, since most of what doesn't fit into your 224 lines is 240 lines or less, I think you should try letting those use some overscan.  I also have a MAME TV set to about 224 lines visible, and it's pretty rare that you can't shift any 240p game around so that the 16 lines hidden in the overscan are nothing important.  These games were made with some overscan in mind. 

Just try running anything 225-240 lines unstretched in a 240 line resolution, and shift it up and down as needed.

I already thought in getting some CRT TV expert installing an Arcade Monitor Chasis on a few TV's, I didn't find anyone yet.

A small company called 8-liners makes conversion chassis's, but they only work for certain tubes, and I don't know if the quality is any good.

I'll be watching size-swicthing chassis as well.

Keep in mind that the larger size will be great for 256p games, but not so much for 240p or less as it's too big, leaving black borders.  Those still need to fit in with the 224 lines games.  That's what I found at least.

ArcadeVGA 3000 is something I'm very curious about because of the "Arcade Perfect Utility"... I wonder if it works well for Scart-TV's.

I haven't used it myself, but I can't imagine that it could do anything that ArcadeOSD can't.  The ArcadeVGA seems to be an overpriced, less powerful, and less flexible alternative to CRT_Emudriver.

rjpe

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #10 on: September 18, 2013, 12:51:48 pm »
the main objectives are:
- Generating NTSC Modelines with VMMaker (more close to 60Hz);

I think this is a point of confusion.  That's exactly what you don't want to do. 

What is the need to run things at 60Hz?  Most NTSC TV's can do anything in the range of 60Hz, maybe +- 3Hz.  If you're using something capable of both PAL and NTSC, it likely has a very wide range its capable of.  Not just 50 and 60Hz, but probably everything in between, and a little above and below that range too.  You should take advantage of that.
Maybe I'm wrong and you have a really strict chassis, but have you tried it?  My KD-27FS170 can do about 45-65Hz.

The reason that you should is that native resolution is only half the picture.  Native refresh rate is really important as well.  Matching the actual output refresh rate to the native rate of each game is the only way to get exact frame for frame emulation at the correct game speed.  It's also the best way to avoid tearing and sound issues.

If you were having issues with syncrefresh, it's probably because your output refresh wasn't matched to native.  Turn on syncrefresh once it's correctly matched.

When I have refresh rates close to 50Hz (syncing with the original refresh rate) the TV's geometry changes... some x224 games didn't fit the screen anymore. That's why I forced NTSC. I'll check it again, and will post the results. I think that it's one of those automatic adjustments that ruin the multiple arcade emulation (even for the same resolution, if the games have different refreshes, the geometry alignment will be different...). It happened with more than 1 TV. I'm sure that I'm not the only one.

- Fit the screen to 224 resolutions, so that games like bobble bobble, golden axe, black tiger and others x224 will be displayed in their original resolutions in full screen;
- Have everything else fitting the whole screen.

Last night I spent some time looking over all the games I consider worth playing in MAME.  A few hundred if you really stretch the definition of "worth playing."  What I found is that among the 15kHz games (which are the great majority), anything over 240p is actually pretty rare.  224p is by far the most common, with 240p in a distant second, and a few odd resolutions in between 224-240 lines being third.  There's not a lot that's notable over 240 lines, except the Irem m72.c games (R-Type I and II, Ninja Spirit, Image Fight, X-Multiply, all 256p), and various Midway hardware games (NBA Jam/TE/Hangtime, MK I-III if you're into that, all 253p).  Let me know if you can think of anything else (not sarcasm, I'd seriously like to know).

Anyhow, what I'm driving at is that if you must squash 256p stuff like R-Type, that's your preference.  You'll be missing some lines, but I understand if you think 32 lines is too much to leave in the overscan.  However, since most of what doesn't fit into your 224 lines is 240 lines or less, I think you should try letting those use some overscan.  I also have a MAME TV set to about 224 lines visible, and it's pretty rare that you can't shift any 240p game around so that the 16 lines hidden in the overscan are nothing important.  These games were made with some overscan in mind. 

Just try running anything 225-240 lines unstretched in a 240 line resolution, and shift it up and down as needed.

R-type was the game I was testing for 256 lines. I start to think that the best option would be to have 2 Cabinets, one for 224 and other for 240 or 256.  ;) Didn't find any other game (I'm not a big fan of MK and similar) that is not 224 and I want to play often besides R-Type.
I think it's good idea to count the games using x224, x240 and x256. That will ease the games selection for the type of resolution we want. Anyone has this numbers?

What do you mean shift it up and down? Service Menu? That's very user-unfriendly. The main point of the Cabinet is my children not needing their dad changing the geometry to play the games (they just turn on the machine, select the game and play). Having to change the geometry every time is out of the question for me, but I agree that it is an option for others.

I already thought in getting some CRT TV expert installing an Arcade Monitor Chasis on a few TV's, I didn't find anyone yet.

A small company called 8-liners makes conversion chassis's, but they only work for certain tubes, and I don't know if the quality is any good.

Yep, I saw it when Googling for it. I prefer to find someone local (near my house) that might be able to do the job.

ArcadeVGA 3000 is something I'm very curious about because of the "Arcade Perfect Utility"... I wonder if it works well for Scart-TV's.

I haven't used it myself, but I can't imagine that it could do anything that ArcadeOSD can't.  The ArcadeVGA seems to be an overpriced, less powerful, and less flexible alternative to CRT_Emudriver.

I have a Setup on my on-going vertical cabinet project that uses ArcadeVGA2 (AGP) plus CRT Emu Driver, and it works great! Best setup until now. Having the BIOS and OS boots appearing on the TV is great because you see what is happening, and you minimize the risk of damaging your CRT. This ArcadeVGA was bought for 40€ on Ultimarc (ArcadeVGA stock-off), for me it was a great deal. I agree that it's expensive when compared with better GPU's...

I'm aware of the difficulty of flashing an ATI with 15KHz resolutions, but I would love to see a project at BYOAC named "CRT Emu Flash for the ATI Radeon XXX". I aware of the difficulty, I'm just saying that it would be 5 stars.

Thanks again for the input

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #11 on: September 18, 2013, 10:13:40 pm »
When I have refresh rates close to 50Hz (syncing with the original refresh rate) the TV's geometry changes... some x224 games didn't fit the screen anymore

What games are close to 50Hz?  Do you mean 55Hz?

When you say the geometry changes, what specifically do you mean?  In ArcadeOSD, you can achieve independent adjustments of refresh rate, horizontal and vertical position, and horizontal size.  You can set all of these to whatever you want.  Find the right refresh rate, then fix the geometry.

How can adjustments for a 55Hz game affect the geometry for a 224p game?  You should be using seperate modelines for games with different requirements.

What do you mean shift it up and down? Service Menu?

No, no.  I would not consider that an option.  You can do it in ArcadeOSD.  The idea is that the service menu settings are calibrated once, and then left alone.  Further changes are automated with the use of different modelines.

Every game with any kind of different requirement (meaning different resolution, different geometry, or different refresh rate) needs its own modeline.  All of these adjustments can be made in ArcadeOSD, so that once it's all set up you just select a game and it launches it in the correct modeline automatically.  Everything's automated.

Familiarize yourself with the hardware drivers, cps2, m72, neodriver, stv, etc.  You'll find that a single modeline work usually work for every game of a certain driver, as they usually all run in the same resolution and refresh rate.  This makes things a little easier, but you can see that you can still end up having to make a ton of custom modelines.  So it will benefit you to get GM's auto-generation working well, and only step in where needed.

I start to think that the best option would be to have 2 Cabinets, one for 224 and other for 240 or 256.  ;)

Well sure, as long as you have unlimited time, space, and money.  Don't forget you also need vertical cabs, a flat panel cab for modern games, several racing cabs linked together, pinball cabs, lightgun cabs, and a Virtual On cab!

It depends on the person.  I'm particularly sick, so I'm just going to settle with one 15kHz horizontal, one 15kHz vertical, two racing cabs, and maybe a flat panel cab.  Oh, and some portable joysticks.  And a Game Boy Advance mini-cab to plug into my 15kHz horizontal cab while playing Pac-Man Vs.

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #12 on: September 19, 2013, 02:46:38 am »
Don't get me wrong, I was just kidding about the second horizontal cab... No space and no money... and no time... I wish I just had only more time to improve this project and finish the other two. But still, thanks for your help and knowledge I think I'm getting somewhere and learning a few more important considerations.

So, maybe that's what I was missing! I need to add more ×224 (and x240 and x256) with different refresh rates to reslist.txt and adjust them one by one, that's what you're suggesting, right?
How to force Vmmaker to generate all res with different refresh rates without forcing them in reslist.txt?

If this will work, I'll review the process and update it because this was one of problems I had with the custom monitor modeline.
Then, I'll try again the x256 games with some overscan and see how it looks.

Thanks again

8)




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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #13 on: September 19, 2013, 08:23:29 am »
Quote from: rjpe
When I have refresh rates close to 50Hz (syncing with the original refresh rate) the TV's geometry changes... some x224 games didn't fit the screen anymore. That's why I forced NTSC. I'll check it again, and will post the results. I think that it's one of those automatic adjustments that ruin the multiple arcade emulation (even for the same resolution, if the games have different refreshes, the geometry alignment will be different...). It happened with more than 1 TV. I'm sure that I'm not the only one.

Quote from: rCadeGaming
When you say the geometry changes, what specifically do you mean?

i think he means the same thing i get and anyone using a european crt tv which has seperate pal and ntsc modes

the tv will let you be in either ntsc mode (and give you some play on the number of active total lines and refresh rate in that mode), and same with pal. when in ntsc mode you can go down to about 55hz if i remember. once you start to go lower, the tv switches into pal mode (the screen actually flicks into this different mode). here you have more lines to work with, but you wont be able to push the refresh rate much above 55hz or the tv just flicks back into ntsc mode.

the 'games worth playing' chat is interesting, i am the same in the sense that i dont see the point of setting up EVERY possible mame resolution because there are hundreds, and of course some mame games suck, i wouldnt play them all

personally these are the games i play below:

lines high:
   192       a few games eg. atomic robokid, ninja-kid II  note: i do get black surrounding borders for these games
   216       a few games eg. rabbit punch (a.k.a rabio lepus)...cool game
   224       huge amount of games eg. shinobi etc
   232       a few games eg. arkanoid returns
   240       huge amount of games eg. rastan, gauntlet
   252       moon patrol, i really like this game so made sure i had it set up
   254       mortal kombat games and some others
   256       big amount of vertical games (commando, 1942, scramble) plus some horizontals (rtype, kung fu master)
   280       contra, alcon, tiger heli
   288       lots of vertical games eg. pacman, dig dug, xevious

i run all of these games on a horizontally mounted tv and i use the '4:3/16:9' trick as i mentioned in my earlier post above.

Quote from: rCadeGaming
and various Midway hardware games (NBA Jam/TE/Hangtime, MK I-III if you're into that, all 253p

mame reports those wrong actually. if you run any of the midway games listed under that odd 399 x 253 resolution, they end up running in a different resolution once the game launches, which is either 254 lines high (eg. mortal kombats), 255 lines (eg. terminator 2) or 256 lines (smash tv, total carnage)

« Last Edit: September 19, 2013, 09:02:06 pm by jadder »

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #14 on: September 19, 2013, 11:04:10 am »
So, maybe that's what I was missing! I need to add more ×224 (and x240 and x256) with different refresh rates to reslist.txt and adjust them one by one, that's what you're suggesting, right?

Yes exactly.

How to force Vmmaker to generate all res with different refresh rates without forcing them in reslist.txt?

When you first set things up, you should try and get VMMaker to generate as many different resolutions as possible, but actually getting the exact timing values you need should then be done in Arcade OSD.  Once you know what you're going for, pick the closest thing in ArcadeOSD and tweak it to what you need.  You can start with any resolution in ArcadeOSD and change it to anything else.  Then get the text modeline for what you've created and save that, keeping track of what driver or game it's for.  Repeat this and you'll have a list of text modelines you want.  I actually use WinModelines to manage them.

This is a lot of work, so don't forget about trying GM's auto-generation to cut some of it down.

the tv will let you be in either ntsc mode (and give you some play on the number of active lines and refresh rate in that mode), and same with pal. when in ntsc mode you can go down to about 55hz if i remember. once you start to go lower, the tv switches into pal mode (the screen actually flicks into this different mode). here you have more lines to work with, but you wont be able to push the refresh rate much above 55hz or the tv just flicks back into ntsc mode.

Right, just as I get with the KD-27FS170 chassis.  Play with this in ArcadeOSD and watch very closely to find the exact trigger point that causes the change.  You may find that it's actually based on the number of total lines, not the refresh rate (be sure not to confuse total lines with active lines).  In any case, find exactly what triggers it and you'll be able to control it.  This could be a big advantage, not a problem.  The only games that run around 55Hz need around 254 or 256 lines, so getting extra lines to work with is exactly what you want.

Anyhow, I think we're in agreement that this a rare case, as there's only a handful of worthwhile games with such a low refresh rate, but keep playing with it.  I think you'll be able to use this to your advantage.

personally these are the games i play below:

lines high...

I think it should be noted that in the case of vertical games here you're actually listing their width in terms of native video, not their height.  That's the reason for discrepancy between our lists.  Technically, everything you've list under "256, 280, and 288" is actually 224p or 240p, aside from R-Type and Kung Fu Master. 

In your setup it's correct to the think of their width as their height, because you're displaying vertical games on a horizontal screen (yoko).  I just think's it's important to be pointed out for anyone else reading this.

Quote from: rCadeGaming
and various Midway hardware games (NBA Jam/TE/Hangtime, MK I-III if you're into that, all 253p

mame reports those wrong actually. if you run any of the midway games listed under that odd 399 x 253 resolution, they end up running in a different resolution once the game launches, which is either 254 lines high (eg. mortal kombats), 255 lines (eg. terminator 2) or 256 lines (smash tv, total carnage)

Ah.  Yeah, I figured it looked odd, but didn't test it yet.  I don't care about Mortal Kombat, but I do love NBA Jam, so I'll keep it in mind.

Another strange case is the Sega ST-V hardware (stv.c).  It's reported as 512p, which is sometimes used in title screens and attract modes, but actual gameplay looks like 256p or less.  It doesn't look like there is any provision for properly reporting when multiple resolutions are used.  Cotton Boomerang looks like it actually uses 336x208p, judging from a screenshot examined in MS paint, whereas Puyo Puyo sun is harder to judge, because it seems to stretch itself to full screen no matter what you do.  Anyone know the best way to figure these out?

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #15 on: September 19, 2013, 11:43:05 am »
Quote from: rCadeGaming
...watch very closely to find the exact trigger point that causes the change.  You may find that it's actually based on the number of total lines, not the refresh rate (be sure not to confuse total lines with active lines).

oops, apologies, i should have typed total lines, not active lines. i will edit my original post

Quote from: rCadeGaming
I think it should be noted that in the case of vertical games here you're actually listing their width in terms of native video, not their height.  That's the reason for discrepancy between our lists.  Technically, everything you've list under "256, 280, and 288" is actually 224p or 240p, aside from R-Type and Kung Fu Master. In your setup it's correct to the think of their width as their height, because you're displaying vertical games on a horizontal screen (yoko).  I just think's it's important to be pointed out for anyone else reading this.

that's right, just to confirm, for my setup i am running both horizontal AND vertical games horizontally on my tv screen, because i dont want to lift my heavy 20" crt tv and rotate it manually every time i play vertical games, and also, at the moment i dont want to use two tv's (but maybe in the future i will go down that road, who knows :))

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #16 on: September 19, 2013, 11:47:25 am »
Quote from: rCadeGaming
...find exactly what triggers it and you'll be able to control it...

that said, i assume you dont mean you could get the tv into pal mode (more lines) but then force the refresh back up to 60hz (instead of being stuck in the pal '50hz to 55hz' range)

now that's something i'd like to see :lol

« Last Edit: September 19, 2013, 11:49:16 am by jadder »

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #17 on: September 19, 2013, 01:26:30 pm »
that's right, just to confirm, for my setup i am running both horizontal AND vertical games horizontally on my tv screen, because i dont want to lift my heavy 20" crt tv and rotate it manually every time i play vertical games

I would say that you're still running vertical games vertically, it's just that the TV is still horizontal... but we're getting too wrapped in semantics here.  Let's just agree to use the term yoko to be clear. 

Yoko means running a vertical game on a horizontally positioned monitor so that it looks upright, and there are black borders on the left and right.  It's a very common term if you go over to the shmups forum (tons of vertical games are shmups of course), but not yet very well known over here.

that said, i assume you dont mean you could get the tv into pal mode (more lines) but then force the refresh back up to 60hz (instead of being stuck in the pal '50hz to 55hz' range)

Why would you want to?  If your TV is set to show 224 lines visible in the NTSC mode, then that's what you ought to use for 224-240 line games (as well as 480i games, which are still 240 lines per field, same thing).  The PAL mode would only be useful 254 and 256 line games, which are supposed to run around 55Hz anyway.

Ok, wait, while typing this I'm realizing that you could use it for your yoko games, duh.  Sorry, no I doubt that it could be done. 
« Last Edit: September 19, 2013, 05:23:28 pm by rCadeGaming »

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #18 on: September 19, 2013, 03:01:07 pm »
Quote from: rCadeGaming

I would say that you're still running vertical games vertically, it's just that the TV is still horizontal... but we're getting too wrapped in semantics here.  Let's just agree to use the term yoko to be clear. 

yep thats it. i have to say i didnt know that term 'yoko', hopefully it will become more popular!

Quote from: rCadeGaming
Ok, wait, while typing this I'm realizing that you could use it for your yoko games, duh.  Sorry, no I doubt that it could be done.

yep :)

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #19 on: September 19, 2013, 05:26:00 pm »
Yeah, you can't run that many lines at 60Hz without straying too far from 15.75kHz horizontal.

Speaking of which, are you actually getting these 280 and 288 active line yoko games displayed on your TV?  You must be running them at a pretty low refresh I'm guessing?

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #20 on: September 19, 2013, 06:15:44 pm »
my tv can only manage to display about 260 lines maximum.
so i am fine for the vertical 256 games running yoko....  as for the 280 and 288 games (also running yoko), i run those without scaling and just lose some of the top/bottom of the screen (eg. i've never cared about scores so dont mind if i lose the score at the top of the screen for example)

for my 256 lines modeline i have the scan rate at 16.3kHz and refresh rate at 58Hz
for my 288 lines modeline i have the scan rate at 16.3kHz and refresh rate at 57Hz

(my tv could probably handle a higher scan rate but i feel like i dont really want to go above 16.3kHz, as i notice higher scan rates might be ok when the tv has warmed up, but from cold, i can sometimes get some odd picture warping etc in eg. the corners of the screen)

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #21 on: September 19, 2013, 08:28:40 pm »
jadder, are you using MAME INI's with regular MAME or GM?

I just went back to the custom modelines in VMM and GM, one for x224, other for x240 and finally another for x256.
I limited the refresh rate from 55 to 60, and scan rate up to 16.4Khz.
I downsized the vertical adjustment so that I could see all MAME screens for all generated resolutions.
When rtype is run at it's original refresh rate (x256 ~55Hz), with GM, the screen goes a few lines down. If I run commando or dkong (x256 ~60Hz) the game fits the screen.
I discovered on the service menu a way of adjusting the 16:9 geometry, I'll try to do what you did to see if the solves rtype's geometry problem.

If I force the refresh rate to be something between 58Hz and 60Hz for x256 in GM crt_range, rtype fits better but it runs at a speed of 102%. In regular MAME it says it runs at 100%, but the game is not as smooth as with GM.
Another thing I noticed is d3d in GM displays the scanlines, in regular MAME I've to use ddraw.

I thought I had a receipt... but you guys got me thinking...  :)

I could live with x240 (and x480) fitting the whole screen, some black borders for x224, and overscan in x256. Above that I could resize everything to 640x480i (pacman and alike) instead of x288 resolutions...

Right now, the best method I see for Horizontal Orientation, based on your inputs and my viewing taste, is trying to fit x240 and x480 resolutions on the TV screen. If we want to interlace everything above 240 or 256, most games will be in full screen.
I really need to have a "Worth-Playing" list, and then decide what to do

After that, I will add another walkthrough in my blog, to save time for the newbies with SCART-TV's (like me).
I think that the other method is still useful for people who have a favorite-list containing only x224 horizontal games (without Yoko).

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #22 on: September 20, 2013, 09:58:08 am »
i use mame.ini's yes, for each game

for my mame setup at the moment i am actually using mameuifx
reason is, i like the autofire feature (on shooters i dont want to be wearing out my fingers and gamepad continuously hitting the fire button)
i do keep my eye on the groovymame scene though as i find it interesting to see how it is progressing and growing.
mameuifx has the soundsync feature which i need to use (see below), which i believe is the same sort of thing as the groovymame syncrefresh feature

me and rCadeGaming (Rob) are a little different in the sense that Rob prefers to do things right, ie. games should be running at their exact speed, etc.  i would say i am not quite as fussy as rob, and am much more of a very casual gamer.  so as an example, for all the mame games which are 240 lines high, i only use ONE modeline for these games, which is 60hz. this means any 240 game i run is now forced to run at 60hz. this really doesnt bother me, as most games are around 60hz anyway. if i do have the odd occasion where the speed increase/decrease is a bit over the top (eg. kung fu master which should run at 55hz.. forcing that at 60hz does make the game seem a bit 'turbo'). in these cases i set up an extra modeline to deal with those games.

for any games i am forcing to run at a different speed than was designed, i dont lose any gameplay smoothness or have any sound problems, or jerky/stuttery scrolling, because i use vsync and also the soundsync (syncrefresh) feature

i have about 15 modelines i use (all low res except 2-3 interlace ones), and that covers everything i play
i use direct3d not directx directdraw (for one thing soundsync doesnt work quite right in mameuifx if you use directx)
all of my low res modelines have a horizontal size of 512.  eg. i have 512x224,  512x240,  etc
i have bilinear filter turned on and bitmap prescaling set to 1
this makes the image a little blurry, but (and this is where i differ from many other people), i prefer the look of the smoother graphics
apart from the blurring, there is no visible scaling on the horizontal or vertical (i wouldnt stand for that).. except some games like paperboy (384 lines high) where you dont really have a choice but to use scaling

so to summarise, many people would not like my setup (out of date perhaps, plus many games not running at their original speed), and there are lots of points of argument where i could be doing things better or more efficiently, but still, my setup does suit my needs. if i did start a new project in the future maybe i would try groovymame this time (i would have to figure out how to add autofire myself =) but for now, im ok with my setup. it works for me, and thats what it is all about. getting to the point where u are satisfied (which i am..    for now.... :lol)
« Last Edit: September 21, 2013, 08:48:12 pm by jadder »

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #23 on: September 20, 2013, 10:18:49 am »
as a little side note, please note im not trying to encourage my 'out of date' way of doing things. groovymame is clearly the best solution for low res arcade monitor/crt tv users, and even now it is still progressing at a fast rate for making modelines/resolution generation more automatic and easy, even for newbies.

it's the way forward.

« Last Edit: September 20, 2013, 10:21:15 am by jadder »

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #24 on: September 21, 2013, 10:39:56 am »
as a little side note, please note im not trying to encourage my 'out of date' way of doing things. groovymame is clearly the best solution for low res arcade monitor/crt tv users, and even now it is still progressing at a fast rate for making modelines/resolution generation more automatic and easy, even for newbies.

it's the way forward.

I agree, but sometimes you need to go back to the basis to reinvent something that worked well in the past, and improve it. There are a lot of good examples from science, and sometimes with more success than the first version.
Don't forget that we are still a little stuck to XP (not the latest Microsoft OS) and to old GPU's (mainly AGP) to get good results with GroovyMame and CRT Emu Driver + VMMaker. XP will be in End-of-Support in 2014, no more drivers will be developed for new motherboards. I know Calamity is investing in Windows 7, until then we are stuck to Arcade VGA 3000 (works with Windows 7 and Windows 8 ).
Linux is maybe the best OS alternative (Groovy Distro) but things are still in a very early phase. I don't know how to edit/create a custom monitor modeline and there is no Arcade OSD Linux Package. Hope that the community will get something similar. The new Graphical PCI-express Cards are not working with Soft15Khz or CRT Emu Driver. AGP is dead. Old hardware is not suitable for GroovyMAME or other MAME release after 0.106... So we are kind of limited right now, we need to use old technology to put our projects working, even with GroovyMAME.

If we have an old PC (don't need to be very old, my AMD Sempron 3200+ with 2GB of RAM) is not suitable for GroovyMAME. You can use CRT Emu Driver (even with Ultimarc's AVGA old versions), but need to install an old MAME version (up to 0.106). AdvanceMAME doesn't work with CRT Emu Driver, it needs the original ATI driver. The best setup I got for my AMD Sempron 3200+ was AVGA2 AGP, CRT Emu Driver, VMMaker generating INI's, and MAME 0.106. Works great! I'm using this setup on my vertical cab project, still on-going (and a little bit delayed).

Now back to my current cabinet (with an Intel Core i3 and 8GB of RAM, and OEM ATI Radeon HD4350 PCI-Express, GroovyMAME runs with no problem).
Regarding the Walktrough, I'm trying to produce a setup that will fit my needs, and I'm still doing a few tests.

Right now I have in VMMaker.ini:
monitor_specs0 15376-16462, 48.30-65.00, 2.245, 4.489, 7.482, 0.061, 0.182, 1.552, 0, 0, 288, 512

and in mame.ini (Lastest GroovyMAME 64 binary):
crt_range0                15376-16462, 48.30-65.00, 2.748, 5.496, 8.244, 0.061, 0.182, 1.552, 0, 0, 192, 224, 480, 512
crt_range1                15376-16462, 48.30-65.00, 2.245, 4.489, 7.482, 0.061, 0.182, 1.552, 0, 0, 225, 240, 480, 512

I have black borders on the x224 games, but they are acceptable. The Desktop is aligned to fit 240 and 480 resolutions.
I started with the NTSC modeline, and begun changing the modeline values while testing some resolutions on ArcadeOSD.

I'm using Maximus Arcade, and I prefer to use the the 640x288 resolution because I've no flicker on the TV (added 640x288@50Hz to reslist.txt in VMMaker). The main problem is that GroovyMAME works fine if I'm using 640x480 when lauching games, but it switches to strange resolutions when the game is launched from 640x288.
Example: GroovyMAME chooses 1234x240 for pacman when the desktop is in 640x480,  and it's acceptable. When the desktop is 640x288, GroovyMAME chooses 640x480i (no problem with that), but it's 640x480 "inside" 640x288, so the game looks very thin.

Is there a way of asking groovyMAME to switch first to 640x480, and then change the resolution again? Any Workarround for this?

I might have to create a new post for this question...  :)

I promisse that I'll update the Blog with a new walkthrough. Just need to check this out first.

Best




« Last Edit: September 21, 2013, 10:50:26 am by rjpe »

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #25 on: September 21, 2013, 11:47:10 am »
The main problem is that GroovyMAME works fine if I'm using 640x480 when lauching games, but it switches to strange resolutions when the game is launched from 640x288.
Example: GroovyMAME chooses 1234x240 for pacman when the desktop is in 640x480,  and it's acceptable. When the desktop is 640x288, GroovyMAME chooses 640x480i (no problem with that), but it's 640x480 "inside" 640x288, so the game looks very thin.

The resolution used by the desktop makes no difference in what resolution GroovyMAME will choose. There's something wrong with your setting. Please post a log here:

groovymame.exe romname -v >romname.txt
Important note: posts reporting GM issues without a log will be IGNORED.
Steps to create a log:
 - From command line, run: groovymame.exe -v romname >romname.txt
 - Attach resulting romname.txt file to your post, instead of pasting it.

CRT Emudriver, VMMaker & Arcade OSD downloads, documentation and discussion:  Eiusdemmodi

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #26 on: September 21, 2013, 12:10:08 pm »
So we are kind of limited right now, we need to use old technology to put our projects working, even with GroovyMAME.

The real bottle neck is the old GPU's we need to use (HD 4xxx). But these are going to be available for cheap during years. As these are PCI-e you can still pick the newest mother board and CPU for your project.

On the OS side, I predict many users going back to XP after testing CRT Emudriver for W7, despite the efforts invested. W7 may be an overall better OS than XP, but this doesn't necessarily mean it's better for an arcade machine driving a CRT monitor. I'd say W7 is a necessary evil, for future compatibility.
Important note: posts reporting GM issues without a log will be IGNORED.
Steps to create a log:
 - From command line, run: groovymame.exe -v romname >romname.txt
 - Attach resulting romname.txt file to your post, instead of pasting it.

CRT Emudriver, VMMaker & Arcade OSD downloads, documentation and discussion:  Eiusdemmodi

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #27 on: September 21, 2013, 01:10:33 pm »
The main problem is that GroovyMAME works fine if I'm using 640x480 when lauching games, but it switches to strange resolutions when the game is launched from 640x288.
Example: GroovyMAME chooses 1234x240 for pacman when the desktop is in 640x480,  and it's acceptable. When the desktop is 640x288, GroovyMAME chooses 640x480i (no problem with that), but it's 640x480 "inside" 640x288, so the game looks very thin.

The resolution used by the desktop makes no difference in what resolution GroovyMAME will choose. There's something wrong with your setting. Please post a log here:

groovymame.exe romname -v >romname.txt

Calamity,

Attached as requested.
in 640x480 is actually choosing 1280x240 (and not 1234x240 as I wrote on the previous post).


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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #28 on: September 21, 2013, 01:19:59 pm »
So we are kind of limited right now, we need to use old technology to put our projects working, even with GroovyMAME.

The real bottle neck is the old GPU's we need to use (HD 4xxx). But these are going to be available for cheap during years. As these are PCI-e you can still pick the newest mother board and CPU for your project.

On the OS side, I predict many users going back to XP after testing CRT Emudriver for W7, despite the efforts invested. W7 may be an overall better OS than XP, but this doesn't necessarily mean it's better for an arcade machine driving a CRT monitor. I'd say W7 is a necessary evil, for future compatibility.

Calamity,

I had some hard time getting this GPU (I found it in DealExtreame, Hong Kong site). At a computer store (at least in my country) is not so easy to found a brand-new/boxed HD4xxx.
I really hope you are right, because we need those GPU's.
I'll try to get some more (used and new), just in case.

Regarding XP, I think that Windows 7 is much better than XP, even for Arcade. I'm glad you're investing time in W7 drivers (hope that there is going to be a 64bit version). Some new motherboards will boot almost instantaneously with 7 and not with XP. 7 runs quickly than XP. The XP drivers will stop being developed by motherboard vendors in a couple of years.

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #29 on: September 21, 2013, 01:30:57 pm »
If what your trying to achieve is to get GM to run everything on progressive modes, do either one of this things:

- Disable the interlace option
- Change your ranges like this:

crt_range0                15376-16462, 48.30-65.00, 2.748, 5.496, 8.244, 0.061, 0.182, 1.552, 0, 0, 192, 224, 0, 0
crt_range1                15376-16462, 48.30-65.00, 2.245, 4.489, 7.482, 0.061, 0.182, 1.552, 0, 0, 225, 240, 0, 0

You were right when you said GM is picking a different resolution depending on your monitor setting. This is a special case: the resolution used by the desktop has its refresh locked, because it's a shared resource. By default it's 60 Hz. GM detects it's locked and doesn't use it for pacman because it can't adjust the refresh to 60.61 as required. So by default it would be picking 640x480, it just doesn't do in that special case because you're using it for the desktop. For this reason it's recommended using a non-standard resolution for the desktop, like 648x480.

Important note: posts reporting GM issues without a log will be IGNORED.
Steps to create a log:
 - From command line, run: groovymame.exe -v romname >romname.txt
 - Attach resulting romname.txt file to your post, instead of pasting it.

CRT Emudriver, VMMaker & Arcade OSD downloads, documentation and discussion:  Eiusdemmodi

rjpe

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #30 on: September 21, 2013, 01:45:08 pm »
If what your trying to achieve is to get GM to run everything on progressive modes, do either one of this things:

- Disable the interlace option
- Change your ranges like this:

crt_range0                15376-16462, 48.30-65.00, 2.748, 5.496, 8.244, 0.061, 0.182, 1.552, 0, 0, 192, 224, 0, 0
crt_range1                15376-16462, 48.30-65.00, 2.245, 4.489, 7.482, 0.061, 0.182, 1.552, 0, 0, 225, 240, 0, 0

You were right when you said GM is picking a different resolution depending on your monitor setting. This is a special case: the resolution used by the desktop has its refresh locked, because it's a shared resource. By default it's 60 Hz. GM detects it's locked and doesn't use it for pacman because it can't adjust the refresh to 60.61 as required. So by default it would be picking 640x480, it just doesn't do in that special case because you're using it for the desktop. For this reason it's recommended using a non-standard resolution for the desktop, like 648x480.

So, if I use 640x288 I will always have this problem? There is no workaround? Maximus Arcade Works better in 640x288, all other resolutions are interlaced (above 480). There must me more users needing this.

Regarding the interlaced resolutions, I was using the "interlace" option, still experimenting and deciding if I disable interlacing or not.

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #31 on: September 21, 2013, 01:51:54 pm »
So, if I use 640x288 I will always have this problem? There is no workaround? Maximus Arcade Works better in 640x288, all other resolutions are interlaced (above 480). There must me more users needing this.
ting and deciding if I disable interlacing or not.

??

What is exactly the problem?

I meant the problem is actually when you use 640x480 for the desktop, because this can't be used then for pacman. The supposed behaviour, with your current mame.ini settings, is to run pacman at 640x480. It just can't be done when your desktop is at 640x480 too.

In other words, you're just getting 1280x240 by accident.

How do you want pacman to be run?
« Last Edit: September 21, 2013, 01:53:31 pm by Calamity »
Important note: posts reporting GM issues without a log will be IGNORED.
Steps to create a log:
 - From command line, run: groovymame.exe -v romname >romname.txt
 - Attach resulting romname.txt file to your post, instead of pasting it.

CRT Emudriver, VMMaker & Arcade OSD downloads, documentation and discussion:  Eiusdemmodi

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #32 on: September 21, 2013, 02:00:13 pm »
So, if I use 640x288 I will always have this problem? There is no workaround? Maximus Arcade Works better in 640x288, all other resolutions are interlaced (above 480). There must me more users needing this.
ting and deciding if I disable interlacing or not.

??

What is exactly the problem?

I meant the problem is actually when you use 640x480 for the desktop, because this can't be used then for pacman. The supposed behaviour, with your current mame.ini settings, is to run pacman at 640x480. It just can't be done when your desktop is at 640x480 too.

In other words, you're just getting 1280x240 by accident.

How do you want pacman to be run?

Understood! But that's strange then... the resolutions looked better when using 640x480 for the desktop  ;D
In that case, why does 640x480 looks so "thin" when launching a game in 640x288? I'm really missing something here...
When using regular mame for pacman in 640x480, I see a normal sized pacman screen, with groovyMAME looks 2/3 of that in width... might be some option I changed in mame.ini (changed lot of stuff back and forward).


« Last Edit: September 21, 2013, 02:06:22 pm by rjpe »

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #33 on: September 21, 2013, 02:03:43 pm »
At a computer store (at least in my country) is not so easy to found a brand-new/boxed HD4xxx.

The situation is quite the same here. We're neighbours :)
ebay / second hand is your friend.

Quote
Regarding XP, I think that Windows 7 is much better than XP, even for Arcade. I'm glad you're investing time in W7 drivers (hope that there is going to be a 64bit version). Some new motherboards will boot almost instantaneously with 7 and not with XP. 7 runs quickly than XP. The XP drivers will stop being developed by motherboard vendors in a couple of years.

Windows 7 is newer, that's a fact. It's probably the best OS done by Microsoft. Better, of course, for your i7 laptop. Better for arcade? That's arguable. It does have some pros, but many, many cons.

I have a quadruple boot setup here: XP 32 / 64, W7 32 / 64. Believe when I say W7 is NOT any faster, at least on this system. It's certainly slower at certain areas. ATI drivers for W7 will freeze the system for 10 seconds on boot, as soon as you use a decent list of custom modes. If SSD is the reason you want to move to W7, think it twice, you'll be wasting your money.

XP drivers won't be developed any more soon, but this is a tragedy. This doesn't make W7 better per se.

Important note: posts reporting GM issues without a log will be IGNORED.
Steps to create a log:
 - From command line, run: groovymame.exe -v romname >romname.txt
 - Attach resulting romname.txt file to your post, instead of pasting it.

CRT Emudriver, VMMaker & Arcade OSD downloads, documentation and discussion:  Eiusdemmodi

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #34 on: September 21, 2013, 02:12:48 pm »
Understood! But that's strange then... the resolutions looked better when using 640x480 for the desktop  ;D

If you mean that pacman looks better at 1280x240 than 640x480, then intentionally set your system to use progressive modes only :)

Quote
In that case, why does 640x480 looks so "thin" when launching a game in 640x288? I'm really missing something here...

By default GroovyMAME makes vertical games look at real 3:4 proportions when using stretched modes. In other words, 1280x240 and 640x480 should show the same proportions.

« Last Edit: September 21, 2013, 02:14:44 pm by Calamity »
Important note: posts reporting GM issues without a log will be IGNORED.
Steps to create a log:
 - From command line, run: groovymame.exe -v romname >romname.txt
 - Attach resulting romname.txt file to your post, instead of pasting it.

CRT Emudriver, VMMaker & Arcade OSD downloads, documentation and discussion:  Eiusdemmodi

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #35 on: September 21, 2013, 02:18:03 pm »
When using regular mame for pacman in 640x480, I see a normal sized pacman screen, with groovyMAME looks 2/3 of that in width... might be some option I changed in mame.ini (changed lot of stuff back and forward).

I have tested vertical games thoroughly and this wouldn't happen unless you modify some options. Enter the .\cfg folder and delete the contents, specifically pacman.cfg, to remove any aspect option you might have set.

Try starting from a fresh mame.ini too, generated from GM.
Important note: posts reporting GM issues without a log will be IGNORED.
Steps to create a log:
 - From command line, run: groovymame.exe -v romname >romname.txt
 - Attach resulting romname.txt file to your post, instead of pasting it.

CRT Emudriver, VMMaker & Arcade OSD downloads, documentation and discussion:  Eiusdemmodi

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #36 on: September 21, 2013, 02:20:12 pm »
Ok, I'll do it asap.

At a computer store (at least in my country) is not so easy to found a brand-new/boxed HD4xxx.

The situation is quite the same here. We're neighbours :)
ebay / second hand is your friend.

Quote
Regarding XP, I think that Windows 7 is much better than XP, even for Arcade. I'm glad you're investing time in W7 drivers (hope that there is going to be a 64bit version). Some new motherboards will boot almost instantaneously with 7 and not with XP. 7 runs quickly than XP. The XP drivers will stop being developed by motherboard vendors in a couple of years.

Windows 7 is newer, that's a fact. It's probably the best OS done by Microsoft. Better, of course, for your i7 laptop. Better for arcade? That's arguable. It does have some pros, but many, many cons.

I have a quadruple boot setup here: XP 32 / 64, W7 32 / 64. Believe when I say W7 is NOT any faster, at least on this system. It's certainly slower at certain areas. ATI drivers for W7 will freeze the system for 10 seconds on boot, as soon as you use a decent list of custom modes. If SSD is the reason you want to move to W7, think it twice, you'll be wasting your money.

XP drivers won't be developed any more soon, but this is a tragedy. This doesn't make W7 better per se.

The main reason I say it's better, it's because it's faster, emulation needs fast processing. I think that the best OS right now is XP64 (it's XP and can use more than 3GB of RAM).
I didn't adventure myself in W7 for Arcade yet, I'll do it after your drivers are available for download.  :)

Yep, we're neighbors  :D, GPU problems are the same, but you've got much better Arcade Parts options than me.
One thing I can't find here is T-Molding (or there)... I'm asking a friend that goes frequently to the USA to bring a few feet.

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #37 on: September 21, 2013, 03:52:08 pm »
for my mame setup at the moment i am actually using mameuifx
reason is, i like the autofire feature (on shooters i dont want to be wearing out my fingers and gamepad continuously hitting the fire button)

I'm actually working on using an Arduino to control adjustable, v-sync timed turbo fire buttons.  Doing it in software is convenient, but does not help me with console games and real PCB's.  There are simpler hardware solutions like just wiring up a 555-timer chip and a potentiometer with a nice knob to adjust fire rate.  You could look into that to help get you away from UIFX.

mameuifx has the soundsync feature which i need to use (see below), which i believe is the same sort of thing as the groovymame syncrefresh feature

Actually, syncrefresh just means that the emulation of the game is synchronized to the graphics card's output refresh rate, meaning game speed is determined by refresh rate.  This is what I was talking about with matching output refresh rate to native.  You need to do this for proper frame per frame emulation, and there's no point in matching refresh rates without enabling syncrefresh. 

This is available in standard vanilla mame as an alternative to waitvsync and triplebuffer right here:

http://cdn.wikimg.net/strategywiki/images/thumb/4/4c/MAME_Properties_Advanced.PNG/180px-MAME_Properties_Advanced.PNG

Using only syncrefresh is the best option for minimum input lag (aside from just using none of those three, but that results in tearing as Calamity pointed out).  Calamity has improved syncrefresh in GroovyMAME, which, along with a few other improved and added features, allows for even less lag while using it.

Anyhow, UIFX's soundsync is not analogous to syncrefresh, but GroovyMAME does also have a sound sync feature.

Come to think of it, I'm guessing you're already using syncrefresh, as you're forcing incorrect game speeds.  I'm guessing you're just not familiar with the term syncrefresh because you set it via that window pictured.  I normally do things through the gui where possible as well.  triplebuffer, syncrefresh, and waitvsync, are just the terms used in ini files.  In those cases where game speed is noticeably off, it might be better for you to use waitvsync.  Everything should still look the same graphically, but game speed would no longer be off.

i use direct3d not directx (for one thing soundsync doesnt work quite right in mameuifx if you use directx)

By directx, you mean directdraw.  You might not need soundsync if you're not forcing incorrect game speeds, that's probably the biggest cause of audio stuttering.

i use direct3d...
all of my low res modelines have a horizontal size of 512.  eg. i have 512x224,  512x240,  etc
i have bilinear filter turned on and bitmap prescaling set to 1
this makes the image a little blurry, but (and this is where i differ from many other people), i prefer the look of the smoother graphics
apart from the blurring, there is no visible scaling on the horizontal or vertical (i wouldnt stand for that)

Well, with those settings you've got horizontal scaling going on at all times, and it will be uneven scaling unless native width is 256 pixels.  I'm guessing you just mean it's not visible due to the bilinear filtering blurring things together?

At a computer store (at least in my country) is not so easy to found a brand-new/boxed HD4xxx.

The situation is quite the same here. We're neighbours :)
ebay / second hand is your friend.

Yup.  You can commonly find HD4350's on the US eBay listings for $20, and most sellers will ship internationally.  I wouldn't worry about getting brand new.  All the ones I've gotten have been used, but still in the box and in very nice condition.  With the silent cards, there's no fan to wear out, and silent is great for a cab.

I've been stockpiling these because they're cheap and common right now.  My hope is that if I pick up a bunch of them, it will be enough to keep my cabs running for the rest of my life.  I'm doing the same thing with CRT TV's.  In the future, there should be a point at which the last of the motherboards that can work with XP (or PCIe, whichever dies first) are also very cheap.  That will be the time to stockpile those, and compatible processors, RAM, etc.[/tinfoilhat]

I'm hoping that PC's will be plenty fast enough for anything I could possibly need for MAME at that point.  I'm not really concerned with emulating much that needs a huge amount of power anyhow.  I'm not interested in console emulation at all, as I stick to real hardware wherever I can, and I don't really care to emulate many arcade games that came out after the turn of the millennium, as that was about the point that console ports generally started becoming superior to the arcade versions.  A lot of them had extra features that I wouldn't want to miss, the most important being online play.

Of course it's possible that more and more power will be need for further improved emulation accuracy and further reduced input lag.  Time will tell.

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #38 on: September 21, 2013, 08:46:02 pm »
Quote from: rCadeGaming
Come to think of it, I'm guessing you're already using syncrefresh, as you're forcing incorrect game speeds.  I'm guessing you're just not familiar with the term syncrefresh because you set it via that window pictured.  I normally do things through the gui where possible as well.  triplebuffer, syncrefresh, and waitvsync, are just the terms used in ini files.  In those cases where game speed is noticeably off, it might be better for you to use waitvsync.  Everything should still look the same graphically, but game speed would no longer be off.

for the record at the moment i have set in mameuifx throttle off, soundsync on, waitvsync on
thats all i use, no syncrefresh or refresh speed

Quote from: rCadeGaming
By directx, you mean directdraw.

oops, correct

Quote from: rCadeGaming
Well, with those settings you've got horizontal scaling going on at all times, and it will be uneven scaling unless native width is 256 pixels.  I'm guessing you just mean it's not visible due to the bilinear filtering blurring things together?

thats right, i do have uneven horizontal scaling going on but you cant see it due to the bilinear filter. it does make the gfx blurrier then normal but i just kinda like that to be honest (its not too much blur, eg. its certainly not as bad as the blur you get from using interlace modes)

« Last Edit: September 21, 2013, 09:02:53 pm by jadder »

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #39 on: September 21, 2013, 09:00:40 pm »
for the record at the moment i have set in mameuifx throttle off, soundsync on, waitvsync on

And game speed is still tied to refresh rate?  I'm guessing that soundsync is causing that.

thats right, i do have uneven horizontal scaling going on but you cant see it due to the bilinear filter.

Looking at the Newbie TV walkthrough thread I'm realizing this is another conversation we've already had... Dave.  My mind is going.  I can feel it.

Anyhow, you were talking about adjusting the aspect ratio settings there to adjust horizontal width.  If you're okay with uneven scaling, why don't you just use the slider controls to adjust horizontal width.  Were they not it UIFX or something?
« Last Edit: September 21, 2013, 09:16:57 pm by rCadeGaming »

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #40 on: September 21, 2013, 09:20:59 pm »
Quote from: rCadeGaming
And game speed is still tied to refresh rate?  I'm guessing that soundsync is causing that.

what i end up with is, whichever game i am running, the gameplay speed changes (i assume the time each game frame is displayed) to match the refresh rate of the custom mode/res i am using. also the sound/music speed is changed (pitch changed).
everything remains perfectly smooth though (the gfx scrolling/sprites movement, etc), and there are no sound issues (stuttering, etc).. i do need to turn on waitvsync though, or i get the typical tearing problems people complain about

i do appreciate its hardly the ideal way of doing things though, and no doubt groovymame is a better option (ie. allowing games to run at their original speed, but without the need of having to manually set up potentially hundreds of modelines to cope with all of the many different mame game refresh rates).

in a future project i may get into groovymame. im the first to admit, i'd be a fool not too ;D

thanks for the tips about autofire ideas by the way. i did write a much longer reply earlier and then lost everything! hence the very short previous post (its 2:20am here)
« Last Edit: September 21, 2013, 09:26:25 pm by jadder »

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #41 on: September 21, 2013, 09:52:35 pm »
Yeah, I get that for what you're looking for it already works very well for you as is.  I'm just thinking that there might be something simple that could stop some of your games from running at the wrong speed.  Something that wouldn't be much work.

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #42 on: September 23, 2013, 05:06:48 pm »
Hi,

I did a test on a new modeline for everything above x241 up to x288 in mame.ini, and forced the refresh rate to ~48.3Hz. I also disabled interlace in mame.ini.
I got this value (48.3Hz) playing with ArcadeOSD and 400x288 resolution (unlocking dotclock and reducing the frequency on the vertical geometry so that the image became centered vertically). This res is the one that GroovyMAME chooses for pacman and mspacman.

Here are de crt custom ranges in mame.ini:
crt_range0                15376-16462, 48.30-65.00, 2.748, 5.496, 8.244, 0.061, 0.182, 1.552, 0, 0, 192, 224, 0, 0
crt_range1                15376-16462, 48.30-65.00, 2.245, 4.489, 7.482, 0.061, 0.182, 1.552, 0, 0, 225, 240, 0, 0
crt_range2                15376-16462, 48.30-48.30, 2.934, 4.890, 7.824, 0.065, 0.194, 1.619, 0, 0, 241, 288, 0, 0

This way I get x240@60Hz, x480@60Hz and 400x288@48 fitting perfectly in the screen.

Most vertical games are using 256 or 288 resolutions. Pacman fits perfectly on screen in 400x288, and I got some black vertical borders for 256 games (Commando, Dkong, etc.).
For games that have no scrolling (pac-man, dkong, etc.), I see no problem. For scrolling games I notice some tearing.

Offcourse, r-type doesn't run at it's original refresh rate, and that's visible (tearing), but it's an option between seeing the whole game (with black vertical borders) or get a not centered and over scanned game.
Dkong is resized to 256, if I permit higher refresh rates for 256 resolutions, I'm getting overscan, I can only see Mario's head when starting (for this game, overscan is not an option).
Don't have problems with sound, but I can notice a non-smooth scrolling (tearing) on R-Type and Pac-Mania.
If I set syncrefresh to 1, the games become very slow... so it's not an option.

Attached some examples of what I described. The only edited modeline is 640x288 (for Maximus Arcade).

Calamity, is there a way of minimizing the tearing besides syncrefresh?

What do you all think is better? This way or interlacing everything above 240 (to x480)?

Best

PS: I think it's better than the 1st how-to

« Last Edit: September 23, 2013, 05:09:12 pm by rjpe »

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #43 on: September 23, 2013, 08:52:06 pm »
I did a test on a new modeline for everything above x241 up to x288 in mame.ini, and forced the refresh rate to ~48.3Hz. I also disabled interlace in mame.ini.
I got this value (48.3Hz) playing with ArcadeOSD and 400x288 resolution (unlocking dotclock and reducing the frequency on the vertical geometry so that the image became centered vertically)

You don't always adjust refresh rate to adjust vertical centering, right?  Vertical centering can be better adjusted by removing lines from the vertical back porch and adding back the same number of lines to the vertical front porch, and vice versa.  This method can be used to adjust vertical centering without any effect on refresh rate.

If you're already aware of all this, and you had actually reached the limit of adjustment with that method, you might be able to get a little more out of it by increasing the total lines (v total).  Doing that will also drive down refresh rate, but you can counteract that by raising horizontal scan rate through adjustment of the dot clock.  Of course, raising horizontal scan rate can only be taken so far before you start losing sync, and may affect horizontal size, which can be counteracted by adjusting total horizontal width (h total).

Here's another thought, I bet you have more vertical position adjustment available via front/back porch changes with your 60Hz modelines.  Try changing vertical position in the service menu to best fit your 288 line modeline, then bring the others back in line with front/back porch changes.

Ultimately, you'll never get a 288 line modeline all the way up to 60Hz, but I bet you can do a bit better than 48.3Hz while maintaining your vertical centering.

The larger problem is that you're using one modeline for way too large of a range of vertical resolutions.  Why not add two 256p modes?  One at 55Hz for R-Type and one at 60Hz for commando, Donkey Kong, etc.  This will allow you to use syncrefresh with all of your 256p games.

If you have trouble getting 256 lines up to 60Hz, try doing it with the fewest number of total lines and highest horizontal scan rate as possible.

Keep the 288 line modeline for games that actually need 288 lines, and bring up refresh rate as much as you can.  With this modeline, maybe try waitvsync instead of syncrefresh to fix the tearing without linking game speed to refresh rate.

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #44 on: September 25, 2013, 06:23:48 pm »
I did a test on a new modeline for everything above x241 up to x288 in mame.ini, and forced the refresh rate to ~48.3Hz. I also disabled interlace in mame.ini.
I got this value (48.3Hz) playing with ArcadeOSD and 400x288 resolution (unlocking dotclock and reducing the frequency on the vertical geometry so that the image became centered vertically)

You don't always adjust refresh rate to adjust vertical centering, right?  Vertical centering can be better adjusted by removing lines from the vertical back porch and adding back the same number of lines to the vertical front porch, and vice versa.  This method can be used to adjust vertical centering without any effect on refresh rate.

If you're already aware of all this, and you had actually reached the limit of adjustment with that method, you might be able to get a little more out of it by increasing the total lines (v total).  Doing that will also drive down refresh rate, but you can counteract that by raising horizontal scan rate through adjustment of the dot clock.  Of course, raising horizontal scan rate can only be taken so far before you start losing sync, and may affect horizontal size, which can be counteracted by adjusting total horizontal width (h total).

Here's another thought, I bet you have more vertical position adjustment available via front/back porch changes with your 60Hz modelines.  Try changing vertical position in the service menu to best fit your 288 line modeline, then bring the others back in line with front/back porch changes.

Ultimately, you'll never get a 288 line modeline all the way up to 60Hz, but I bet you can do a bit better than 48.3Hz while maintaining your vertical centering.

The larger problem is that you're using one modeline for way too large of a range of vertical resolutions.  Why not add two 256p modes?  One at 55Hz for R-Type and one at 60Hz for commando, Donkey Kong, etc.  This will allow you to use syncrefresh with all of your 256p games.

If you have trouble getting 256 lines up to 60Hz, try doing it with the fewest number of total lines and highest horizontal scan rate as possible.

Keep the 288 line modeline for games that actually need 288 lines, and bring up refresh rate as much as you can.  With this modeline, maybe try waitvsync instead of syncrefresh to fix the tearing without linking game speed to refresh rate.

rCadeGaming,
Thanks for these excellent tips!

I didn't have much time to test everything, I'll try to answer all suggestions next Sunday (time is really an issue for me :-) )

I created a new modeline for x256, here are the 4 modelines in my mame.ini
crt_range0                15376-16462, 48.30-65.00, 2.748, 5.496, 8.244, 0.061, 0.182, 1.552, 0, 0, 192, 224, 0, 0
crt_range1                15376-16462, 48.30-65.00, 2.245, 4.489, 7.482, 0.061, 0.182, 1.552, 0, 0, 225, 240, 0, 0
crt_range2                15376-16462, 58.00-65.00, 1.028, 6.170, 6.170, 0.061, 0.182, 1.335, 0, 0, 241, 256, 0, 0
crt_range3                15376-16462, 48.30-48.30, 2.934, 4.890, 7.824, 0.065, 0.194, 1.619, 0, 0, 257, 288, 0, 0

With x256, commando, dkong, 194x and rtype are with a better refresh (~60Hz), with acceptable vertical overscan (Mario always appears complete in x256, only High-Scores and Credits cut in half, no problem with that, same for commando and 194x, rtype will be not centered in 55Hz, in 58Hz I see half of the word "beam", looks good). So, one more battle won! I think it's better like this than with x288 (big vertical black borders).

I tried changing waitvsync, but I didn't notice any difference.
Changing refreshspeed from 2.0 to 1.0 improved the speed for rtype (was arround 103% and now is 100% with a refresh of 58Hz).
Pac-Mania still doesn't look to fluid... but it's 48.30Hz... at least it's progressive and fits the whole screen. Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man look great.

Last time I arranged the values for x288 I didn't have any possibility of increasing the frequency (48Hz is the refresh that allows me to center x288),  but I'll go back again to see if I did try what you suggest (I think so, but I'll do it again).

I'll do some more testing Sunday (I hope!) and post some results and screenshots.

Just a thought of mine: I remember playing all MAME games in 1998 (when I started our hobby) in 640x480, on a 15'' CRT Monitor, and a PS/2 keyboard.  ;D I was happy then!  :laugh2:
Never thought I could improve so much the Arcade experience like today, thanks to the 15KHz tweaks and MAME developers (thanks Calamity and SailorSat, and all guys from mamedev), and all help from this Forum.

 :cheers:

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #45 on: September 25, 2013, 11:01:11 pm »
No prob.

rtype will be not centered in 55Hz

I think you still need to work on your control of vertical centering.  If done properly, centering 256p@55Hz should be easier to center than 256@60Hz, because you have more total lines to work with at a lower refresh rate.

I tried changing waitvsync, but I didn't notice any difference.

Did you turn off syncrefresh.  Idk, I'm not as sure on this point as the others.

Just a thought of mine: I remember playing all MAME games in 1998 (when I started our hobby) in 640x480, on a 15'' CRT Monitor, and a PS/2 keyboard.  ;D I was happy then!  :laugh2:
Never thought I could improve so much the Arcade experience like today, thanks to the 15KHz tweaks and MAME developers (thanks Calamity and SailorSat, and all guys from mamedev), and all help from this Forum.

Cheers to that!  :cheers:

You know I've been working on this stuff and planning my cabinet for about seven years?  We were all newbies at the beginning.  If I had carried out my original plan for a cabinet it would have been a CRAPMAME contender.  Scaled crap on a PC monitor, not even decased, in a particle board box with an X-arcade strapped to it.

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #46 on: October 03, 2013, 10:30:45 am »
No prob.

Still with no time...  :) maybe in a few weeks.

I think you still need to work on your control of vertical centering.  If done properly, centering 256p@55Hz should be easier to center than 256@60Hz, because you have more total lines to work with at a lower refresh rate.

Not quite... I tried to play a little with ArcadeOSD with no luck.

Did you turn off syncrefresh.  Idk, I'm not as sure on this point as the others.
yep
Just a thought of mine: I remember playing all MAME games in 1998 (when I started our hobby) in 640x480, on a 15'' CRT Monitor, and a PS/2 keyboard.  ;D I was happy then!  :laugh2:
Never thought I could improve so much the Arcade experience like today, thanks to the 15KHz tweaks and MAME developers (thanks Calamity and SailorSat, and all guys from mamedev), and all help from this Forum.

Cheers to that!  :cheers:

You know I've been working on this stuff and planning my cabinet for about seven years?  We were all newbies at the beginning.  If I had carried out my original plan for a cabinet it would have been a CRAPMAME contender.  Scaled crap on a PC monitor, not even decased, in a particle board box with an X-arcade strapped to it.

I didn't want to discuss my thoughts (it's not the scope of this thread, it was just a thought), but let's go.
7 years is a long time... I've been planning a cabinet since 1998 (only 15 years), had more time but less money and no space (parents house)!
I played pac-man for the first time (in the original cabinet) in 1982 (I was 7 years old). Only had strength and time in 2010/2011 to start something.

Did you check my project? It has a X-Arcade and a cased TV... I bet you didn't notice that. Did you? I'm aware of the X-Arcade and Cased Monitors conversation... and... I really don't care. The only thing I agree with the "Arcade Purists" is that a 15Khz with original resolutions gives better Arcade experience than 31Khz or LCD monitors, and for that I really prefer SCART TV's because they are almost free (Arcade Monitors are too expensive). I'm getting kind of old... so believe me, I really don't care if I'm going against the Arcade Purists standards.  :)

The real "magic" is MAME! Everything around MAME are details. MAME is the reason why most people are building cabinets.

The real purists will buy a Pac-Man cabinet, that only runs Pac-man (I would do that, if I had the money, time and space!).

X-Arcade is a great product. Does everyone that wants a close Arcade experience needs to became a carpenter and build a controller from scratch?... I don't think so. I'm not really an "handy" guy, It's a miracle I'm building cabinets!  :laugh2: Who buys a X-Arcade to play MAME will be really happy (it's less expensive than building a similar controller from scratch, if you don't have wood tools and just want to play the retro-games).
My first thought was buying an X-Arcade to use on the living room... but then... I thought I could use it on a cabinet... details...  ;)

My X-Arcade is a little bit changed (the joysticks and buttons are different and better, Sanwa), and with the black vinyl is not so visible that it's a Tankstick.
The cased TV... looks great with a bezel. You can't see it's a TV. It's easier to transport and replace with another, and less dangerous...

I think we don't need to discuss this anymore (this thread is really about GroovyMAME and SCART TV's, not anything else).

In a few weeks (I'll might be less far from my cabinet) I'll try to post the current images of the games.
I think the games are looking great!  :applaud:

 :cheers:
« Last Edit: October 03, 2013, 01:40:29 pm by rjpe »

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #47 on: October 03, 2013, 05:24:56 pm »
I think we don't need to discuss this anymore (this thread is really about GroovyMAME and SCART TV's, not anything else).

I understand you don't want to derail the thread, but you can't throw all that out there and then say I can't respond.

I didn't mean to be offensive.  I was just trying to sympathize with your original comment about how far you've come in this hobby by saying that I share a similar experience.

I apologize that I didn't read your blog and see that my comments about decasing and X-arcades could sound harsh.

As for the monitor, I was really focusing more on how I was going to settled for scaled graphics on a high-res pc monitor, rather than resolutions like we are using now, as the main problem.  The decasing thing was meant as a minor detail.

As for the X-Arcade, they really are awful.  Sorry.  It's good that you replaced the sticks and buttons, because they come with Chinese knock-offs of Happ parts that aren't that great to begin with, but then you're still using their button layout, which is pretty terrible too.  Their encoder is pretty poor as well.  It's not really worth it to try and mod those things, because there's nothing to them that's worth saving.  If you can't make your own panel (which doesn't seem to be the case, since you built the cabinet), there are better commercial options available.

If you're going through so much trouble to fine tune the video on this cabinet, why not apply the same attention to detail to other aspects?  A control panel just sitting on a shelf kind of sticks out like a sore thumb, and sometimes your gaming experience can be limited by the weakest link, like a bad button layout.  It's kind of a bottleneck.
 
It's like you said, "Never thought I could improve so much the Arcade experience."  It sounds like you didn't realize how big of an improvement you could make with the video.  You may find the same thing with the control panel.  I started with the same layout, and I can tell you that using a better one has made a world of difference.

rjpe

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #48 on: October 04, 2013, 05:03:15 am »
We don't agree on the X-Arcade... no problem with that. I actually built the cabinet arround it.
I thought replacing it with my own built... but I decided to keep it for historical reasons. Me and the kids are used to the buttons layout.
Next two cabinets will have my own design.

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2


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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #49 on: October 07, 2013, 04:40:27 pm »
Guys,

The TV died yesterday... funny noise... and then. Ploft! RIP Crown TV! The CRT still powers up, but the SCART cannot display 15Khz anymore, only a scrambling image. Some component of the chassis might have burnt. I'll try to arrange someone to fix it, if there is a possibility (the image was really great!)
Don't know if I pushed it too much (maybe... ), it was already doing some weird sound since two weeks ago.

Switched back to Beko TV, and configured VMMaker again.
Funny thing is, the learning curve got in this thread helped me configuring the Beko TV quickly.

Everything looks interlaced (digital processing that I can not disable), but I get original refresh rates with everything centered! Even R-Type and Mortal Kombat. x288 res look horrible, I changed the modeline to do maximum x256.
Going to open a new thread related with the BEKO setup, I'll be back to this one if I can fix the old Crown TV.

Thanks for the precious help from the members of this forum, rCadeGaming and jadder for the inputs and ideas, and offcourse to Calamity.

 :cheers:




rCadeGaming

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #50 on: October 07, 2013, 04:46:09 pm »
That's a shame.  It could have been from pushing it to the limits of the scan rates it could handle, but it could have just as easily been simply due to age.  Are there any obvious signs of damage inside, like burned spots or leaking capacitors?

Could you get a cheap replacement or is it a rare model?


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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #51 on: October 07, 2013, 04:58:12 pm »
bad luck there sorry to hear
im wondering if i damaged my tv also during my experiments with modelines where i pushed up the scan rate really high on many occasions (im sure i smelt burning one time when messing with modelines, crazy as that sounds...) what i get now sometimes is a jumpy picture on the vertical.
its annoying as i dont have any spare tv's and there dont seem to be many in my area these days, so i guess im stuck with it
ps. i did used to use a couple of beko tv's in the past but didnt like them as they wouldnt display 240 vertical lines, and could not handle scan rates much above 16khz.. but that said i expect bekos use all sorts of different chassis, so perhaps yours isnt as bad as mine (i believe i was using the 12.7 chassis)

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #52 on: October 07, 2013, 05:05:31 pm »
I can imagine the TV would be under a lot more strain when trying to do the yoko resolutions you guys are going for, with very high horizontal scan rates and very low vertical scan rates, 288 visible lines, etc.  The other thing is that the computer will always put out 31kHz horizontal scan rate while booting, which these TV's definitely do not like.  You could make sure not to have the TV on during that time period just to be safe.

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #53 on: October 07, 2013, 05:24:08 pm »
I can imagine the TV would be under a lot more strain when trying to do the yoko resolutions you guys are going for, with very high horizontal scan rates and very low vertical scan rates, 288 visible lines, etc.  The other thing is that the computer will always put out 31kHz horizontal scan rate while booting, which these TV's definitely do not like.  You could make sure not to have the TV on during that time period just to be safe.

haha yea, ive definately taken my tv to places where it really didnt expect to go :P
hmm, i didnt realise about probably shouldnt turn tv on until windows has booted up... i will start doing that then (perhaps im a bit late though).. will certainly do it with the next tv i get anyway, if i find another one that is

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #54 on: October 07, 2013, 06:01:03 pm »
My BEKO TV has a c7/c8 chasis.
I can get all 240 lines in 60Hz and 256Hz in 50Hz (it has 2 different geometry menus).
It also filters the 31Khz Bios and Windows boots signals (shows a blank screen saying AV1 RGB while booting).

The only problem is that everything looks interlaced (no visible scanlines).

A manual can be found here: http://www.eserviceinfo.com/downloadsm/36099/BEKO_.html

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #55 on: October 07, 2013, 06:10:26 pm »
The lack of scanlines doesn't mean that it's displaying interlaced resolutions, it's just because it's old and has a coarse dot pitch and/or poor focus and/or poor convergence.  This just means it simply doesn't have a sharp enough picture to draw each line thin enough that there are black spaces in between.  Dot pitch is fixed.  If possible, adjusting the focus or convergence may improve things (the latter is much more difficult).

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #56 on: October 07, 2013, 06:28:05 pm »
funny i noticed that myself recently also, that adjusting my focus knob visibly removed the scanlines (depending on how far i put it out of focus, the scanlines went from black, to grey, to gone)
needless to say, i ended up setting it so the scanlines were as black/visible as possible :)

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #57 on: October 07, 2013, 07:02:59 pm »
I do I do that?
there is no option on the regular menu or service menu named focus... I've to do it on the chassis?

Attached my setup files, and some snaps.

Some switchres examples:

C:\GroovyMame64>groovymame64_0149.014b.exe pacman

SwitchRes: [pacman] (1) vertical (224x288@60.61)->(512x239@60.61)
Average speed: 100.00% (5 seconds)

C:\GroovyMame64>groovymame64_0149.014b.exe rtype

SwitchRes: [rtype] (1) horizontal (384x256@55.02)->(768x256@55.02)
Average speed: 99.32% (12 seconds)

C:\GroovyMame64>groovymame64_0149.014b.exe blktiger

SwitchRes: [blktiger] (1) horizontal (256x224@60.00)->(512x224@60.00)
Average speed: 99.92% (9 seconds)

C:\GroovyMame64>groovymame64_0149.014b.exe boblbobl

SwitchRes: [boblbobl] (1) horizontal (256x224@59.19)->(512x224@59.19)
Average speed: 99.92% (17 seconds)

C:\GroovyMame64>groovymame64_0149.014b.exe goldnaxe

SwitchRes: [goldnaxe] (1) horizontal (320x224@60.05)->(640x224@60.05)
317-0123a.bin NO GOOD DUMP KNOWN
WARNING: the game might not run correctly.
Average speed: 100.04% (23 seconds)

C:\GroovyMame64>groovymame64_0149.014b.exe pacmania

SwitchRes: [pacmania] (1) vertical (224x288@60.61)->(512x239@60.61)
Average speed: 99.94% (21 seconds)

C:\GroovyMame64>groovymame64_0149.014b.exe mk

SwitchRes: [mk] (1) horizontal (399x253@54.82)->(400x256@54.82)

SwitchRes: [mk] (1) horizontal (400x254@54.71)->(400x256@54.71)
Average speed: 99.96% (36 seconds)

C:\GroovyMame64>groovymame64_0149.014b.exe ddragon

SwitchRes: [ddragon] (1) horizontal (256x240@57.44)->(512x240@57.44)
Average speed: 99.92% (41 seconds)
« Last Edit: October 07, 2013, 07:13:45 pm by rjpe »

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #58 on: October 07, 2013, 07:40:04 pm »
i like the pics, lookin good

to adjust the focus you need to get to your chassis and adjust the focus control on your flyback transformer (also known as the line output power transformer, or LOPT)

note: along with the focus knob there is also a second knob you can adjust called 'screen' which is a kind of 'overall blackness/brightness'

btw i usually let a tv warm up for at least 15 mins before adjusting the focus (as starting from cold i find with older tv's the picture takes a while to focus/settle in so to speak)

pic of what the LOPT looks like:


« Last Edit: October 07, 2013, 07:44:07 pm by jadder »

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #59 on: October 07, 2013, 08:05:16 pm »
Focus can sometimes be found in the service menu or even the user menu.  If not, you have to adjust it according to jadder's instructions.  I would leave the screen control alone though.  I don't know if all flybacks are like this, but mine also has the focus adjustment on top and screen adjustment on bottom as pictured.

How old is the BEKO?  It's possible it's too new and is scaling everything up to 480p.

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #60 on: October 07, 2013, 08:08:41 pm »
I bought this BEKO in end of 2009, brand new (at a retail store).
Yep, probably is scaling everything to 480p... what would be the best setup then?

Under service menu, I found a parameter named "Screen" under "Screen adjustment", was 176, set it to 0 and the image is less brighter (better for gamming). No parameter named focus...
« Last Edit: October 07, 2013, 08:15:21 pm by rjpe »

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #61 on: October 07, 2013, 09:31:35 pm »
I don't think the best setup includes that TV.  I mean after all the work you've done to use native resolutions, don't let it die.
« Last Edit: October 07, 2013, 10:56:06 pm by rCadeGaming »

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #62 on: October 08, 2013, 07:16:38 am »
I suspected that...  :banghead:
Going again Scart-Hunting...

All TV experts from BYOAC said or say that it might be a 100Hz chassis...
But, after testing GroovyMame + VMMaker + CRT Emu Driver with the original resolutions, It doesn't seem that bad!
I can actually see the original resolutions and the original refresh, just can't see the scanlines.
So, maybe it's not scaling to 480p... How can we tell that it's scaling?

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #63 on: October 08, 2013, 08:28:42 pm »
Feed it 480p (31kHz).  If it can display it, it's scaling. 

If you bought in 2009, I'm pretty sure it is anyway though.  Keep in mind that scaling causes lag too.
« Last Edit: October 09, 2013, 01:59:29 pm by rCadeGaming »

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #64 on: October 09, 2013, 01:51:09 pm »
Hi rjpe,

I'm really sorry to hear about your TV breaking. But if you still get a picture in there, although scrambled, then I'd say chances are it's possible to fix it.

In the meanwhile, I remind this BEKO of yours from here: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=114152.0

It would be interesting to test it again, because at the time of that thread, GroovyMAME was not still capable of forcing everything to be interlaced. As a matter of fact, if I remind right this feature was introduced at your request! You can do this easily like this:

monitor custom
crt_range0    15625-15900, 49.5-62, 2.000, 4.700, 8.000, 0.064, 0.160, 1.056, 0, 0, 0, 0, 448, 576

This way, 224p would be automatically scaled (integer) to 448i, 240p to 480, 256p to 512i, etc.

By looking at its manual, this BEKO doesn't seem a 100 Hz TV. It has some video processing however, and this is probably getting fooled by our progressive signals which it is not expecting from the SCART. But interlaced signals should be fine.
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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #65 on: October 09, 2013, 02:05:07 pm »
Hi rjpe,

I'm really sorry to hear about your TV breaking. But if you still get a picture in there, although scrambled, then I'd say chances are it's possible to fix it.

In the meanwhile, I remind this BEKO of yours from here: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=114152.0

It would be interesting to test it again, because at the time of that thread, GroovyMAME was not still capable of forcing everything to be interlaced. As a matter of fact, if I remind right this feature was introduced at your request! You can do this easily like this:

monitor custom
crt_range0    15625-15900, 49.5-62, 2.000, 4.700, 8.000, 0.064, 0.160, 1.056, 0, 0, 0, 0, 448, 576

This way, 224p would be automatically scaled (integer) to 448i, 240p to 480, 256p to 512i, etc.

By looking at its manual, this BEKO doesn't seem a 100 Hz TV. It has some video processing however, and this is probably getting fooled by our progressive signals which it is not expecting from the SCART. But interlaced signals should be fine.

Calamity, these are great news!!!! I'll try to test this config today, and will give you feedback asap.
Best!

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #66 on: October 09, 2013, 02:42:28 pm »
Not trying be a downer, but why use interlace for everything?  You'll lose your scan lines.  Don't you want it looking great after putting all this work into it? 

Is another SCART TV that tough to find?  I see people showing them off all the time on the shmups forum.

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #67 on: October 09, 2013, 08:10:52 pm »
Quote from: rCadeGaming
.....the computer will always put out 31kHz horizontal scan rate while booting, which these TV's definitely do not like.  You could make sure not to have the TV on during that time period just to be safe.

i've been thinking about this Rob i think im gonna find some little application or dos command i can put in my windows startup folder to make a system BEEP sound (via the pc mainboard speaker), so that i wont turn on my tv until i hear the beep (which would indicate windows desktop has loaded).
« Last Edit: October 09, 2013, 08:45:32 pm by jadder »

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #68 on: October 09, 2013, 10:00:09 pm »
You should be able to enable a sound that plays in Windows that plays when it loads.  I think it's usually on by default, and you could change it to whatever you'd like.  Is the problem that you're using the TV's speakers, hence the need for the sound to come from the motherboard speaker?

I'm working on using an Arduino to automate a lot of things, like turning things on once the front-end has loaded, and back off when shutting down.

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #69 on: October 09, 2013, 10:26:18 pm »
im not using the tv speakers as i always find them to be a bit weak for me. im using a little lepai lp-2020a+ amplifier (highly recommended) and speakers so i can get some nice over the top bass going...   i just thought the mainboard beep might be better as it's good and clear and i would still hear it if eg. ive forgotten to turn on my amplifier

that Arduino stuff is interesting, im sure im not the only one who's interested in reading your results with that

ps. your crt tv vertical size change (using eg. a pot) is quite a challenge, bet thats tough to pull off (again, interested in how you get on with that... :))

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #70 on: October 09, 2013, 10:31:43 pm »
Agreed, the TV speakers are not a good option.

You could use one of the 5V rails from the PC power supply to trigger a relay controlling power to the amp.

As for the Arduino stuff, I'm going to need some time on that.

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #71 on: October 10, 2013, 08:18:31 am »
Not trying be a downer, but why use interlace for everything?  You'll lose your scan lines.  Don't you want it looking great after putting all this work into it?

Just trying to get the best out of that specific TV, for the sake of science. He says it flickers badly with progressive modes, but it doesn't with interlaced ones. So some sort of processing is going on that affects how the alternate fields are presented.

Quote
Is another SCART TV that tough to find?  I see people showing them off all the time on the shmups forum.

They are easy to find still nowadays.
Important note: posts reporting GM issues without a log will be IGNORED.
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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #72 on: October 10, 2013, 10:24:01 am »
Not trying be a downer, but why use interlace for everything?  You'll lose your scan lines.  Don't you want it looking great after putting all this work into it?

Just trying to get the best out of that specific TV, for the sake of science. He says it flickers badly with progressive modes, but it doesn't with interlaced ones. So some sort of processing is going on that affects how the alternate fields are presented.

And for the sake of science, I'll test it today!  :) I'll post the results later.

Quote
Is another SCART TV that tough to find?  I see people showing them off all the time on the shmups forum.

They are easy to find still nowadays.

They are easy to find, but I'm focused on a few specs... I'm trying to find a few specific 4:3 28'' models from Grundig and Sony, and if possible, a SONY PVM (this last not so easy to find). Here it's easier to find 16:9 models than the 4:3 ones.



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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #73 on: October 10, 2013, 11:19:30 am »
Yeah, you definitely don't 16:9, haha.  Is 28" a common size there?  In the US we have 27", 32", and maybe 30" sometimes.  Never heard of 28".

Sony PVM's are super-nice by all accounts, provided you get a 15kHz one, but they're more expensive, and I don't think I've seen them larger than 20".

He says it flickers badly with progressive modes, but it doesn't with interlaced ones. So some sort of processing is going on that affects how the alternate fields are presented.

I'm pretty sure the lack of flickering with interlaced modes is because it's upscaling anything that's 15kHz, maybe always to 480p.  Given how new the TV is, I doubt it can display below 31kHz.  I don't have any explanation for why progressive modes would appear to flicker.

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #74 on: October 10, 2013, 11:30:54 am »
Yeah, you definitely don't 16:9, haha.  Is 28" a common size there?  In the US we have 27", 32", and maybe 30" sometimes.  Never heard of 28".

Sony PVM's are super-nice by all accounts, provided you get a 15kHz one, but they're more expensive, and I don't think I've seen them larger than 20".

He says it flickers badly with progressive modes, but it doesn't with interlaced ones. So some sort of processing is going on that affects how the alternate fields are presented.

I'm pretty sure the lack of flickering with interlaced modes is because it's upscaling anything that's 15kHz, maybe always to 480p.  Given how new the TV is, I doubt it can display below 31kHz.  I don't have any explanation for why progressive modes would appear to flicker.

Yep, 70 cm diagonals (28 inches), and 68cm (27 inches). My BEKO model is named DPM28 (28 inches).

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #75 on: October 10, 2013, 12:00:57 pm »
Just realized I messed up the post...

Just wanted to say that 16:9 is good... depends on the ocasion... not for playing MAME!  ;D
« Last Edit: October 10, 2013, 01:10:08 pm by rjpe »

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #76 on: October 10, 2013, 12:38:39 pm »
Haha, well yeah.  TV, movies, modern games, good.  MAME?  No bueno.  Unless you're playing Darius or X-men or something...

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #77 on: October 10, 2013, 06:19:01 pm »
Calamity,

that modeline worked G-R-E-A-T!

monitor custom
crt_range0    15625-15900, 49.5-62, 2.000, 4.700, 8.000, 0.064, 0.160, 1.056, 0, 0, 0, 0, 448, 576

 :applaud:

All games look more authentic! For this TV I never seen better classic games images like today.

rCadeGaming, I think that it's not scaling everything to 480p. The interlaced modes look better on this TV than on any other TV I tested with MAME.
I'll try to take a few good snapshots during the weekend, and pass the resulted view.

Calamity, do you need some kind of logs or something?

Thanks Guys!



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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #78 on: October 10, 2013, 06:34:24 pm »
rCadeGaming, I think that it's not scaling everything to 480p. The interlaced modes look better on this TV than on any other TV I tested with MAME.

That's not evidence that it isn't scaling.  It could looks so good because it's scaling.  There's no interlace flickering due to being upscaled to progressive.  The image is also probably sharper because it's newer tube with a fine dot pitch.

If you feed 15kHz progressive to a TV that new and you don't see scanlines, that's pretty clear evidence that it's scaling it.  That means it can display 31kHz.  How new it is also suggests that it would be able to display 31kHz.  It is theoretically possible that a CRT TV could be built to display both 15kHz and 31kHz, but no one has been able to confirm the existence of such a TV so far, and it doesn't make sense why any manufacturer would make one.  It is cheaper to build a set that's 15kHz-only or 31kHz-only, and sub-480-line sources were considered outdated by the time 31kHz TV's entered the market.

Long story short, it's highly likely that it's upscaling any kind 15kHz source to 31kHz so it can display it.

Look, there's no problem if you like what you see, but don't kid yourself about what's happening behind the scenes.

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #79 on: October 11, 2013, 02:45:11 pm »
Thanks for testing this rjpe. It'd be nice to have some close-up pics of your screen to get an idea of how it's performing.

@rCadeGaming, if you look at the BEKO service manual posted by rjpe, it's not clear that it's actually scaling to 31 kHz, although definitely I may be wrong because I can't understand the technical details in it. It has an IC named VCT 49xxI (http://elektrotanya.com/files/forum/2013/03/VCT49xyl%20UOC.pdf) that shows something called "Panorama Scaler" inside its diagram, possibly responsible for the feature reported as "Nonlinear horizontal scaling “panorama vision”", which sounds like the special zoom mode you're probably familiar with that's typical from the Philips Pixel Plus TVs (both CRT and LCD), that converts 4:3 to 16:9 non-linearly so proportions are not affected in the center of the screen. But aside from that, I don't see any deinterlacer in there... and that's odd because I'd say the flicker artifact he's seeing with progressive modes may have to do with some deinterlacing mechanism, that expects interlaced signals as input, as it's the normal case with RGB signals from PAL/NTSC material. And again, deinterlacing would point to 31kHz, but not necessarily 480p, it can be perfectly 480p@60 / 576p@50 and whatever in the middle. Finally, in the hypotethical case that the chassis works at 31kHz internally, that doesn't necessarily mean that it can accept 31kHz signals as input.



Important note: posts reporting GM issues without a log will be IGNORED.
Steps to create a log:
 - From command line, run: groovymame.exe -v romname >romname.txt
 - Attach resulting romname.txt file to your post, instead of pasting it.

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #80 on: October 11, 2013, 07:35:05 pm »
Hi,

Some mame switchres logs, and some pictures as requested. I didn't paused the games on purpose. Look Great!
Uploaded a few more pictures in my blog (http://perdigaos.blogspot.pt/2013/10/crown-tv-dead-back-to-beko-crt-testing.html).

C:\GroovyMame64>groovymame64_0149.014b.exe pacmania
SwitchRes: [pacmania] (1) vertical (224x288@60.61)->(720x480@60.31)
Average speed: 99.26% (53 seconds)

C:\GroovyMame64>groovymame64_0149.014b.exe 1943
SwitchRes: [1943] (1) vertical (224x256@60.00)->(768x512@56.83)
bme01.12d ROM NEEDS REDUMP
bm.7k NOT FOUND (NO GOOD DUMP KNOWN) (tried in 1943 1943)
WARNING: the game might not run correctly.
Average speed: 100.00% (37 seconds)

C:\GroovyMame64>groovymame64_0149.014b.exe blktiger
SwitchRes: [blktiger] (1) horizontal (256x224@60.00)->(512x480@60.00)
Average speed: 99.88% (42 seconds)

C:\GroovyMame64>groovymame64_0149.014b.exe boblbobl
SwitchRes: [boblbobl] (1) horizontal (256x224@59.19)->(512x480@59.19)
Average speed: 99.96% (52 seconds)

C:\GroovyMame64>groovymame64_0149.014b.exe goldnaxe
SwitchRes: [goldnaxe] (1) horizontal (320x224@60.05)->(640x480@59.98)
317-0123a.bin NO GOOD DUMP KNOWN
WARNING: the game might not run correctly.
Average speed: 99.88% (24 seconds)

C:\GroovyMame64>groovymame64_0149.014b.exe rthunder
SwitchRes: [rthunder] (1) horizontal (288x224@60.61)->(640x480@59.98)
Average speed: 98.97% (54 seconds)

C:\GroovyMame64>groovymame64_0149.014b.exe dkong
SwitchRes: [dkong] (1) vertical (224x256@60.61)->(768x512@56.83)
Average speed: 100.00% (39 seconds)

C:\GroovyMame64>groovymame64_0149.014b.exe rtype
SwitchRes: [rtype] (1) horizontal (384x256@55.02)->(768x512@55.02)
Average speed: 99.96% (36 seconds)

C:\GroovyMame64>groovymame64_0149.014b.exe ssideki3
SwitchRes: [ssideki3] (1) horizontal (320x224@59.19)->(640x480@59.98)
Average speed: 101.35% (29 seconds)

C:\GroovyMame64>groovymame64_0149.014b.exe indytemp
SwitchRes: [indytemp] (1) horizontal (336x240@59.92)->(704x480@59.92)
136032.103.f7 NOT FOUND (NO GOOD DUMP KNOWN) (tried in indytemp atarisy1 indytem
p)
WARNING: the game might not run correctly.
Average speed: 99.97% (81 seconds)

C:\GroovyMame64>groovymame64_0149.014b.exe outrun
SwitchRes: [outrun] (1) horizontal (320x224@60.05)->(640x480@59.98)
Average speed: 99.88% (64 seconds)

C:\GroovyMame64>groovymame64_0149.014b.exe ddragon
SwitchRes: [ddragon] (1) horizontal (256x240@57.44)->(512x480@57.44)
Average speed: 99.99% (123 seconds)

C:\GroovyMame64>groovymame64_0149.014b.exe boblbobl
SwitchRes: [boblbobl] (1) horizontal (256x224@59.19)->(512x480@59.19)
Average speed: 99.96% (78 seconds)
« Last Edit: October 11, 2013, 08:15:13 pm by rjpe »

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #81 on: October 14, 2013, 04:48:57 pm »
Hmm... I think I have a better theory than my previous one. 

I still stand by the statement that if you feed 15kHz progressive to a TV that new and you don't see scanlines, that's pretty clear evidence that it's scaling it.  However you may be right in that it's not scaling it to 31kHz.

It's possible that it is a 15kHz TV, but the chassis can only display a 15kHz interlaced picture.  It could have some automation in the sync circuitry whereby if you try to feed it 15kHz progressive, it forces the half-line delay to the vertical sync pulse on every other field, causing it to display as an interlaced picture.  Effectively, it's scaling to twice as many visible lines, but there's not really any upscaling going on, it's just offsetting every other frame by half of a line.

This would explain the lack of scanlines with progressive signals as well as the flickering with progressive signals.  It also makes sense with there not being any deinterlacing hardware on the chassis.  I hadn't thought of it before because I've never seen this on an NTSC TV, but I haven't worked with PAL sets, and it certainly makes sense as a possibility.

Furthermore, the newest pictures also don't look like they've been unevenly scaled to 480p, 576p or some other fixed resolution.  It looks like its exactly line doubled, meaning that with interlaced resolutions it can display them directly as they are intended from GroovyMAME.

rjpe, a good test that would shed some light on this would be to feed it 31kHz and see if it can display it or not.

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Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #82 on: October 14, 2013, 06:43:56 pm »
rjpe, thanks for the pictures. Are horizontal scrollings smooth? Any combing artifact?

I totally agree rCadeGaming's theory. The TV must be just line doubling, the most basic way to de-interlacing. But by judging your pictures I'd say it's not applying any digital processing. And yes, line doubling means the chassis works at 31 kHz internally, but I'm 99.9% sure it won't take 31 kHz through the SCART.

Here's some interesting information:
http://postback.geedorah.com/foros/viewtopic.php?pid=10157#p10157

Some TV's allow you to disable the interlace (relative time shift between fields) from a signal: this is interesting because it allows you to convert a previously line-doubled 480i signal into a clean 240p picture.

That information applies to 15 kHz TV's. But you could look for some option in the service menu of your BEKO in case there's something interersting in there, like disabling the line-doubling, etc. (unlikely).

Important note: posts reporting GM issues without a log will be IGNORED.
Steps to create a log:
 - From command line, run: groovymame.exe -v romname >romname.txt
 - Attach resulting romname.txt file to your post, instead of pasting it.

CRT Emudriver, VMMaker & Arcade OSD downloads, documentation and discussion:  Eiusdemmodi

rjpe

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    • Perdigao's Arcade
Re: Possible Easy Setup for PAL/NTSC SCART TV's with CRT Emu Driver
« Reply #83 on: July 11, 2019, 07:24:20 pm »
I just realized that this thread is almost 6 years old... time passes!

After all these years, my old SSD needed to be replaced, and since I needed to reinstall the OS... I decided to try Windows 10 Pro 64 bit.

I also upgraded the GPU from the HD4350 512MB to a AMD Shapire RX560 2GB.
With your latest version of the CRT EmuDriver (crt_emudriver_&_tools_2.0_beta_15_18.5.1_W.10-64), the setup is now great with Super Resolutions! The games never looked so authentic on this TV set!

My best result was choosing the BEKO TV as a NTSC TV, centering and aligning the horizontal geometry with ARCADEOSD, and then aligning the vertical geometry with the TV's service menu, and also ArcadeOSD.

VMMAKER generated 4 modlines, that works great for all the games with GroovyMame64 0.211:
"2560x240_60 15.70KHz 59.94Hz" 48.37 2560 2632 2856 3080 240 244 247 262 -hsync -vsync
"2560x448_60 15.73KHz 59.94Hz" 48.46 2560 2632 2856 3080 448 471 477 525 interlace -hsync -vsync
"2560x464_60 15.73KHz 59.94Hz" 48.46 2560 2632 2856 3080 464 479 485 525 interlace -hsync -vsync
"2560x480_60 15.73KHz 59.94Hz" 48.46 2560 2632 2856 3080 480 487 493 525 interlace -hsync -vsync

The resolution: "640x480_60 15.73KHz 59.94Hz" 12.21 640 664 720 776 480 487 493 525 interlace -hsync -vsync
is also installed, but doesn't work due to the dot clock of the GPU (it is what I assume from other threads and docs).

I needed to discontinue Maximus Arcade (doesn't work with super resolutions), HyperSpin Works great!

I also suggest enabling remote desktop and installing AnyDesk for remotely testing the setup - it helped me a lot!

You did a great job with this driver Calamity, Thank you Very Much for your Work and Dedication during all these years, and for helping us keeping these memorable games alive!