Power Drift - somebody save me PLEASE!!!

[shrunkenmaster]

I recently acquired a Power Drift cab, but unfortunately the board is shot and the monitor has issues.  I've been trying to get a MAME/TV setup working properly before starting with the interfacing, but I can't seem to get anything that's good enough. Here's what I'm running:

PC: Packard Bell iMedia 1307 (Celeron D 2.93GHz, 1gig RAM)
GFX: ATI Radeon 7500 AGP
PC to SCART: ArcadeForge UMSA Ultimate SCART Adapter
Soft 15KHz
I'm in the UK, so running at 50Hz TV-wise.

I have the TV running OK, picture is fine. I've been trying RacerMAME (0.106 and 0.151) and ShifterMAME, but every setting I try leaves me with sound issues - the old 'double sound' stuff.

I can run standard MAME 0.106 (i.e., not Racer or ShifterMAME) and the sound is OK. Strange.

I have the PC desktop set to 640x480, but I have not set up any custom mode lines for Soft 15KHz. I've gone through every page of related help on here and other forums, but I still can't get this to run nicely.

Can someone PLEASE run through this with me?

[vandale]

hi, I have always set my minimum PC spec at a 1.6ghz core2duo with 2GB ram. Even the older HT 3.6ghz P4's struggle with a lot of mame stuff and Model 2. Keep an eye out for an exlease HP7900 or Acer 3700Pro or 3900 and even the Dell 755. All those were used in abundance with XP in the corporate sector but now with XP being phased out most win 7 migrations are getting new PC's so there should be heaps of cheapies for sale from the local PC recycler etc. Hope that helps.

Yes the first sign of a CPU dragging things down is the sound starts to skip and echo.

Cheers

[BadMouth]

If baritonomarchetto doesn't weigh in soon, PM him.
He is the author of racermame and might know what is different between the demands of regular v106 vs racermame v106.
I suspect he incorporated some things from newer drivers to get more games working.

[shrunkenmaster]

@vandale - I'd suspect the PC if the regular 106 did run the game without issue. I have a better spec PC that I was saving for something else, so I'll try that if I can't resolve the problem.

@BadMouth - thanks for that - I have a couple of things to try tweaking but I'll give him a shout if I have no success. Cheers for getting the driving thread going, it's a great source of info!

[baritonomarchetto]

I can run standard MAME 0.106 (i.e., not Racer or ShifterMAME) and the sound is OK. Strange.

If you are runnig with no prob mame 106, you should be able to run racermame 106 with the same speed, not lower. Your specs are good for racermame106 and 151 : i use a P4 3.00 Ghz with 512 Mb ram with no problems (well, for 2D games at least)

Anyhow, it's a matter fo fact that after mame106, with the new video handling, the CPU requirements have increased by about a good 30%.

[...] I have not set up any custom mode lines for Soft 15KHz. I've gone through every page of related help on here and other forums, but I still can't get this to run nicely.

This for sure doesn't help in speeding up the emulation: keep the desktop resolution to 640x480 if you prefer, but set a correct modeline for powerdrift (320x224@60) and you will se a speed boost.

You need to:

- install the modeline in the registry
- if MAME dont change the resolution when the game is launched (sometimes it happens), force mame to use the new modeline by adding the lines:

Code: [Select]

resolution  320x224
refresh 60

in pdrift.ini

You can define a "user" set of modelines with soft15KHz, but i would suggest you to add new modelines with WinModeline instead or, even better, use Calamity drivers with ATI cards instead of Soft15KHz because it installs by defauld a good number of modelines/resolutions