Groovymame - First Impressions & Questions

[philexile]

Hello,

So I finally got my GroovyMame setup yesterday. Thanks to everyone for their help and guidance!

I'm using two monitors with my setup: 32" Sony BVM-D32E1WU for horizontal games and a 20" Sony BVM-20F1U for tate. The VGA signal from my GroovyMame PC is run through an Extron 203rxi RGB interface. This helps stabilize sync signals as well as reposition the image horizontally or vertically. It will also convert a VGA signal to RGBs, which really comes in handy. I use an Extron Crosspoint to output the signal to both BVM displays simultaneously.

I used the Generic 15Kz preset and got really excellent results. I also used the included "super" resolutions, exported the monitor settings to GroovyMame, got video modes from the Mame XML, and generated the XML from the MAME executable.

At first, I had problems launching some games like Journey and assumed it was the Generic presents. However, I figured out it was a bad rom set. Once I swapped it out everything was golden.

I noticed that some vertical games looked incorrect, most noticeably, Kangaroo. The brownish-red tree (?) flickered constantly. I thought maybe this was intentional, having not played it since I was about 8 in the arcade. Then I realized that this was far too annoying to be the case. I'll come back to this later.

Then I noticed the monitor rotation under the Monitor presets. I changed this to "rotates to the left" and updated my resolutions. That fixed most of my issues with vertical games – especially Kangaroo. Its also ideal for my setup. I thought I would have to run two separate instances of GM, so this made my day! Please see images below:

KANGAROO - Resolution/SwitchRes


KANGAROO - Sample Image


You'll see that tree has a dot pattern rather than long scanlines. I guess the game's designer used the scanlines intentionally to create this texture, which is pretty cool. It also explains why the tree was constantly flickering when it was displayed horizontally – the scanlines were going in the wrong direction and interfered the the intended effect.

The only vertical game I've had an issue with so far is Puck Man or any other 288x224 game. Switchres is using one of the "super" resolutions, but it is interlaced, please see below:

PUCK MAN - Resolution/SwitchRes


I opened up the modeline, but I honestly didn't know what to make of it, so I figured I'd ask for help before botching something up. Please see below:

288x224 - Modeline


Is there a way to correct this modeline or have SwitchRes use a more appropriate one for this resolution?

I have a few other questions:

1. While the 20" BVM is only compatible with 15khz, the 32" can handle 31khz resolutions. Would there be any advantage to adding 31khz presets in addition to the Generic 15khz ones?

2. I'd like to add a few "standard" PC desktop resolutions such as 1280x720 so I can navigate the desktop easier. Is this possible?

3. What are the benefits of having a tri-sync monitor? I ran MK and Paperboy and both looked OK to me, but maybe I'm missing something.

Thanks again, Calamity! This software is pretty amazing!!!

[Calamity]

1. While the 20" BVM is only compatible with 15khz, the 32" can handle 31khz resolutions. Would there be any advantage to adding 31khz presets in addition to the Generic 15khz ones?

Of course, some systems run at 31 kHz natively (in case you care about them).

2. I'd like to add a few "standard" PC desktop resolutions such as 1280x720 so I can navigate the desktop easier. Is this possible?

Of course, once you add the correct ranges. Check, for instance, the definition of the D9800.

3. What are the benefits of having a tri-sync monitor? I ran MK and Paperboy and both looked OK to me, but maybe I'm missing something.

The 24-25kHz games, look really gorgeous at their native resolution. That's the only thing I miss from my dead Polostar.

[philexile]

Hi Calamity,

Thanks again, I have mostly everything set up properly!

I was able to get vertical games such as Puck Man to work properly by adding a few super resolutions to user modes. I've included my INI below:

Code: [Select]

## Desktop ##
640 x 480 @ 60.000000 desktop

## Super resolutions ##
2560 x 192 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 224 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 232 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 234 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 238 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 240 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 246 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 248 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 254 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 256 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 264 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 270 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 272 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 280 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 288 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 296 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 304 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 320 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 336 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 344 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 352 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 360 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 368 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 376 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 384 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 392 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 400 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 416 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 432 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 448 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 464 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 480 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 496 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 512 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 544 @ 55.000000 super
2560 x 560 @ 54.000000 super
2560 x 640 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 672 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 704 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 720 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 740 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 752 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 768 @ 60.000000 super
2560 x 800 @ 60.000000 super
The last thing I'd like to do is add a 1280x720p resolution for some PC games. You mentioned that I could look at the definitions for the D9800, but I think this is a 4:3 monitor. The larger BVM that I'm using is 16:9.

Is it possible to have both 4:3 and 16:9 resolutions installed? If not, its not a big deal. I wanted this PC built for arcades, so having a 720p resolution would be a plus, but not necessary. I'm using the generic 15khz profile, which has worked extremely well for me. I've included it below:

Code: [Select]

monitor "generic_15", "Generic 15.7 kHz", "4:3"
        crt_range0 15625-15750, 49.50-65.00, 2.000, 4.700, 8.000, 0.064, 0.192, 1.024, 0, 0, 192, 288, 448, 576
Also, will there be documentation created for VMMaker and modelines in general?

Thanks again!

[haynor666]

Why did You installed so much resolutions? It does not make sense. I think t's enough every 8 lines in Y axis like Xx240, Xx248, Xx256 etc.

[philexile]

Why not? I want to have the resolutions as close as possible to what the game needs.

Also, I've run into another issue. Windows Media Player and my frontend, Big Blue, refuse to play video previews. These are MP4 files. I've read this is due to hardware acceleration, but the ATI driver doesn't allow me to turn this off.

Is there a workaround for this?

Thanks

[Sledge]

Go to a YouTube video in Firefox, right click, settings?.. Turn off acceleration

[philexile]

Thanks for the suggestion, but that doesn't work. I was in touch with the author of Big Blue and he said that the frontend forces hardware acceleration to be turned on. This is an issue with other frontends as well. The workaround is to use AVI files instead of MP4s, which is what I'm doing.

[Calamity]

Unfortunately this is a built-in "feature". It has to do with digital media copy protection. The drivers realize they've been patched and believe that you want to copy movies, so DXVA is disabled. It should be possible to disable this behaviour, but certainly not easy, not to mention that it would be regarded as some sort of cracking.