CRT Emudriver 2.0 & Radeon 7xxx Cards

[pacboy]

According to this walk-through, you need a graphics card with 2 VGA ports to make version 2.0 work with the HD 4350.  You need 2 VGA ports so that you can perform the port-swap move that's done toward the bottom of the page.  On the HD 4350 there is a VGA as well as a DVI-I port (which needs the DVI-I to VGA adapter to make this work).
Now supposedly CRT Emudriver supports the Radeon HD 7xxx series, but every version that I look at does not have 2 VGA ports.  What is the work around for the 7xxx cards?

http://geedorah.com/eiusdemmodi/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=1016

[R-Typer]

I have HD 7770 and was using RealVNC tool. Its like a remote desktop and gives you access to your PC even when the video signal goes out. You need to have a laptop (or second PC) and LAN cable to do this.

Or... you can use your 4350 to install crtemu 2.0 driver and once everything is working, just swap the card with the 7xxx one. This worked for me in Windows 7 x64, I just had to run VMMaker again and that's all.

Crtemu 2.0 driver works beautifully with my HD 7770 and I never gonna go back to HD 4xxx cards again.

[Calamity]

Hopefully once I have some spare time I'll compile the guide for the HD 5000+ cards. The process is indeed much more straightforward than with legacy cards. The one thing you need to consider is that starting from the 6000 generation, all cards I've seen only have one port supporting analog. You have to indentify this port first. If the card has one VGA output, then the answer is obvious. If it has a couple DVIs, one of them will be DVI-I (check the hole pattern) but some times both DVIs show the typical DVI-I hole pattern and only one actually is, beware this.

According to this walk-through, you need a graphics card with 2 VGA ports to make version 2.0 work with the HD 4350

Not at all, that guide was just an attempt to provide a bullet-proof step-by-step method that people could reproduce at home. During the first week after CRT Emudriver 2.0 release, first testers were having a hell of a time configuring their monitors and I felt the need to post that guide even if only to say "you see guys how it is working here." There's something that makes the installation of pre-HD 5000 cards somewhat complicated: the fact that Windows can't identify arcade monitors properly. However being able to emulate an EDID for the HD 5000+ cards makes things much easier. Basically, you install things with a PC monitor connected to the target analog output, and once you enable EDID emulation, your PC monitor gets out of range and you can plug the arcade monitor to that output and that's the end of the story.

[pacboy]

Would this card work?

http://www.vgastore.com/2016967/asus-hd7970_dc2t_3gd5-radeon-hd-7970-3gb-384-bit-gddr5-pci-express-3-0-x16-hdcp-ready-crossfirex-support-video-card

According to this thread the HD 7990 is not supported...yet

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,149084.0.html

[tackill]

I'm having issues with the XFX Radeon HD 6970 and the j-pac. J-pac isn't getting the power it needs or just doesn't find the signal from the card and this was done on both DVI ports. With both DVI ports plugged in, it still only detects my pc monitor.

With my arcadevga 5000 the j-pac had no issues getting power and finding the signal. Anyone have any insight on what might be the problem?

[R-Typer]

I can confirm that HD 7850 is working just fine with the latest beta 6 crtemu 2.0 drivers.

Btw, if you are flashing these latest radeons be aware that many models have dual bios chips. I bricked my 7850 video card with atom modified bios. I was lucky to made bios dumps from both bios chips in order to restore it to factory defaults.

[8BitMonk]

Good to know, I just picked up 3 7850's to try with my setups. So the atom bios won't work with 7850's, there's no workaround?

2 of the cards are XFX: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150642
The other is a Powercolor: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131473

Got all 3 for $120 which I thought was a pretty good deal.

[R-Typer]

Good to know, I just picked up 3 7850's to try with my setups. So the atom bios won't work with 7850's, there's no workaround?

Yes it will work just fine. Just be careful if you have dual bios. One bios chip is not flashable but the second one is flashable. On your card you will find a little switch to select bios. You have to switch to second (2) bios position. Then you will be able to flash 7850. This is for Sapphire and MSI 7850 Radeons, I havent checked the other brands.

Make sure you dump both bios chips (since their CRC hash is different) with GPU-Z so you can revert back if something goes wrong.

[8BitMonk]

Got it, thanks for the clarification, I hadn't dealt with dual bios cards before. I'll have to take a closer look but I don't think the XFX or Powercolor cards I have are dual bios. I'll post back my results once I've had a chance to test them with CRT Emudriver 2.0.

[jdsony]

Just wanted to add to this thread. While I have yet to try Atom-15 on anything (may try it on my Radeon 9000 IGP Laptop) I have successfully installed the CRT Emudriver 2.0 on my Radeon 7970 running under Windows 10 64bit .

I installed it downgrading from 15.11. The installer errors out on an ATI DLL (I'll try and check which one) and looks like it fails. After a restart the driver works exactly as expected. I moved my primary LCD from the DVI port to HDMI and hooked up my Commodore 1084 CRT to DVI via a VGA adapter and custom vga -> RGB cable. It was actually really seamless, in the past I've had to play around with it to get the modelines working properly. I also appreciate all the new guides created though I didn't need them. Note that when reinstalling the latest AMD drivers remove the CRT drivers first or Windows will want you to restore.

I was worried that we'd all be stuck on old video cards and an old OS until the announcement was made there was a solution in the works.

Thanks Calamity. There's really nothing better than emulation without tearing, with smooth animation, and really low input lag. Now I'm working on a simple Hyperspin setup ditching the themes and just using video/wheel art.

[Calamity]

Thanks for your words, jdsony. It's good to read the word "seamless", finally.

Regarding the dll error, I'm wondering if it wasn't actually about msvcrt10.dll. That's a bogus error that probably happens due to the MinGW compiler, but for some reason I cannot reproduce it here on my Windows 7 copy.

[krick]

I'm thinking of picking up a refurbished Radeon HD 7750 (GDDR5).  The 7000 series uses much less power than the 5000 and 6000 series.  In fact, the 7750 is so low power (less than 75W) that it doesn't even have an external power connector.  This makes it a good choice for a computer in an enclosed MAME cabinet because less power consumption means less heat.

It supports DirectX 12, for whatever that's worth.

For reference, according to the "Tom's Hardware" website, the following GPUs are all roughly in the same class, performance-wise...
Radeon HD 4870, 4890,  5770, 5830, 6770, 6790, 7750 (GDDR5)

Here's the refurbished card On Newegg for $45...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202175

Newegg is also selling them through their Ebay store...
http://ebay.com/itm/301876507002

Thoughts?

[haynor666]

Are You planning any advance 3D emulator like Demul or Dolphin? If not than You should search for something cheaper.

[planexcvs]

I'm thinking of picking up a refurbished Radeon HD 7750 (GDDR5).  The 7000 series uses much less power than the 5000 and 6000 series.  In fact, the 7750 is so low power (less than 75W) that it doesn't even have an external power connector.  This makes it a good choice for a computer in an enclosed MAME cabinet because less power consumption means less heat.

It supports DirectX 12, for whatever that's worth.

For reference, according to the "Tom's Hardware" website, the following GPUs are all roughly in the same class, performance-wise...
Radeon HD 4870, 4890,  5770, 5830, 6770, 6790, 7750 (GDDR5)

Here's the refurbished card On Newegg for $45...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202175

Newegg is also selling them through their Ebay store...
http://ebay.com/itm/301876507002

Thoughts?

The price for the 7750 on refurb doesn't seem so bad, considering the 6450 is $40. Definitely wouldn't have to worry about screen tearing.

I'm buying one.