Main Restorations Software Audio/Jukebox/MP3 Everything Else Buy/Sell/Trade
Project Announcements Monitor/Video GroovyMAME Merit/JVL Touchscreen Meet Up Retail Vendors
Driving & Racing Woodworking Software Support Forums Consoles Project Arcade Reviews
Automated Projects Artwork Frontend Support Forums Pinball Forum Discussion Old Boards
Raspberry Pi & Dev Board controls.dat Linux Miscellaneous Arcade Wiki Discussion Old Archives
Lightguns Arcade1Up Try the site in https mode Site News

Unread posts | New Replies | Recent posts | Rules | Chatroom | Wiki | File Repository | RSS | Submit news

  

Author Topic: Display problems - only IREM games - Groovy MAME running under WAH!Cade (SOLVED)  (Read 11472 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

galaxian77

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 31
  • Last login:December 22, 2021, 12:45:59 pm
  • Groovyarcade fan !
    • Arcade Sunday (YouTube)
Hello there, fellow arcade gamers. I have a strange puzzle that I need some input on (if possible). I run a late version of Groovymame under the WAH!Cade frontend, outputting to a CRT arcade monitor. MAME games all work, and the frontend is setup, and all seems good. HOWEVER! There are a set of games (all by the same manufacturer! - IREM Corp) which run at a lower than normal refresh rate (55Hz) while most other games are 60Hz. My problem is that when I run any of these IREM games (Eg: Battle Chopper, Hammering Harry, Ninja Spirit), the game starts, but the picture is all distorted. I can see the game running, but it's completely out of sync. I've obviously tried adjusting the monitor POTS, but this does not help (at all). What even MORE strange, is that I exit the game, then re-load it, it sometimes syncs perfectly, and is fully running without a problem. Once I exit and open it up again, the same problem returns (out of sync / garbles graphics). This is really driving me insane, but I'm sure someone has seen this before. It could be possible that I don't have enough modelines setup, but GROOVYMAME is supposed to take care of this by itself. Is there anyone with this issue, or could anyone suggest anything I could try ?

Thanks for reading.
« Last Edit: April 07, 2018, 03:14:35 pm by galaxian77 »
Check out my home Arcade YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLKl6BrSjDsvCHIL2Blql-A

Still loving the classics, 30+ years later! 5 dedicated MAME cabinets: GroovyArcade, some Arduinos, real CRTs, ATI VGA cards, and some crazy hacks... Love it.

galaxian77

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 31
  • Last login:December 22, 2021, 12:45:59 pm
  • Groovyarcade fan !
    • Arcade Sunday (YouTube)
*Update: I've still not figured this out, but will soon be experimenting with an older version of Groovymame that worked previously, as I still have the HDD with the old installation on it. I will be testing to see whether it's the "version" of Groovymame that's a problem, or whether the frontend (WAH!Cade) causes these ITEM games to glitch when starting them up somehow, and also to triple check my mame.ini and monitor setting (from the existing old installation).

At this point, I highly doubt the following to be problematic:

-The underlying Arch Linux (Groovyarcade) installation
-The monitor settings
-The monitor itself (seeing as the games in question ran 100% perfectly using the older version)

Suspected items:

-One setting in MAME.INI
-Monitor "type" setting may be wrong
-The new version of Groovymame may opt for the wrong modeline "occasionally"

I'll keep you updated.
Thanks for reading - and if YOU have any ideas, PLEASE post back here.

Thanks!
Check out my home Arcade YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLKl6BrSjDsvCHIL2Blql-A

Still loving the classics, 30+ years later! 5 dedicated MAME cabinets: GroovyArcade, some Arduinos, real CRTs, ATI VGA cards, and some crazy hacks... Love it.

galaxian77

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 31
  • Last login:December 22, 2021, 12:45:59 pm
  • Groovyarcade fan !
    • Arcade Sunday (YouTube)
OK... so... I've finally narrowed this down to the version of GroovyUME (which is part of the "2017" build of GroovyArcade). Most unfortunately, this version (I believe it's version 0.184) inherently does not run as smoothly (generally) as the older generation GroovyUME (0.145?). I've got other weird problems on my other two machines (regarding non-smooth scrolling issues). The frame rate indicator shows 100%, but there seems to be a tiny "slow down" or "jitter" at certain points in certain games (eg: Raiden, Twin Cobra), yet Cave games (DoDonpachi, etc) run perfectly. It's so strange!

I'll keep this post running until I find an answer.
Check out my home Arcade YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLKl6BrSjDsvCHIL2Blql-A

Still loving the classics, 30+ years later! 5 dedicated MAME cabinets: GroovyArcade, some Arduinos, real CRTs, ATI VGA cards, and some crazy hacks... Love it.

Doozer

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 498
  • Last login:June 12, 2023, 09:19:49 am
  • Z80 ERROR
OK... so... I've finally narrowed this down to the version of GroovyUME (which is part of the "2017" build of GroovyArcade). Most unfortunately, this version (I believe it's version 0.184) inherently does not run as smoothly (generally) as the older generation GroovyUME (0.145?). I've got other weird problems on my other two machines (regarding non-smooth scrolling issues). The frame rate indicator shows 100%, but there seems to be a tiny "slow down" or "jitter" at certain points in certain games (eg: Raiden, Twin Cobra), yet Cave games (DoDonpachi, etc) run perfectly. It's so strange!

I'll keep this post running until I find an answer.

Hi,

Have you already tried v0.195 from the drive? (link)
Lots of changes happened since 0.184.

galaxian77

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 31
  • Last login:December 22, 2021, 12:45:59 pm
  • Groovyarcade fan !
    • Arcade Sunday (YouTube)
*Update*. I've now updated to the latest version of Groovyarcade (which employs v0.195) and this version has been rock solid. All of my previous problems have been resolved! I'm in the process of updating my game collection, but without a doubt the new "March 2018" Groovyarcade build is just amazing. I now use Attract Mode in all of my builds, as it's definitely a more flexible front end. Thanks to all who have read my posts, and thanks to Doozer for giving my post so much attention! I'm so happy right now!
Check out my home Arcade YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLKl6BrSjDsvCHIL2Blql-A

Still loving the classics, 30+ years later! 5 dedicated MAME cabinets: GroovyArcade, some Arduinos, real CRTs, ATI VGA cards, and some crazy hacks... Love it.

Doozer

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 498
  • Last login:June 12, 2023, 09:19:49 am
  • Z80 ERROR

It was a pleasure.

It is now time for you to enjoy some arcade play time on your setup. Well done.

galaxian77

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 31
  • Last login:December 22, 2021, 12:45:59 pm
  • Groovyarcade fan !
    • Arcade Sunday (YouTube)

It was a pleasure.

It is now time for you to enjoy some arcade play time on your setup. Well done.

My set-ups have been such a joy to play of late! I have indeed been enjoying them!

Just (another  ::)) thing perhaps you can assist me with, as it appears that you are involved in compiling the Linux Groovymame versions... The question I have relates to the latest 0.196 build of MAME, which (for me anyway) includes a very exciting fix - correct C-CHIP emulation. The one game I've been waiting to play for YEARS (Bonze Adventure) is finally emulated properly (as far as I can tell from some quick testing, using the Windows 0.196 version). I see that you have already compiled Groovymame 0.196 for Linux, but for some odd reason, Bonze Adventure (in the Linux build) exhibits the same issue it did in prior versions (ie: broken restart points, which makes the game unplayable) - almost as if the C-CHIP fix is not in the Groovymame Linux build at all... is this possible ? Perhaps I have made a mistake somewhere while manually upgrading Groovymame under GroovyArcade... by "manually", I mean...

"Downloaded 0.196 Groovymame, untarred from the GroovyArcade command line, set correct permissions, backed up old version, and replaced executable with new one. Ensured that front end calls the correct executable"

Again, perhaps I did something wrong, but is there any way to verify that the new Linux 0.196 version includes the C-CHIP fix ?
Check out my home Arcade YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLKl6BrSjDsvCHIL2Blql-A

Still loving the classics, 30+ years later! 5 dedicated MAME cabinets: GroovyArcade, some Arduinos, real CRTs, ATI VGA cards, and some crazy hacks... Love it.

Doozer

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 498
  • Last login:June 12, 2023, 09:19:49 am
  • Z80 ERROR

Hi,

C-Chip fix shall be inside Linux build. If it is working fine with the Windows version, the behaviour should be the same under Linux. Have you updated the cchip.zip file together with the bonzeadv.zip file to v0.196?

galaxian77

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 31
  • Last login:December 22, 2021, 12:45:59 pm
  • Groovyarcade fan !
    • Arcade Sunday (YouTube)

Hi,

C-Chip fix shall be inside Linux build. If it is working fine with the Windows version, the behaviour should be the same under Linux. Have you updated the cchip.zip file together with the bonzeadv.zip file to v0.196?

Thanks Doozer. I should have done more testing before posting my reply... I was just so excited at the prospect of being able to play Bonze Adventure! I'll be doing some testing in the next few days. I'll keep my findings updated here. Thanks again for the response.
Check out my home Arcade YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLKl6BrSjDsvCHIL2Blql-A

Still loving the classics, 30+ years later! 5 dedicated MAME cabinets: GroovyArcade, some Arduinos, real CRTs, ATI VGA cards, and some crazy hacks... Love it.

galaxian77

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 31
  • Last login:December 22, 2021, 12:45:59 pm
  • Groovyarcade fan !
    • Arcade Sunday (YouTube)
...I'm starting to feel like one of my clients... ( ::))... I've tried on 2 different Linux platforms, and still cannot get 0.196 running. Perhaps GroovyArcade has some strange hidden symlink to the Groovymame executable, and I've done a search of the entire disk for "groovymame" and only found one copy (which I've replaced per earlier message). I've also re-downloaded your build again to be sure, but I still see version 0.195, and not 0.196. Perhaps (again - could be doing something wrong), but is it possible that the download listed as 0.196 is not really 0.196 ?

Sorry to be such an irritation...
Check out my home Arcade YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLKl6BrSjDsvCHIL2Blql-A

Still loving the classics, 30+ years later! 5 dedicated MAME cabinets: GroovyArcade, some Arduinos, real CRTs, ATI VGA cards, and some crazy hacks... Love it.

Doozer

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 498
  • Last login:June 12, 2023, 09:19:49 am
  • Z80 ERROR
Re: Display problems - only IREM games - Groovy MAME running under WAH!Cade
« Reply #10 on: April 06, 2018, 03:54:23 am »
Hi galaxian77,

It is me ;-) I have no excuses. Indeed, the archive was containing the 0.195 version. I am uploading the right version now.


galaxian77

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 31
  • Last login:December 22, 2021, 12:45:59 pm
  • Groovyarcade fan !
    • Arcade Sunday (YouTube)
Re: Display problems - only IREM games - Groovy MAME running under WAH!Cade
« Reply #11 on: April 07, 2018, 03:52:06 am »
Thanks so much !! Don't feed bad ! These things happen... I have just downloaded a copy, and will be trying this out today. Perhaps my "Bonze Adventure" dream will finally be realized!! I will keep you posted...
Check out my home Arcade YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLKl6BrSjDsvCHIL2Blql-A

Still loving the classics, 30+ years later! 5 dedicated MAME cabinets: GroovyArcade, some Arduinos, real CRTs, ATI VGA cards, and some crazy hacks... Love it.

galaxian77

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 31
  • Last login:December 22, 2021, 12:45:59 pm
  • Groovyarcade fan !
    • Arcade Sunday (YouTube)
Re: Display problems - only IREM games - Groovy MAME running under WAH!Cade
« Reply #12 on: April 07, 2018, 08:06:33 am »
YES!! Groovymame Linux 0.196 working like a charm!! Bonze Adventure is now totally playable !! Thanks again @Doozer for pointing me in the right direction ! My arcade is so happy right now!

Check out my home Arcade YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLKl6BrSjDsvCHIL2Blql-A

Still loving the classics, 30+ years later! 5 dedicated MAME cabinets: GroovyArcade, some Arduinos, real CRTs, ATI VGA cards, and some crazy hacks... Love it.

Doozer

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 498
  • Last login:June 12, 2023, 09:19:49 am
  • Z80 ERROR
Re: Display problems - only IREM games - Groovy MAME running under WAH!Cade
« Reply #13 on: April 07, 2018, 01:17:23 pm »
YES!! Groovymame Linux 0.196 working like a charm!! Bonze Adventure is now totally playable !! Thanks again @Doozer for pointing me in the right direction ! My arcade is so happy right now!

Thank you for having discovered the groovymame version issue.

galaxian77

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 31
  • Last login:December 22, 2021, 12:45:59 pm
  • Groovyarcade fan !
    • Arcade Sunday (YouTube)
...and thank you for being so helpful, and (more importantly) for compiling the new binary for everyone. Big shout outs to you, MAMEDEV.ORG, and of course, and the GroovyArcade team. You're all contributing to my home arcade dream, and to keep arcade games alive for everyone, which would certainly be forgotten if it weren't for forums like this, and people like all of you...

CHEERS ALL ! I Hope to contribute in the future.
Check out my home Arcade YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLKl6BrSjDsvCHIL2Blql-A

Still loving the classics, 30+ years later! 5 dedicated MAME cabinets: GroovyArcade, some Arduinos, real CRTs, ATI VGA cards, and some crazy hacks... Love it.