What card to get for crt emu driver?

[Brian74]

I was wondering if anyone could tell which card works the best. I have a vertical cabinet using a nano monitor that will be used mostly for vertical shooters from mame and a few consoles. Any help would be great!

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[crispux3]

I would think you could use any card that is compatible with CRT_emudriver. The choice is yours. I have a radeon HD4350 and HD4890 and both seem to work essentially the same for me.

[Brian74]

Thanks for the reply. I know mame used cpu not so much gpu but others emus do. So I was trying to figure out which on had the most horse power but would still work the best.

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[buttersoft]

As calamity just posted in the thread I started about cloning, you should use a 5000/6000/7000 series card for preference. The EDID emulation works more smoothly, the cards are the same vintage as Win7 which is the preferred platform for crt_emudriver, and you won't get any hiccups with the resolution accidentally reverting.

Note that the 6000 and 7000 series cards, while more powerful, only have one DVI-I port. You can only run one analog monitor from them.

And, and this is something I think we need to figure out properly, the picture quality seems to improve as you get newer, higher end cards. The 4350's look washed out, and they flicker badly at 480i. I upgraded to a 6870 just the other day, and the colours are much more vivid, and the displays I'm driving flicker a lot less. My 4890 is almost as nice. I've heard someone report that changing to a 5450 is a step up from the 4350, as well, in terms of there being much less flicker.

I'm not sure if this phenomenon is a cut-off (as in, all of a sudden they upgraded the RAMDAC or line drivers or something, once you get to a certain point) or a series of steps, or a sliding scale, or even something else.

[Recapnation]

"Severe" flickering in interlaced modes is indeed the natural way to display them. You get less flicker with non-HD-4000 cards because the picture gets filtered there. Game consoles from the N64 onwards did/do this too. This may be a fine thing if you're going to use interlaced modes a lot (which I bet you won't, if you're here), but if you're going to use external de-interlacing devices (which comes off pretty useful in many cases, depending on your interests), it will screw up the process.

Also, I think it was Calamity himself who once said that the mediocre DAC on most modern graphics cards to support VGA results in some low-frequency noise.

[pakoman]

"Severe" flickering in interlaced modes is indeed the natural way to display them.

Let me disagree with that. Having tested myself a lot of different arcade monitors and tvs with different video cards under different configurations at their native resolutions as well as several jamma games like Popeye or Rampage in dedicated arcade cabinets, I can say that the flickering varies hugely from one setup to another, being in some scenarios almost imperceptible and with very crisp graphics while in another is really uncomfortable to watch for a while.

For instance, I had an Hantarex MTC 9110 that displayed interlaced modes surprisingly well under AdvanceMame Msdos (don't remember the videocard I used, but for sure a not very new AGP one). However when plugging the same computer to a different monitor the results varied.

[Recapnation]

Yeah, well, the "severe" between quotation marks meant to say 'more noticeable'. Different monitors are expected to give different results, though I've never experienced one with almost imperceptible flickering and very crisp graphics when feeding with a non-filtered picture. They started using these filters for a reason.

[buttersoft]

I would swear I posted a reply last night and now it's gone - my fault for doing it while tired, I guess.

Recapnation, what is a flicker filter? Is that the same as a flicker fixer? I thought those worked as linedoublers? If not, how do they work, exactly?

I'm finding the card upgrade made a huge difference for me, and not only in terms of there being a lot less flicker. Everything is much more colourful, and clearer too. And yes, the monitor makes quite a difference as well, but I find the source is more important once you get a working setup, as it were. Best equipment overall, would be what we're talking about.

[adder]

i notice when i use my JVC  crt tv which is a really good quality build, in interlace modes the flicker is so low it is almost not there at all.  also, when looking at windows desktop, it's really clear and easy to read text,  even small text

a hantarex (MTC9000) monitor i had though was really disappointing for interlace in comparison.  tons of flicker, and couldnt really read anything on windows desktop, really flickery and 'moving around' a lot

i think there is 10 years or more difference in time between when the hantarex and the jvc tv were made.  maybe that's something to do with it (maybe they figured out how to display interlaced modes better.. or if not, perhaps it's just down to the fact that the jvc tv uses much better quality parts inside compared to the hantarex

[haynor666]

As calamity just posted in the thread I started about cloning, you should use a 5000/6000/7000 series card for preference. The EDID emulation works more smoothly, the cards are the same vintage as Win7 which is the preferred platform for crt_emudriver, and you won't get any hiccups with the resolution accidentally reverting.

Note that the 6000 and 7000 series cards, while more powerful, only have one DVI-I port. You can only run one analog monitor from them.

And, and this is something I think we need to figure out properly, the picture quality seems to improve as you get newer, higher end cards. The 4350's look washed out, and they flicker badly at 480i. I upgraded to a 6870 just the other day, and the colours are much more vivid, and the displays I'm driving flicker a lot less. My 4890 is almost as nice. I've heard someone report that changing to a 5450 is a step up from the 4350, as well, in terms of there being much less flicker.

I'm not sure if this phenomenon is a cut-off (as in, all of a sudden they upgraded the RAMDAC or line drivers or something, once you get to a certain point) or a series of steps, or a sliding scale, or even something else.

The 5xxx and 6xxx series is indeed better because those cards does not suffer from halved refresh rates (unless Your monitor is capable working with positive sync, all TV should do work).

Many of those cards has DMS-59 port which can output VGA signal for 2 monitors and plenty of those are also have 2 DVI-I ports. Only high end models are mainly restricted for one DVI-I.

I have couple of 4350 and one card from 5xxx serie I don't see any picture improvement. The only difference is this less flickering picture but came with price of more blurry picture. Quite good for 3D games like Taito Type X or PS2 emu but very bad for old 2D games.

Also, I think it was Calamity himself who once said that the mediocre DAC on most modern graphics cards to support VGA results in some low-frequency noise.

I must say I never get rid of tiny picture waves (noticable when You display white grid) with all cards I have. Probably noise the came from other PC components or from AC source or maybe it's TV fault (though I tested several TVs and result was the same).

[adder]

I must say I never get rid of tiny picture waves (noticable when You display white grid) with all cards I have. Probably noise the came from other PC components or from AC source or maybe it's TV fault (though I tested several TVs and result was the same).

do your cables you use contain ferrite beads?  maybe this would help with interference/noise
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrite_bead

[haynor666]

VGA cable from PC to UMSA has such ferrite just like plenty of VGA cables bur SCART cable from UMSA to TV does not. Anyway it's not a big problem, hardly noticable when playing.

[Recapnation]

I have couple of 4350 and one card from 5xxx serie I don't see any picture improvement. The only difference is this less flickering picture but came with price of more blurry picture. Quite good for 3D games like Taito Type X or PS2 emu but very bad for old 2D games.

How so? Less flicker even with slight blur added can only benefit 2-D graphics. (And I'm even not mentioning health-related aspects.)


Has anybody tested Dolphin emulator's GPU demands with 1 : 1 graphics emulation (no scaling nor artifacts)? You always read it's a very demanding program but from people who only know flat panels.

[K-rnivoro]

I have couple of 4350 and one card from 5xxx serie I don't see any picture improvement. The only difference is this less flickering picture but came with price of more blurry picture. Quite good for 3D games like Taito Type X or PS2 emu but very bad for old 2D games.

Has anybody tested Dolphin emulator's GPU demands with 1 : 1 graphics emulation (no scaling nor artifacts)? You always read it's a very demanding program but from people who only know flat panels.

I'm planning to build a cabinet with GroovyMAME and other "demanding" emulators like Dolphin. I'll try with Win7 x64, Intel i3 and HD6570. Also having two monitors, one CRT and one LCD for flyers and marquees.

Unfortunately, my CRT only support 15 KHz so 640x480 (the 1 : 1) will be always interlaced 

[haynor666]

I have couple of 4350 and one card from 5xxx serie I don't see any picture improvement. The only difference is this less flickering picture but came with price of more blurry picture. Quite good for 3D games like Taito Type X or PS2 emu but very bad for old 2D games.

How so? Less flicker even with slight blur added can only benefit 2-D graphics. (And I'm even not mentioning health-related aspects.)


Has anybody tested Dolphin emulator's GPU demands with 1 : 1 graphics emulation (no scaling nor artifacts)? You always read it's a very demanding program but from people who only know flat panels.

But picture is blurry and this tires eyes. Not a big deal with 3D games but for example mcr, mcr3 games looks very bad with blurry picture especially that background using 256x240 but sprites using 512x480.

[Recapnation]

Blur tires your eyes more than flicker!?

Off-topic now, but stuff like this:



...has no salvation no matter what, therefore what about downscaling it to the background's res.? Sprites will lose detail, but does it really matter?


Edit -- There it goes: