From Groovymame 149 to 179 alpha 3 + CRT + ArcadeVGA3000 + Win10

[javierluisbravo]

Hi my friends!

My first post here. This is an amazing forum full of people that knows a lot! Very happy to be part now of it.

I used Groovymame 149 in XP 32 bit. All was fine. Now i updated to windows 10 in an SSD drive (Hyperspin runs great now).

It was tricky the installation of the AVGA3000 drivers. As i used 2 monitors to install.. as it was impossible for me to install windows 10 from the 15hz Arcade Monitor alone.
After the install of the AVGA3000 drivers... when i disconnected the Normal Monitor to let the Arcade Monitor alone.. Windows 10 did BSOD when reboot.
.. and the solution i found was super simple... I had to make the Arcade Monitor as main monitor (extending the other one) before disconnecting the Normal Monitor from the DVI port. Then all worked. Seemed a bug in windows 10 not automatically switching monitors.

After that i installed Groovymame 179 alpha3 while keeping my 149 version at the same time in another folder. I found out that lot of things changed.

1) When GM loads the rom... i can see windows 10 pointer loading (blu circle)... (it does not happen in win10 with GM149)
Is there something in mame.ini there to hide it?

2) I got crazy trying to make GM179 not tearing. In GM149 i have no tearing. Thanks god i found a Calamity post recommending this in mame.ini so i put it in my GM179:
lock_system_modes   0
refresh_dont_care      1
multithreading            1

This made it work! So thanks Calamity!. Anything else is recommended for the AVGA 3000 to put in mame.ini?

3) In GM149 I had frame_delay set to 1. Worked great!  Now in GM179... i have a feeling that something is different even putting it in 1.  Don't know what?
Do i put frame_delay in 1?. Or now there's another way to make the input lag better?  As i am very outdated about this.  Because i got confused with a guide that's around that talks about d3d9ex or something like that.. that now was removed.

Thanks in advanced my friends... I know that you think that the AVGA is very limited. I know..
But it's what i have... and i want to make it the better regarding setups..

Love from Argentina!

[haynor666]

There was discussion about ArcadeVGA already: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,151767.0.html

In short: use any other standard Radeon card like HD4350 or HD5450 to use fully GM features.

For short time I'm using two TV CRTs setups with HD5450 and GM 179alpha3/GM 178 under windows 7x64. When I set numscreens 2 and frame_delay 2 I get bizarre slowdowns (from 100% to 50%) in many games like 1943 or mslug2. With GM 171 everything was fine.
Not using numscreens 2 or frame_delay [any] and everything is fine. But that's on windows 7x64, under windows 10 You may get different results.

[javierluisbravo]

Thank you Haynor666 for your reply.

Yeah. I had read that thread.. but that is pointed in another direction.

I wanted to know if there are more tips around for the ArcadeVGA3000 to setup inside mame.ini to get a better experience in GM. Besides those i pointed out.
I am not planning in changing the videocard right now really...

...and what about the pointer of the mouse to hide... i have read there are something like that for Linux.. or am i wrong?
The pointer of the mouse with the loading blue circle in windows 10.. appears over a black screen while the ROM is loading... before the nag screens.

This is not related to windows 10 as i have GM149 and there it does not happen. I already tried to turn off the ui_mouse option. That didn't work.

[haynor666]

Cheapest I've found HD5450 cost about 9 USD so ArcadeVGA is much more expensive.

[javierluisbravo]

Thank you!

Here where i live.. (in Argentina)... nothing related to computers is cheap hahaha

Anyway i will have it in mind for sure if i travel to USA/Europe

ArcadeVGA works great anyway if you can live with some black borders some times... or a little crop at bottom/top.

[javierluisbravo]

and...

what's the render engine you are using in mame to get a better feeling in the CRT?

Does it worth switching from d3d to bgfx? or another?

[haynor666]

I have auto setting.