Dual monitor, multi-format (240p-1080i), CRT setup for a GroovyMAME PC?

[Dochartaigh]

I’m coming from a Raspberry Pi 3 RetroPie setup, with a RetroTINK (or Pi2SCART) RGB board, running on my Sony BVM-D20F1U CRT monitor. Since the RP3 struggles with all the different MAME resolutions, I want to build a Windows computer to run GroovyMAME with CRT Emudriver (which is supposed to be flawless with resolution switching from one game to another). I have a couple questions I can’t find through searching about my proposed setup if you don’t mind:

1.) On my PC, can I run CRT Emudriver off my compatible Radeon HD video card (on the CRT monitor), while at the same time use a second regular/flatscreen/LED monitor (run off the motherboard’s build in Intel video card with HDMI output)? The HDMI flatscreen monitor would ONLY be used for things like browsing the web, watching YouTube, streaming movies, etc. - it would NOT be used for MAME.

2.) If I can do the above, is there any detriment in running Windows 10 vs. Windows 7 in regards to having GroovyMAME run the best it can? (as GroovyMAME is the primary use of this computer).  I would rather use Windows 10 to browse the web and such, but if I can’t do the above it doesn’t matter and I’ll stick with Windows 7 (if that’s still the best choice for the best performance for GroovyMAME of course).

3.) There are arcade games which have resolutions above (15khz) 224p/240p/480i, correct? (couldn’t find a list of those titles if there are). Since I’m using a multiformat CRT monitor which can do 240p up to 1080i/720p (15-47khz), would I be able to play those games in their proper resolution with GroovyMAME/CRT Emudriver?

4.) Random question I’ll throw in: Can have multiple save states per game in GroovyMAME like I can running FBAlpha on my RP3? (sorry for such a basic questions…I went through 4 pages of Google results for ‘ GroovyMAME “save game” ‘ and found absolutely nothing to my surprise)


…working on another post with two proposed computer builds I would like to run by you guys as well if that’s OK (I haven’t built a PC since 2002 so I’m totally out of the loop). Thank you!

[Dochartaigh]

Just an update to some information I found (from another post I made about this), and wanted to see if others experiences are the same. Somebody posted (in reply to my question):

"I am right now running an LCD and a crt off the same card via its two connectors. No need for two cards. Follow the guide for setup and instead of unplugging the LCD, just don't."

He then said the LCD runs as a second desktop, but "Mame is fullscreen so I have to tab out but yes both technically work at the same time. Tabbing out does sometimes crash mame or cause sound problems. I don't intend to use both truly at the same time."

Does this sound about how it'll run? NOT being able to use the second LCD screen while I play MAME is fine with me (since I'll be playing video games - but as long as I can quickly switch over to doing regular things on this computer on the 1080p LCD monitor, that would be absolutely great.

[Nodoyuna]

Hi

My graphics card has 3 outputs: analog VGA, DVI and HDMI

1) I've installed CRT Emudriver on the VGA Output and connect the PC to my CRT TV with a UMSA interface... It does work great and I can play anything 15KHz on it
2) I've plug an DVI to VGA Active converter to the DVI Grapphics Card Output and connect the VGA to a 31KHz VGA Monitor... It does work great too
3) I have two groovymame installations, one for 240p and another one for 480p
4) For switch between the two screen, I use : Right mouse button -> Screen Properties ->Show Desktop Only on...
5) Here I select one of the two monitors, if I choose the VGA Monitor, the TV Screen goes off and the VGA Monitor is the ONLY active one and everything gets displayed there (Same situation if I choose the TV Set)

Hope it helps

[Dochartaigh]

Thank you for the info Nodoyuna. So if I'm understanding you correctly, you're using this the same way as that other person I quoted is: as in since MAME has to be full screen you can't use BOTH monitors at the SAME time? But it sounds like it's easy enough to switch between them, so I could have MAME running on my 15khz monitor, then easily switch to 1080p on my LCD flatscreen monitor?

[Dochartaigh]

Finally have all the parts in for my GroovyMAME computer build. In regards to Windows version, is there any detriment to using Windows 10 instead of Windows 7? I want to get the best possible experience I can.

If it matters I'm using an Asus ATI Radeon HD6450 (1GB) EAH6450 video card, on a multiformat Sony BVM monitor (240p, 480i, 720p, 1080i).

[zoopster]

I'm using Windows 10 and a Sony BVM D24 monitor and I've not had any issues using the OS with a range of emulators.

For your BVM set up are you using the monitor presets posted in the presets thread?

zoopster

[Dochartaigh]

I'm using Windows 10 and a Sony BVM D24 monitor and I've not had any issues using the OS with a range of emulators.

For your BVM set up are you using the monitor presets posted in the presets thread?

Good to know, thanks. I'm probably going to setup everything as a generic 15khz monitor to begin with - just to get it running. Then after it's running (and I've gone through my learning curve - I've never even used MAME outside of RetroArch so I'm sure I have a TON to learn - just to be able to do things like setup controllers and save/load games and such will be a learning process), after that, then I'll start to mess around with more advanced settings.

For Windows 10, did you need to do anything special/different for the installation and initial setup? I'm planning on following Calamity's Windows 7 setup tutorial (link below) but I don't know if any steps need to be done differently in Windows 10 (or if there's a Windows 10 setup tutorial I'm failing to find please link me!).

http://geedorah.com/eiusdemmodi/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=1052

[keilmillerjr]

For Windows 10, did you need to do anything special/different for the installation and initial setup? I'm planning on following Calamity's Windows 7 setup tutorial (link below) but I don't know if any steps need to be done differently in Windows 10 (or if there's a Windows 10 setup tutorial I'm failing to find please link me!).

http://geedorah.com/eiusdemmodi/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=1052

Same exact installation process. crt emu driver and mame work fine with windows 10.

[Dochartaigh]

Here's my update, and some issues I still (please!) would like some help to resolve.

Windows 10 is installed, CRT Emudriver is installed but Windows 10 did crash several times during the Setup.exe video driver installation (first screenshot below), followed by the 2nd screenshot error after a reboot which happened maybe 2-3 times. I kept trying (maybe 3-4 times total?) and it seems like CRT Emudriver was able to be installed correctly in the end (I think correctly – my Sony PVM had an image of the Windows desktop at least). The video driver does think my video card is an AMD Radeon HD 7400 Series, when it's an Asus Radeon HD 6450.





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So after the video driver is installed per Calamity's tutorial here, I try the second half of that tutorial to generate modelines and everything which went fine, and I'm in the command line and type "mame64 sfa3 -resolution 2560x0-cleanstretch 2" exactly as the tutorial says, and get an "Error: unknown option: 2".

Did some reading and on Recap's Groovy MAME: Installation and quick configuration (that's the other stickied topic on the Eiusdemmodi forum), and he says "cleanstretch" isn't used anymore (I'm using MAME 0.190), but "-ues" is, so I am able to type in "mame64 sfa3 -resolution 2560x0_-ues" and Street Fighter 3 launches...but it launches on my LCD monitor hooked up via HDMI (screenshot 1), instead of on the Sony PVM/CRT monitor (screenshot 2), and what's weird is it seems like my LCD/HDMI monitor is doing 15khz/60hz??? -screenshot 3 below- which I didn't think that's was possible on a regular 1080p monitor). I also have the same exact video card Calamity used in that tutorial (Radeon HD 6450), and selected "Analog_0" for the output during setup. If I unplug my HDMI monitor, Street Fighter runs on the PVM just fine.







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Last but not least, it looks like my 1080p monitor has underscan set up (large black borders all the way around). I'm scared to change the video settings because I don't want to mess up the PVM/CRT's settings. Please tell me what screenshots or whatnot you need so we can try to get that back to full screen (which when GroovyMAME launches, the image is full screen actually...just not during regular windows use).



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RECAP

So to recap (sorry, I know this is a LOT of stuff to go over), I think I only need three things to get situated:

1.) How to get GroovyMame to display on the PVM/CRT and not my LCD monitor. Other people (one this forum and others) have said they have a regular LCD monitor running at the same time as GroovyMame running on their CRT so that's what I'm looking for (LCD monitor may be blacked out while I'm playing MAME on the CRT one person did mention).

2.) The very last step of Calamity's tutorial says "The final step is to edit mame.ini and with the options -resolution 2560x0 -cleanstretch 2" which we know doesn't work in MAME 0.190. What should I use here? "mame.ini" doesn't even exist on my computer so I don't know which file to edit either...

3.) How to fix the underscan on my LCD monitor so it's full-screen.


I think I'm going to run through Recap's tutorial now as I think that's the missing steps (or at the very least that shows me how to generate a mame.ini file). Any help is great appreciated everybody - I'm excited to be almost there and ready to play some Arcade games! Thanks.

[Dochartaigh]

Hit another small roadblock, it seems like Recap's Groovy MAME: Installation and quick configuration is out of date? Is there some other tutorial I should be following? I'm going through that post and 3/4 of the initial settings I'm supposed to be changing in mame.ini are already changed. After that I'm pretty much striking out and not finding any of them he says I should be changing. Some examples:

multithreading            1
disable_hiscore_patch     1
disable_nagscreen_patch   1
disable_loading_patch     1
etc. etc. etc. (none found in the mame.ini I created with mame64 -cc)

I'm guessing these changes aren't needed anymore in more recent versions of MAME? Or should I manually add these lines in mame.ini? If so, does it matter which section I add them to?

I also don't know if ASIO audio needs to be added/modified anymore?

Eiusdemmodi forums seem to be closed to new users, so I'm hoping everybody jumped ship and there's some current tutorials I should be following and I've just not found the current tutorials everybody has been using lately.

[Dochartaigh]

One more update, tried a different tutorial the CRT Gaming Reddit guys love, and get stuck when I try to run Arcade_OSD.exe with this .dll error:




The other two tutorials by Calamity and Recap don't mention a thing about Arcade_OSD so I don't know if that's even needed (just grasping at straws as I try this over and over again using different tutorials).

[Calamity]

I haven't read through the whole thread, but it looks like you're using the Catalyst 12.6 based version. That's probably too old for *current* Windows 10. Better try the 16.2.1 based version.

[Dochartaigh]

I haven't read through the whole thread, but it looks like you're using the Catalyst 12.6 based version. That's probably too old for *current* Windows 10. Better try the 16.2.1 based version.

Correct, I was using "CRT Emudriver & CRT Tools 2.0 beta 10 (Catalyst 12.6) for Windows 7/8/10 64-bits" since my Radeon HD 6450 uses Catalyst and not Crimson (which the 16.2.1 driver says it's for), and I'm running Windows 10.

So I just uninstalled the old driver, deleted my mame folder (and it's .ini file), rebooted, then used the "Emudriver & CRT Tools 2.0 beta 10 (Crimson 16.2.1 non-GCN* cards) for Windows 7/8/10 64-bits" driver instead (the only other option was for GCN cards which mine is not). Ran through your tutorial per usual and got SFA3 to run on my CRT. Couple minutes later I get a green screen (like it was going for YPbPr instead of RGBS), with off sync. Rebooted and got same thing...have a feeling some older settings were not removed (or are conflicting) as it never did that before.

I'm now giving up on Windows 10, formatting the hard drive, and installing Windows 7 (which you think would be easy...but modern motherboards -I bought the 2nd cheapest mini-ITX I could find on NewEgg.com for example- don't even support Windows 7 out of the box...so I now have to patch the Windows 7 ISO to even be able to install it (which thankfully ASRock, the motherboard company has a utility to do). I'll post back with how it goes and keeping my fingers crossed. Thanks.

[buttersoft]

Did you try a fresh install of Win10, THEN the crt_emudriver 16.2.1-based version?