CRT Emudriver and modeline generator, error and only 23 modelines found?

[Edglaf]

Hi

I`ve been testing emudriver and the other Calamity tools. HArware and OS:

-ATI RADEON 4600 H series
-AMD SEMPRON 2,71 mhz
-Ram: 3 Gbytes
-OS: WIndows 7 ultimate
-Frontend:  Attract mode
-Groovymame

I've installed these drivers and made use of this tools: CRT Emudriver & CRT Tools 2.0 beta 12 (Catalyst 12.6) for Windows 7/8/10 64-bits. Apparently the driver is successfully installed in spite of the error I get right at the end of the process (attachment). The error as well ocurrs with any other version of the driver.

What it seems strange is the reduced number of modelines vmmaker gets, (27, 4 redundants, 23 usable modelines in total). I also have tested linux Groovymame switht res can get many, many more with this same video card. I just wanted to make sure that I'm not doing something wrong and other modelines are missing because of bad configuration or particular issue. MAy be it is just an old video card under Windows limitations?

thanks!

[Edglaf]

Hi

I`ve been testing emudriver and the other Calamity tools. HArware and OS:

-ATI RADEON 4600 H series
-AMD SEMPRON 2,71 mhz
-Ram: 3 Gbytes
-OS: WIndows 7 ultimate
-Frontend:  Attract mode
-Groovymame

I've installed these drivers and made use of this tools: CRT Emudriver & CRT Tools 2.0 beta 12 (Catalyst 12.6) for Windows 7/8/10 64-bits. Apparently the driver is successfully installed in spite of the error I get right at the end of the process (attachment). The error as well ocurrs with any other version of the driver.

What it seems strange is the reduced number of modelines vmmaker gets, (27, 4 redundants, 23 usable modelines in total). I also have tested linux Groovymame switht res can get many, many more with this same video card. I just wanted to make sure that I'm not doing something wrong and other modelines are missing because of bad configuration or particular issue. MAy be it is just an old video card under Windows limitations?

thanks!

 [Solved]. Changing the monitor option from "generic" to "satandard resolution" (I am using a scart TV) and unchecking the 120 modes limit, and putting, for example, 600, allows the program to generate many more...
Also, setting these values to 1 might have helped:

mame_list_from_xml              1
mame_generate_xml               1

Still, I have the impression that linux groovyarcade is able to display even more modes (at least useful ones for MAME). HOwever, up to this point they are enough for me and I should even trim the fat and get rid of undisplayable modes...

[Calamity]

Don't uncheck the max modes setting, 120 is the absolute maximum the driver can accept. If you bypass that limit you risk to bluescreen your system.

Follow the guide: http://geedorah.com/eiusdemmodi/forum/viewtopic.php?id=298

Just use super resolutions instead of creating a long mode list. It's better.

Besides, instead of editing vmmaker.ini manually, use the program's gui.

[Edglaf]

Don't uncheck the max modes setting, 120 is the absolute maximum the driver can accept. If you bypass that limit you risk to bluescreen your system.

Follow the guide: http://geedorah.com/eiusdemmodi/forum/viewtopic.php?id=298

Just use super resolutions instead of creating a long mode list. It's better.

Besides, instead of editing vmmaker.ini manually, use the program's gui.

Hi,

I’ve followed the tutorial step by step and, after some confusion with the screen swaping I managed to get rid of the extended desktop, to install the fifteen modes including  the superres modelines and… still feeling  a shivers down my spine!  All the problems I had been experiencing with R-type  and Mortal Kombat  drivers due to weird resolutions and refresh rates are all gone!!

For me it has been a revolution in the hard task of achieving  perfection for  emulated games , beyond my greatest expectations!.

Thanks a lot Calamity for work and help. Your driver is awesome stuff…

The only inconvenient I’ve noticed up to now, is the loss of the full screen and not interlaced display of games in  Kega Fusion. SNES games in Snes98x a simply, for some reason, just refuse to go fullscreen altogether. In Fusion it allows you to choose from several listed superres modes, but all of them are to high a vertical res (so interlaced little image on the screen corner). I’ll try performing  further tests and learn fusion.ini and Snes98x.ini options before asking for concrete technical help.

Thanks again,

[Edglaf]

Hi again,

After  having set up Groovymame succesfully, I want to add several Snes and Megadrive roms to my future  CRT cabinet with this new emudriver setup. But it's turned out to be harder than previosly expected. Some tests:

Snes9x win64  1.55 emulator

After  having Snes9x emulator configured, with superresolutions and even though in “display configurarion” it  lists  and accept every single  mode you choose.  Full screen mode only shows a small picture in the upper right corner of your monitor  (¼ of the size).  Only some interlaced modes appear to fill the whole screen area  (but eventually your eyes  do not want that flicker).

Adding  and writing other non superres modes to the driver (say 320x240 or 320x224) obtains the same result as with 15 khz superres  modes.

Fusion 3.64

It worked beautifully before the new emudriver setup. I can’t set it to handle non-interlaced modes. It only let you choose 640x480 and 4 or 5 other superres modes which have vertical res values  too high (interlaced). Used Direct 3D. Direct draw and placing ddraw.dll in the same folder causes error.

Mednacen win64  0.9.48

Due to lack of GUI  I only have been able to launch it and carry out some tests through atract-mode. Full screen switching only returns equal results (interlaced mode, probably 640x480). A have’nt seen a video option to tweak something interesting in configuration file.

I have`nt tried this fork http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=155264.0 because I suppose it does’nt improve things with megadrive module.
Another option I’ve considered is to use Groovymame integrated MESS. That’s to say, to play megadrive and Snes roms in Groovymame, but after  googling a bit I cannot figured out exactly how to and some say it is not a good idea as any of the former emulators are far better for this purpose.

In conlusion, I am a bit lost and don’nt know which path to take. Could please anyone save me efforts and provide me some advice or technical help?

Thanks,

[Calamity]

Hi Edglaf,

If you check the Kega Fusion note here it's maked as auto-switching not working. I guess there's not much to do about it. I find Megadrive's MAME emulation good enough to don't bother with other emulators, plus the convenience of auto-switching. In order to launch games:

mame64 megadrive -cart "Sonic The Hedgehog.zip"

or better, if you have the software lists:

mame64 megadrive sonic

[keropi]

I have KEGA FUSSION autoswitching working! I can play Sonic 2 and see it in action - there is no doubt it's not working correctly and I am using a 6570 vga.
It is sure that I needed to enable the extra resolutions in the emulator's .INI and also add the extra resolutions in super-resolutions.ini - I will look at it later and report back if any other steps are needed.

[Edglaf]

mame64 megadrive -cart "Sonic The Hedgehog.zip"

An "e" was preventing it from working. After googling a bit:

mame64 megadriv -cart "Sonic The Hedgehog.zip" does work.

I still have to learn to make sofware lists, it seems harder to google but, anyway, using a frontend bypasses any inconvinience.

Keropi, using megadrive and Snes with a frontended mame (say atract-mode f. e.)works like charm. You just have to set it as MESS-megadrive, MESS-snes
Snes games are supposed to be imperfectly emulated but I do not notice that even after having played in the original hardware.

[Doozer]

The "-cart" option is legacy and not stable anymore in the way you are using it. It is better to just specify the system and the rom name like :

Code: [Select]

groovymame megadriv "sonic"


[Calamity]

The "-cart" option is legacy and not stable anymore in the way you are using it. It is better to just specify the system and the rom name like :

Code: [Select]

groovymame megadriv "sonic"


Yes but that requires having the required softlists.

I still have to learn to make sofware lists,

You don't make the software lists, you download them.

[Doozer]

Yes but that requires having the required softlists.

You are right on this point but to avoid any donfusion we are talking about the xml files inside the hash folder of mame source. I is the way to identify the right rom.