400x254 on Wells Gardner 4600?

[thewumpus]

I've got a MAME system with a WG4600 monitor and none of the mid-1990's games (Rampage World Tour, MK, etc.) that use 400x254 seem to display correctly.

Will the WG4600 support 400x254 @ 54.706841?  If so, any ideas as to what the numbers for such a modeline would need to be (and how I would calculate them?)

Thanks!

[buttersoft]

That modeline would come out at about 15.2kHz, if you do nothing to alter it. That's with a guesstimated v-total of ~278. Google tells me MK refreshes at 53.2, i'm not sure which is right.

Assuming for the moment that the WG4600 has not-unreasonable ranges (at least, say, 15.625 to ~16kHz, and 52-62Hz refresh) you could try extending the vertical blanking interval. About 288 v-total would do it, and then you adjust the monitor size if absolutely needed. Or you could eliminate video modes under ~264 and get the same result, as long as you disable vertical stretching in MAME/GroovyMAME. Another option might be to look into GroovyMAME, define your monitor ranges, and perhaps enable syncrefresh.

I'm not sure about a good guide to modelines. What's your setup? I know nothing about Linux, so wouldn't be able to help you in that case. Different OS's and utilities can use slightly different notation. Remembering the distinction that a monitor range line can be used to generate individual modelines, you can try the monitor presets sticky in the GroovyMAME subforum on here. And then maybe something like this - https://arachnoid.com/modelines/index.html

Might want to wait until someone with more knowledge of the WG4600's specs drops by, though. No point in trying the above if it's not going to work from the outset.

EDIT: MK is a known pain, btw. There's talk about it in the GM forum from time to time, but i can't recall any magic solution.

[thewumpus]

I'm using GroovyMame too!

I tried two of the modes suggested by the calculator, namely:
Modeline "400x254_54.71" 6.45 400 392 424 448 254 255 258 263 -HSync +Vsync
and
Modeline "400x254_54.71" 6.93 400 384 424 464 254 255 258 273 -HSync +Vsync

but both resulted in the test screen getting squished into diagonal lines.  (Can the 392 and 384 numbers being lower than 400 be correct?  Even raising them up to 408 didn't help, though.)

It's funny, because the 400x256 @ 57 modeline (8.18 400 416 456 520 256 257 260 276 -HSync -Vsync) works fine, which doesn't seem like it's very far from the resolution I'm trying to do for Rampage WT (400x254 @ 54.7) but I guess I'm missing something important about why they're not similar.

[buttersoft]

Those numbers have to increase as they go along, they're sequential timing. So that's a huge issue right there. Was this out of that modeline calculator i linked to? IF so, my apologies, i just grabbed it from google, but if it's generating impossible modelines it's a PoS. Or was it from VMM? If you're on windows 7 or windows 10 using crt_emudriver 2.0 and GM 0.184 or newer, have you tried simply adding the 400x254@54.71 modeline manually in VMM? Or even 2560x254@54.71 if you're using super resolutions like you should be. Or does one of those already exist?

If not the above, I'd suggest posting on the GM subforum. Describe your system and setup, and add a log file of you running MK. There are explanations for how to create a log file in Calamity's signature on any of his posts - just remember that you have to type the commandline into a dos window, you can't use a shortcut or it doesn't create the log.

[thewumpus]

I finally got a mode working in Arcade_OSD (8.18 400 416 456 520 254 262 265 288 -hsync -vsync), but still not working in MAME.  Will try the other forum, thanks!