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Author Topic: Radeon x300 card: Win 7 or Win XP for CRT Emudriver?  (Read 5401 times)

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Zebidee

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Radeon x300 card: Win 7 or Win XP for CRT Emudriver?
« on: August 12, 2018, 03:38:47 am »
Hi all

I want to set up some games machines using CRT_Emudriver (to output to arcade monitor/RGB TV).

I have bought a couple of 2nd hand HP 6000 PCs (old sff desktops, Core2Duo, 2GB RAM) running Win 7, and a two spare Radeon X300 PCIe cards that suit.

My big question is: Will CRT_Emudriver support the Radeon X300 in Win 7? The X300 is a pretty old card. Scouring the doumentation I find the X300 is listed as supported for Win XP using the older CRT_Emudriver 1.2b, but does that mean the X300 is supported for Win 7 with the old driver? Or should I just go with the newer CRT_Emudriver?

http://geedorah.com/eiusdemmodi/forum/viewtopic.php?id=65

The documentation states that " Radeon HD 2xxx, HD 3xxx and Radeon HD 4xxx families" are supported for Win7(x64), but I'm not sure if that means *in addition to* those cards listed as supported for XP, or *instead of*.

If the X300 isn't supported for Win7, do I need to downgrade to Win XP?

Sorry for my confusion about this, and if this has been answered somewhere else already.
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Calamity

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Re: Radeon x300 card: Win 7 or Win XP for CRT Emudriver?
« Reply #1 on: August 12, 2018, 04:02:05 am »
The x300 is only supported by CRT Emudriver for Windows XP. So if you want to use those cards your only option is to install XP.
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Zebidee

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Re: Radeon x300 card: Win 7 or Win XP for CRT Emudriver?
« Reply #2 on: August 12, 2018, 04:25:16 am »
The x300 is only supported by CRT Emudriver for Windows XP. So if you want to use those cards your only option is to install XP.

Thanks Calamity, and also thanks for your quick response. Looks like I'll just have to blow away this Win 7 install it came with and put XP on instead. Luckily there is nothing to lose as it is a fresh (if old) PC.

I've got a good USB install of XP SP3 somewhere, just have to find it...  :dizzy:


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Re: Radeon x300 card: Win 7 or Win XP for CRT Emudriver?
« Reply #3 on: August 12, 2018, 04:56:50 am »
I've got a good USB install of XP SP3 somewhere, just have to find it...  :dizzy:

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Zebidee

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Re: Radeon x300 card: Win 7 or Win XP for CRT Emudriver?
« Reply #4 on: August 12, 2018, 11:33:35 am »
Eureka! Found gold - that USB install XP SP3, AND an old 40GB hard drive with XP on it already, AND a 20GB HD with XP on it (and powerstrip software previously installed), AND an old Sapphire Radeon PCIe card (9550 256mb I think), AND an old ArcadeVGA PCie card.

Got to be to make something useful out of that.

I've actually got a lot of old video cards here, many moddable Radeons, but mostly AGP slot ones unfortunately. Including 3 ArcadeVGA AGP cards! I even have 3 very old S3 PCI cards. Not sure where you would even find drivers for the S3s, and you'd probably have to run it under DOS or maybe Linux I guess.

What I really lack is AGP slot PCs/MBs to run these old-gold cards with.
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krick

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Re: Radeon x300 card: Win 7 or Win XP for CRT Emudriver?
« Reply #5 on: August 12, 2018, 02:07:02 pm »
You really want to be using the 64-bit version of Windows XP.  MAME performs a LOT better.

If you go that route, I highly recommend creating a custom XP install CD with SP2 slipstreamed in as well as 5eraph's latest post-SP2 Update Pack for Windows XP Professional x64 Edition...
https://ryanvm.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=6400

You might even want to slipstream in drivers for whatever hardware you have that isn't natively supported by XP (usually LAN and audio drivers).  It makes it much faster if you ever decide you want to blow everything away and re-install.
« Last Edit: August 12, 2018, 02:10:02 pm by krick »
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Zebidee

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Re: Radeon x300 card: Win 7 or Win XP for CRT Emudriver?
« Reply #6 on: August 12, 2018, 08:39:57 pm »
Krick, thanks. I was asking myself why XP SP2 and not SP3? Until I had a bit of a look around ... and realised that Service Pack 3 is not available for Windows XP x64 Edition.

I never realised that before, having jumped from XP SP3 x32 -> Windows 10 many years ago. Given that, yes, looks like 5eraph's XP PRO x64 SP2 update pack is the way to go
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Zebidee

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Re: Radeon x300 card: Win 7 or Win XP for CRT Emudriver?
« Reply #7 on: August 16, 2018, 11:05:24 am »
After much hassle, I got a dual-boot Win764/XP64 install working on my HP 6000 Core2duo desktop. This took me lots of time fragging around.

If you were a super-intelligent alien visiting earth for the first time right now, you would think that XP64 seems to exist in this weird parallel dimensional time-space bubble between XP and Win7. Or at least that is how I feel when trying to get drivers online.

Most of my hassle was getting the right SATA driver from HP, and loaded onto the XP ISO with nLite, then transferred onto an easy2boot USB (and even trusting easy2boot was another hurdle). Another hassle was that none of the HP graphics drivers downloadable from HP seemed to work. Then I downloaded these directly from Intel and that was OK. Then I almost bricked my PC using EasyBCD, trying to make the PC dual-boot (I fragged my Master Boot Record, but I managed to recover and get past that, which is why I'm here).

Despite these trials and tribulations, I'm still having mysterious driver hassles ("?" "PCI serial" keeps coming up with ? mark in "Device Manager"), although I've had no problems with the PCIe video card or video in general since installing appropriate drivers. I've tried ire-installing HP drivers many times but these "???" in device manager persist.

I don't get these "?" in device manager when I boot into Win7

OMG, I would love to have an XP64sp2-HII "hardware independent install" complied and at hand, easily available, that would be the best

Hoping to have less hassles next time I do this, esp after researching lots esp. at https://ryanvm.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=9

After all that, it was much less hassle getting CRT_emulator to work well under the XP64 install. Initially I thought all I'd have to do was to hook my custom VGA-SCART cable up to my testing CGA monitor (Sony Trinitron KX-20PS1 with SCART input), but it just got more complicated again.

You see,  made my VGA-SCART cable like 8-10 years ago It needed both 5v (reduced to ~ 2.5-3v by simple voltage divider) for RGB blanking and 12v for auto-selecting AV mode, which you could provide via MOLEX conector from your PC. Neat and easy.

The next problem was... these HP PCs I'm working with had a special power supply with no standard MOLEX outputs, it wasn't even ATX standard. All it had was some weird MB 4-6 pin connectors and SATA power cable connectors, with just one SATA to spare.

So I kissed my warranty goodbye and cut off the single spare female SATA connector/head from my power supply, and soldered appropriate wires onto a female MOLEX connector (salvaged from an old, dead power supply), then plugged the male (<sic> power) bits of my VGA-SCART cable into that.

All looks great on my Sony now :D
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krick

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Re: Radeon x300 card: Win 7 or Win XP for CRT Emudriver?
« Reply #8 on: August 16, 2018, 12:55:27 pm »
Despite these trials and tribulations, I'm still having mysterious driver hassles ("?" "PCI serial" keeps coming up with ? mark in "Device Manager"), although I've had no problems with the PCIe video card or video in general since installing appropriate drivers. I've tried ire-installing HP drivers many times but these "???" in device manager persist.

Usually, I fix these kind of errors by installing the appropriate Intel chipset drivers but occasionally, they can only be resolved with a driver from the motherboard manufacturer.

If the issue is related to SATA, it might have something to do with the SATA AHCI/Legacy settings in the BIOS at the time of install.
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Zebidee

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Re: Radeon x300 card: Win 7 or Win XP for CRT Emudriver?
« Reply #9 on: August 16, 2018, 08:29:55 pm »
Usually, I fix these kind of errors by installing the appropriate Intel chipset drivers but occasionally, they can only be resolved with a driver from the motherboard manufacturer.

If the issue is related to SATA, it might have something to do with the SATA AHCI/Legacy settings in the BIOS at the time of install.

Yes, for example I've had to use a generic graphics driver from Intel as the "correct" drivers provided by HP won't work (complains my PC isn't the right spec). This particular PC model (HP Compaq 6000) has variants and can come with different OSes, including XP64. When selecting/installing drivers I strongly felt that XP64 is kind of in a no-mans land between 32 bit OSes and the Win7+ 64 bit OSes. The 32 bit XP drivers won't work on it, the Win7+ drivers won't work, only the drivers specifically for XP64 will work. Yet even then sometimes a driver seems right according to the documentation but just doesn't work (eg the graphics drivers above, but that wasn't the only driver that had issues).

So, in summary, I don't know what I'm missing. Yet at the same time everything seems to be working as it should, so for now I'm going to ignore the yellow "? PCI serial" when I open up Device Manager (seems to be nothing wrong with my PCIe X300 video card, whether in or out, and PCIe device drivers are there under "system"). ATI Catalyst 9.3 and EMU_driver installed no hassles. Seems like something to do with chipset or maybe network drivers, I really don't know   :dunno

The SATA driver thing is a common problem when installing any version of XP onto a PC that only has SATA drives, as the standard install disks don't include any generic SATA drivers! Therefore XP won't be able to install on a SATA drive. So you have to go and find that driver for yourself (dload from HP) and either "slipstream" it into your ISO of the install disks, using a tool like "nLite", OR you have to put the driver onto a floppy disk (yes, a 3.5" floppy), press F6 at just the right time during install, and then put the floppy in! How delightfully arcane and archaic at the same time.

Of course, my PC doesn't have a floppy drive, nor does it even have a power connector for one. So I slipstreamed the driver in with nLite.

Next time I'm going to create a beautiful XP64 install disk, combining my ISO with SP2 and 5eraph's slipstream pack before I even go near the PC.
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krick

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Re: Radeon x300 card: Win 7 or Win XP for CRT Emudriver?
« Reply #10 on: August 17, 2018, 01:31:35 am »
So, in summary, I don't know what I'm missing. Yet at the same time everything seems to be working as it should, so for now I'm going to ignore the yellow "? PCI serial" when I open up Device Manager (seems to be nothing wrong with my PCIe X300 video card, whether in or out, and PCIe device drivers are there under "system"). ATI Catalyst 9.3 and EMU_driver installed no hassles. Seems like something to do with chipset or maybe network drivers, I really don't know   :dunno

Depending on how old the PC is, the unknown item might be the Intel Management Engine or whatever they're calling it these days.  It's especially common on PCs aimed at business users...  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine

I had that on a motherboard once and it drove me nuts trying to figure out what it was and why there was no driver on XP64

If that's the case, you don't want that driver installed anyway.

Next time I'm going to create a beautiful XP64 install disk, combining my ISO with SP2 and 5eraph's slipstream pack before I even go near the PC.

Exactly.  I have a mint XP64 SP1 CD that I used to use as the base to build my custom slipstreamed install disks (SP2 + 5eraph + drivers).

This was back in the day when I had an ATI Radeon X600 XT and CRT Emudriver / GroovyMAME didn't work so well with Windows 7.

These days, a Radeon HD 5000+ and Windows 7 is the hot ticket and I'm never going back.
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Zebidee

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Re: Radeon x300 card: Win 7 or Win XP for CRT Emudriver?
« Reply #11 on: August 17, 2018, 04:16:29 am »
These days, a Radeon HD 5000+ and Windows 7 is the hot ticket and I'm never going back.

Well, many video cards these days seem to cost more than these 2 HP 6000 core2Duos I bought for gaming (I got them delivered for about US$130 each) , and I can recycle my x300 cards with them. The X300 cards are short-form, don't draw much extra power and are fanless which is also another plus. Now that I've gotten experience with installing XP64 on it it will be much less painful next time.

But I know you want photos! So here is my workspace (much neater than usual!) with XP64 desktop showing on my Sony Profeel monitor:

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Zebidee

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Re: Radeon x300 card: Win 7 or Win XP for CRT Emudriver?
« Reply #12 on: August 17, 2018, 04:21:49 am »
Here is my VGA-SCART cable with MOLEX inputs for 5v and 12v, and how it neatly attaches at the back (I left the old SATA header there, so you can tell where I got my power from :D). Finally, a pic of Wonder Boy running in 256x240 on the Sony (the clipped top corners is just the monitor bezel occluding the image, as I was standing/too high when I took the photo):

« Last Edit: August 17, 2018, 04:23:38 am by Zebidee »
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Zebidee

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Re: Radeon x300 card: Win 7 or Win XP for CRT Emudriver?
« Reply #13 on: August 17, 2018, 04:32:56 am »
Depending on how old the PC is, the unknown item might be the Intel Management Engine or whatever they're calling it these days.  It's especially common on PCs aimed at business users...  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine

I had that on a motherboard once and it drove me nuts trying to figure out what it was and why there was no driver on XP64

If that's the case, you don't want that driver installed anyway.

That's a pretty good theory krick - I do recall something about Management Engine on one of the driver installs, maybe it didn't work correctly. Anyway, worth a look later (but as you say, probably better off without it).

Here is a screenshot of the errors I see in Device Manager:




« Last Edit: August 17, 2018, 04:34:40 am by Zebidee »
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Paradroid

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Re: Radeon x300 card: Win 7 or Win XP for CRT Emudriver?
« Reply #14 on: August 17, 2018, 05:51:17 am »
Depending on how old the PC is, the unknown item might be the Intel Management Engine or whatever they're calling it these days.

That's a pretty good theory krick

I'd back that theory too.

Z, nice setup! The Profeel looks rad! Found one of them on the street back in the day... I should have kept it.

I have the same HPs in some of my cabs. I ordered some old E8600s off eBay ($20 a pop from Korea) to get the fastest Core2 Duo setups I could. They're all working well for me.

I lashed out and bought HD 5450s... since I paid $0 for the computers (a friend runs the e-waste department at the local univeristy). XP64 was great but, man, you gotta work for it! W7/10 are so much easier in terms of basic drivers and installation.

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Zebidee

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Re: Radeon x300 card: Win 7 or Win XP for CRT Emudriver?
« Reply #15 on: August 17, 2018, 06:09:23 am »
Z, nice setup! The Profeel looks rad! Found one of them on the street back in the day... I should have kept it.

Thanks! One thing I've learned about games system development (yes, I am a Games Systems Developer, sounds better than MAME cabber) is that having a clean workspace and keeping your tools/parts organised and accessible is essential.

Mind you, if I'd panned that camera around so that you could see my desk, you wouldn't believe that about me :D

Quote
I have the same HPs in some of my cabs. I ordered some old E8600s off eBay ($20 a pop from Korea) to get the fastest Core2 Duo setups I could. They're all working well for me.

Nice score!

Quote
XP64 was great but, man, you gotta work for it!

All true, but most of the hard work is behind me.  Now I'm wondering how I can get my hands on some more cheap PCs like you got, maybe even some old socket 478s that have AGP ports in them (to soak up all my old AGP graphics cards).
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Zebidee

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Re: Radeon x300 card: Win 7 or Win XP for CRT Emudriver?
« Reply #16 on: August 17, 2018, 07:06:09 am »
Quote
"Here is my VGA-SCART cable with MOLEX inputs for 5v and 12v, and how it neatly attaches at the back (I left the old SATA header there, so you can tell where I got my power from :D). Finally, a pic of Wonder Boy running in 256x240 on the Sony (the clipped top corners is just the monitor bezel occluding the image as I was standing/too high when I took the photo)"

I was wrong, on having a closer look the corner clipping is actually some pretty serious overscan. Wow, quite a bit but nevermind, I'm not using the Sony Profeel in an arcade cab anytime soon.
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Zebidee

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Re: Radeon x300 card: Win 7 or Win XP for CRT Emudriver?
« Reply #17 on: August 29, 2018, 06:55:56 am »
Thought I'd update where I got to with this.
.
I re-rolled my XP64sp2 ISO/USB with HP SATA drivers included, got my next machine up easily.

Then had problems with VMM crashing while generating modelines from Mame_0200 by .xml. VMM would crash after cropping redundant modes. This happened with both plainmame and groovymame, even when I compiled it myself or downloaded the xml file separately. It even happened when I recompiled mame with a workaround for the "non-power-of-two textures" issue with Mame from 0.180 or so (see below).  I re-tested with GM 0.179 and all was fine. I guess I should get/generate a log file for Calamity to look at. (Looked: there's a log but nothing recorded in it! Pic below of where VMM got to before crashing)

As noted above, Mame_0200 and GM_0200 would not work on my XP64 as the Radeon X1050 64MB graphics card (this is what it calls itself in dxdiag now) is apparently too dumb for the vision of modern Mame that the Mamedevs have. So I had to re-compile Groovymame from source with an old-d3d-workaround patch applied. I also rolled the ARCADE32/MAMEUIFX mods/hacks/fixes in as well as they look pretty good (Thanks Haynor666!):
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,154799.0.html

Everything worked fine after that (except the xml parsing for video modes bit) :P

Then I had some fun with using VMM to create video modes. It is very confusing at first, but once you get your head around it it is really very easy. The trick is to get a good set of basic video modes for your favourite games/systems (Calamity provides some to start you off) and get your monitor profiles right. Then just let VMM do the hard work of creating your remaining modes, and you can tweak them later with Arcade OSD. Then re-save/re-load your modes and have another go if you like.

Getting a monitor profile right for my Sony Profeel was not easy. Like a TV, it has vertical freq ranges based around 50hz and 60hz. So you need a monitor profile with 2 sets of specs, and for them both to play nicely together. #tip: 50hz accommodates more vertical lines up to 288 progressive (288p), but 60hz is mostly limited to 240p (maybe 248p). So 50hz goes first, put your 60hz spec line second, and just make sure the 60hz spec specifies less vertical lines that the 50hz spec.

monitor "Sony", "Sony Profeel", "4:3"
   crt_range0 14500-16150, 49.00-51.50, 1.000, 4.700, 9.000, 0.064, 0.192, 1.024, 0, 0, 192, 288, 448, 512
   crt_range1 14500-16150, 59.00-65.00, 2.000, 4.700, 9.000, 0.064, 0.192, 1.024, 0, 0, 208, 248, 448, 480

Getting the 2 spec lines right is important because otherwise VMM will make "junk" modes in the 52-58hz range, which the Sony can't do. But GM will think they are cool and give a game like "Flying Shark" a 55hz video mode and you'll end up with a blank screen, which would be very uncool. If you don't get the monitor spec lines right then you'll have to weed out the junk modes every time you generate a new set with VMM.

Once you get the monitor specs right, including porch settings to suit your gear, VMM generates mode to fit and does most of the work for you.

Turns out the Sony Profeel can handle some very low horizontal frequencies. I had her generating 288p modelines as low as 14.5khz/49hz! This girl sure can go low, but she tops out close to 16.2khz so I set the upper limit at 16.15khz.

I had some problems with choppy sound on Galaga/1942 once I got GM working. So I installed latest HD Realtek audio drivers. Still had problems. Then I went through mame.ini turned off all the main sync/refresh options except autosync (on the reasoning that GM takes over sync anyway). Set "frameskip 1". Everything was good (for a while).

Seeing Galaga play properly for the first time with Groovymame was a revelation! Amazing! Can't describe it, wow  :o

Unfortunately, now I have choppy sound problems with Flying Shark, because it's natural video mode's refresh rate is nearly 55hz, which my Sony can't do. Originally I thought I'd gotten around the issue by setting "autoframeskip 1" and "frameskip 0", then Flying Shark was smooth again. But since then I've re-installed video modes and Flying Shark has choppy sound again. Hmmmmmm........

I think I might know the answer. fshark wants 320x240@54.XX (I can't remember exactly), and GM tries to run it in 320x240@60hz and fudge that down to 54.XX. I guess it is too much for my core2duo E7500 2GB RAM and it slows down. Reason why it didn't slow down so much previously, before I installed modes again, was that 320x240 was set @51.5hz, much closer to the target refresh rate. So I may need to make sure I tweak the mode list to accommodate this kind of thing.

I'd be interested to know more about how GM/switchres prioritises video mode choice when launching game. What is more important, geometry or vertical sync?

Anyway, I've still got a lot of tweaking to do, but hopefully the hardest parts are now over (phew!). Ultimately this first XP64 PC will go into a vertical cab with a Loewe 26" TV. That Loewe has it's own story.

Cheers, Zeb.
« Last Edit: August 29, 2018, 07:01:53 am by Zebidee »
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Calamity

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Re: Radeon x300 card: Win 7 or Win XP for CRT Emudriver?
« Reply #18 on: August 29, 2018, 07:48:10 am »
Hi Zebidee,

The frameskip options must absolutely be disabled. Basically, get my GM package, leave all the default options except, obviously, the rom paths and your custom monitor related options ("monitor custom" and your crt_range lines).

That should fix all sound issues, making the games accelerate or slow down according to the conditions imposed by your crt_range lines.

Any remaining sound issues would be actually slow-CPU issues, which are unlikely anyway with the games you mention.

Remind that pics are nice but logs are what matter.
Important note: posts reporting GM issues without a log will be IGNORED.
Steps to create a log:
 - From command line, run: groovymame.exe -v romname >romname.txt
 - Attach resulting romname.txt file to your post, instead of pasting it.

CRT Emudriver, VMMaker & Arcade OSD downloads, documentation and discussion:  Eiusdemmodi

Zebidee

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Re: Radeon x300 card: Win 7 or Win XP for CRT Emudriver?
« Reply #19 on: August 29, 2018, 10:25:43 am »
The frameskip options must absolutely be disabled. Basically, get my GM package, leave all the default options except, obviously, the rom paths and your custom monitor related options ("monitor custom" and your crt_range lines).

Ah OK, just that I've read a lot about people reducing video lag by imposing either frameskip=1 or autoframeskip=1. But it is hard to keep up with what the best advice is for the latest versions.

I had to change default options in mame.ini to get galaga/1942 working right, particularly sync-related. All I've been thinking about is mame.ini settings and modelines, but now I'm wondering if it is more about my custom CRT monitor range lines because I may have changed them as well.

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That should fix all sound issues, making the games accelerate or slow down according to the conditions imposed by your crt_range lines.

I seem to have almost accidentally solved the fshark sound issues by removing an unnecessary 320x242@60 mode that I didn't really need and incidentally tweaking the monitor range lines slightly (moved lower limit from 14500 to 14600 to leave some wiggle room)  :woot

I think the latter may have solved my issues because when I launched fshark, GM seems to have recalculated the 320x240@60 mode's timings for fshark with that new minimum (14.6khz).

I then also removed any autoframeskip/frameskip settings (back to 0) and fshark was still fine (per Calamity's suggestion).

So this was yet another lesson in the importance of getting those CRT monitor specs right for Groovymame  :afro:

Before and after logs attached. Note the slight change in monitor specs and modelines generated by GM.

BTW, while I was generating those logs, GroovyMame inexplicably crashed twice  ??? Then I tried launching GM without requesting logs and it was fine. Tried again generating logs, all was still fine. Never seen this behaviour before. I attached a screenshot.

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Any remaining sound issues would be actually slow-CPU issues, which are unlikely anyway with the games you mention.

Yes, well sound issues seem to have gone with getting monitor specs right. Quite amazing how much difference 0.1khz can make.

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Remind that pics are nice but logs are what matter.

Very true, I should know better. Last post I didn't even realise I was asking for help (was more of a status report) about the sound issues until I'd nearly finished the post, but decided to post anyway (rather than risk lose the typing, which had already happened once with that post) and went off to get them, but you got here first ;D.

VMM doesn't produce any log output for it's crash when generating modes from xml, I attached the pic instead.

MAGIC

Finally, I wanted to ask about "magic" resolutions. I can get VMM to create some by selecting magic under both user and mame tabs, but then it wipes out any other modes I've added or created previously. If I add magic res from a file, VMM will also wipe away any other modeslines I've added. If I install them, all I get is magic modes (not desktop modes or anything, just "1234"). The only way I have found to get both "muggle" and "magic" modes at the same time is to export the magic modes to a file, cut/paste from that file to another file with your muggle modes, and then save your single file of muggle+magic modes. Now you can import your muggle+magic modes from a single file and install them with VMM.

Am I doing it right? Should I just be kissing the muggle modes away and embracing the magic only? Is Groovymame already using the magic modes but I just don't see it? What about desktop and other resolutions for games/systems that aren't mame? Am I being a total noob? I feel like magic resolutions should be easy and like everyone's been dealing with these issues for years... oh, you have :D

I've also attached my combined muggle+magic modelist.

Thanks for all of it, Zeb
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Calamity

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Re: Radeon x300 card: Win 7 or Win XP for CRT Emudriver?
« Reply #20 on: August 29, 2018, 12:37:43 pm »
Ok the first thing you need to do is use the -orientation option of GM. Instead of messing with the -ror option, leave all default rotation options and set "orientation rotate_r" in mame.ini. If that makes the picture upside down, use "orientation rotate_l" instead.

Then, from GM's ui make sure that the orientation is the default. If you have previously rotated the screen from the ui, this setting gets saved and it will create a conflict with GM's settings. In case of doubt, delete all .cfg files from the cfg folder.

Then try again.

The modification you did to the crt_range's Hfreq limit didn't change anything relevant based on your logs (before and after are virtually identical apart from the slightly different modeline). So I'd say the sound issues might have been caused by the unnecessary chained mode switching due to the incorrect orientation settings.

With regards to your crt ranges, setting Hfreq lower than necessary is worthless, you won't get more resolution or anything and the HOT might suffer more stress than required. It's better to leave the lower limit at a safe 15.7 kHz value.

Finally, magic resolutions are still an option if you're using XP. This was the recommended setting back in 2011, and is still supported, although maybe not forever. In VMMaker, you can select different methods for both the user modes tab and MAME's tab, so nothing stops you from using "static" in the one tab (muggle by your terminology  :D) and "magic" in the other tab (MAME). That's the idea behind having two tabs.

And of course you can also export the mixed modelines to an external txt and feed VMMaker with it. But if I remind right, magic resolutions would be broken that way because the 1234 label would be promoted to 1240 to make it a multiple of 8. I can't remember actually because it's been several years since I last used magic resolutions.


PD: Enjoy the learning process, but I bet you'll end up getting a modern Radeon and using 7 or 10.
Important note: posts reporting GM issues without a log will be IGNORED.
Steps to create a log:
 - From command line, run: groovymame.exe -v romname >romname.txt
 - Attach resulting romname.txt file to your post, instead of pasting it.

CRT Emudriver, VMMaker & Arcade OSD downloads, documentation and discussion:  Eiusdemmodi

Zebidee

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Re: Radeon x300 card: Win 7 or Win XP for CRT Emudriver?
« Reply #21 on: August 29, 2018, 05:17:50 pm »
Ok the first thing you need to do is use the -orientation option of GM.

OK, yes, thank you!!!!! This really is the key thing. I was always go into do this when I put the PC in a cab. I can see that it makes sense to just do it now as otherwise it upsets the mode selection process, and I can still keep the desktop horizontal until I'm ready.

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Then try again.

Yes that definitely helps to minimise the mode-switching, choppy sound and presumably random crashing.

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With regards to your crt ranges, setting Hfreq lower than necessary is worthless, you won't get more resolution or anything and the HOT might suffer more stress than required. It's better to leave the lower limit at a safe 15.7 kHz value.


Agreed! Testing fun-time is over, I've reset the lower limit to 15625.

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Finally, magic resolutions are still an option if you're using XP. This was the recommended setting back in 2011, and is still supported, although maybe not forever. In VMMaker, you can select different methods for both the user modes tab and MAME's tab, so nothing stops you from using "static" in the one tab (muggle by your terminology  :D) and "magic" in the other tab (MAME). That's the idea behind having two tabs.
Unfortunately that doesn't work. The only way I get any "magic" resolutions is to set both to magic, and then  all I get is magic resolutions, nothing else. I tried all combos again after adjusting the screen rotation settings like you suggested, but still the same.

xml mode generation still crashes with mame/groovymame0200 too.

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And of course you can also export the mixed modelines to an external txt and feed VMMaker with it. But if I remind right, magic resolutions would be broken that way because the 1234 label would be promoted to 1240 to make it a multiple of 8. I can't remember actually because it's been several years since I last used magic resolutions.

Actually, when I did do that the 1234 "magic" modes did seem to be installed on the driver. They weren't renamed to 1240 or anything like that. I could even "import" them from the driver after installing/rebooting, along with the other "normal" video modes, using VMM. But coudn't access them with AOCD The only thing is I'm not sure how you tell if the magic resolutions are actually in use or not, especially when you already have a fair number of normal ones in use.

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PD: Enjoy the learning process, but I bet you'll end up getting a modern Radeon and using 7 or 10.

Haha, I bet I do too! Will surely get a PC with better specs for my vertical cab eventually, it seems that shmups and mame can be so demanding these days. These 2 PCs I'm working on here have Win7 dual-boot on them now too, so when the time is right upgrading will be easy. I just need newer video cards.

Thanks again Calamity! Love your work  :applaud:  :notworthy:
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Calamity

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Re: Radeon x300 card: Win 7 or Win XP for CRT Emudriver?
« Reply #22 on: August 29, 2018, 06:03:01 pm »
Quote
xml mode generation still crashes with mame/groovymame0200 too.

Try with an xml from an older version. The static & magic combination used to work for sure.
Important note: posts reporting GM issues without a log will be IGNORED.
Steps to create a log:
 - From command line, run: groovymame.exe -v romname >romname.txt
 - Attach resulting romname.txt file to your post, instead of pasting it.

CRT Emudriver, VMMaker & Arcade OSD downloads, documentation and discussion:  Eiusdemmodi

Zebidee

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Re: Radeon x300 card: Win 7 or Win XP for CRT Emudriver?
« Reply #23 on: August 29, 2018, 07:53:41 pm »
Quote
xml mode generation still crashes with mame/groovymame0200 too.

Try with an xml from an older version. The static & magic combination used to work for sure.

I think it did work once when I tried VMM/xml with GM 0.179 a few days ago, but not 100% sure. Anyway, I'll give it another go soon. 
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