Is my ArcadeVGA dying?

[Osirus23]

I turned on my cocktail cab for the first time in several months, and when it loaded into a game there were graphics errors on the side of the screen:



When I exited to the Windows XP desktop there were some color errors near the bottom of the screen, and eventually Windows crashed with BSOD (first time ever on this machine).

Shut down, took the card out, reseated, etc. Still happened. I connected a regular LCD monitor to the DVI port of the ArcadeVGA and got the same results:



Card is from early 2011 and this cabinet has seen very little use in its lifetime. Rarely ever used more than an hour at a time.

[Osirus23]

Bump since I was reminded.

[Arroyo]

Drop the card and buy an AMD and install GroovyMame.   I think you’d be very happy with the results, I’ve been blown away.

[Osirus23]

Drop the card and buy an AMD and install GroovyMame.   I think you’d be very happy with the results, I’ve been blown away.

I've been using the AVGAs for years. Will that setup allow for an only 15kHz output?

[Arroyo]

Will that setup allow for an only 15kHz output?

Not only that but you can output any frequency (24khz, 31khz, etc).  The main value of going this route is that you get native resolutions of any game and native refresh rates, so that game speed is accurate (Arcade VGA has a limited set of resolutions and refresh rates).  You have a lot of freedom of positioning the screen as well (mostly horizontally).  There is of course familiarizing yourself with the software and getting it setup but there are tutorials and once you get it, it's really not hard.  There's great support on the sub-forum with the creator of the drivers checking in regularly.  I'm happy to help get you setup as well. 

The only other consideration is that the Arcade VGA prevents any signal higher than 15khz from being outputted to your screen.  I'll assume your screen is 15khz only.  The modified drivers that control an AMD card kick in once Windows launches.  Prior to that most computers from Bios (prior to Windows taking over), will want to output a 31khz signal.  Significant exposure to a 31khz signal for a 15khz tube is not desirable.  To get around this, you can:

1.) Wait to turn on your monitor until your computer boots into Windows (only an issue when booting up the computer).
2.) Install modified firmware on the AMD card to force it to send a 15khz signal at boot up like the Arcade VGA does.

There is support for modifying the firmware of the AMD cards, it's through a utility called Atom-15.

Hopefully this makes sense, but let me know if I can clarify further or help in another way.

[Osirus23]

Thanks, having a constant 15 kHz signal, in BIOS included, is definitely something I want.

I thought the onboard GPU on this cab's motherboard was AMD but it turns out its a NVIDIA GeForce 7025.

[Arroyo]

While onboard APU’s will work with driver modification there is less confidence in bios firmware mods (Atom-15).  If you want to try GroovyMame my suggestion would be to get a discrete graphics card.  There is more support for bios modifications and you can get really powerful cards (although not really necessary most of the time).  In fact to just try this out you can get a really cheap card to play with to see how you like it.  As it’s a low resolution output the card doesn’t need to be that fast.  If you want recommendations let me know.

Also you get to dictate the signal being put out by defining your monitors frequency range.  So you can limit the output if any game in Windows to 15khz by telling GroovyMame that’s all your monitor can handle.  Like I said it’s not difficult once you get into it.

[Osirus23]

Would this be a good card for GroovyMame? I would want to modify the firmware so I get 15kHz on BIOS/Startup as well.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CN1F1ZM/?coliid=I1NVOYENVJDBI9&colid=182KKQ2RY2PJX&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

[MKFan4Life]

I turned on my cocktail cab for the first time in several months, and when it loaded into a game there were graphics errors on the side of the screen:



When I exited to the Windows XP desktop there were some color errors near the bottom of the screen, and eventually Windows crashed with BSOD (first time ever on this machine).

Shut down, took the card out, reseated, etc. Still happened. I connected a regular LCD monitor to the DVI port of the ArcadeVGA and got the same results:



Card is from early 2011 and this cabinet has seen very little use in its lifetime. Rarely ever used more than an hour at a time.

LOL! Had a huge reply to this and the forum logged me out... oh well.

Anyways, it kind of looks like interference from an appliance or electric motor running. Did you move the game to another room/outlet/circuit?

Try:
- Plugging into another outlet from another circuit (ran off different breaker), by relocating/using an extension cord.
- Plugging in another working PC to see if anomaly appears on it, too.
- Turn off any large appliances (especially recently bought units), or watch when AC/Electric Furnace cycles On/Off to see if it goes away.
- Think if the wife/family member might have been using a mixer/blender/hair dryer on the same circuit when you noticed this problem.

It looks like interference to me, from possibly an electric motor running.

These are just ideas... might be just grasping at straws though.

Good luck.

[Zebidee]

I'd look at reseating your video card, rather than throwing it out. Maybe trying out a new power supply too, before launching into groovymame. No matter the promises of easy installs, there is a big learning curve.

Don't forget that you can also install CRT_emudriver onto an ArcadeVGA card (if it is still OK) and get the best of both worlds!

Worth noting here that you are using XP, and CRT_emudriver hasn't been supporting XP for a few years. You would need to use the old 1.2 driver. It works well enough, very well (I'm using it), although obviously you would be missing out on a few years worth of cool developments that only work on Win7/10 or linux.

To make things more complicated, if you are using XP 32-bit then I'm pretty sure the latest MAME/Groovymame won't work on your system because since around 0.182 MAME insists on you having some 3D video driver capability that just wasn't made available for older OS's. It will simply refuse to run. Not sure if same applies to all XP64 systems.

I'm running XP64 with an old ATI X300/X550/X1050 64mb card and it definitely won't run the standard latest MAME/Groovymame - I had to download the source, patch it and compile it myself to stop MAME from checking up on my ---smurfy--- video card!

Fortunately you probably don't have to compile Groovymame yourself (like I did) because Haynor666 is already on top of it and has been busy pumping builds out: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,154799.0.html

[Osirus23]

Missed the replies, thanks for the inputs guys.

I ordered the AMD card but haven't done anything with it. There wasn't anything new that brought this issue on, and the last time I tested it it would crash entirely now after being on for a few minutes. I might check out the PSU as well.

[Osirus23]

Update:

It's definitely the card. I pulled the card and used the onboard GPU, there were no problems. Then put the ArcadeVGA in another PC, and it had the same screen glitches as before.

Is there any correcting this? Could it be a corrupted BIOS, and if so, is the ArcadeVGA BIOS available for flashing with ATIFlash? Or is it definitely hardware? I'm not against GroovyMAME and CRT Emudriver, but since I have the ArcadeVGA and a cabinet with MAME all setup to use it I would like to just keep using it for this cabinet if at all possible.

The ArcadeVGA is an RV630 512MB card.

[buttersoft]

The AVGA BIOS is definitely proprietary. That said, contact Andy at Ultimarc and see if he can help on that front.

TBH it sounds more like a vRAM error or something though, and the card is dying.

[Osirus23]

Yeah guess I'll stick a fork in it.