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Author Topic: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions  (Read 20911 times)

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Neilalphazeta

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Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« on: January 18, 2019, 05:41:41 pm »
EDIT: So as shown in my last message in this thread, I'm actually back on an LCD (due to stupidity of having tried to access the bios on one) and unable to switch back the EDID to go back to 15khz safe resolution to switch back to the crt. The setup still recognizes the ATI HD 6450 and only offers to uninstall or exit. So seemingly I need to do something with the VMMaker but not sure what.



I managed to build a mini itx pc for groovymame, installed windows 7, mame, groovymame, and crt emu drivers, and up till then all went fine, the problem I have now is perhaps from having followed a guide several years old:

http://wavebeam.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-groovycube-diy-console-that-plays.html


I really liked the writers clear and simple explanations but it started to break off around the point of using crt emu driver probably because never versions have changed things and the process seemed a bit more streamlined. So anyway I get to the point where crtemu driver installation worked, I ran the osd to select a proper resolution and then i get an image with geoemtry issues.

So I'm running an HD 6450 and it's recognized as such but after going to the osd and changing it to a 15.7khz for plugging to a crt, I plugged it to a crt and I find the geometry to be off (black bar on the left and overscan so missing bits and pieces top, right and bottom). This is with the 640x480 resolution recommended by the guide. Is there any way to correct this? I'm using a Sony crt silver case style I have two one from the FS100 to the FV300 series. Seems to happen everywhere and at other resolutions as well. I would just tweak the tv's geometry to adjust it but I use these for other consoles too.

Has this ever happened to anyone else?

Another issue I seem to have is groovymame doesn't launch properly unless done through the cmd promt, is this because I followed that guide copying and pasting the groovymame files inside the Mame folder? Also was I correct in using the regular plain groovymame or should I have used the d3d9ex one?

Sorry for so many questions, I'm a complete newbie at this, any help would be greatly appreciated.
« Last Edit: January 22, 2019, 01:08:04 am by Neilalphazeta »

krick

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Re: Questions regarding groovymame on crt
« Reply #1 on: January 18, 2019, 07:43:06 pm »
Make sure you're using the correct version of CRT Emudriver 2.0 from here...
http://geedorah.com/eiusdemmodi/forum/viewtopic.php?id=295

Then follow this guide to set it up...
http://geedorah.com/eiusdemmodi/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=1052#p1052

For Windows 7 you should be using the d3d9ex version of GroovyMAME.  Leave the video setting on "auto".

The GroovyMAME download distribution is a complete MAME package.  Just unzip it and go.  Do not mix it in with standard mame files.
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Neilalphazeta

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Re: Questions regarding groovymame on crt
« Reply #2 on: January 19, 2019, 02:00:05 am »
Thank you Krick. I did use the proper driver it appears. Also emudriver does recognize my card the HD 6450 so that was nice. I don't know why I was following that other guide when there's one by Calamity himself here. I do have a few questions that aren't completely clear to me from reading his guide however:

Calamity mentions he intends to use Super Resolutions, so then why use 640x480 in the first place? At what point does one switch to the super resolutions, and also which is most recommended for consumer crt's (2560x???)?

Lastly I read in various places that consumer crt's use NTSC standards or something like that which explains why the overscan and the image being moved to the right, and that this behavior seems to happen in other threads right here with other consumer Sony tv users. However I couldn't find any single solution for fixing this, anyone with a Sony Trinitron have a solution to the geometrical issues other than tweaking the tv itself? I have it with perfect geometry for all my other consoles so I'd like to find a solution that doesn't require accessing the service menu everytime I intend to power up Groovymame if possible.

krick

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Re: Questions regarding groovymame on crt
« Reply #3 on: January 19, 2019, 06:20:27 am »
640x480 (interlaced) is for the Windows desktop.

Super resolutions are used when calculating new resolutions on the fly when launching games with GroovyMAME.

What type of monitor are you using?  Brand and model number if possible.

Which monitor preset did you choose when installing CRT Emudriver 2.0?
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Neilalphazeta

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Re: Questions regarding groovymame on crt
« Reply #4 on: January 19, 2019, 10:59:12 am »
I selected generic 15khz because I wasn't following Calamity's guide at the time. Right now I'm having difficullties with my vga to component transcoder suddenly so I might have to wait a few days to get back in using some other means but as soon as I do I'll try changing it to arcade 15khz, is there a chance that will center it differently?

The main crt model I am aiming to use it on is a Sony FD Wega KV-20FV300. I only have Sony Wega crt's and the off geometry problem is the same on the others as well, had tested a FV-20FS100 model too.

The image goes off center the exact same way, pushed to the right a couple inches and overscan so I'm missing information on the top, right and bottom, mostly the problem is on the right. I can still see the tabs on the bottom but I can't see tabs on the right of navigational windows for example, and in game the overscan is bearable but image pushed to the right is quite noticeable and bothersome.

I can't find a tutorial that describes the process of changing to super resolutions or at what point to do so. All tutorials I found just recommend using 640x480 15khz and then there's Calamity's guide you linked to above mentioning his intention of later using super resolutions but the guide doesn't seem to carry on to the point where he does change to them.
« Last Edit: January 19, 2019, 11:01:06 am by Neilalphazeta »

krick

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Re: Questions regarding groovymame on crt
« Reply #5 on: January 19, 2019, 01:07:04 pm »
In the tutorial link above, look at step 3...

Quote
STEP 3 - SETTING MAME UP

Now I have an usable 15-kHz display, but I don't have a proper mode list yet which I can use for MAME. Back to VMMaker, and click on Edit Settings.

First I'll go to the User modes tab and browse for the "user_modes - super.ini" file. This is because I want to use "super" resolutions.

Then, in the MAME tab, I'm only going to browse to my GroovyMAME folder, but I won't be listing modes from XML by now. What I'll do is to check "Export settings to GroovyMAME", so future monitor settings will be synchronized with VMMaker.

Finally click Ok to exit from the settings dialog.


Note that super resolutions are only used by GroovyMAME.  If your Windows desktop is off-center using the default 640x480 interlaced resolution, then you have another problem.

I'm not really sure what preset you should pick.   You should update your original post to make it clear exactly what hardware you're using...  i.e.  Sony FD Wega KV-20FV300   with   VGA to component transcoder.

Maybe even change the title of your original post to include "Sony FD Wega KV-20FV300" to attract the attention of other users who might have that same monitor.

Also, try searching the GroovyMAME forum for Sony Wega to see if anyone else has worked through the same issue.
« Last Edit: January 19, 2019, 01:09:48 pm by krick »
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Neilalphazeta

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Re: Questions regarding groovymame on crt
« Reply #6 on: January 19, 2019, 02:34:04 pm »
Thank you Krick for that advice. I'll first do some research on Groovymame to Wega tv's first and then create a thread titled as per your recommendation.

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Re: Questions regarding groovymame on crt
« Reply #7 on: January 19, 2019, 03:40:34 pm »
You probably don't need to create a new thread.  You should be able to edit your original post and change the title.  At least I *think* you can.
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Neilalphazeta

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Re: Questions regarding groovymame on crt
« Reply #8 on: January 19, 2019, 04:07:23 pm »
Thank you. I'll try that out.

Meanwhile doing some research i found some other users having the same problem and the only solution brought up is to tweak the service menu which isn't optimal when other devices are in the equation:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,136980.msg1412699.html#msg1412699
(the user of the before last message has the exact same issue with the image shifted to the right)

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=153342.0
One user has the exact same set as one of the ones I have, and by the looks of it this ended unresolved. :(

When i tried to move the H positoning through Mame itself it just slides the image out of visibility but won't slide into the black border to the left which is about 2 inches long. However just now looking on an LCD I see Mame can adjust the width both H and V so technically this should solve overscan is this correct? Although i guess it would require a per game change. I think mame retains this information doesn't it? Is this the best way to get overscan corrected?
« Last Edit: January 19, 2019, 05:46:09 pm by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Shifted image and overscan with emudrivers on Sony FD Wega KV-20FV300
« Reply #9 on: January 19, 2019, 05:08:06 pm »
I found something interesting in this guide for VMMaker and Arcade OSD:

http://geedorah.com/eiusdemmodi/forum/viewtopic.php?id=46

Here in section 5.2.2 there's talk about the monitor type options, there's "generic" which I used, and then apparently there's NTSC and PAL options. Maybe had I picked NTSC it might have centered it better. Does this setting still exist (this thread is quite dated) in current builds? Maybe it has been removed, from what I remember there's the arcade setting too but it's not shown there so clearly things have changed.

I wish I could get back into the PC to test it but my vga to component transcoder seems to have died on me which sucks, it's the one from ebay Retrotek I believe. Really disappointing product. Was working fine in groovymame, I powered off the pc mid game with the power botton, I come back later on power back and the picture is a mess with three seperate squished images of the windows desktop with distorted colors.

EDIT: Another thing i see mentioned is modeline. Would this be able to move the entire picture or would it work like mame's in software geometrical changes which basically stay within the restricted image space. My guess it the later so it might be useful for dealing with the overscan but not the shifted image I guess.

http://www.geocities.ws/podernixie/htpc/modeline-en.html
« Last Edit: January 19, 2019, 05:17:47 pm by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Shifted image and overscan with emudrivers on Sony FD Wega KV-20FV300
« Reply #10 on: January 19, 2019, 07:12:17 pm »
I have a similar setup, I played with the internal geometry settings of the TV menu to get things good there.  I used the Arcade 15khz (not extended), and used Super resolutions which helps a lot for centering in general. 

Then once good there, I started playing with ArcadeOSD.  I also had an issue with the screen extending beyond to the right.  I used the 640x480 @ 30hz on the Arcade OSD and adjusted the Horizontal Porch up to a 5ch.  That brought the right side of the screen in.  You can play with the porches to adjust some horizontal width and other size settings to fit the screen.  Once done you can “save desktop settings” to have this fix your desktop,  it won’t fix your problems within game because changes you make to ArcadeOSD won’t affect games, it’s just a tool to test your limits.  Once you know the numbers (porches etc) that work for your setup you can either edit the mame.ini with those settings, or you can edit the monitor presets in VMM with a custom version using the Arcade 15 as a basis and editing the porch and other timing numbers then generate the modlines and install them.  Be sure to have “export to mame” checked.  This fixed all of my size setting issues, syncing with lower frequency 55hz games is my current hurdle.

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Re: Shifted image and overscan with emudrivers on Sony FD Wega KV-20FV300
« Reply #11 on: January 20, 2019, 01:34:18 am »
Thank you Arroyo!

I think I'm going to get an Extron. Maybe a cleaner signal will readjust the shifting, otherwise I can just use those knobs to shift it back in place, and then work on the overscan the way you did via ArcadeOSD and the .ini.

So adjusting geometry within mame is not recommended? When I saw it had the ability to adjust h and v width it seemed like an ideal solution but I'm guessing it makes undesirable changes to the way the emulation works?

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Re: Shifted image and overscan with emudrivers on Sony FD Wega KV-20FV300
« Reply #12 on: January 20, 2019, 04:34:44 am »
Why yes of course using V & H sliders in MAME's menu forcefully applies scaling and therefore ruins the purpose of playing at the original resolutions, and that's only one of the issues, I think you'll also see ugly artifacts and maybe you'll break sync too I dunno.

This is why cabs equipped with easily accessible deported basic geometry control pots are the best.

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Re: Shifted image and overscan with emudrivers on Sony FD Wega KV-20FV300
« Reply #13 on: January 20, 2019, 07:44:42 am »
Thank you Arroyo!

I think I'm going to get an Extron. Maybe a cleaner signal will readjust the shifting,

I have the same Retrotek that you do and don’t have those problems.  Are you sure the issue is originating from there? 

How will you incorporate the Extron with the Retrotek, isn’t the Extron just a H Sync and V sync combiner?  I don’t think making adjustments at the level is what you want, but I’ve never played with that.  You should be able to achieve what you want without that.

Quote
So adjusting geometry within mame is not recommended? When I saw it had the ability to adjust h and v width it seemed like an ideal solution but I'm guessing it makes undesirable changes to the way the emulation works?

Calamity has commented on this on other posts, and as stated above you don’t want to do that as it will distort and scale, which kills the point of the resolution switching that GroovyMame does.

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Re: Shifted image and overscan with emudrivers on Sony FD Wega KV-20FV300
« Reply #14 on: January 20, 2019, 10:50:01 am »
Thank you to both of you. So I'll forget about mame in settings geometry options.

Yes I believe the issue is with the Retrotek but I can't be 100% sure. Below is a picture of what I get when booting up Windows now and here's what occurred prior to this happening.

I installed emudrivers and the process was smooth and impeccable (it even recognized my card properly as an HD 6450), I went through VMM Maker selected proper setttings as per the guide I was using (at some point I had to restart to proceed) then I went on to Arcade OSD and chose a very low resolution at 15khz, screen went black and according to the guide this was when I had to switch to the Retrotek transcoder and crt, so I went ahead. Image on the crt worked so I changed it to 640x480 15khz and saved to desktop. The image was fine although there was insane flicker and noticeable overscan (and the entire picture shifted to the right as I mentionned before).

Then went into command prompt as admin to launch a game to test (I picked Alex Kidd) and it booted just fine. Game looked gorgeous and was running in a very stable way, only issue was the shifted image and overscan which I thought I could correct later. Suddenly something came up and I had to rush out so I just powered down the PC with the front power botton while groovymame was still running the Alex Kidd demo. When I came back later I unplugged everything from the crt and back to the LCD to access the bios and enable fast boot. I proceeded to connect it back to the crt and then I was met with a broken image as shown below.

I tried the PC back to the LCD and removed fast boot thinking that had caused this but when I went back it made no difference. Also the PC itself seems fine cause the bios loads and detects all the components, the VGA cable is working as well. I tried the component cable and the port on the crt and both are absolutely fine as well. So I went on to try the Retrotek transcoder and pc on the LCD HDTV through the same component cables and could not get the bios screen to show up (if I'm not mistaken it should correct?). The LCD HDTV knows a signal is going through as it blanks out, but nothing shows up, not even the asrock bios.

EDIT: I remembered something else thanks to Arroyo in the thread about atom-15. I actually tried to use atom-15 with winflash before I tested a game, and the operation seemingly failed because it gave me a message saying it needed to be in 800x600 resolution or larger (I was in 640x480), but I wonder if that operation may have caused some problem with the gpu. Still I find it odd that the transcoder wouldn't at least load the bios on the lcd sony 4k hdtv, wouldn't it normally work?
« Last Edit: January 22, 2019, 11:07:47 am by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Shifted image and overscan with emudrivers on Sony FD Wega KV-20FV300
« Reply #15 on: January 20, 2019, 12:35:05 pm »
Couple of things.

So just making sure you know not to turn your TV on when rebooting until it gets to the Windows login page.  This is because until you get to that point the Bios and Windows booting screen will output a signal above 15khz, Atom-15 solves this problem once you get it up and running.

The picture you showed at the bottom of your post looks like what I would get when I had a signal that was above 15khz.  To rectify this, what works for me is to plug in your LCD, and under VMM where you selected Disable EDID emulation, I would re-enable it (make sure your CRT is turned off).  Wait until the video modes are reset, and then click again to disable EDID emulation.  Once that video mode resets turn your TV back on.  This my not be the ideal fix but it works for me when I get a screen like the one you are showing.

So it wasn’t clear to me are you able to get a picture at all on your LCD?

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Re: Shifted image and overscan with emudrivers on Sony FD Wega KV-20FV300
« Reply #16 on: January 20, 2019, 12:43:12 pm »
Without the transcoder and going straight from VGA yes I'm able to get an image on the lcd pc monitor (I can't test on the HDTV since there is no VGA in). To summarize:

If I try on the lcd pc monitor going straight from the PC > VGA > LCD I do get a picture but only the asrock bios, so I can press F2 to access settings and I can still see all the components are identified, however once I exit I end up on a black screen and the monitor gives me a message that there is an incompatible image and to try something in 31khz (presumably because I had changed the resolution to 640x480i 15khz).

If I try on my wega crt I go PC > VGA > Retrotek transcoder > Component > CRT (i wait a few seconds to turn on crt to skip the boot part), then I end up on the picture I showed you above with three window screens and messy colors.

If I try on my Sony 4k hdtv going: PC > VGA > Retrotek transcoder > Component > HDTV, then I get no signal at all, not even the bios screen, which is what makes me suspect that the problem is the retrotek, but of course I still couldn't say 100% since I'm not sure the HDTV is even compatible with this device as I hadn't tried it before.

I have no way of changing anything on the pc unless I attempt to reinstall windows from scratch, which I'm not opposed to assuming this seems more likely to be due to some glitchy gpu settings than a hardware issue with the transcoder.

By the way yes I made that mistake the first time by switching back to 31khz modes while the crt was still on but the image I got was not like the one pictured above but more like a messy picture fuzzy and moving all around, I had that for about 2 or 3 seconds until I realized to immediately turn off the tv. I think these late Sony's have some protective measures against this so no harm seems to have come of it from that short period, but I wouldn't test it again. All connections still work great, the PC was working fine at this point as well. Currently if I plug in the PS2 in the same component port it works great same as before so it's not a problem with the tv either.

I think there are only two possibilities, the gpu (perhaps something glitchy with the settings) or the Retrotek transcoder. I lean transcoder due to the aforementioned not showing the bios on an lcd test. I also have this recollection of the retrotek getting unplugged when a signal was going to it at some point because I was stretching the cables out to reach between the pc monitor and the crt since they were far apart, not sure if that could have damaged it or not. I suppose since it's hand made it might be possible it doesn't have protection against that kind of malfunction and maybe it damaged it.
« Last Edit: January 20, 2019, 01:04:09 pm by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Shifted image and overscan with emudrivers on Sony FD Wega KV-20FV300
« Reply #17 on: January 20, 2019, 04:48:32 pm »
Have you tried using a digital output to the LCD’s?  Meaning a HDMI, DisplayPort, DVI-D while keeping your VGA into your Retrotek?  This should invoke a second monitor and should give you a signal to the LCD.  From there you can make your LCD your primary display by right clicking the desktop and choosing screen resolution.  Change it to the LCD and then you can mess with settings like I described above.

I think you’re not getting any signal because your VGA is outputting a 15 kHz signal which your LCDs won’t display.

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Re: Shifted image and overscan with emudrivers on Sony FD Wega KV-20FV300
« Reply #18 on: January 20, 2019, 05:17:01 pm »
Thank you for that info, actually I started the process of reinstalling windows and doing everything from scratch, I'm halfway there now so I'll soon be able to confirm for sure whether the transcoder is malfunctioning or whether it was just a corruption of the gpu driver or something like that (possibly either by having attempted to use winflash and failed or by powering off mid game by pressing the power botton).

I hadn't thought about that way of going around it (connecting through dvi as a second monitor). I'll keep it in mind for next time.

I'll be reporting back soon.

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Re: Shifted image and overscan with emudrivers on Sony FD Wega KV-20FV300
« Reply #19 on: January 21, 2019, 12:49:59 am »
So turns out the transcoder is fine. I was able to reboot and install everything properly. But then I went back to the LCD to enable quick boot which is recommended in one guide, and then it broke the picture again exactly like last time (so I disabled it, not touching that again... and presumably that's what caused this mess in the first place, so I guess asrock's z170m fast boot should not be enabled for groovymame pc's).

So I got back in the way you recommended and recovered the picture on the LCD. I switched back to the vga for the lcd and now I seem to be unable to get the picture back to 15khz for the crt because when I got back to VMMaker and go to "video card" tab in the "device" section it just says "no monitor enabled" and below in driver "no compatible driver" also I can no longer change the EDID emulation setting like I did the first time to put output 0 as per Calamity's guide. The only thing I can do as per the guide is to remove "Extend desktop automatically on device restart", but that's about it.

When I go to the setup.exe it recognizes the compatible device AMD Radeon HD 6450 (CRT Emudriver), and I can uninstall it or exit the setup.

So I'm sort of stuck here until someone advises me on how I can get the image back to 15khz for the crt.  :'(
« Last Edit: January 21, 2019, 12:57:57 am by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Help getting back into a 15khz safe setting for crt
« Reply #20 on: January 21, 2019, 03:39:30 am »
Hi Neilalphazeta,

First of all, don't get frustrated. It's almost sure one will run into issues when setting a system for 15 kHz, it doesn't matter how many guides you read because there'll be one random step at some point that will leave you in an uncharted scenario. I find myself in these situations all the time, but experience finally allows you to go through them. It doesn't help when there are a stack on devices in the equation which you're not sure that work properly in the first place.

Now, if the driver's Setup allows you uninstall, do it. Then reinstall the driver again. Make sure "Test Mode" is applied again.

If I where using an HD 6450 plus a supporting LCD like you, the easiest way to set this up would be to have the CRT plugged through VGA and the LCD plugged through the DVI-D. This way you don't need to do any cable switching during the process, and it'll be just a matter of unplugging the LCD once you're happy with the configuration.



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Re: Help getting back into a 15khz safe setting for crt
« Reply #21 on: January 21, 2019, 04:30:28 am »
The thing with transcoders is they all have their own quirks, for instance your shifted picture issue might be fixable by turning a potentiometer located on the transcoder's circuit board, I had that issue with an Audio Authority 9A60, and realized later that most transcoders have this same potentiometer, you have to open the case and check/try.

Then there's the not-always-documented details you will know about, like bandwidth limitations, or whatever design oddity. The Retrotek IIRC is a semi-amateur device that received more than one revision and got mixed reviews.
Sometimes these devices are better since they're tailored for retro hardware users, but sometimes they're also more biased and possibly flawed designs.

Also I don't think you need to reinstall W7 several times.

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Re: Help getting back into a 15khz safe setting for crt
« Reply #22 on: January 21, 2019, 04:59:29 am »
I've gone through the thread and noticed that the original issue was the picture was shifted to the right. I'm amazed that the obvious, immediate software solution hasn't come up yet: just tweak horizontal porch values in a custom crt_range so all modes get centered without any further hardware adjustment. That's what VMMaker/GroovyMAME is all about.
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Re: Help getting back into a 15khz safe setting for crt
« Reply #23 on: January 21, 2019, 05:07:24 am »
Sorry to insist but I still wouldn't skip the potentiometer thing either if I were him, I've actually witnessed the same isue many times, all the VGA>Component transcoder users I've talked with had to dial it at some point to adjust the position and improve statibilty of the signal, no way around it I'd say 8/10 times because it's basically luck when a transcoder is adjusted right on the first use.

EDIT; not sure his Retrotek has this pot though, which I find worrisome. But not every device is the same of course.
EDIT2; I can't find a manual or whatever anywhere, just photos of the pcb which seems to completely lack manual adjustments, which means it relies entirely on its design...call me paranoid but with analogue devices I tend to trust manual adjustments over anything that would be entirely automatic/fixed.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2019, 05:44:01 am by schmerzkaufen »

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Re: Help getting back into a 15khz safe setting for crt
« Reply #24 on: January 21, 2019, 02:27:32 pm »
Thank you very much to both of you.

Thank you Calamity for the kind words of encouragement. It really is a daunting task but it's also been very educational along the way so despite the frustrations and stressful moments I am still very happy I have undertaken the project of setting up a groovymame pc.

One of the biggest challenges I have had is following various guides that at times contradict each other or advise different approaches to different matters. Perhaps because of updates and changes to Groovymame or Mame itself, some steps in some guides either became redundant or at times appear to actually break functionality. For example in Recap's guide on the geedorah forums the guide advises to enter  "d3d9ex" in the "video" section of the mame.ini, but doing so broke functionality and command prompt could not even launch games (so I had to return to "auto"). Some guides recommend putting frame delay in others (including your own) to leave it as it is when using the d3d9ex version (which is what I'm doing). Most guides still recommend installing Mame first and then Groovymame into it, apparently another redundancy. It's all quite challenging to keep track of but it feels quite rewarding when I proceed to the next step and things are working correctly.

Thank you to Schmerzkaufen for the tips on the transcoder, I really appreciate it. I will look into getting an audio authority transcoder down the line as it seems to be one of the preferred transcoders, and at that time I will read up on tweaking the potentiometer.

My next two steps are to get attract mode running which currently seems to open to a black screen with horizontal lines flying around requiring me to plug back the lcd in order to get an image (and the second I close it I'm back to an incompatible mode requiring the crt), I think this might be because I set up Attract mode while still on the lcd originally (was actually recommended I do so in some guides), so I've tried asking for help on the Attract Mode forums. I'm thinking this might be a resolution problem.

Secondly once I can confirm that I have a front end functioning properly I'm going to attempt an ATOM-15 install using Calamity's guide (using a dos boot key), this will make me feel more at ease on the crt.

The next step after that will be learning to work with the porches in VMMaker then individual game or system configurations it looks like. I will have to search for a good guide on this up next.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2019, 02:29:14 pm by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Help getting back into a 15khz safe setting for crt
« Reply #25 on: January 21, 2019, 02:43:50 pm »
About the transcoder; don't get me wrong I'm only speculating this could be your problem with the Retrotek. I'm just giving an example of how it usually goes with RGB/VGA>Component transoders as I've know them, many feature a poti on the pcb you dial to move the picture horizontally and that's about it, the AA is a famous one and when I was using it that poti was absolutely essential, but I haven't personally used it for a Groovy setup (some did though if you google it), not sure how these devices like super resolutions also.

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Re: Help getting back into a 15khz safe setting for crt
« Reply #26 on: January 21, 2019, 03:49:09 pm »
For example in Recap's guide on the geedorah forums the guide advises to enter  "d3d9ex" in the "video" section of the mame.ini, but doing so broke functionality and command prompt could not even launch games (so I had to return to "auto").

First post in the guide:

Quote
(*) Read this post in order to know the major changes from 0.170 to 0.182 version. We recommend to have Groovy MAME updated as much as possible since it's improving with every Switchres version.

And then:

Quote
- Direct 3-D 9 Ex compatibility is only available in a separate build downloadable as groovymame64_0182.016_final_d3dex.7z, and with it, you must now type video d3d instead of video d3d9ex for usage of this API's Ex version, which is still the recommended one (unless you're on WIN XP).


But yep; the guide is old and not too straightforward for the current version. I'm sure there are better ones out there at this point. Anyway, the geometry part ("F") still fills the bill -- unless you need to accomodate the picture also for other devices, solve the horizontal shift by modifying the monitor specs preset instead of making hardware tweaks.




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Re: Help getting back into a 15khz safe setting for crt
« Reply #27 on: January 21, 2019, 04:27:55 pm »
Sorry, didn't mean to blame you for my errors, I clearly should have read more carefully would have saved time. I move from one thing to another too rapidly and in doing so I ommit important parts like that one.

Thanks, I'll pay close attention to the geometry guide and try to move the image to the left and shrink it down to compensate for the overscan.

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Re: Help getting back into a 15khz safe setting for crt
« Reply #28 on: January 21, 2019, 06:11:36 pm »
EDIT, I figured it out, I was missing the bios file. Sorry about that. XD

I found sites to get the bios files of my card but there appear to be 7 different ones. How can I find the number of the card, since I'm running emudrivers I don't have access to the ATI info tab, is there some other way of getting the number such as on the board itself somewhere?
« Last Edit: January 21, 2019, 06:38:18 pm by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Help using ATIFLASh for dos
« Reply #29 on: January 21, 2019, 11:32:07 pm »
EDIT, I figured it out, I was missing the bios file. Sorry about that. XD

I found sites to get the bios files of my card but there appear to be 7 different ones. How can I find the number of the card, since I'm running emudrivers I don't have access to the ATI info tab, is there some other way of getting the number such as on the board itself somewhere?

To lazy to quote all the previous stuff, but I’ve got the same Retrotek and it works very well.  No it does not have pots for adjusting screen position or geometry.  If it’s doing its job it’s only supposed to convert the color space, nothing else.  Therefore it assumes you are handling geometry at the source or your TV.  As was mentioned using the “front porch” in the horizontal section is a good place to start.

Regarding your post above, you shouldn’t need to look for your bios files, you have to extract them from your card using either ATIflash or ATIwinflash.  Once you have extracted them you use the Atom-15 to patch that bios and then you upload or “flash” them to your card using the same ATIflash or ATIwinflash.  I was suggesting to use ATIflash and the MS-DOS method because as Calamity pointed out in his install thread going that route allows you to test compatibility with the modified bios before installing which could prevent potentially bricking the card.

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Re: Help using ATIFLASh for dos
« Reply #30 on: January 22, 2019, 01:04:32 am »
EDIT: Okay I figured out the problem, the atiflash exe had too many characters, apparently dos needs the names to be short. I shortened the name and it worked. I extracted the bios and am working on it in dos.  :)
EDIT2: Atom-15 was a success. So now I am full time on the CRT. I can't disable testsigning right? In the last few days signing out of it has locked me out of the crt (or at least the picture was a bit messed up on it) forcing me back to the lcd. Now that I've flashed it I'm assuming I shouldn't even try right?

I don't mind being in test signing but I wonder if that is what's causing Attract Mode to not run on the PC. Whenever I open Attract Mode up even from a fresh install in a differently named folder it just opens up with horizontal (slightly angled diagonally) white lines flying around on a black background. I'm guessing it's not actually sending 31khz anymore since I've used Atom but still feels weird to see. I've tried asking people at the Attract Mode forums and they're not sure why this is happening either.

Other than that I have tried changing the porches in the monitor.ini file by following the example of changing the arcade 15khz numbers to:
15625-16200, 49.50-65.00, 2.000, 4.700, 8.000, 0.064, 0.192, 1.024, 0, 0, 192, 288, 448, 576 (original Arcade 15.7 kHz preset)

15625-16200, 49.50-65.00, 2.000, 4.700, 6.000, 0.064, 0.192, 1.024, 0, 0, 192, 288, 448, 576 (edited Arcade 15.7 kHz preset)

Basically changing 8000 to 6000, then I saved, I opened VMMmaker and clicked edit and okay and it made no difference. Is there some other step required to register that change?

EDIT: Also changed the title of the thread one last time just to reflect the kind of information contained within, apologies for the multiple changes along the way.
« Last Edit: January 22, 2019, 02:40:04 am by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Help using ATIFLASh for dos
« Reply #31 on: January 22, 2019, 03:28:15 am »
I’ve got the same Retrotek and it works very well.  No it does not have pots for adjusting screen position or geometry.  If it’s doing its job it’s only supposed to convert the color space, nothing else.  Therefore it assumes you are handling geometry at the source or your TV.
You over-interpret what I said, it's not "geometry", just H-pos, like most VGA>Component transcoders feature, yes, it's common and necessary to position the picture and adjust signal stability. The Retrotek's difference is that it assumes it doesn't need that adjustment, I don't know why, it's a more modern and semi-amateur design, but it's not like the others. There aren't tons of vga>compo transcoders, most are rather old and known, again I've seen enough people experience this same issue with exactly that family of transcoders to know better than to assume there's no issue with the Retrotek just because some people will say 'I have no problem with it'.

Anyway if he can deal with it differently by editing that's fine, because those old vga>comp transcoders aren't easily found.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #32 on: January 22, 2019, 04:53:11 am »
Editing the text file doesn't automatically change the modes, once you edit the porches you need to generate and install the modes again in VMMaker. Also, you have to copy the modified crt_range into mame.ini. You can use the option "export settings to GroovyMAME" in VMMaker's MAME tab to do that automatically.
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 - Attach resulting romname.txt file to your post, instead of pasting it.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #33 on: January 22, 2019, 11:07:22 am »
So I got Attract Mode running. The secret was found in an old thread where you helped someone else out by recommending they stop AMD external services and enable the display settings "hide modes that is monitor cannot display". :)

Now I'm down to the geometry tweaking part, and unfortunately that didn't work. I went into VMMaker, went into edit, edited the text file, "ok", then I clicked on "generate modes" and once that was over "install modes" but it made no difference.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #34 on: January 22, 2019, 11:16:27 am »
Now I'm down to the geometry tweaking part, and unfortunately that didn't work. I went into VMMaker, went into edit, edited the text file, "ok", then I clicked on "generate modes" and once that was over "install modes" but it made no difference.

It does work. Now, if you want to shift the picture, you need to compensate both porches, e.g. if you substract 2.0 to back porch you have to add 2.0 to the other porch, etc. Otherwise what you do is to change the visible area size.

Best way to do this is dinamically by means of Arcade OSD. Once you find the right values in Arcade OSD you use them in VMMaker/GM. Always testing any mode that's NOT currently used by the desktop.
Important note: posts reporting GM issues without a log will be IGNORED.
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 - From command line, run: groovymame.exe -v romname >romname.txt
 - Attach resulting romname.txt file to your post, instead of pasting it.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #35 on: January 22, 2019, 11:30:02 am »
Thank you. I hadn't understood that. So by changing 8000 to 6000 all I did was create more space to the left to work with, am I understanding this correctly?

Is there a guide somewhere that I could use to educate myself on what each value stands for or do I just play around test and error to see what happens in Arcade OSD? I mostly just need to move the image to the left and then shrink both H and V to compensate for the overscan so those are the values I will be looking for.

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Re: Help using ATIFLASh for dos
« Reply #36 on: January 22, 2019, 11:47:58 am »
EDIT2: Atom-15 was a success. So now I am full time on the CRT. I can't disable testsigning right? In the last few days signing out of it has locked me out of the crt (or at least the picture was a bit messed up on it) forcing me back to the lcd. Now that I've flashed it I'm assuming I shouldn't even try right?
Correct, you need to leave it in test signing mode for the Calmity’s drivers to work.
Quote
I'm guessing it's not actually sending 31khz anymore since I've used Atom but still feels weird to see.
Just in case it’s not clear Atom-15 installation is just for the time between when your PC boots until your login screen on Windows.  Once you are to the Windows sign on screen Clamity’s drivers are now being used.  Atom-15 changes your firmware on your ATI card to output a lower res signal during bios and bootup only.  You are still free to use your LCD with any digital port you have.
Quote
Other than that I have tried changing the porches in the monitor.ini file by following the example of changing the arcade 15khz numbers to:
15625-16200, 49.50-65.00, 2.000, 4.700, 8.000, 0.064, 0.192, 1.024, 0, 0, 192, 288, 448, 576 (original Arcade 15.7 kHz preset)
15625-16200, 49.50-65.00, 2.000, 4.700, 6.000, 0.064, 0.192, 1.024, 0, 0, 192, 288, 448, 576 (edited Arcade 15.7 kHz preset)
As Calamity noted above you don’t want to try to guess on making these changes.  I’m still learning this myself, but Launch ArcadeOSD from here you can pick one of your resolutions, then go into Horizontal Geometry and select “H Front porch” move the value left or right hit enter and you should see the picture either shrinking or expanding.  I didn’t know it but as Calamity just stated that’s shrinking or expanding the picture, to shift it you would need to then move the back porch as well to offset your front porch changes.
Now what I haven’t been able to play with yet cause I’m down at the moment is what resolutions you should be using when making these edits, sounds like not using the desktop mode, but it’s not clear to me if I should only be using 640x480 or each resolution.  I also don’t yet know if I should be messing with the dotclock or just making porch changes to test the vertical refresh limit of the monitor.  I hope to test these more once I’m back up and running, or maybe someone else can comment on this.
Quote
EDIT: Also changed the title of the thread one last time just to reflect the kind of information contained within, apologies for the multiple changes along the way.
Personally I find it hard to follow threads when the title changes.


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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #37 on: January 22, 2019, 11:55:50 am »
Is there a guide somewhere that I could use to educate myself on what each value stands for or do I just play around test and error to see what happens in Arcade OSD? I mostly just need to move the image to the left and then shrink both H and V to compensate for the overscan so those are the values I will be looking for.

You can also use the H center option in Arcade OSD, which basically does what it says, and once it's centered, increase both porches slightly till you get the right size.

As for the V part, I have bad news for you, it's not possible to fix overscan that way, only a hardware adjustment can do that.
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.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #38 on: January 22, 2019, 12:07:17 pm »
Alright, so no V overscan adjustments then. Thanks to both of you. I will try that it out.

By the way on a side note, when I boot the pc the crt sees the windows boot screen and then for a few seconds gets this horrible image of horizontal lines flying around and a buzzing sound for a couple of seconds, and then windows opens normally. Is this part of the process with atom-15? I hope I'm not sending dangerous frequencies to the crt still.

Arroyo> Yes I apologize for having changed it so much. It's become more of a general thread of questions at this point so I won't touch the title line again.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #39 on: January 22, 2019, 12:22:53 pm »
So I was able to do this in all resolutions (I'm using super resolutions) I could view (the low 50's ones I get a rolling screen so I didn't bother with them).

It looks like it's possible to alter the V adjustments but I'm assuming these won't have an effect in mame is this correct? Can I still move the image itself vertically if I keep them in even settings to move the picture up slightly?

So now that I've made those changes can I carry them into Mame and if so what files should I edit and which values should I bring over?
EDIT: Looks like they carried over. Maybe because of the setting "export to Mame" which I setup following Calamity's VMMaker guide. :)
« Last Edit: January 22, 2019, 12:35:52 pm by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #40 on: January 22, 2019, 01:32:20 pm »
Thank you. I hadn't understood that. So by changing 8000 to 6000 all I did was create more space to the left to work with, am I understanding this correctly?

Is there a guide somewhere that I could use to educate myself on what each value stands for or do I just play around test and error to see what happens in Arcade OSD? I mostly just need to move the image to the left and then shrink both H and V to compensate for the overscan so those are the values I will be looking for.

As I am learning (and other people have stated) you have to learn a lot about how a CRT and analog video signals work to understand what it is you are doing when editing those values.  So far these have been really helpful to me:

  - Really good IMO
Analog signals and conections - Helped me to understand compression and the differences in analog connection types
Analog signals technical - Helped me understand what Porches, active video are, and sync pulses are.

In general there is an amount of time for the screen to refresh horizontally and vertically and you are editing the timings of when a new line is drawn by editing the porch values.

EDIT:  This graphic here from one of the above websites really does a good job giving a visual:
« Last Edit: January 22, 2019, 01:38:47 pm by Arroyo »

Neilalphazeta

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #41 on: January 22, 2019, 02:30:50 pm »
Thank you Arroyo for those fantastic links. I saved all of them for indepth reading (and viewing in the case of the video). It's exactly the kind of information I would need.

One more question if I may: With Atom-15 now enabled is my crt completely safe from dangerous signals or can there still be damage done by running incompatible frequencies or for example when I open Mortal Kombat with it's rolling image, or are these just visual issues that are of no special harm to the tv?

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #42 on: January 22, 2019, 03:43:10 pm »
Thank you Arroyo for those fantastic links. I saved all of them for indepth reading (and viewing in the case of the video). It's exactly the kind of information I would need.

One more question if I may: With Atom-15 now enabled is my crt completely safe from dangerous signals or can there still be damage done by running incompatible frequencies or for example when I open Mortal Kombat with it's rolling image, or are these just visual issues that are of no special harm to the tv?

Atom-15 will only help on bootup, won't make a difference once you are in Windows.  That's where Calamity's drivers for ATI cards comes in and access those lower resolutions.

You can still have some programs try to output a signal that is too high (Retroarch by default in full screen mode for example).  The Mortal Kombat thing is one I am still struggling with as well, the 53Hz that it wants to use for a vertical refresh rate is an issue on my setup as well.  I don't believe (someone more experienced can comment further) that it will damage your screen, it means that the circuit board on the back of the TV (Chassis) wasn't designed to display an image at that refresh rate so it's out of sync.  That's the whole reason to test the limits in ArcadeOSD.  Once you find them you change the values in either the mame.ini, or you setup a custom monitor in VMM and regenerate the modelines (I believe that this is preferable), which as Calamity mentioned if you check the box on the Mame tab in VMM will export those settings to Groovymame for you.  One thing that was not clear to me until more recently is that the determining factor is what is set in Groovymame, so even if you setup a custom monitor, if the settings are not exported to Groovymame, or changed manually it will not do anything when playing a game.

Once you know your limits Groovymame will pick the modeline that will work with your TV and then avoid trying to use a refresh rate the display can't handle.  It may slightly speed up or slowdown gameplay, but it does a good job picking the closest possible refresh rate without distorting the picture by scaling the image.

Now finding the best way to test those limits was what I was getting into before I screwed up my graphics card on the Atom-15 install.  I'm searching for a replacement and hope to be up and running to share whatever I find when playing with that.

Neilalphazeta

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #43 on: January 22, 2019, 03:52:38 pm »
Thank you for that great explanation.

So if I understand correctly if we force Mortal Kombat to run in 60hz (assuming this is even possible) the game would run faster, in the same way pal 50hz run slower), so forcing a game to 60hz is not ideal. How does regular Mame handle it I wonder (of course it wouldn't be arcade accurate but better the game run than not in my book).

You're also using a Sony consumer tv? Hope you get your new card soon and that the next install is a success. I followed your advice and went with the DOS version and it worked out alright but it was still a pretty tense experience.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #44 on: January 22, 2019, 05:23:12 pm »
Thank you for that great explanation.

So if I understand correctly if we force Mortal Kombat to run in 60hz (assuming this is even possible) the game would run faster, in the same way pal 50hz run slower), so forcing a game to 60hz is not ideal. How does regular Mame handle it I wonder (of course it wouldn't be arcade accurate but better the game run than not in my book).

Actually it’s been awhile since I was playing around so I don’t know if I can say witch way would speed up or slow down, but yes if it varies from its original refresh rate it will either speed up or slow down.  I think you have it right but couldn’t say for sure without testing. 

It is possible to force screen modes, resolutions, and even to turn off the switchres function on a per game or per system (neo-geo for example) basis.  You have to create another .ini file with the name of the game or system (so mk2.ini for mortal kombat 2), and it has to placed in the ini folder.  In that .ini file you could edit the monitor characteristics (probably want to start with what you already have in the mame.ini file), you could change the resolution, and other things I have yet to play with.  Basically any change in that file will supersede what is in the mame.ini. Be careful on what you add though as Calamity has made clear you should really only add what’s necessary, don’t copy the whole mame.ini.

Quote
You're also using a Sony consumer tv? Hope you get your new card soon and that the next install is a success. I followed your advice and went with the DOS version and it worked out alright but it was still a pretty tense experience.

Yeah I (had) Radeon R7 240 - > VGA - > Realtek - > Component -> Sony KV-27FS310.  Browsing what card to buy that this computer can handle.


Post back any success you have when playing around.
« Last Edit: January 22, 2019, 05:32:08 pm by Arroyo »

Neilalphazeta

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #45 on: January 23, 2019, 02:29:26 am »
So you have a similar tv to mine. I did some further testing and to be honest I'm a bit surprised by how many games have issues as soon as a game hits around the 59.25khz mark or below.

This is a not so well documented issue with later Trinitron tv's. Different people may have different sensitivities so it may or may not be noticeable or bothersome to you, and iirc bigger tv's have it much less pronounced.

I found some video that was put up a while ago demonstrating the issue on a Neo Geo MVS original hardware running on a late FD Trinitron (Neo Geo runs around 59.15khz iirc).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fidh9pltpzw&feature=youtu.be

I was reminded of that video while testing some CPS titles which had a similar wobble albeit a tad less pronounced on my set.

Actually it was prevalent enough with the Neo Geo that some of the better CMVS makers like Jamma Nation X use an extra chip to modify the speed to 59.94khz so that there are no issues with later crt's.

So I'm considering either going with the more basic NTSC preset which basically sticks to the 59.94khz standard, or I would consider sticking with arcade 15khz and modifying any games or systems that have trouble to push the khz a bit to get closer to or to match the ntsc standard. Which option seems better?

*Mortal Kombat games aside as those are a special case because the increase would be too dramatic, I'm not sure how to deal with those titles.
« Last Edit: January 23, 2019, 02:33:46 am by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #46 on: January 23, 2019, 11:32:35 am »
By the way Arroyo here are the list of games that have unusual refresh rates (from games in my folder) that may or may not display with side effects on your tv since it's like mine:

game title                  khz

alien storm                 57.23
astyanax                    56.19
bad dudes                  57.44
cap america avngers  57.79   
crude buster               58
caveman ninja            58.2
cosmic cop                  55
crack down                 57.5
crus'n usa                   57.34
crus'n world                57.34
combatribes                57.44
dark seal                     58
dd crew                       57.23
dragon breed              55
double dragon 1~3     57.44
dragon ball z 1+2        55
dragon gun                  57.79
ed randy                      58.2
gaia crusaders             57.55
laser ghost                   57.23
lightning swords          55
metamoqester             57.55
mortal kombat 1~3      54.7
sailor moon                  57.55
shadow dancer            57.23
shadow force               57.44
virtua fighter 1+2         57.52
wizard fire                    58

I find any of those on the lowest rate just have too much of an unstable picture for my tv's (FS100, FS120 and FV300 models). Maybe because you are using a larger FS310 you may not be affected by some of the uper 58khz games where as I start seeing anomalies already at 59khz, but I didn't bother listing games running in the lower 59khz because at that level I imagine pushing to 59.95khz will not be a significant change.

Really unfortunate for some of those especially the Mortal Kombat games but also Gaia Crusaders which is a great beat em up.  I think there's no question that an actual arcade monitor is optimal for groovymame but hopefully there's the work arounds that Calamity shared in the other thread that might help alleviate the issues these games have on consume Sony tv's.
« Last Edit: January 23, 2019, 11:41:21 am by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #47 on: January 23, 2019, 06:49:51 pm »
So you have a similar tv to mine. I did some further testing and to be honest I'm a bit surprised by how many games have issues as soon as a game hits around the 59.25khz mark or below.

Agreed that has been my initial experience so far as well.

Quote
This is a not so well documented issue with later Trinitron tv's. Different people may have different sensitivities so it may or may not be noticeable or bothersome to you, and iirc bigger tv's have it much less pronounced.

I've defneitly noticed, and it is playable but very bothersome.  Mortal Kombat games are some of my favorite as well, which is why if I can't get this working I will be moving on from considering these TV's as viable arcade monitors.

Quote
So I'm considering either going with the more basic NTSC preset which basically sticks to the 59.94khz standard, or I would consider sticking with arcade 15khz and modifying any games or systems that have trouble to push the khz a bit to get closer to or to match the ntsc standard. Which option seems better?
 
Still not sure myself, although I am trying to stick with Arcade15 as it has a wider range of resolutions that would keep things closer to being as accurate to the orginal as possible.  There is a guy recently who claimed to have gotten it working, I don't know if it was at the epxense of resolution clarity or speed but he seemed to have luck with the NTSC preset:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,159160.0.html

Quote
*Mortal Kombat games aside as those are a special case because the increase would be too dramatic, I'm not sure how to deal with those titles.

I even bought an Arcade monitor to test this out, but haven't been able to until I replace my graphics card....and work on my build which has been draggin cause of this and other reasons.....never enough time.

EDIT:  Try using Clamity's suggestion of Arcade15 monitor preset but just change the range (in the mame.ini in both cases) to:

crt_range0  15625-16200, 58.00-61.00, 2.000, 4.700, 8.000, 0.064, 0.192, 1.024, 0, 0, 192, 288, 448, 576

and couple that with Cools suggestion of: Syncrefresh_tolerance 999

It would probably be best to test this on a individual game ini like mk2.ini rather then change your mame.ini.....
« Last Edit: January 23, 2019, 06:54:08 pm by Arroyo »

Neilalphazeta

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #48 on: January 23, 2019, 07:22:38 pm »
Thanks for the link, I'm going to read through that.

I'll try making that ini for MK2 with those inputs as soon as I get the general Horizontal overscan corrected in all games. I definitely want to try to get MK games running properly enough so that even if it takes a lot of work it would be worth it imo.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #49 on: January 23, 2019, 08:31:29 pm »
Thanks for the link, I'm going to read through that.

I'll try making that ini for MK2 with those inputs as soon as I get the general Horizontal overscan corrected in all games. I definitely want to try to get MK games running properly enough so that even if it takes a lot of work it would be worth it imo.

Agreed, I’m very motivated too as I have 3 of these damn TV’s LOL.  I’m going to pull the trigger on a graphics card tonight and should hopefully be up and running next week some time.

Neilalphazeta

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #50 on: January 24, 2019, 02:13:03 am »
I'm in the exact same situation. I have 3 Sony Trinitron's too and really love the picture these give out. I looked at getting an arcade screen once but I opted not to in the end.

Wish there were a way to get MK games to stay at their native rate and still simulate at 59khz for our tv's lol.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #51 on: January 24, 2019, 03:31:46 am »
I think there's no question that an actual arcade monitor is optimal for groovymame

This incorrect.

It's true that basic old analog arcade chassis are the simplest to setup but there are many, many consumer TVs that do just as well (they often look better too considering their tubes usually have way lower hours on them).

Some TV chassis are just a ---smurfette--- though and have strict adherence to PAL and NTSC usage cases. Others will sync to whatever you through at them and not try to do any funky vertical resizing.

Consider a different TV if you have a lust for games in the vertical refresh no-man's land.

I can confirm that I have seen Sony TVs sync up R-Type and MK just fine. All depends on the chassis design. Seek one out.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #52 on: January 24, 2019, 08:00:36 am »
I think there's no question that an actual arcade monitor is optimal for groovymame

This incorrect.

I can confirm that I have seen Sony TVs sync up R-Type and MK just fine. All depends on the chassis design. Seek one out.

Your in New Zealand right?  Do you know if that statement applies to the U.S.?  I assume you guys are on the PAL/Scart standard, curious to know if that affected the chassis that were sent out in your area vs here.  I’ve got a Sony KV-27FS12, KV-24FV300, and KV-27FV310, and they all have this issue, in my early testing.  One person mentioned the transcoder box could be an issue but I got confirmation that a KV-27FV300 RGB modded was afflicted as well, so seems to rule that out.  I’m guessing your suggesting earlier sets from the 90’s, perhaps from other manufactures as well.  Seems like if that’s the case we need to get comfortable RGB modding, cause most of those sets only have Composite or Coaxial inputs.....

Neilalphazeta

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #53 on: January 24, 2019, 02:52:54 pm »
Arroyo I got an Audio Authority transcoder so I'll give it a try later to see if it makes any visual improvements, but somehow I'm not expecting it. I had bought this when I thought the Retrotek was broken and it just arrived so I'll give it a whiz later.

I remember living in Europe that yes the later crt's there are actually compatible with more frequencies (so I guess either from 50~60 or just 50 and 60), where as in North America we basically have 60khz (or 59.95ish iirc to be accurate). So for this purpose we are more restricted. That being said just as Paranoid stated, these consumer tv's often are often in much better condition and can give out just as good if not better a picture. I was seriously looking into getting an arcade monitor but the trouble of building a case for it that would keep it away from interference, angling it right etc was just too much trouble, plus I tend to favor flatter tubes and aperture grille (although i also like shadow masks). Also in your case since you have an FV300 and FV310 (my personal preference is to the FV300 because the high voltage regulator gives the 310 a unique look from any other consumer crt which I'm less fond of but that's just me) I think it's hard to complain. Sometimes consumer tubes require some internal adjustment though since it's hard to calibrate them properly but I do favor these overall over even professional monitors (I used to have BVM/PVM monitors and ended up selling them in favor of consumer tubes).
« Last Edit: January 24, 2019, 02:55:18 pm by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #54 on: January 24, 2019, 03:22:03 pm »
By the way another question just to make sure, but under the current version when running the d3d9ex version of Groovymame there is no need to write d3d9ex anywhere in the mame.ini anymore is there? Just wondering if frame delay is active or not. The guides don't seem to be up to date on this matter.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #55 on: January 24, 2019, 03:39:11 pm »
No "d3d9ex" anywhere. My reply in the other thread now sounds a bit unnecessary after reading you here. That's what happens when you open two threads for one only case, I guess.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #56 on: January 24, 2019, 04:06:14 pm »
Thank you Recap for that info, and apologies for the confusion with two threads.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #57 on: January 25, 2019, 02:46:11 am »
I just realized that I had only configured the geometry for one set, the 240p games, now when going through testing all the games I realize those geometry settings don't apply to all the other resolutions.  :'(

How do I go around implementing the additional resolutions. Do I just go up next to monitor 1 (the one I had put the settings on was monitor 0) and just copy all the numbers from the Arcade OSD for each value? Or do I reuse the values of monitor 1 (other than the resolution value itself) and just change the H porches and V centering? Does the order matter of which monitor should go first matter (I'm guessing not)? And lastly regarding the first calibration I did of monitor 0 should I have also put in the other values from the Arcade OSD? I had only put in the horizontal front and back porch.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #58 on: January 25, 2019, 09:51:31 am »
I also realize that the vertical overscan levels are different on some other resolutions. Does this mean getting absolute perfect geometry on all systems is impossible without building an adjustment pot sticking outside of the tv to adjust the v size?  ???

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #59 on: January 25, 2019, 11:04:19 am »
I also realize that the vertical overscan levels are different on some other resolutions. Does this mean getting absolute perfect geometry on all systems is impossible without building an adjustment pot sticking outside of the tv to adjust the v size?  ???

Hey sorry yesterday was very busy.

Yes.  The vertical thing is correctly displaying things.  Each game company decided how many vertical lines of resolution they wanted for each game, while a lot of them are 240 (half of 480 the typical active area for a 15khz CRT) some like the Street Fighter series for example choose 224, and still others like Mortal Kombat choose larger (256 I think).  People would adjust the V size on the hardware of the CRT to make each game fit, not needing to worry about adjusting it again. 

With trying to display multiple games on the same display, the compromise is typically 240 games fit perfect, 224 games have black bars top and bottom and 256 games are cutoff a bit on the top and bottom.   Unless you wanted to adjust the V size on the settings of the TV each time then this is the trade off.

EDIT:  Does this answer the questions from your previous post?
« Last Edit: January 25, 2019, 11:06:15 am by Arroyo »

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #60 on: January 25, 2019, 11:39:31 am »
Yes thank you Arroyo. So basically this is unavoidable. Does the horizontal also stretch when viewing 256 games or are we getting a slightly squished picture in those games due to the calibration being made on the 240 side?

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #61 on: January 25, 2019, 12:44:17 pm »
Yes thank you Arroyo. So basically this is unavoidable. Does the horizontal also stretch when viewing 256 games or are we getting a slightly squished picture in those games due to the calibration being made on the 240 side?

To my knowledge it’s unavoidable and less you introduce scaling, which kind of defeats the purpose of switchres in GroovyMame.

Horizontal on the other hand is totally adjustable and should be constrained by The parameters you set and consistent across all horizontal games.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #62 on: January 25, 2019, 01:30:39 pm »
Yes thank you Arroyo. So basically this is unavoidable. Does the horizontal also stretch when viewing 256 games or are we getting a slightly squished picture in those games due to the calibration being made on the 240 side?

To my knowledge it’s unavoidable and less you introduce scaling, which kind of defeats the purpose of switchres in GroovyMame.

Horizontal on the other hand is totally adjustable and should be constrained by The parameters you set and consistent across all horizontal games.

You're absolutely right I did some tests with the tv service and could see that the horizontal was perfect and the vertical was off, resulting in some squishing. The degree can vary some games it's like a 1~3% squish others it's more noticeable sometimes to the point that information is out of bounds. So I guess this is where one makes adjustments to individual games to overscan the horizontal to avoid wrong aspect ratios. Although it's an odd task considering we're removing information from the picture, a case of pick your poison.

I wonder whether introducing some scaling would even be noticeable on our consumer tv's? When I tried playing with those values to test I didn't really notice any changes. Does this have some lasting effect such as breaking frame delay or something? Otherwise frankly I would probably consider using this for the games that are missing vital information at the top and bottom (such as items, important stats etc).

By the way Arroyo, I tried again arcade preset to give it a last shot, and my experience was that I was having issues with the majority of games. Even CPS games which are so close to ntsc standard on a still image I just saw wobbles and odd pulses. Just not worth the headache to me, but let me know if you're able to do better with the larger size fv310. Meanwhile ntsc preset works wonders on my fv300, it's as stable as one could hope for, only downside of course are those 25 or so games where I have reservations about the changes in speed, for now I've taken note of any game that would run more than 1.4% faster in hopes that at some point they can be tweaked.

Also although I didn't get a reply yet on whether there are any downsides to doing this but I have an idea to solving the MK games. With the NTSC preset they work fine both video and audio (but only if you have gamma at 100, actually I reverted gamma to 100 for all games, I guess the recommendation of putting it at 0.70 is more suited for pro monitors), although as we know speed is drastically off. Within the Mame settings there's an option to alter the xx.xx hz of the game, so theoretically if we can get the math correct one could find a number that would slow down the game enough that when sped up at 59.95hz it would be running at 54.7hz. I'm sure some here will call this dirty emulation but if it works I would favor doing this over having a game off speed.  :)
« Last Edit: January 25, 2019, 01:32:45 pm by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #63 on: January 25, 2019, 03:50:22 pm »
Oh ok I answered my own question about the mame vertical size setting by testing some more, in some games the picture loses pixels and texts become harder to read. So I guess individual mame settings to even out the overscan will be my way to go then. :/

So I copy and paste the current monitor settings from the mame ini and then just make changes to h front and back porches of a seperate ini for each game?

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #64 on: January 25, 2019, 05:21:17 pm »
So I copy and paste the current monitor settings from the mame ini and then just make changes to h front and back porches of a seperate ini for each game?

You don't have to it that way. GM allows defining different ranges, e.g. by vertical resolution, so you can apply different porch settings per range (crt_range0, crt_range1, etc.). So just split range0 into several ranges, e.g. 192-240, 240-248, 256-288, etc.
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.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #65 on: January 25, 2019, 06:52:34 pm »
Oh ok I answered my own question about the mame vertical size setting by testing some more, in some games the picture loses pixels and texts become harder to read. So I guess individual mame settings to even out the overscan will be my way to go then. :/

So I copy and paste the current monitor settings from the mame ini and then just make changes to h front and back porches of a seperate ini for each game?

This seems like a real compromise, doesn’t the look of the game deteriorate?

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #66 on: January 26, 2019, 01:19:25 am »
You're absolutely right I did some tests with the tv service and could see that the horizontal was perfect and the vertical was off, resulting in some squishing. The degree can vary some games it's like a 1~3% squish others it's more noticeable sometimes to the point that information is out of bounds. So I guess this is where one makes adjustments to individual games to overscan the horizontal to avoid wrong aspect ratios. Although it's an odd task considering we're removing information from the picture, a case of pick your poison.

I have a standard res arcade monitor.  I've adjusted the vertical height on my monitor so that Pac-Man just barely fits on the screen without cutting off the score.  This results in horizontal games like Street Fighter II getting letterboxed.  Honestly, it's not that noticeable.  Especially since I have a black bezel around the monitor and the letterboxed area just kind of blends in.  Most games that I normally play fit without any information loss.  To me, that's more important than having the exact aspect ratio.

I'm sure there's probably some oddball tall vertical game that will still be cut off but when that happens, I'll just manually adjust the screen as needed.
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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #67 on: January 26, 2019, 02:06:13 am »
So I copy and paste the current monitor settings from the mame ini and then just make changes to h front and back porches of a seperate ini for each game?

You don't have to it that way. GM allows defining different ranges, e.g. by vertical resolution, so you can apply different porch settings per range (crt_range0, crt_range1, etc.). So just split range0 into several ranges, e.g. 192-240, 240-248, 256-288, etc.
Thank you! Anyway I tried doing it but instead it cancelled me out of being able to use super resolutions (it ends up using the the original resolutions and the geometrical changes don't seem to have an impact).
Here's my .ini, did I do something wrong? The numbers are not finalized since I was doing some testing. I was wondering whether it's because I have 240 in two of the ranges (and I was testing with 240 content like Rastan). Fortunately I have saved my original .ini as a backup so I have returned to it for now.

Arroyo > Yes it absolutely ruins it, one just can't touch those in mame settings for the geometry, when texts scroll down it looks like the texts had a seizure lol.

Krick > Sounds like you found the sweet spot in your setup. :)

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #68 on: January 26, 2019, 07:32:02 am »
Your ranges are totally broken:

crt_range0                "15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 3.790, 4.700, 7.126, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 192-240"
crt_range1                "15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 2.388, 4.700, 5.890, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 240-248"
crt_range2                "15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 2.002, 4.700, 5.498, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 256-288"
crt_range3                "15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 3.790, 4.700, 7.126, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 448, 480"


Please read the information here and what the values stand for: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,116023.0.html

Format: -crt_range 0-9   HfreqMin-HfreqMax, VfreqMin-VfreqMax, HFrontPorch, HSyncPulse, HBackPorch, VfrontPorch, VSyncPulse, VBackPorch, HSyncPol, VSyncPol, ProgressiveLinesMin, ProgressiveLinesMax, InterlacedLinesMin, InterlacedLinesMax


E.g.:

crt_range0                15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 3.790, 4.700, 7.126, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 192, 240, 384, 480
crt_range1                15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 2.388, 4.700, 5.890, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 241, 248, 482, 496
...

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.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #69 on: January 26, 2019, 12:02:19 pm »
Thank you Calamity! I had forgotten the interlace min and max and was using a - when I shouldn't have. So now it reads more like:

crt_range0                "15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 3.790, 4.700, 7.126, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 192, 240, 384, 480"
crt_range1                "15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 2.388, 4.700, 5.890, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 240, 248, 482, 496"
crt_range2                "15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 2.002, 4.700, 5.498, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 256, 288, 512, 576"
crt_range3                "15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 2.002, 4.700, 5.498, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 448, 480, 896, 960"

With this things are running properly but I can't get games that run at 240p or 480i to register the changes in range 1 (is it because they are between both ranges?). I tried changing the last progressive and interlanced stat in range 0 to 234 and 472 in the interlace column but then 240p and 480i games launch at 464i (eg Rastan, Mortal Kombat etc). Basically I can't get 240/480 to start in range 1 instead of range 0 settings.

Now on a different note, I realize now that it's because 224p games like cps systems launch with with lower resolutions than the selected display (which is 240) that I'm able to get full vertical screen on them, and was wondering if I were running a different preset than ntsc that had more resolutions if I would be able to force a game to launch in a higher res for example 240 into a 256 mode? That would theoretically allow me to get full screen or close enough on the vertical side.

I couldn't use arcade_crt because for some reason it will not accept limitations to the h and v frequencies such as "15734-15734, 59.94-59.94". When I put those in during vmmaker it just breaks the lines on the pattern just giving a 0, and if I accept the default values and later change them in mame.ini I then get error messages that various resolutions could not work. I think I could use generic_crt potentially and then just put those ntsc limitations in without it breaking, but assuming generic has more resolutions to pick from would it work to force a 240 game into a 256 resolution and so forth? In other workds would this technique work to get games to appear near full screen vertically?
« Last Edit: January 26, 2019, 12:09:29 pm by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #70 on: January 26, 2019, 12:25:32 pm »
Check carefully the ranges I suggested.

Try this:

        crt_range0 15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 3.790, 4.700, 7.126, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 192, 239, 384, 478
        crt_range1 15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 2.388, 4.700, 5.890, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 240, 240, 480, 480
« Last Edit: January 26, 2019, 01:54:09 pm by Calamity »
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.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #71 on: January 26, 2019, 02:32:12 pm »
Basically I can't get 240/480 to start in range 1 instead of range 0 settings.

You had two ranges that accepted 240p (0 and 1), the first one was picked.

Quote
Now on a different note, I realize now that it's because 224p games like cps systems launch with with lower resolutions than the selected display (which is 240) that I'm able to get full vertical screen on them, and was wondering if I were running a different preset than ntsc that had more resolutions if I would be able to force a game to launch in a higher res for example 240 into a 256 mode? That would theoretically allow me to get full screen or close enough on the vertical side.

It doesn't work like that. It's not that adding some padding lines will shrink the vertical visible area so it fits. Vertical size is fixed. You have to operate on the electronics of the chassis to change that.

240p is picked instead of 224p because both are actually the same video mode (do some research on this specific thing here, it will open your eyes once you get this idea).

Quote
I couldn't use arcade_crt because for some reason it will not accept limitations to the h and v frequencies such as "15734-15734, 59.94-59.94".

Yes, you're right and I should have warned you. It's only that the ntsc preset is so rarely used that I forget about its limitations. Basically, those locked frequency ranges only allow you to go up to 240p. Since the arcade_15 preset is supposed to cover 192-288, when you paste these locked frequencies in there it doesn't work because it leads to a  mathematically impossible range. You get an error message in VMMaker's console when that happens (you don't see it unless you close the settings dialog, that's something I should fix somehow).

Basically you'd need to either unlock HfreqMax or VfreqMin to reach any higher than 240p/480i. The sliders on the right side of the monitor's tab in VMMaker are there to illustrate the capabilities of the monitor range you're creating. Unfortunately no one that I know of is making any use of them, they took so much work for nothing  :lol
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.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #72 on: January 26, 2019, 03:17:40 pm »
Check carefully the ranges I suggested.

Try this:

        crt_range0 15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 3.790, 4.700, 7.126, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 192, 239, 384, 478
        crt_range1 15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 2.388, 4.700, 5.890, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 240, 240, 480, 480

Thank you. So I tried those and actually it gives me the same result where 240p or 480i content ends up in a weird 464i  (2560x464i 59.940hz 15.734khz). On top of that they are still running on crt_range 0 geometry settings. I guess this is a case where I should work on them on a per game basis and just leave the setting on range 0 = 192-240 and range1 = 241 and up? (games tested were Rastan which is a 320x240 game and mortal kombat which is a 400x254 game and should definitely be in the later ranges.

Thank you for that additional information. I'll try and read up that matter of why 224 is essentially the same video mode as 240 but this is news to me (although makes sense since so called arcade perfect ports on the ps2 of cps games ran on 240p I believe). Lesson learned. So there's no changing the vertical lines other than through the tv service menu. Fortunately about half or more of the games in my sets run in those lower resolutions giving me a full picture so I really can't complain. If I could adjust and stretch out the h front and back porches for games that run at 240 and up so that aspect ratio is preserved I'll be delighted and would leave it at that. From the sound of it there's no getting perfect vertical size for all games and it ends up being a compromise based on one's preferences (like how Krick favored letterboxed 224 games),  unless one makes changes to tv settings based on what's running or by having a vertical size pot hanging out of the tv lol.
« Last Edit: January 26, 2019, 03:36:54 pm by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #73 on: January 26, 2019, 03:51:04 pm »
Quote
I guess this is a case where I should work on them on a per game basis

No.

Please post a log of Rastan, I need to see what's going on.

MK can't run at 256p. Your ntsc range can't do that. NTSC is 240p.
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.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #74 on: January 26, 2019, 04:56:49 pm »
Thank you. Sorry for the delay I remembered reading how to create a log and didn't want to ask another stupid question, but I ended up find the solution in your signature.  :D

Here's the rastan log and my current mame ini.

It's not just Rastan though, any game in 240 and above runs with the same horizontal geometry eventhough I've been changing it in the mame.ini in range1 etc.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #75 on: January 26, 2019, 05:08:09 pm »
You're not using the settings I posted man.

Yours:

crt_range0                "15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 3.790, 4.700, 7.126, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 192, 239, 448, 478"
crt_range1                "15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 2.965, 4.700, 6.398, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 240, 248, 480, 496"
crt_range2                "15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 2.965, 4.700, 6.398, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 256, 288, 512, 576"
crt_range3                "15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 2.965, 4.700, 6.398, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 448, 480, 896, 960"

Mine:


        crt_range0 15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 3.790, 4.700, 7.126, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 192, 239, 384, 478
        crt_range1 15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 2.388, 4.700, 5.890, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 240, 240, 480, 480
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

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #76 on: January 26, 2019, 05:39:30 pm »
Now I feel really stupid.  :scared

Thanks a bunch. That worked! Now they're running in 240p (so it looks better) and h front and back porch changes are working!  :D

Calamity you are the hero.

So from now on if I need to adjust resolutions above 240 I can create a couple like this?

crt_range2 15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 2.388, 4.700, 5.890, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 248, 256, 496, 512
crt_range3 15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 2.388, 4.700, 5.890, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 288, 480, 560, 1024

Or do I go about it the way you just did and make one dedicated set per resolution?

crt_range2 15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 2.388, 4.700, 5.890, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 248, 248, 496, 496

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #77 on: January 26, 2019, 05:55:45 pm »
Turns out now my cps games are now also running with the new h front and back values inserted into range1 instead of the ones from range0. Since cps games are 224 I thought they would work at the range 0 settings but looks like they draw from the 240 selected settings aka range 1 in this case.   :'(

So I probably do need to do a per game or per system basis after all I guess.  :(

Is there no other way to get 224 games to draw from range 0?

Here's a log for alien vs predator and the mame.ini with the latest changes. I think this time there were no mistakes?
« Last Edit: January 26, 2019, 06:02:45 pm by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #78 on: January 26, 2019, 06:10:39 pm »
You don't have a 224p super resolution available. I'll follow tomorrow.
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.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #79 on: January 27, 2019, 01:06:39 am »
Is it possible to add that despite the ntsc preset in use? Should I drop super resolutions for a wider selection of resolutions? I'm all ears.

Just want to say, Calamity thank you for all the help thus far. I've even been taking up your time even on a week end. Without your support I would have been stopped cold unable to proceed many turns ago. I'm very grateful for all you've helped me with. Thank you.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #80 on: January 27, 2019, 06:11:45 am »
Is it possible to add that despite the ntsc preset in use? Should I drop super resolutions for a wider selection of resolutions? I'm all ears.

Yes. In VMMaker->settings->user modes, press Edit to open user_modes_super.ini, then add this line:


2560 x 224 @ 60.000000 super

Save & exit. Then still in the same tab, edit the "Y-res minimum" field, which is set to 240 by default, change it to 224.

Generate and install modes again. Now 224p will be available in the system.

Notice this wouldn't be necessary in an usual setup. It's just that you want to differentiate 224 vs 240 that requires this.

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

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #81 on: January 27, 2019, 11:43:36 am »
Thank you, that worked! So now everything is running properly. One thing worthy of note though is that for range1 I was forced to use your settings of: 240, 240, 480, 480

If I tried any other secondary setting in there like 240, 248, 480, 496 then the 240p content was reverting to the awkward 464i resolutions.

So I ended up with a 192, 239, 384, 478 in range 1.


I do have a couple of weird experiences with Elevator Action Returns and Guardians Denjin Makai ii where the game's native resolution is 320x232 and yet it decides to run in 240p so they end up with the geometry settings of range 1 making them horizontally stretched. I might try adding in a 232 super resolution as well so that I can adjust the porches for those games as well.

Again thank you so much Calamity, you saved the day and I've learned new tricks with VMMaker.    :D

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #82 on: January 27, 2019, 12:07:00 pm »
If I tried any other secondary setting in there like 240, 248, 480, 496 then the 240p content was reverting to the awkward 464i resolutions.

Yes, that's the second part.

You can't go any higher than 240p with your locked frequency ranges (15.734 kHz, 60 Hz). GM parses your range, it detects it's arithmetically inconsistent (248 is not possible at the desired frequencies) so it disables the range.

E.g., in order to reach 256p, you have two possibilities:

- Decrease Vfreq, e.g. 55 Hz (this is what Irem or MK does). This works on a standard frequency arcade monitor/multi-standard consumer TV.
- Increase Hfreq, e.g. 16.7 kHz (this is what the preset arcade_15ex does).

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

Neilalphazeta

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #83 on: January 27, 2019, 12:29:25 pm »
Thank you for that explanation. If there's a choice to still keep the same vfreq as ntsc, I might try with increased hfreq see if that works and try out arcade_ex later after backing things up out of curiosity.

I did encounter one more problem. So adding 232 allowed me to configure the proper porch settings for 232 games and I was about to call it a day for the ntsc presets but then I tested cps games and found that 224 games are running in 232 (so with 232 porch settings). I tried adding in a range to isolate 224 but it doesn't seem to work.

Here's a log of avsp and my updated mame.ini settings. Is there something I'm doing wrong?
« Last Edit: January 27, 2019, 12:32:03 pm by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #84 on: January 27, 2019, 01:12:32 pm »
Your avsp log:

SwitchRes: v0.017m, Monitor: custom, Orientation: horizontal, Modeline generation: enabled
SwitchRes: Monitor range 15734.00-15734.00,59.94-59.94,3.253,4.700,6.507,0.191,0.191,0.953,0,0,232,232,464,464
SwitchRes: Monitor range 15734.00-15734.00,59.94-59.94,2.245,4.700,5.614,0.191,0.191,0.953,0,0,240,240,480,480
SwitchRes: \\.\DISPLAY1: AMD Radeon HD 6450 (PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_6779&SUBSYS_E204174B&REV_00)

Your mame.ini:

crt_range0                15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 3,932, 4.700, 7.109, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 192, 223, 348, 446
crt_range1                15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 3,932, 4.700, 7.109, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 224, 224, 448, 448
crt_range2                15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 3.253, 4.700, 6.507, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 232, 232, 464, 464
crt_range3                15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 2.245, 4.700, 5.614, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 240, 240, 480, 480

Seems avsp is reading the ranges from another ini?
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CRT Emudriver, VMMaker & Arcade OSD downloads, documentation and discussion:  Eiusdemmodi

Neilalphazeta

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #85 on: January 27, 2019, 01:16:12 pm »
That's strange. I copied the mame.ini and avsp.txt at the same time to a usb key right after running the log and without making any changes before hand.

It's as if avsp was only reading crt_range2 and crt_range3 and skipped range0 and range1.

After lunch I'll try deleting range 0 and pushing all ranges up 1, or in other words something like this:

crt_range0                15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 3,932, 4.700, 7.109, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 224, 224, 448, 448
crt_range1                15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 3.253, 4.700, 6.507, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 232, 232, 464, 464
crt_range2                15734-15734, 59.94-59.94, 2.245, 4.700, 5.614, 0.191, 0.191, 0.953, 0, 0, 240, 240, 480, 480

Actually looking at avsp.txt (I'm not good at reading the details since I don't understand all of it) I do notice that in checking the SwitchRes sections they all look at rng(2) and rng(3), so does that mean they are skipping range 0 and range 1?

Maybe removing range 0 will help?
« Last Edit: January 27, 2019, 01:20:53 pm by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #86 on: January 27, 2019, 01:47:03 pm »
Your ranges 0 and 1 have hfront porch =  3,932

Do you see the issue?  :)

You have to use point instead of comma: 3.932
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Neilalphazeta

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #87 on: January 27, 2019, 03:19:12 pm »
Oh my gosh do I feel stupid.  :dizzy:

Thank you for catching that. It's all working perfectly now!

Since ntsc preset now starts at 224 I guess the range0 covering resolutions 192 to 223 is redundant so I'll just move the settings ranges up to cover 224, 232 and 240.

One last question on porches if I may and I'll be all done, I can't seem to figure out how to modify the vertical centering because I cannot reproduce the existing numbers shown in the charts for any given resolution. For example the default for all ranges in vertical front and back porches is at 0.191 front and 0.953 back. When I go into Arcade OSD to try to find that same starting point I end up with different numbers such as 0.191 and 1.019. All I want to do is move the vertical centering up one or two points up but then I end up with something like 0.255 0.955 (when going 1 up). That can't be right is it? If I input this I think groovymame will interpret it as I am trying to stretch the vertical size which it can't do. Is there any calculator or way of measuring one up from the default 0.191 and 1.019 so that I put in consistent numbers that it will accept?

By the way on a side note, would accepting over 16khz of H frequency be bad for my consumer tv? I'm going to try out the arcade15_ex with restricted V frequency at 59.94-59.94 to see how things turn out.
« Last Edit: January 27, 2019, 03:39:47 pm by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #88 on: January 27, 2019, 04:07:39 pm »
By the way on a side note, would accepting over 16khz of H frequency be bad for my consumer tv?

Try it and see. :)

Some Sony's are know to have a very wide range (i.e. up to 16.5 kHz). You can test this in Arcade OSD by observing whether the picture remains stable or starts to show artifacts (e.g. shakiness, rolling, discoloration, distorted geometry, etc.)

Some TVs (e.g. later Thomson chassis) simply blank the screen when they receive a horizontal scan rate that they don't like.
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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #89 on: January 27, 2019, 07:13:47 pm »
Try it and see. :)

Some Sony's are know to have a very wide range (i.e. up to 16.5 kHz). You can test this in Arcade OSD by observing whether the picture remains stable or starts to show artifacts (e.g. shakiness, rolling, discoloration, distorted geometry, etc.)

Some TVs (e.g. later Thomson chassis) simply blank the screen when they receive a horizontal scan rate that they don't like.

So I gave it a try and it was a no go. I could only do it if I left the vertical frequencies alone but unfortunately I've decided I had to stick dead close to 59.95 or things start going wrong in the stability of the picture.

So all in all I'm all done and really happy with the settings I've settled on. The only thing I'd like to do is raise the vertical centering up a couple points on the 232 and 240 geometry settings but I can't figure out how to do it since I can't calculate the proper measurements using arcade osd due to the numbers being too different from the default ones it looks like. I'm not giving up, but I'm unsure how to proceed at this moment.

I'm really happy with the final results and I really want to thank all of you who helped me get here with a particular huge thanks to Calamity for putting up with my incompetence. It's been a long journey but it's been a wonderful journey and a great learning experience as well, and I look forward to hanging around and to keep learning. :)

By the way Arroyo I finished reading the page on the "Analog signals and connections" as well as that greatly informative youtube video as well (actually had to watch it twice) and now down to reading the "Analog signals technical" article. Those links have been greatly informative.

Since you have a similar setup I'd love to hear how things work out once you get a new gpu working. :)

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #90 on: January 27, 2019, 08:51:49 pm »
Try it and see. :)

Some Sony's are know to have a very wide range (i.e. up to 16.5 kHz). You can test this in Arcade OSD by observing whether the picture remains stable or starts to show artifacts (e.g. shakiness, rolling, discoloration, distorted geometry, etc.)

Some TVs (e.g. later Thomson chassis) simply blank the screen when they receive a horizontal scan rate that they don't like.

So I gave it a try and it was a no go. I could only do it if I left the vertical frequencies alone but unfortunately I've decided I had to stick dead close to 59.95 or things start going wrong in the stability of the picture.

So all in all I'm all done and really happy with the settings I've settled on. The only thing I'd like to do is raise the vertical centering up a couple points on the 232 and 240 geometry settings but I can't figure out how to do it since I can't calculate the proper measurements using arcade osd due to the numbers being too different from the default ones it looks like. I'm not giving up, but I'm unsure how to proceed at this moment.

I'm really happy with the final results and I really want to thank all of you who helped me get here with a particular huge thanks to Calamity for putting up with my incompetence. It's been a long journey but it's been a wonderful journey and a great learning experience as well, and I look forward to hanging around and to keep learning. :)

By the way Arroyo I finished reading the page on the "Analog signals and connections" as well as that greatly informative youtube video as well (actually had to watch it twice) and now down to reading the "Analog signals technical" article. Those links have been greatly informative.

Since you have a similar setup I'd love to hear how things work out once you get a new gpu working. :)

Card arrives Thursday, should be back up and running and hopefully can start playing around.  So with your current setup, how do the MK games look and play?

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #91 on: January 28, 2019, 02:40:56 am »
Great, so you'll probably be testing things out too pretty soon.  :)

MK looks pretty good. I only fought a few fights in MKII, and MK3Ultimate and the good news is that I can't really say that I noticed the frame to frame mismatch that results from the triple buffering but I'll have to play longer to see if this holds true. Perhaps because they aren't quite as input heavy or as fast paced as many other arcade fighters out there they still manage to run very nicely. They do run in interlaced video however which is slightly unfortunate. It might be worth trying what Calamity pointed out to see if you can find a preset that allows close to ntsc standards in vertical frequency but with a horizontal frequency up to 16.7khz. I wasn't able to find such a preset but I might try again later in the week or on the week end.

I think the best point of comparison in regards to the Mk titles would be comparing it to how games running on the Gamecube look like through component. Not sure you ever tried as the component cable was a Japan only release that is pretty rare but anyway it gave out pretty good 480i and I'd say this is sort of in that league. In fact had these games been ported to the Gamecube or PS2 and had been a close to perfect arcade port collection it just might have looked and played pretty closely to how they play currently on my setup. That's not the greatest compliment obviously but it's to say that they do run pretty well.

In general all the lower res games (anything 224, 232, 240) run perfectly and are stunning. I understand these later FD Trinitrons may not be ideal because the digital chassis on these appear to render the picture a bit more sensitive to anomalies on non ntsc standard frequencies. but I think when you see them running free of any visual anomalies you will be very impressed. Sure one can go looking for a Loewe, B&O or Siemens tv or some other than may be much more versatile with the frequencies but in all likelihood there would be heavy compromises to the picture quality (dimmer, duller, softer possibly). So there's probably no ideal solution with consumer tubes, and possibly the only optimal way to run all these games would be on an arcade monitor, and even then picture quality might not be matching something like your FV300/310.

The geometry I had configured on my tv for other consoles turned out to be ideal for 224p content as I'm able to get 100% of the picture displayed. Assuming your tv is calibrated for other consoles like mine then from 232p you'll begin getting some overscan. At this stage it's still perfectly acceptable at around 3.2% overscan (I get these from playing around with the in game mame settings to see what's outside the frame), some games I don't even notice the overscan unless there is text or other stats somewhere close to the edges in which cases a little portion might get cut off (in worse case scenarios this can be up to a quarter or a third of some extreme edge text). With 240p content however the overscan gets very noticeable. It's close to 6.5% from my calculations. I think I'd call this tolerable, but at times just barely. I think at this point you'd want to change the tv service menu settings for the h size and v size (even if only temporarily) if you intend to play a lot of 240p content. Fortunately in my sets the vast majority of games appear to use the former resolutions so only a handful end up in that highly overscanned range.

The good news is that mame h and v size settings seem to have no negative impact on these higher res titles. I have no idea what's going on and maybe someone more experienced can explain, but when I touch these settings on any 224, 232 or 240 game it instantly negatively impacts the picture (the image starts loosing lines of pixels and some lines start looking out of proportion). This may not show on a static image but as soon as there is movement it becomes apparent. For example in something like Rastan if I try to zoom out even 1 digit in the mame settings throw off the graphics but in Mortal Kombat for example I can have it perfectly centered and even with the picture moving in different directions nothing appears off.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2019, 02:53:23 am by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #92 on: January 28, 2019, 02:24:58 pm »
Sure one can go looking for a Loewe, B&O or Siemens tv or some other than may be much more versatile with the frequencies but in all likelihood there would be heavy compromises to the picture quality (dimmer, duller, softer possibly). So there's probably no ideal solution with consumer tubes, and possibly the only optimal way to run all these games would be on an arcade monitor, and even then picture quality might not be matching something like your FV300/310.

I know you're trying to talk yourself into loving your Sony but what you're saying is incorrect. Take a look here at some of the excellent consumer TV possibilities. Really, the possibilities don't start and end with Sonys but observe that Sony KV-3400D and tell me a consumer TV can't deliver the goods (and still sync to anything you throw at it). There are plenty other brands that can rival that picture quality too...

Also, once you accept that flatscreen CRTs suck you'll soon forget about that FV300. ;) A curved Trinitron is a thing of beauty.
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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #93 on: January 28, 2019, 04:43:34 pm »
Sure one can go looking for a Loewe, B&O or Siemens tv or some other than may be much more versatile with the frequencies but in all likelihood there would be heavy compromises to the picture quality (dimmer, duller, softer possibly). So there's probably no ideal solution with consumer tubes, and possibly the only optimal way to run all these games would be on an arcade monitor, and even then picture quality might not be matching something like your FV300/310.

I know you're trying to talk yourself into loving your Sony but what you're saying is incorrect. Take a look here at some of the excellent consumer TV possibilities. Really, the possibilities don't start and end with Sonys but observe that Sony KV-3400D and tell me a consumer TV can't deliver the goods (and still sync to anything you throw at it). There are plenty other brands that can rival that picture quality too...

Also, once you accept that flatscreen CRTs suck you'll soon forget about that FV300. ;) A curved Trinitron is a thing of beauty.

I wasn't really saying that for myself at all. I've gone through countless crt's over the years, pretty much every Sony model I could get my hands on, later Panasonics, Toshiba, also NEC pro monitors, Sony PVM/BVM. I didn't go for stuff like Siemens or Loewes because I left that era of shadow mask tubes behind (sorry but I guess this is just a subjective thing, I prefer flat  :D ). I'm fond of the shadow mask itself but the tubes rarely have the same brightness, contrast or colors that one can get on aperture grille tubes. Aperture grille tubes are trickier with geometry/convergence but since a friend of mine used to be a Sony technician he taught me how to work on the tube with premalloy strips (a very stressful thing to do the first few times but it works) so I was able to correct most of the tubes I kept this way.

Maybe you're familiar already with North American Sony models so if you are apologies for wasting your time with the next paragraph, but just in case you're not, generally the FV lineup is quite ideal for classic games as the picture quality is really top notch. The FV lineup is actually the mid range series of TV's they made in the later crt days, but the upper range series had hi definition super fine pitch, hi-scan and such that make them less ideal for classic game consoles. In fact in terms of color and brightness the later FV models have about or close to the same intensity as the BVM20G1U, I even had to lower picture levels to about a quarter/third in order to even keep it at reasonable levels. The convergence and focus is of course nowhere near as good as pro monitors especially if the tubes are worn down, but with some tweaking that can be remedied.

The FV300 and FV310 were the very last they made so they generally are ideal as they are more likely to be found with low hours. My preference goes to the FV300 because I find the high voltage regulator does something a bit unusual to the picture to me on the FV310, but also the FV310 starts at 27 inch which to me is a bit too big since I don't have the space and don't have the manpower to move that around, I favor 20/24 models. I've actually hoarded a few spares because I was so blown away by the image on these. That being said yes for Groovymame clearly not the best pick, but I think all ntsc Sony's with digital chassis seem to have the same problem (I tested on the lower end FS models too but it gives the same results). Going towards another tube I'm positive I would have to accept some degree of a downgrade in picture quality. Maybe I'm wrong and there are some outstanding models that I haven't tried out there that give even better colors/brightness/contrast/sharpness without the heavy scanlines of upper range pro monitors, but I'd have to see it to believe it because I've gone over so many others along the way I'd be a bit skeptical.  :-\
« Last Edit: January 28, 2019, 05:22:10 pm by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #94 on: January 28, 2019, 05:21:48 pm »
My preference goes to the FV300 and I've actually hoarded a couple spares because I was so blown away by the image on these.

Sounds like you've done your homework. Good stuff! You're comfortable with your choices.

CRTs are always a compromise. Personally, I've stopped obsessing about a lot of the things that used to bother me.

Provided the convergence and geometry are decent and the chassis will sync to all arcade ranges, I'm good to go. Color is easy to fix and focus is rarely so bad as to be unacceptable.

As an example, the high voltage regulation on some of my RGB-modded Philips is just laughable (e.g. the whole screen pulses when using shotgun in Metal Slug or destroying the first boss in Raiden) but nobody (aside from me) that plays my cabs notices any of that stuff. They're too busy having fun. :)
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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #95 on: January 28, 2019, 05:28:50 pm »
My preference goes to the FV300 and I've actually hoarded a couple spares because I was so blown away by the image on these.

Sounds like you've done your homework. Good stuff! You're comfortable with your choices.

CRTs are always a compromise. Personally, I've stopped obsessing about a lot of the things that used to bother me.

Provided the convergence and geometry are decent and the chassis will sync to all arcade ranges, I'm good to go. Color is easy to fix and focus is rarely so bad as to be unacceptable.

As an example, the high voltage regulation on some of my RGB-modded Philips is just laughable (e.g. the whole screen pulses when using shotgun in Metal Slug or destroying the first boss in Raiden) but nobody (aside from me) that plays my cabs notices any of that stuff. They're too busy having fun. :)

Do you live in a 50/60hz region? I envy you for having the option of easily finding tv's that  can sync to all arcade ranges. If there's one flaw to the FV300 or any of these late digital chassis tubes in North America it's clearly that the chassis are way too sensitive to non ntsc frequencies.  I remember reading the threads of people having issues with the Neo Geo and thinking that wasn't a good sign, but I couldn't be sure till I tested the Groovymame PC and found even CPS games have some form of anomaly in arcade preset, so clearly the people weren't imaging it on the Neo as it runs further south of the cps on the frequency range (albeit still at what should be irrelevant levels off standard).  :D


Yes ultimately it's always a compromise. I also stopped a couple of years ago because at some point it becomes pointless. One lesson I learned from all that is there is no perfect crt, end of story. It's all about what downsides you are willing to put up with and what image gives you the most happiness.  :D

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #96 on: January 28, 2019, 05:37:00 pm »
Also, once you accept that flatscreen CRTs suck you'll soon forget about that FV300. ;) A curved Trinitron is a thing of beauty.

One of the biggest challenges we have here in the US is getting a clean signal to the TV, almost all of the curved tubes were composite or RF inputs only. 

Seems the only way to get the equivalent of what you folks outside the US get to enjoy is to RGB mod a TV, which sounds awesome/intimidating.  I know there are some models on the SCHMUPS forum that have been documented, but it’s still a hassle to locate the TV (if you can find one that’s been documented) and then carve out the time and tools to perform the mod.
« Last Edit: July 04, 2019, 11:06:31 am by Arroyo »

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #97 on: January 28, 2019, 06:45:04 pm »
Seems the only way to get the equivalent of what you folks outside the US get to enjoy is to RGB mod a TV, which sounds awesome/intimidating.

The documentation at SHMUPS makes it less of a black art now. I got into modding well before that thread started but recently read the entire 50+ pages out of curiosity. Really, the concept is quite simple and most of the posts there are hand-holding for people that are confused or are completely new to electronics.

I'm actually in NZ so we're a PAL region. However, one of the benefits of RGB modding is that you completely bypass all the usual PAL/NTSC niggles (e.g. attempts by the TV to vertically center, overscan, etc.) There are even benefits over SCART TVs (e.g. no calibration line at the top of the image).

Would be totally happy to support a "GM user RGB mod" thread on this forum if people were interested. Can't be bothered with helping out the SHMUPS thread because I'm not a console user (which is another source for confusion/issues).
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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #98 on: January 28, 2019, 06:51:13 pm »
Seems the only way to get the equivalent of what you folks outside the US get to enjoy is to RGB mod a TV, which sounds awesome/intimidating.

Would be totally happy to support a "GM user RGB mod" thread on this forum if people were interested. Can't be bothered with helping out the SHMUPS thread because I'm not a console user (which is another source for confusion/issues).

I’d subscribe ;-)

I’m going to give it one more go with these Sony’s for now as they are the easiest TV to get here still.  Assuming that doesn’t work out (which looks increasingly like it won’t fit the frequency response I’m looking for) I have a Panasonic from the 90’s that I’d love to make my first RGB attempt, so would welcome the help!

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #99 on: January 28, 2019, 06:52:39 pm »
Great, so you'll probably be testing things out too pretty soon.  :)

MK looks pretty good. I only fought a few fights in MKII, and MK3Ultimate and the good news is that I can't really say that I noticed the frame to frame mismatch that results from the triple buffering but I'll have to play longer to see if this holds true. Perhaps because they aren't quite as input heavy or as fast paced as many other arcade fighters out there they still manage to run very nicely. They do run in interlaced video however which is slightly unfortunate. It might be worth trying what Calamity pointed out to see if you can find a preset that allows close to ntsc standards in vertical frequency but with a horizontal frequency up to 16.7khz. I wasn't able to find such a preset but I might try again later in the week or on the week end.

I think the best point of comparison in regards to the Mk titles would be comparing it to how games running on the Gamecube look like through component. Not sure you ever tried as the component cable was a Japan only release that is pretty rare but anyway it gave out pretty good 480i and I'd say this is sort of in that league. In fact had these games been ported to the Gamecube or PS2 and had been a close to perfect arcade port collection it just might have looked and played pretty closely to how they play currently on my setup. That's not the greatest compliment obviously but it's to say that they do run pretty well.

In general all the lower res games (anything 224, 232, 240) run perfectly and are stunning. I understand these later FD Trinitrons may not be ideal because the digital chassis on these appear to render the picture a bit more sensitive to anomalies on non ntsc standard frequencies. but I think when you see them running free of any visual anomalies you will be very impressed. Sure one can go looking for a Loewe, B&O or Siemens tv or some other than may be much more versatile with the frequencies but in all likelihood there would be heavy compromises to the picture quality (dimmer, duller, softer possibly). So there's probably no ideal solution with consumer tubes, and possibly the only optimal way to run all these games would be on an arcade monitor, and even then picture quality might not be matching something like your FV300/310.

The geometry I had configured on my tv for other consoles turned out to be ideal for 224p content as I'm able to get 100% of the picture displayed. Assuming your tv is calibrated for other consoles like mine then from 232p you'll begin getting some overscan. At this stage it's still perfectly acceptable at around 3.2% overscan (I get these from playing around with the in game mame settings to see what's outside the frame), some games I don't even notice the overscan unless there is text or other stats somewhere close to the edges in which cases a little portion might get cut off (in worse case scenarios this can be up to a quarter or a third of some extreme edge text). With 240p content however the overscan gets very noticeable. It's close to 6.5% from my calculations. I think I'd call this tolerable, but at times just barely. I think at this point you'd want to change the tv service menu settings for the h size and v size (even if only temporarily) if you intend to play a lot of 240p content. Fortunately in my sets the vast majority of games appear to use the former resolutions so only a handful end up in that highly overscanned range.

The good news is that mame h and v size settings seem to have no negative impact on these higher res titles. I have no idea what's going on and maybe someone more experienced can explain, but when I touch these settings on any 224, 232 or 240 game it instantly negatively impacts the picture (the image starts loosing lines of pixels and some lines start looking out of proportion). This may not show on a static image but as soon as there is movement it becomes apparent. For example in something like Rastan if I try to zoom out even 1 digit in the mame settings throw off the graphics but in Mortal Kombat for example I can have it perfectly centered and even with the picture moving in different directions nothing appears off.


Thanks for putting all your findings down.  I’m sure it will be very helpful!

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #100 on: January 29, 2019, 12:54:35 am »
Is Mortal Kombat at the very top of your list Arroyo? What other games are you planning on running?

At fear of being a little blunt, if Mortal Kombat is the main game you want to run on your Groovymame PC I wouldn't even waste time with the FV310, I'd go straight to try out the Panasonic. Not saying it doesn't look good, but if I had to make a list of how arcade perfect games are running you'd have at the dead bottom games like Crack Down (since it's a 25khz game it probably runs poorly on most setups anyway), R-Type 1+2, Cosmic Cop, some of the other low hz games that I had put up on a list higher in the thread (basically to me 3D games have more subtle difference imo when running in 480i but with 2D games it just stands out more I feel), and then somewhere a bit later would be Mortal Kombat. It looks fine and runs but it feels more like a so called arcade perfect port to a 6th generation console. I'm still delighted I have it running and there were no great console ports of it anyway (unless now on modern consoles but that's not really a good match for crt's) so I leave it at that.

That being said if you are into other systems like cps, neo geo, Konami games etc, you're in for a real treat. I couldn't believe how good games look on the FV300, sometimes I almost had to rub my eyes because I feel it looks even better than I remember in the arcades (without the (in my opinion) un-crt like scanlines found on pro monitors), brightness, colors, sharpness, the whole thing is just incredible. I also did some comparisons running my PS2 with the arcade perfect (or at least how people always refer to it) Street Fighter Alpha collection, I booted up Alpha 3, had Alpha 3 on Groovymame, both using component of course, and I would alter on the switch box back and forth on the same image (character select, in fight etc), and the Groovymame looked sharper and had more intense colors. I was very impressed. As for the matter of the frequency limitations, you might have no issues with arcade preset, it's just a matter of how sensitive you are to any video oddity creeping in, you might just be fine. Based on my game sets I basically have 85% or so running 100% perfect (or ~99.xx%) depending on the game, and then the remaining 15% the ones that run at higher res than 240 are basically in interlace and depending on the title it can still feel near perfect (with 3D games imo) or it can feel like a console port, as in the case of Mortal Kombat.


Lastly on the matter of modding the tv for rgb, I read a lot of threads about that in recent years, but would you really notice much of a gain from Component to RGB? On pro monitors it's like night and day I agree, but on general consumer crt's I'm generally hard pressed to notice any difference, in fact sometimes RGB does some strange things to consumer sets I find, such as the SNES when I ran RGB it gave the colors a more muted look, one rare case where I actually favor S-video on the consumer tv for that system.  :D
« Last Edit: January 29, 2019, 01:00:53 am by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #101 on: January 29, 2019, 01:09:22 am »
Is Mortal Kombat at the very top of your list Arroyo? What other games are you planning on running?

At fear of being a little blunt, if Mortal Kombat is the main game you want to run on your Groovymame PC I wouldn't even waste time with the FV310, I'd go straight to try out the Panasonic. Not saying it doesn't look good, but if I had to make a list of how arcade perfect games are running you'd have at the dead bottom games like Crack Down (since it's a 25khz game it probably runs poorly on most setups anyway), R-Type 1+2, Cosmic Cop, some of the other low hz games that I had put up on a list higher in the thread (basically to me 3D games have more subtle difference imo when running in 480i but with 2D games it just stands out more I feel), and then somewhere a bit later would be Mortal Kombat. It looks fine and runs but it feels more like a so called arcade perfect port to a 6th generation console. I'm still delighted I have it running and there were no great console ports of it anyway (unless now on modern consoles but that's not really a good match for crt's) so I leave it at that.

That being said if you are into other systems like cps, neo geo, Konami games etc, you're in for a real treat. I couldn't believe how good games look on the FV300, sometimes I almost had to wince because I feel it looks even better than I remember in the arcades (without the "in my opinion" un-crt like scanlines found on pro monitors), brightness, colors, sharpness, the whole thing is just incredible. I also did some comparisons running my PS2 with the arcade perfect (or at least how people always refer to it) Street Fighter Alpha collection, I booted up Alpha 3, had Alpha 3 on Groovymame, both using component of course, and I would alter on the switch box back and forth on the same image (character select, in fight etc), and the Groovymame looked sharper and had more intense colors. I was very impressed. As for the matter of the frequency limitations, you might have no issues with arcade preset, it's just a matter of how sensitive you are to any video oddity creeping in, you might just be fine. Based on my game sets I basically have 85% or so running 100% perfect (or ~99.xx%) depending on the game, and then the remaining 15% the ones that run at higher res than 240 are basically in interlace and depending on the title it can still feel near perfect (with 3D games imo) or it can feel like a console port in the case of Mortal Kombat.


Lastly on the matter or modding the tv for rgb, I read a lot of threads about that in recent years, but would you really notice much of a gain from Component to RGB? On pro monitors it's like night and day I agree, but on general consumer crt's I'm generally hard pressed to notice any difference, in fact sometimes RGB does some strange things to consumer sets I find, such as the SNES when I ran RGB it gave the colors a more muted look, one rare case where I actually favor S-video on the consumer tv for that system.  :D


I’m trying to find a TV set that will be a viable option for an Arcade display, meaning no real compromise in game play.  I’ve had the setup working for some time and was happy with most games:


But yeah I’m a huge fighting game fan and Mortal Kombat is at the top of the list, so it’s one of those no compromise things.  I’ll go the RGB route not so much for raw picture quality but so that I can hopefully open up to proper refresh rates and game play speed, even if it means shadow mask over Aperture (I agree Aperture is superior picture), cause to me game play and overall look is more important than “incredible look”.  Like you I think, I was looking for the holy grail of CRT no compromise, but it’s looking more and more likes it’s all a trade off. 

Was even considering the professional monitor route, which I haven’t experienced in person.  Thought I might be able to find one with the right scanline width to satisfy, as I’m picky like you to make it look closer to what I remember.  The pursuit continues, looking forward to more experimenting...I’ll keep you posted.  By the way what time zone are you in?

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #102 on: January 29, 2019, 01:52:53 am »
I'm on the East coast time zone, so I'm actually headed for bed. What about yourself?

That's a really great photo and a really great tv from the looks of it!

If you want to go pro monitor I'd follow Recap's recommendation and go for the lowest line count you can find, which I believe to be 500 lines. The downside with this is a lot of those lower end pvm's won't have the cool settings the upper ranges have where you can tweak everything out of the service menu (so for calibration you might end up inside the case just like you would any other consumer tv). I've tried 600 lines and it was okay, but it still felt different from a CRT to me, 800 bvm is an absolute mess. it looks like an LCD with pitch black emulated scanlines form a shader or something. I can hardly imagine what the 900 lines from the F model and 1000 lines from the E model look like (according to some it's actually the same tubes and those numbers were just for marketing purposes).

But yes the perfect crt does not exist, people will write articles or make videos claiming this or that crt is perfect but it's never the case. I remember before going into BVM's that people were writing up articles about how for the first time ever it was possible to have flawless geometry (this was around 5 years ago or so), but both BVM's I had had geometry issues, just not the edge or corner issues since those are easily tweaked, but center warping kind of geometry, the same kind you'd see on any other non pro tube. In my experience perfect geometry on a crt does not exist, you can just make it as close as possible (generally working on the edges and corners) and if you're lucky you will get to around 95% or so perfect geometry, and that's really good.  :)

It's funny cause I love CRT's and all but I'm not all that well informed of the technology behind it and it's only recently I've gotten more interested in how all this works, especially loved the links you shared last week.
« Last Edit: January 29, 2019, 01:54:35 am by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #103 on: January 29, 2019, 05:09:32 am »
CRTs with perfect geometry might not exist, but very close to the point you don't see the flaws do (or, well...did)

But most important IMHO is how pleasant the picture quality is, and there was definitely a massive variety throughout CRT history, I've seen some TVs and monitors looking much better than the rest, simply another league and that was because of the harmony of phosphors-beam shaping, contrast/brightness, and colors realism.

Not saying that looking more or less scanlined, and geometry, are not important, but those are position #2 on the scale of what matters, while a pleasing 'natural-looking' picture is #1, and I'd even say is the Grail, because defnitely not all CRTs provide that, and the best aren't necessarily the most qualified by specsheet nor pricing standards.

You just find such CRTs, there aren't really any reliable name brand and model standards that guarantee you'll get what you want with money, since age/condition and configuration weigh significantly more than with flat panels, a random consumer TV in excellent condition and free of annoying quirks you buy for $10 can provie a better experience and visual satisfaction than a complex $1000 broadcast monitor off eScalp.

EDIT: we should get inspiration from audiophile vocabulary to try and improve describing CRTs a bit, I think opposing 'natural' to 'analytical' would work to differentiate two different kinds of high-quality and/or good-looking CRTs.
It's funny how many terms used for sound would actually work as they are for picture: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/describing-sound-a-glossary.220770/
« Last Edit: January 29, 2019, 05:39:57 am by schmerzkaufen »

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #104 on: January 29, 2019, 10:11:33 am »
Interesting note on the audio terms, that glossary is impressive.

I agree on that, picture quality should come first. However pleasant scanlines are a close second. I've never been able to calibrate colors to be on the level of modern HD tv's but you can still see when a tv has "analytical" ( :D) colors even if the aren't fully "accurate" to studio levels. I think the BVM is the only monitor I've had that felt at studio levels in terms of color calibration, but the scanlines are too aggressive and it just spoils position #1 to me, many seem to think otherwise though since they are quite popular still I believe.

Proper geometry is when you only see the defects when you're looking for them, at least that's how I'd explain it.   :laugh:

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #105 on: January 29, 2019, 11:11:47 am »
Enjoyed this thread so eventhough still a new user I’ll give my two cents:

Most important reasons you use Groovymame is frame delay, resolution, and then frequences. So typically in ntsc present you’re still covered by the Groovymame seal of awesomeness for the vast majorty of games. What Paranoid said, sybcrerefresh at default and you’re golden. 58~60 the difference is indistinguishable to the human eye and mind. Pretty much every arcade accurate port you played on consoles were pushed to 60hz too and you probably never noticed, not even the slightest difference.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #106 on: January 29, 2019, 11:42:36 am »
I'm on the East coast time zone, so I'm actually headed for bed. What about yourself?

West Coast - California, dang you are a night owl ;D

Quote
If you want to go pro monitor I'd follow Recap's recommendation and go for the lowest line count you can find, which I believe to be 500 lines. The downside with this is a lot of those lower end pvm's won't have the cool settings the upper ranges have where you can tweak everything out of the service menu (so for calibration you might end up inside the case just like you would any other consumer tv). I've tried 600 lines and it was okay, but it still felt different from a CRT to me, 800 bvm is an absolute mess. it looks like an LCD with pitch black emulated scanlines form a shader or something. I can hardly imagine what the 900 lines from the F model and 1000 lines from the E model look like (according to some it's actually the same tubes and those numbers were just for marketing purposes).

But yes the perfect crt does not exist, people will write articles or make videos claiming this or that crt is perfect but it's never the case. I remember before going into BVM's that people were writing up articles about how for the first time ever it was possible to have flawless geometry (this was around 5 years ago or so), but both BVM's I had had geometry issues, just not the edge or corner issues since those are easily tweaked, but center warping kind of geometry, the same kind you'd see on any other non pro tube. In my experience perfect geometry on a crt does not exist, you can just make it as close as possible (generally working on the edges and corners) and if you're lucky you will get to around 95% or so perfect geometry, and that's really good.  :)

It's funny cause I love CRT's and all but I'm not all that well informed of the technology behind it and it's only recently I've gotten more interested in how all this works, especially loved the links you shared last week.

Appreciate the insights on your experience.  Seeing as how pro monitors are very expensive I'll resort to this only if I can't find CRT nirvana in consumer land.  Still got my fingers crossed, and will update here with my testing.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #107 on: January 29, 2019, 12:36:28 pm »
Yes it can get to be a bit pricey since you also need to get the cables, a good Scart to BNC cable can cost around 40 usd, or at least it used to, and then if you use other consoles you need a scart switcher as well (not to mention good rgb scart cables for each system). Also with scart you have two types which are not compatible with each other, Scart Euro and JP21, you can't mix them so have to chose which standard to abide by.

By the way does anyone else have issues running at 480i? I have this faint horizontal lines scrolling through the screen from bottom up, it happens on all the tv's, although of course these are all similar era Sony's so I'm not surprised.

Would I be able to adjust this with the Horizontal pulse setting in Arcade OSD maybe (and then carry it to mame for those higher res games that pick 480i)?

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #108 on: January 29, 2019, 02:43:38 pm »
By the way Arroyo here's some more data that may come in handy to you as well. Here is the full list out of all the games in my set that run arcade imperfect using ntsc preset (they end up in 480i):

cosmic cop            384x256         55
crus'n usa             512x400         57.34
crus'n world          512x400         57.34
dragon breed        384x256         55
dragon ball z        384x256          55
dragon ball z 2     384x256          55
invasion               400x256          56.6
lightning swords   384x256          55
mortal kombat      400x254          54.7
mortal komat ii     400x254           54.7
mortal kombat 3   400x254          54.7
mortal kombat 4   400x256          56.6
ninja spirit            384x256          55
r-type                   384x256          55
r-type II                384x256          55
ultimate mk 3       400x254          54.7
zero team usa      320x256          55.4

Basically it's mostly some irem shoot em ups and MK games.

There's also most 3D fighters out there like Virtua Fighter games, Tekken, Street Fighter EX, Bloody Roar, Dead or Alive etc, but it would make no difference whatever preset as those were 31khz games (some 25khz) that ran in resolutions consumer crt's can't run (such as 480p). Then there are a few non fighting 3D games like Time Crisis which is another 480p game at 31khz, and then Crack Down which runs at 25khz normally. There are a few others but I forgot to take note of as a wasn't compiling a list of non 15khz games, but a list of games that were not running in native resolution. Maybe a non 15khz list would be for some other time.   :)

The list above are games that should be able to run in native resolution using arcade preset if you can handle it, although MK games don't really work because the image rolls as we know.
« Last Edit: January 29, 2019, 02:51:26 pm by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #109 on: January 29, 2019, 07:16:18 pm »
By the way Arroyo here's some more data that may come in handy to you as well. Here is the full list out of all the games in my set that run arcade imperfect using ntsc preset (they end up in 480i):

cosmic cop            384x256         55
crus'n usa             512x400         57.34
crus'n world          512x400         57.34
dragon breed        384x256         55
dragon ball z        384x256          55
dragon ball z 2     384x256          55
invasion               400x256          56.6
lightning swords   384x256          55
mortal kombat      400x254          54.7
mortal komat ii     400x254           54.7
mortal kombat 3   400x254          54.7
mortal kombat 4   400x256          56.6
ninja spirit            384x256          55
r-type                   384x256          55
r-type II                384x256          55
ultimate mk 3       400x254          54.7
zero team usa      320x256          55.4

Basically it's mostly some irem shoot em ups and MK games.

There's also most 3D fighters out there like Virtua Fighter games, Tekken, Street Fighter EX, Bloody Roar, Dead or Alive etc, but it would make no difference whatever preset as those were 31khz games (some 25khz) that ran in resolutions consumer crt's can't run (such as 480p). Then there are a few non fighting 3D games like Time Crisis which is another 480p game at 31khz, and then Crack Down which runs at 25khz normally. There are a few others but I forgot to take note of as a wasn't compiling a list of non 15khz games, but a list of games that were not running in native resolution. Maybe a non 15khz list would be for some other time.   :)

The list above are games that should be able to run in native resolution using arcade preset if you can handle it, although MK games don't really work because the image rolls as we know.

Thanks Bud.

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #110 on: January 30, 2019, 01:22:48 am »
I made an error, the Crus'n world and usa games are also for 31khz monitors so they won't run properly on a consumer crt. So this is an updated list of the games that can run arcade perfect in arcade preset but don't in ntsc (removed the 4MK games that have the horizontal picture scrolling on arcade preset). There may be more that just aren't in my sets. It's a shame for Zero Team USA, a pretty fun beat em up. If I can back everything up I would change to arcade preset for some of these, but it's really not that bad imo.

cosmic cop            384x256         55
dragon breed        384x256         55
dragon ball z        384x256          55
dragon ball z 2     384x256          55
invasion               400x256          56.6
lightning swords   384x256          55
mortal kombat 4   400x256          56.6
ninja spirit            384x256          55
r-type                   384x256          55
r-type II                384x256          55
zero team usa      320x256          55.4
« Last Edit: January 30, 2019, 01:25:27 am by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #111 on: January 31, 2019, 02:07:54 am »
Arroyo, I got around to testing the Audio Authority.

Very unexpedectedly I ended up with a very different picture. The first obvious change was the horizontal position was shifted to the right so that's ok this device has it's own bias which shifts it even more to the right than the Retrotek did (I guess simple turn of the internal pot would correct this but I ended up doing it via arcade osd and mami.ini for speed's sake. However the big difference was colors which are substantially different. Mainly on orange and red but also the background color I had picked in Attract Mode which was a bit of a light maroon of sorts looked purple now, then I powered up some games and found skin tones were less orange, and I could see slightly better separation around reds. I can't say which is more accurate but I do find the desktop has a whiter white where as the retrotek gave a bit more of a off white towards a warmer white to me. I use neutral color setting so to me the Audio Authority feels more like what I would expect it to look like.

However the main difference and what has convinced me to stick with the Audio Authority is the noise levels. I had these faint horizontal lines of noise or interference that were floating downwards continuously (this was most visible in interlaced modes), I thought this was something I had to adjust in the Arcade OSD (maybe the pulses) at the time, but now it's mostly gone. The AA isn't 100%noise free but it's diminished sufficiently that I don't really see much noise visible at all (maybe it has to do with the power supply the Retrotek uses?). I think the Retrotek is still a pretty neat device so I wouldn't knock on it, especially since I'm not even sure which is producing more accurate colors, but I thought you might want to hear the comparison since I have both in hand.
« Last Edit: January 31, 2019, 02:31:17 am by Neilalphazeta »

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #112 on: January 31, 2019, 04:15:36 am »
You'll find that dialing the potentiometer influences colors and noise as well, no point in buying a AA if you don't try it to find the sweet spot. And there is one, you won't be certain you have the best/right output from the AA until you do it because it's rarely perfect out of the box.
I don't know how many times I've had that conversation with other fresh AA owners, and it always ended with something like "ok right, turning the potentiometer did it, took me 2mn"

Your ini settings will be in the way, save your current ini somewhere but don't try to adjust the AA with it, start from neutral settings (or only reset the H values to default)
« Last Edit: January 31, 2019, 04:17:13 am by schmerzkaufen »

Arroyo

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #113 on: January 31, 2019, 08:32:34 am »
Arroyo, I got around to testing the Audio Authority.


Good to know.  One thing you might want to consider is sending one or even both back.  You can save the money by doing a direct injection of the signal from your computer without having to do any color space conversion.  You will get a more accurate color representation, and there’s less cables and mess to deal with. 

There’s a step by step tutorial on how to do it here for that exact TV:

https://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=63622&start=78

Nipsmg, just did it recently on his KV300 (check his posts).  If I stick with these Sony’s I plan on doing it as there’s no downside besides having to do the work. 

Of course here’s the obligatory warning that you need to study up on discharging CRT monitors before opening up the back as without doing so is dangerous.  I was worried about it until I watched enough YouTube videos.

Neilalphazeta

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #114 on: January 31, 2019, 10:08:36 am »
Thanks schmerzkaufen for the tip. I'll go ahead and do it then. I'm getting used to getting proper h pos values from arcade osd by now.

EDIT a few hours later: Yes so I guess I had a pretty good setting out of the box on this one, moving it would start introducing issues but a bit to the left was perfect. This unit was refurbished by Audio Authority themselves so maybe they had tinkered with it already.

I realize I think the colors are accurate with the Audio Authority, mostly because before when I was browsing the gallery of games in attract mode I found the flyers on the side were always a bit over saturated to the point I was thinking of throwing them all in a desaturating software on the other pc for use on groovymame, but now I don't see that on any of them, colors all look correct. Also when I tried the same color preset from the groovymame layout on the lcd the same colors came out (and this lcd I did a somewhat of a calibration on), so using wine red background gives win red background, where as on the Retrotek it came out in blood red so I had to change it to a darker tone closer to maroon (which was actually purple when I reproduced those values on the lcd). Lastly remember that PS2 on component with Street Fighter Alpha 3 comparison to the Groovymame on component SFA3? Well now the colors are a lot less different, the colors are still a bit more vibrant and I feel contrast is bit better on the groovymame, but they are in same tones now and not as much disparity.

Arroyo thanks for the link, unfortunately my chassis is different from that one. I have the BA-6, which I believe is the last update they did to the FV chassis and it was on use on most of the mid range size units and some of the last large size units iirc. From what I remember reading the main difference with the former BA-5D was correction of the red push function (on the BA-5D chassis you can correct this on the service menu but results vary with some finding it degraded the picture) but a few other service menu items are changed in name or available settings.
« Last Edit: January 31, 2019, 11:50:35 am by Neilalphazeta »

schmerzkaufen

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #115 on: January 31, 2019, 12:14:17 pm »
EDIT a few hours later: Yes so I guess I had a pretty good setting out of the box on this one, moving it would start introducing issues but a bit to the left was perfect. This unit was refurbished by Audio Authority themselves so maybe they had tinkered with it already.
Of course the 'factory setting' is set to the most standard level, but rather than the transcoder itself it's the source and the receiving display that'll make the output require a little tinkering with that pot, in short it varies a little from setup to setup, in cases I've seen the smallest adjustment make the diffence between a perfecty stable and a non-working setup.
Anyway now you're sure it's set properly for yours, in typical fashion of doing things in the right order, from there you (re)do the rest of the adjustments. ^^

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #116 on: January 31, 2019, 01:48:28 pm »
Arroyo, I got around to testing the Audio Authority.


Good to know.  One thing you might want to consider is sending one or even both back.  You can save the money by doing a direct injection of the signal from your computer without having to do any color space conversion.  You will get a more accurate color representation, and there’s less cables and mess to deal with. 

There’s a step by step tutorial on how to do it here for that exact TV:

https://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=63622&start=78

Nipsmg, just did it recently on his KV300 (check his posts).  If I stick with these Sony’s I plan on doing it as there’s no downside besides having to do the work. 

Of course here’s the obligatory warning that you need to study up on discharging CRT monitors before opening up the back as without doing so is dangerous.  I was worried about it until I watched enough YouTube videos.

If you’re going to do that I’d recommend trying on a KV-xxFS100 or similar model first (also great tv’s but easier to find). The KV-xxFV300/310 are like the grail of consumer tubes for all classic and pre HD consoles. It’s easy to mess up with these mods just check out how many times reddit users end up with problems trying to RGB mod their tv. You might end up with artifacts, added noise or other video issues creeping into the signals. To be very honest on these consumer tubes RGB isn’t even that good, you’ll have no gain in sharpness over component and you might not like the colors if you’re used to having the set by your calibration (it won’t look like you’re used to, likely will seem flat). If you want RGB go pro monitors but then you’re in a different crt environment and it’s not for everyone.
« Last Edit: January 31, 2019, 01:54:10 pm by Doom »

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #117 on: February 02, 2019, 02:04:53 pm »
Yeah got things up and running again.  Played with Arcade 15, and as you’ve posted and as was suggested I got the sub 59.5hz games running smoothly at 480i @ 59.5hz just by changing the mk2.ini to:

crt_range0  15625-16200, 59.50-65.00, 2.000, 4.700, 8.000, 0.064, 0.192, 1.024, 0, 0, 192, 240, 448, 480

This is very playable, although you can see the difference in resolution for sure, and although it says the speed is 100.01%, it does feel a bit slower on input.  Could be in my head but for sure it’s playable.  I’m pretty confident that if I built an arcade cabinet and made this adjustment for anything in excess of 240p that MOST people would have no idea something was off.  Of course I will, but casual players I don’t think would.

It seems this TV at least (haven’t tested the others) wants to force lower frequencies to be displayed at a higher rate.  I tried using the PAL setting to see if the TV could handle 50hz and I got the scrolling image like this:



Whenever I select a sub 59.5hz horizontal game I get what feels like the image is in a ripple of water effect:



I tried keeping MK2 up and running through the TV’s service menu and messed with just about every setting I could find.  Interestingly one did seem to effect the wavy image that was called EHT (Vertical High-Voltage Compensation), unfortunately adjusting only made it worse not better.

The wavy image is almost bearable as the resolution is so good, but it’s bothersome enough that I can’t let it go.  It would definitely  be noticeable by the casual observer unlike 480i.

I will keep playing with stuff, but enough people (yourself and other posters) seem to have the same issues with sub 59.5hz games.  I’ll keep trying things, and my last ditch effort will be to RGB mod the KV-27FS12 to teach myself how that process works.  I don’t have much hope though as it would imply that something is wrong with the transcoder, which I don’t believe there is.  I’ll keep posting here.

EDIT:  forgot to mention that the service menu on this chassis implies that the TV can handle down to 56Hz but at least with the way I’m testing that in ArcadeOSD it doesn’t seem to like that:
« Last Edit: February 02, 2019, 02:22:29 pm by Arroyo »

Neilalphazeta

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Re: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions
« Reply #118 on: February 02, 2019, 07:05:23 pm »
Thanks for sharing your findings. Is 59.50 the sweet spot for you? Since you have bigger models it might be less pronounced but I found that even at 59.65 I already see the water ripple effect, and this on ALL my crt's (granted all Sony and all from a similar era 2000 to 2004 ish), it's not as pronounced at 59.65 but it's there, so sadly even cps games display this. For me the sweet spot seems to be over 59.75 so I may as well leave it at 59.95 basically which is why I currenly run ntsc preset, and to be honest for most games this is perfect. The games that are affected negatively are mostly the list I put above, and I'm wondering if I could force those to run at the proper resolutions to see if it would be acceptable.

The wavy water ripple effect is so annoying, it's like geometrical shifts under the picture all over. When I was testing CPS with arcade preset I thought it was okay but when sitting down and actually playing I just couldn't unsee it and it was driving me crazy. Then I realized like some others have pointed that it makes no difference what so ever in terms of what we see or feel when playing at 59.95hz instead.

For Mortal Kombat the triple buffering probably the cause for that slower input. It's basically one of the less properly emulated games in my setup as well, but it still looks good and it's nice to have it up and running even if it's somewhat imperfect.
« Last Edit: February 02, 2019, 07:09:13 pm by Neilalphazeta »