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Author Topic: Help with atiflash, porches and general questions  (Read 20879 times)

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Arroyo

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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?

Arroyo

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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 »

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 »

Arroyo

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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.

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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.....

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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.

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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.