Groovymame 240p games black bar on top and bottom

[Rahzel]

Hi guys, I've been working on this issue for over a week and I can't wrap my head around it so I'm coming here as my last resort hoping someone can help. It would be greatly appreciated!

Like the title says I get these black bars on the top and bottom of all 240p games. Every other resolution works fine including vertical games but most games run at 240p and because I'm stubborn I'd like to get these running fullscreen. With ArcadeOSD my 240p resolution fills the whole screen and looks good but it's only through Groovymame that I'm having this problem. I've reinstalled Windows 7, Groovymame and CRT Emudriver multiple times making sure only the bare minimum is installed to cancel out any settings or drivers that could be conflicting. I've also tried every possible combination of # CORE RENDER OPTIONS (unevenstretch, unevenstretchx, unevenstretchy, intoverscan etc.) in mame.ini.

One weird thing though is that I actually CAN get these to fill the screen by putting the EXACT same "# CORE RENDER OPTIONS" settings from my mame.ini into a ini/horizont.ini file. But that gives an ugly ripple effect when scrolling vertically.

Calamity suggested adjusting the vertical size of the monitor manually with a pot in another thread but I've seen other people's setups with no black bars on the games I'm having this issue with so I'm sure it's possible.

Here are some pictures below showing what I've described as well as my setup.

Wells Gardner k7000
VGA -> RGB+sync cable
R9 380
CRT Emudriver 2.0 Beta 15 (with Generic 15.7 kHz setting in vmmaker and super resolutions. I've tried Arcade 15 standard and WG K7000 monitor presets but had issues with vertical games.)
Windows 7 x64
GroovyMame .209

[Recapnation]

Calamity suggested adjusting the vertical size of the monitor manually with a pot in another thread but I've seen other people's setups with no black bars on the games I'm having this issue with so I'm sure it's possible.

Maybe because those people did adjust the vertical size manually?


Yours is a non-issue. You're not displaying there games using 240 lines, but 224. Try Dragon Ninja and you'll get no black bars. Try R-Type and you'll get overscan. Vertical size requires monitor adjustment; it always did.

[psakhis]

Personally i prefer some borders on 224 games. I don't like config adjust vertical size every time for others games for 240 lines

In vertical games i can "lost" 16 lines for normal play, but not 16+16..it's too much.

[Rahzel]

I see what you mean about those other games. And as much as I've tried to learn through this whole process my understanding is switchres picks the closest res which in this case is 240 for those native 224 games, leaving those extra 16 lines on top and bottom. I swear I've seen a few videos where they've tested games straight from a clean Emudriver/GM install and there were no bars but we all have unique setups so who knows. However these 224 games look a lot nicer after I adjust the vertical size pot. The scanlines are sharper and overall just looks better not to mention the game fills the screen. So I may have to extend the wire of my vertical size pot to reach my control panel

[Arroyo]

Yup that what you’d want to do if you want the screen filled on each resolution. Here’s a video that Calamity has posted in the past that is a great example:

[Recapnation]

I see what you mean about those other games. And as much as I've tried to learn through this whole process my understanding is switchres picks the closest res which in this case is 240 for those native 224 games, leaving those extra 16 lines on top and bottom.

Make no mistake, anyway -- if you had installed modes of 224 lines instead of 240 and GM picked them, the on-screen result would be the very same.

I swear I've seen a few videos where they've tested games straight from a clean Emudriver/GM install and there were no bars but we all have unique setups so who knows.

It's not a software matter. They got full-screen for 224 lines because their monitors were set for that beforehand. CRT monitors are indeed designed for constant geometry tweaking -- there's not really a "default" setting.

However these 224 games look a lot nicer after I adjust the vertical size pot. The scanlines are sharper and overall just looks better not to mention the game fills the screen. So I may have to extend the wire of my vertical size pot to reach my control panel

Glad you took the proper way. Losing the full-screen effect just due to lazyness comes off always as a silly narrative. (Now what about start thinking about getting a proper set-up for games designed for 3 : 4 monitors...)

[Rahzel]

However these 224 games look a lot nicer after I adjust the vertical size pot. The scanlines are sharper and overall just looks better not to mention the game fills the screen. So I may have to extend the wire of my vertical size pot to reach my control panel

Glad you took the proper way. Losing the full-screen effect just due to lazyness comes off always as a silly narrative. (Now what about start thinking about getting a proper set-up for games designed for 3 : 4 monitors...)

Ha no way I want to be finished with this project. I can live with vertical games on a horizontal monitor. I've spent the past 4 months, about 50 hours per week, updating my whole cab from how I had it setup 18 years ago. Wow times flies. So that's pretty much the only thing I'll be lazy with since the alternative would be a rotating monitor or a whole new cab. It's amazing how many different skill sets are needed to build a CRT MAME cabinet especially from scratch. I'm going to finish installing this vert size pot then hide Windows and I'm done!! Thanks everyone for your replies!

[Zebra]

I have the original SF2 CE PCB here and it outputs with borders if I had adjusted my monitor for a 240 line or 256 line game before.

It's why real arcade monitors are optimal for this. I adjust the H and V image size every time I switch game so it's handy having these pots on a remote board up front.

Arcade games came in a wide range of resolutions and refresh rates. If you adjust the screen to look right for 320x240 games, then 384x224, 256x240, 320 x 256 games etc will over or under-fill the screen.

They also have different timings so I'm always adjusting the horizontal position too.