Vertical Cab choosing interlaced modes over progressive

[Zebidee]

I'm having some problems with getting groovymame to choose progressive modes instead of interlaced.

I'm using a Loewe SCART TV mounted vertically in a cab. The computer is running WinXP x64 with Groovymame0.200, CRT_emudriver 1.2b and using VMMaker 2.0 beta 13.

Whenever I try to run a game with Groovymame it keeps selecting interlaced modes even though there are perfectly fine low-res progressing modes available. For example, 1942 gets displayed in 1104x480@60i and Flying Shark gets 720x560@52i. In addition, the games are stretched vertically but not horizontally, giving an upright letterbox effect.

I can force Groovymame to choose progressive modes by editing mame.ini to include "interlace 0". This gets most of my games looking better, but the groovymame menu looks ugly and is almost illegible. I also worry about games that really do need interlaced modes.

I guess I could update the VMM toolset to the latest, but I'm pretty sure I had this all working right vertically when I set it up over a year ago, so that probably won't solve anything. Think I've forgotten something. Unfortunately I had to use the PC for another TV (horizontal) since and all my settings have to be re-done.

Can someone help me work out what I'm doing wrong? I try to follow the Calamity approach to things - get the settings right and just let Groovymame do the work - but it doesn't seem to be working for me today.

I've attached some logs, mame.ini and some photos for context.

[cools]

Not 100% certain but I think my mame.ini on my vertical cab is set up with monitor horizontal, aspect 3:4

[Zebidee]

Not 100% certain but I think my mame.ini on my vertical cab is set up with monitor horizontal, aspect 3:4

Sounds weird, but maybe you should have a look? Every advice I have read about Groovymame advises to set "orientation vertical", although aspect "4:3" might make sense

[Calamity]

Cools is right.

You must set -aspect 3:4 because you rotated your monitor AND your desktop. If your desktop was in its native orientation (landscape), setting -orientation vertical would be enough.

That said, using either -orientation rotate_r or rotate_l is recommended over vertical.

[Zebidee]

Cools is right.

You must set -aspect 3:4 because you rotated your monitor AND your desktop. If your desktop was in its native orientation (landscape), setting -orientation vertical would be enough.

That said, using either -orientation rotate_r or rotate_l is recommended over vertical.

Thanks Calamity, and also thanks to Cools too
I was about to post about this - I was sitting here thinking about what cools said and I realised that I had been giving the wrong aspect ratio info

So, no "orientation vertical" in mame.ini and aspect 3:4, it seems. I notice that VMM seems to be telling mame.ini to rotate_r.

My apologies, I've been reading some posts to this board from about 9 years ago suggesting something otherwise... and now I realise that OP dude didn't rotate their desktop too... ahh, I'm such a booooob.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=132723.0

[Zebidee]

I implemented your advice, cools and Calamity, many times and with some variations. Thanks for your help, but unfortunately nothing worked to get Groovymame selecting non-interlaced modes for vertical games. I'd try tearing my hair out if I thought it would help.

I would delete all ini files (except the presets), and generate a new mame.ini with "groovymame64 -cc". Then start a fresh VMM session and load generic CRT TV specs, though specifying aspect 4:3 . My desktop was rotated as well, so I'd select "vertical" and click the box for rotated desktop. Which I think is what you're meant to do, but I'd still have the same problem. I've tried variations, but to no satisfaction.

I've literally spent days trying to get this to work right.

Eventually I got Groovymame behaving nicely by going back to normal landscape view, and using VMM to generate modes and export settings as though I was going to play everything horizontally. That is, horz monitor, no rotated desktop, aspect 4:3.

Then I used the "irotate" software tool to rotate my desktop to portrait, edited mame.ini to set "orientation vertical" and "aspect 3:4", and Groovymame is now behaving properly, showing vertical games in non-interlaced modes (and doing a very good job of it too, for the most part).

I got the idea from this post in 2016 where someone must have had a similar issue.

I had the same issue. What I did was start from scratch, set everything up as if going horizontal with super resolutions in vmmaker, leave the desktop horizontal. After all that is done and GM is working, go to desktop and rotate, then the final step was in groovymame ini set orientation to vertical and and ratio 3:4. Trying to set up vmmaker with vertical desktop was nothing but headache for hours.

So, I think the reason why it didn't work right for me might be because I didn't install the ATI driver or Catalyst software (or rather I uninstalled it some time ago) before CRT_emudriver - iirc the ATI driver gives you a monitor rotation option that isn't available otherwise. I just installed CRT_emudriver without anything else and used irotate.  I suspect that VMM/Groovymame don't properly recognise the rotation via "irotate", which would explain the problems I've been having.

Which I guess means I can keep doing this the way I am, or go back to square one and install the relevant ATI Catalyst for a Radeon X300 card (and re-install CRT_emudriver) and use that to rotate the desktop instead.

[cools]

If id had more time for the previous post... VMMaker set to horizontal (or you only get the modes youve had trouble with), rotate desktop in Windows control panel settings, aspect 3:4 in mame.ini. The monitor orientation in mame.ini can be left hori or vert if you're only playing vertical games.

Its caught me out multiple times

[Zebidee]

Yesterday I installed the ATI driver + Catalyst 9.3, reinstalled CRT_emudriver, and getting VMM to behave was much easier! The ATI Catalyst software also includes a convenient system tray widget that handles rotation to portrait etc just fine, no need to use irotate.

After a few rounds of generating modes with VMM, seems it doesn't really matter whether my desktop is portrait or landscape - VMM is now doing a fine job of making vertically-oriented video modes for games so long as I use the rotate (right) option in VMM - that is, regardless of whether I was actually running in landscape or portrait. Monitor "rotated right" seemed to give better results than "vertical" in VMM. However I found that the "desktop rotates as well" setting really made no difference, as the Groovymame menu would still be in landscape whatever I selected.

To get the Groovymame menu to be in vertical/portrait mode, I then edited mame.ini to make "orientation vertical". If anyone else is following this later, make sure to also check that you have "aspect 3:4" in mame.ini as well - I think I had to change this for at least one of the permutations I went through.

Games are mostly looking really good, even the ones that have difficult refresh rates around 55-57hz (eg Flying Shark, Cave games, many others). Sorry that the pics are all on their side - this forum always rotates them to landscape mode.