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How to adjust horizontal position past trimpot area on arcade monitor?
crisizzone:
I have a Nanao MS8 which is mostly working great for me, but I'm having an issue getting the horizontal position right.
I have trimpots for most things on the chassis board, but the horizontal position trimpot doesn't adjust the horizontal position enough. Fully turned I've still got an inch of black on the left side of the screen.
Now I'm pretty sure whatever happened, happened during the time we removed this monitor from it's old cab and transported it, because the seller had a photo from the day before of a good centred screen. I figure I've bumped or pushed something I shouldn't have?
Can anyone help in what I need to do?
crisizzone:
So I've messed around for a bit with a Sega Genesis, and managed to hook that up with a makeshift SCART connector. So I've got an RGB (composite sync) signal going to the monitor, and I saw that the horizontal position was still bad. Slightly less bad, but still bad and too far to the right. (pictures 5,6,7)
With the Genesis plugged in, I tried to set the horizontal position and size as best as I could with the horizontal phase, hold, and position trimpots. They're getting near their extreme ends though so there's little further I could turn if I wanted to.
I managed to get a pretty good result with the Genesis (pictures 8,9,10). I left it there, and went back to the MAME PC and the VGA connector (RGBHV).
So when I booted up the PC (windows 7), same problem, the CRT display is too far horizontally to the right. But it's better and improved now, but still, it's off, and not centred like the genesis was.
I am using CRTemudriver, an R7 240 card, and the 15khz arcade monitor preset in Video Mode Maker. I have GroovyMAME, but the problem persists to the games as well.
I am kind of lost?? :banghead: :banghead:
I am thinking perhaps this has something to do with me not getting a setting right with Video Mode Maker? Since it was centred on the Genesis? But then again, it wasn't like this before I moved it, so I'm thinking perhaps it's also something physical?
Anyone with any thoughts/ideas? ??? ???
grantspain:
does the h phase pot not work?
buttersoft:
Keep in mind that the MS8 monitor has a known quirk.
--- Quote ---The MS8 has a very tight frequency band in 15K mode , absolute min of 15.450khz and Max of 16.050Khz , optimal is 15.750Khz , it also has a tight vertical range between 54Hz and 60Hz.When ever they are operated outside of this range there is push and pull amplifier ( part of the little Hybrid Sync Module )that attempts to clamp the frequencies within the safe range , so if it is being run and absolute min or max listed above the amplifier / clamping section is working at maximum , if you exceed these limits these chassis most of the time are able to cope when the chassis is in perfect working condition...There is no gradual or accumulative damage , they just work as normal and suddenly fail
--- End quote ---
That's from Jomac - may his loins be fruitful, may we walk in his light forever - and may be taken ex cathedra. I cannot overstate how important it is that you obey the above stricture with an MS8. https://www.aussiearcade.com/forum/aussie-arcade-sponsor-s-trading-forum/arcade-pinball-and-amusement-machine-sponsors/jomac/70010-hold-issue-on-ms8-26se-chassis
This means you cannot use the Arcade15 present in VMM, as the sync range is too large. From what Joey says, failure in this area isn't partial, so hopefully yours is fine and not an edge case. You will either need to use Generic15 or, better yet, make a custom monitor preset, like in the big quote below but also limiting HfreqMin and HfreqMax and VfreqMin-VfreqMax inside the values in the advice above. You may even want to play it safe and use the NTSC preset to hit that spot dead on, though i don't think you need to get quite that drastic. Note that this all means you have to be careful during boot, as even with something like Atom15 flashed to that Radeon card, you can still get weird frequencies as windows loads, and while that only occurs briefly, the monitor will not survive long term if you do this.
None of this is likely to affect your issue with horizontal position, so far. I wrote out an entire post on adjusting modelines in crt_emudriver below, before realising the above, but i'll leave it in anyway. You should still be able to use it fine, as long as you stick to the safety tips for this monitor described above.
--- Quote ---If you're using crt_emudriver and VMM on windows, you should be able to fix this in software. Firstly, read the original post (OP) in the monitor presets thread - http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,116023.0.html - noting that you don't have to understand anything just yet, but make sure you can reference it.
Assuming for the moment you have set up crt_emudriver correctly, that you've checked the box to emulate an EDID (but have not included all modelines in that EDID as a separate option), you have a single 480i mode in the EDID. Modes in the EDID are protected. This means you can easily adjust all other resolutions except that one mode, and we'll come to how to adjust that one later.
To save doing everything over, please read this whole post first, then start making adjustments, and not the other way around.
On your arcade machine, start with any physical game hardware you have, like your Genesis, and set the monitor adjustments for that/those as best you can. Some systems like the Wii have screen adjustments in the menus, but the Megadrive/Genesis won't.
Now plug the PC back in, fire up the machine, open your crt_emudriver folder, and launch ArcadeOSD. Go to the modeline you want to adjust, anything but the desktop 480i mode. For horizontal adjustments, the three values of H-front-porch, H-sync-pulse, and H-back-porch are used to adjust the right side, centering, and left-side of the image, respectively. Or anyway that's close enough for now. Play with all three until you get the picture sized/positioned the way you want. In ArcadeOSD when you hit the limits of horizontal adjustments using the porches, funny things start to happen, and then you lose sync entirely and have to hit esc to go back.
You now have two options - you can adjust all other modes and live with the EDID as above, or you can adjust everything including the EDID using VMM, and come back to make adjustments of the first sort later.
Adjusting the modeline in ArcadeOSD sets it for Windows, but GroovyMAME grabs any mode and recalculates it based on the crt_range lines in mame.ini. So you need to transfer any changes into that file, or, if different systems are doing different things, to use a game.ini file like sonic.ini, or better a genesis.ini file. I'm not sure precisely where those will live for MAME's MESS emulators. For MAME they go into the ini folder under the main directory.
To adjust a mode in the EDID like 480i, and all other modes along with it, you need to set up your modelines again with VMM and an adjusted monitor preset.
--- Quote ---crt_range0 15625-15750, 49.50-65.00, 2.000, 4.700, 8.000, 0.064, 0.192, 1.024, 0, 0, 192, 288, 448, 576
--- End quote ---
That's the Generic15 preset from the monitor preset file. Horizontal timings are in bold, vertical are underlined. The sync range is italicised. 15625 = 15.625kHz. Vertical frequency is set to 49.50-65.00 in this example.
To customise a monitor preset this way, you write down the horizontal timings from your already-adjusted modelines in ArcadeOSD (pref modelines that are closest to 480i and not 240p) and using VMM, go into the edit presets option. It opens the monitor.ini file, and you copy the range line you want and paste it just below where it already is and call it something different (like MyMonitor15) and add your own horizontal timings in the relevant spots. Then you set VMM to use that new monitor preset you created, and generate and install your modelines again using the same steps as you did originally.
After this you may find you want to open ArcadeOSD and make some small adjustments, and transfer those changes to MAME.ini or any sub game or system.ini files. And this whole process above may need to be repeated a few times to get things perfect. Once you've done it, be sensible and use VMM to save the modelist you create (the list of modelines on the system) and save any other files you customised line monitor.ini or modes.ini.
Lastly, if you're on Windows 10 you need to tick the "hide modes this monitor cannot display" box in windows display properties, and to stop and disable the windows service called AMD External Events Utility. You can just type "services" into the start menu to get to the services options. Then search for and open “Power options” in the Start Menu. Click “Choose what the power buttons do” on the left side of the window. Click “Change settings that are currently unavailable.” Under “Shutdown settings” make sure “Turn on fast startup” is disabled/unchecked. The former steps stop programs grabbing higher res video modes they once used despite the fact those modes are not meant to exist now, and the latter stops your computer from ever starting up with a letterbox crush, where the whole vertical resolution is compressed into half it's size in the middle of your screen.
TBH once you've done all this, go and get something like Macrium Reflect free edition and image the entire drive onto some backup storage. Then you can just restore it if needed, or even go into the image and cherrypick config files.
As a side note, vertical adjustments cannot generally be made in software, and will require manual or service menu changes. What you can do is get tricky with GM - so use a mode like 256p for a 224p game, and do not stretch it, which will leave more blank lines at the top and bottom than using 240p would. Takes a bit of juggling with configs. And i'm not sure the reverse is possible - as in, only showing 224 lines of a 256p game - so someone else will need to weigh in.
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Zebidee:
Good post buttersoft, bit long but very thorough. Wish I could click "like" on it :cheers:
Now let's hope it helps OP