GroovyArcade Linux and my Arcade Legends 3 monitor issues

[sylar]

I purchased an Arcade Legends machine a few years ago (you can see one of my posts here: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,143613.0/topicseen.html) and I've modified it and had it running Ubuntu for a while, but something told me to try GroovyArcade and the CRT picture is better than it's ever been!

My unit has a 25" Makvision M3125C-82 monitor. A sticker on the monitor itself says "Hori Freq: 15/24/31 KHz, Vert. Freq: 47-70Hz"

I've messed with the settings a bit and have a couple of questions. I've tried searching, of course, but can't find easy answers.

1. Using the 2020 GroovyArcade release, upon booting from the live CD the screen that comes up where you choose your monitor settings before getting into gasetup looks amazing! Is there any way I can tell what resolution this screen is running in? When I actually choose a setting and boot into gasetup it doesn't look as good.

2. I changed gasetup so that it would run attractmode. Unfortunately when attractmode starts the screen scrambles and rolls. Thing is, I've got gasetup looking really nice and I can boot into GroovyMAME and it looks fantastic! But attractmode will not work correctly. My gut tells me that XWindows is loading attractmode and I've tried changing xorg.conf a few times but no behavior changes once I launch attractmode. What should I do and how should I proceed to troubleshoot this? What exactly happens when I launch the front end to attractmode from gasetup?

3. I noticed presets for 25Hz, but my monitor specifically says 24Hz. How would I determine the correct modeline, porch settings, etc and where would be best to put them and test them?

Thank you Calamity and Substring for all the work that's gone into this. I cannot wait to get GA and attractmode working flawlessly. The machine really feels brand new!

[Substring]

I purchased an Arcade Legends machine a few years ago (you can see one of my posts here: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,143613.0/topicseen.html) and I've modified it and had it running Ubuntu for a while, but something told me to try GroovyArcade and the CRT picture is better than it's ever been!

My unit has a 25" Makvision M3125C-82 monitor. A sticker on the monitor itself says "Hori Freq: 15/24/31 KHz, Vert. Freq: 47-70Hz"

I've messed with the settings a bit and have a couple of questions. I've tried searching, of course, but can't find easy answers.

1. Using the 2020 GroovyArcade release, upon booting from the live CD the screen that comes up where you choose your monitor settings before getting into gasetup looks amazing! Is there any way I can tell what resolution this screen is running in? When I actually choose a setting and boot into gasetup it doesn't look as good.

Depends on which setting you chose at the ISO boot and monitor type. If you selected anything with 31kHz in it, a "misbehaviour" of Linux makes it run at 1024x768. For good real 640x480, need to tweak some parts

2. I changed gasetup so that it would run attractmode. Unfortunately when attractmode starts the screen scrambles and rolls. Thing is, I've got gasetup looking really nice and I can boot into GroovyMAME and it looks fantastic! But attractmode will not work correctly. My gut tells me that XWindows is loading attractmode and I've tried changing xorg.conf a few times but no behavior changes once I launch attractmode. What should I do and how should I proceed to troubleshoot this? What exactly happens when I launch the front end to attractmode from gasetup?

There is no xorg.conf. Otherwise, you're not using my ISO. Best to do is to SSH to the box and issue a "xrandr -d :0" so you can know what resolution is set

3. I noticed presets for 25Hz, but my monitor specifically says 24Hz. How would I determine the correct modeline, porch settings, etc and where would be best to put them and test them?

Errrr ... Find the manual of your monitor, then jump to the pined topic for monitors definitions and see how to write a crt_range modeline for GroovyMAME

Thank you Calamity and Substring for all the work that's gone into this. I cannot wait to get GA and attractmode working flawlessly. The machine really feels brand new!

GA 2021.01 is out, by the way

[sylar]

Ah, Substring -- re: xorg.conf, I was using Ves' live CD 2020.01. I had misread and thought that was your release.

I downloaded your 2021.01 and tried a live version and attract mode looks great on it.

I may have a few more questions in a bit, but wanted to thank you for your guidance so far. It's helped a lot.

[Substring]

This place is made to ask questions, don't hold yourself

[sylar]

Thanks for your friendliness, Substring. I do have some issues and thus questions.

I removed the Ves' install of GroovyArcade and did yours. No xorg.conf. When it boots up normally, the splash screen and attract mode are completely scrambled. Per the install, my monitor essentially gives no extended EDID information.

That said, if I do a control-alt-F2 to get a login prompt, it looks *glorious*. My monitor needs to do 512x384 and yours is the only instance where I've gotten a completely perfect full screen with no overscan issues.

That said, I want to play games on this thing. What should I attempt to do to get Attract Mode to run properly? I've tried messing around with a few things and cannot figure out what settings to change.

Also I notice it uses a 15Khz kernel -- is there a way I can compile a 24Khz kernel? If that's too involved, no problem for now -- again I just want to get a working attract mode.

Thank you!

[sylar]

I've been working on this but I just need some help. I feel like I'm so close.

Doing just a regular xrandr shows me that the monitor reports it can do 1024x768. It cannot do this. So what happens is when attract mode starts, that's the resolution it gets.

One time I was able to get things correct by doing xrandr --newmode and --addmode, but that doesn't persist across reboots. And now when I do the same exact commands, I get an error that crtc 0 failed.

My goal is to just have it boot up correctly, but I'm not sure exactly how to force a resolution every time. Should I create .conf files in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d ? Or an .xprofile under /home/arcade?

[Substring]

Missed your previous message, sorry. First, let's try to determine what you're trying to achieve :
- which resolution do you want as default ? 512x384 ? If yes : set your monitor as 15/25, and we'll manually chage it to 15/25/31 for grooovymame
- editing the kernel and add resolutions : this all depends on your C skills. You'd need to get the Arch linux kernel, apply our patches (they are open source) and add your own resolution. It's not impossible, but pretty complicated for someone not familiar with patching/compiling
- forget the xrandr way, we have better solutions than these awful hacks
- no xorg.conf, that's the past century, I'd better not go back to the X stone age if you don't mind
- among other solutions : we can also use some custom EDID (most monitor presets already have a EDID ready to use, just add it as a parameter to the kernel)

Ping me on Discord if you need "live" assitance, I'm on CET timezone.

[sylar]

I've never discorded before -- I'll pop in as time permits. Looking forward to it.