Software Support > GroovyMAME
Issues with GroovyMAME, CRT Emudriver and the J-PAC
Zebidee:
Running video output from both video card and onboard at the same time? Honestly I'm surprised it even works at all.
It is like inviting trouble, because your computer has to run different drivers for each display. Computers can get confused about which is the primary display, wrong drivers are loaded, and so on. What I see others often do instead is to use two (or more) video heads from a video card.
--- Quote from: hhhikikomori on April 19, 2023, 07:06:09 pm ---Eventually, this PC will be installed inside of the Aero City itself and will only have the VGA output of the AMD video card utilized. During its boot cycle, it can hang on this video output for a while (like the original GIF that I posted), which is not ideal for my eyes or the monitor's health. Do you know what would be going on here?
--- End quote ---
Looks like you want to supress parts of the boot cycle that are out of range for your Aero City monitor. Try this:
No GUI Boot
At Windows desktop, hit WIN+R, then type "msconfig". Within a few seconds the System Configuration window will come up.
Click the "Boot' tab
Check "No GUI Boot" box, then OK
Here are some other great tips for setting up a "MAME" PC with an arcade monitor (Windows 7 focus):
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,148050.0.html
hhhikikomori:
--- Quote from: Zebidee on April 20, 2023, 02:30:09 am ---Looks like you want to supress parts of the boot cycle that are out of range for your Aero City monitor.
--- End quote ---
For some reason, and I don't know why, my AMD video card only starts to output video when Windows has booted up, even if it's the only video output! So luckily for me, I don't have to worry about the BIOS/boot stuff outputting video that's out of spec with the J-PAC/monitor. What is interesting, is the behavior that I'm noticing with my desktop modeline when the motherboard's HDMI output is not connected.
I plugged the AMD/VGA output into my OSSC so I could see exactly what is happening. When I boot my PC with the motherboard's HDMI output hooked up to something, it is outputting 523i (15.68kHz @ 59.99Hz). This matches the desktop modeline that I set, and the Aero City's monitor work perfectly with this. When I don't have the motherboard's HDMI output connected and it's only the AMD/VGA outputting video, it is outputting 603i (16.22kHz @ 53.81Hz). My Aero city absolute hates this (hence the scrolling in the original post's GIF).
Do you have any idea what could be going on here? Is there an issue with the modelines that were generated, or anything with ArcadeOSD or VMMaker that I need to modify? To be clear, GroovyMAME still works perfectly, but the desktop resolution of my PC is acting oddly. It's almost making me consider getting one of those HDMI dummy plugs and calling it a day :dizzy:
Zebidee:
It all comes down to your monitor presets: what you tell Vmmaker, CRTEMU, Groovymame, about what your monitor is capable of. You could bring your in a lot tighter.
I imagine your Aero cab probably has a Nanao monitor in it. They probably won't work well at 53.81hz. They don't like non-standard resolutions much and, if repair techs moaning stories are to be believed, don't appreciate "MAME" cab usage much because of the constant frequency changes.
There, I've said it. Now, with all that out there, if I had your presumably Nanao arcade monitor, I'd set my monitor preset to something like "NTSC" standards, to be close to 60hz, and leave it at that. Nanaos are great monitors, but they are difficult to get repaired.
hhhikikomori:
Thanks for the tips! And yeah, if I'm not mistaken, my Aero City does have a Nanao MS8-26 in it. After a ton of back and forth, I was able to get VMMaker to generate a much smaller list of modes, and everything seems to be working okay now! It seems like when I remove the HDMI cable from the motherboard output, my VGA display seems to change to some random resolution that's installed on it (from the mode list). Last time it was unfortunately springing for one that was out of spec for the Nanao monitor, but this time around, it seemed to have chosen a better one as the fallback, and I was able to manually set my monitor (via Windows resolution settings) to be 480x640 (vertical) interlaced.
However, this took a lot of random trial and error and I would ideally like a better grasp on how to handle this moving forward. When I edit the settings in VMMaker and set my monitor's configuration to vertical, it seems to spit out modelines that are very odd. Is there a way to manually alter my available modelines and have VMMaker install those onto my card? Or, if that's playing with fire, are there some good resources out there for getting 15kHz TATE modelines generated correctly?
Thanks for your help, by the way! You've really helped me nail down the issues and were a great resource through all of this. :cheers:
Zebidee:
--- Quote from: hhhikikomori on April 20, 2023, 07:25:39 pm ---...I was able to manually set my monitor (via Windows resolution settings) to be 480x640 (vertical) interlaced.
--- End quote ---
Get into the habit of using arcade_osd (comes packaged with the CRTEMU driver) to change resolutions, as windows settings can screw it up, isn't really aware of what resolutions are available. Pin arcade_osd to your 'start' bar, even setup a keyboard shortcut if that is your thing.
DC2 (Display Changer 2) is another great (and free) utility for changing resolutions. I like to setup a bat (batch) file and a keyboard shortcut to run DC2 automatically and change resolution to something safe (like 640x480i, or 720x480i which I'm using at the moment). I think it is also possible to do this with switchres, though I haven't worked that out yet.
--- Quote ---However, this took a lot of random trial and error and I would ideally like a better grasp on how to handle this moving forward. When I edit the settings in VMMaker and set my monitor's configuration to vertical, it seems to spit out modelines that are very odd. Is there a way to manually alter my available modelines and have VMMaker install those onto my card? Or, if that's playing with fire, are there some good resources out there for getting 15kHz TATE modelines generated correctly?
--- End quote ---
CRTEMU works best if you get the settings right and then just let it do its thing. Can't stress this enough. It also works best if you have a fairly small set of video modes (say, <20), which means super-resolutions plus a handful of practical modes like 640x480i, 720x480i, 320x240p and so forth.
By the same token, once you get the CRTEMU settings right for your vertical setup, you won't have to worry much about it anymore. I guess you have rotated your desktop already? There are monitor rotation options, with a helpful graphic, at the first tab in Vmmaker.exe. It has been a few years since I've setup a vertical cab, I can't recall everything and that was on XP (but theory still the same). My vertical cab isn't working atm so I can't just fire it up and have a look. So will leave you to experiment a bit - I think you want "vertical [fixed]" and to tick the box "desktop rotates too", but am not certain. But again once you have the settings done right you won't have to worry, GM will take care of the rest.
The modelines may look odd when rotated because instead of 320x240 etc, you'll get 240x320, but is all the same thing really.
--- Quote ---Thanks for your help, by the way! You've really helped me nail down the issues and were a great resource through all of this. :cheers:
--- End quote ---
My pleasure! Calamity deserves kudos even more :notworthy: Thank us with some pics of your setup working? :D
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