MAME Display probelms on TV

[wackychimp]

I'm running MAME off my laptop with Svideo out and 80% or more of the games run fine.  But a few (like Asteriods, Punchout, Rampage) seem to be running at a different resoultuion... or something.  I can only see the top two thirds of the game on the screen.  

Like for example in Rampage, if the monsters are walking on the ground, the tops of thier heads are right at the bottom of the TV screen.  It's like the bottom part of the screen is gone.

If I play it directly on the laptop... I can see the "problem" games just fine.  

Any thoughts?

[Generic Eric]

Your concern is better suited to the software forum.

You should work with your "problem" games and set different resolutions.  you'll have to do some research to find the proper resolution your problem games run at.  after you find the resolutions, just set the resolutions up for each individual game.  make sure not to change any global settings though, as it may negativly effect the rest of your games.

[PaulG]

Or since you're ouputting with the s-video anyway, just go to the global settings and set the resolution to 640*480.  Anything above that is gonna yield an inferior picture on a television anyways.

[pitfaller]

Good solution but depends on the TV.  Some of the newer JVC 27" and 32" models have any where from 600 to 800 horizontal lines.

Run my globals at 800x600 - stuff looks fantastic.

Then again , if you are kicking s-video out to a tv with 200 horizontal lines and no digital comb filter you have little hope...

[wackychimp]

Thanks for the comments. It's a 1 year old Panasonic 32inch TV.  

Can I set resolutions for a specific game in MAME32 (or is that only possible with DOS switches)?   I'm not seeing display settings in the "tab menu" only stuff for controls, etc.  

Or is there a different display menu?

[pitfaller]

In MAME32:

Options - Default Game Options - Advanced (*not* Display)

Bottom left you will see Resolution - set to 800x600, or 640x480, or whatever.

My JVC has 600 lines of horizontal but I run MAME at 800x600 - what model 32" do you have?

[wackychimp]

It's a Panasonic CT 36D11e  -- and 36" not 32" sorry.

So you can set the display globally but not per game, eight?

[Generic Eric]

It's a Panasonic CT 36D11e  -- and 36" not 32" sorry.

So you can set the display globally but not per game, eight?

I believe you can/could do both.

[etumor]

It's a Panasonic CT 36D11e  -- and 36" not 32" sorry.

So you can set the display globally but not per game, eight?

You can absolutely set every individual setting by game, not just globally in Mame32.  Right click on the game in question and click "Properties."  The dialog that comes up is just like the global one, but any changes you make will only be applied to the individual game.  I believe the resolution setting is on the "Advanced" tab.

I agree with the person who said try setting the resolution globally instead, though.  Try 800x600, then try 640x480, and decide which one works better.  Then it should work equally well with most games.  Then just override the ones that you want to "fine tune."

-Jeff "etumor"

[pitfaller]

You can absolutely do both - the global options are just that, the standard every game defaults - *but* by right clicking on any specific game, you can bring up the same options and override those defaults.

Was hoping to track down the screen resolution and whether your tv has a digital comb filter but, like many tv's, they come out with so many variations on the same model, and so damn quickly, that its almost impossible to track down anything about it on the net.  Saw the instruction manual but that didn't help.

[PaulG]

I'm not gonna get in an arguement over this, but I have a JVC D303 that's rated at 600 lines horizontal.  I can definetly tell the difference between 640*480 and 800*600.  The 800*600 is not as clear because technically, obviously, it's dropping pixels out of necessity.  1024 is even more painful on the eyes (especially if you need to be able to read it).  If you have HDTV that's another story (But then you can get ATI's awesome compent dongle guaranteed).  But the easiest way to see it is to open a web page and try reading at 640, 800, and 1024.  The higher the res. (And the more data that's being dropped), the harder it is to read.  640 is the magic number because on a decent analog set, little to no pixels are being dropped.

[etumor]

I'm not gonna get in an arguement over this, but I have a JVC D303 that's rated at 600 lines horizontal.  I can definetly tell the difference between 640*480 and 800*600.  The 800*600 is not as clear because technically, obviously, it's dropping pixels out of necessity.  1024 is even more painful on the eyes (especially if you need to be able to read it).  If you have HDTV that's another story (But then you can get ATI's awesome compent dongle guaranteed).  But the easiest way to see it is to open a web page and try reading at 640, 800, and 1024.  The higher the res. (And the more data that's being dropped), the harder it is to read.  640 is the magic number because on a decent analog set, little to no pixels are being dropped.

The issue here, if I'm not mistaken, is that S-Video can only output "standard" TV resolution, so no matter what you crank it up to, it gets scaled back down to NTSC, or PAL, or whatever your local standard is.  This is even if you are outputting to an HDTV!  As long as you are using S-Video, you will always get scaled down to standard TV resolution.

In theory, a DVI connection will support higher resolutions if you are using an HDTV, but I haven't actually tried it.  Component video also supports higher resolutions, but I've never seen a video card with component video on it (but I imagine they exist).

I don't believe this is a limitation of the cable, but rather just how the interface is implemented.  On my HDTV, I have my DVD player plugged in via S-Video, and also using component.  The component version is clearly taking advantage of 480p (an HDTV standard), while the S-Video connection is clearly using NTSC (which looks like crap on a big screen).

By the way, everything I've said here about S-Video also applies to standard composite video as well (but it looks even worse than S-Video).

-Jeff "etumor"

[pitfaller]

No argument from me - though this is getting to be a nice, intersting discussion on the matter (until one of use tellls another to STFU or some nonsense... )

The lowest resolution my Radeon 7000 series card in my MAME comp. will kick out is 800x600 - I can't even try to get 640x480 to do a comparison. Looks stellar to me at 8x6 though...

I should take my notebook and give this a try - I'm pretty sure my notebook (with s-vid out) can drop the res to 640x480 - I wonder if I can tell the difference...

[Silver]

Svideo/Composite connections to a TV only use PAL/NTSC/SECAM signals (in the case of S-video Color/Luminance are kept seperate so less detail is lost compared to composite) and as such the signal can ONLY ever be 525 lines (NTSC) or 625 lines (PAL/SECAM). So whether you have 320x240 or 1280x1024 res selected, your graphics card will internally filter it up/down to match you selected ouput (PAL/NTSC/SECAM). A 100hz TV will simply internally line double such signals - you won't squeeze any more info out of the signal than is really there. Also a good tv with claimed 600lines of vertical resolution probably means its a good quality set - but it well never actually phsically display above 625 lines (in reality 575 on screen) when fed with a tv standard signal.

As such, PAL/SECAM gives you more detail than NTSC( it has more lines/bandwidth) and slightly improved/more stable colour. On the other hand, NTSC is natively 60HZ Vertical frequency which matches a lot of arcade games rather well. (However, I don't believe most grahics cards allow programs to easily match the outputted tv signal frequency - e.g. Vertical Sync options in MAME only work on a PC monitor where mame can control the exact syncing of screen refresh/framebuffer drawing - but I could be wrong on this point)

Whether 640x480 or 800x600 looks better on tv depends on personal preference, the tv and the tv output quality of the graphics card. 640x480 has the advantage of taxing your pc less and should allow for smoother running of those taxing high end roms.....

Cards which output HDTV signals - and matching tv's - are obviously a different situation, as the signal can carry much more detail (around 1000lines or so i think)

woops, sorry for the blurb, hope it did not confuse anyone!