monitor/computer problems

[Nefesis]

the computer i have for my cab has a 15" monitor and it shows up the horizontal games with about half the screen. is this a problem of the computer or monitor? on my regular desktop pc the hoprizontal games take up the whole screen, just not on the MAME one.  i have attached a picture to make it more clear. if it doesn't seem clear just post saying so and i will try to fix it. the white space is the space the games take up. the black is the space of the monitor. my desktop screen is a 17".
thansks in advance

[SirPeale]

Might be a video card issue.  I recently obtained a Radeon PCI card that would display only off center images.  With some tweaking I could get a good picture, but that's with tweaking.  I pulled it and went back to my TNT2.

[toffee]

you know - I am having a similar problem.  my usual dektop PC displays the games as "full screen"  but the PC I just built for my cab-in-progress shows them as you describe.  by tweaking the monitor x/y position and size seems to be working, but is a pain ...

is there an OS link to this? my desktop is XP, went for 98 on the cab PC.

[Nefesis]

my cab pc is a 98 too, and desktop xp. will look for an os link.

[RayB]

Can I point out to you that your Monitor's physical size has NOTHING to do with what you're displaying???

Check what RESOLUTIONS are being used. That's what makes a difference.

[Tiger-Heli]

Here is what I do:

Set Windows to display at 800x600 (and 85 Hz but that's optional).

Adjust Windows desktop to be full screen.

Edit MAME.ini to have the following settings:

hwstretch               1
resolution              800x600
keepaspect              1

That should fix it.  If it doesn't, you might try using Multires from www.entechtaiwan.com.  This will try to "Lock" the refresh rate at 85 Hz.

Apart from this, if you are using an ATI card, the driver may say it is outputing 85 Hz and actually be displaying 60 Hz.  There is a registry change to fix this.

[toffee]

thanks for the reply tiger-h!

800x600 made things even worse, but playing around I set resolution in mame.ini to 1024x768 and now everything looks better.....

looking at the monitor setting, all games are running 1024x768 at 60 hz

a few games are a little "small" tho - e.g. smash tv. ill have another fiddle with the different options....

thanks again!

[Tiger-Heli]

thanks for the reply tiger-h!

800x600 made things even worse, but playing around I set resolution in mame.ini to 1024x768 and now everything looks better.....

looking at the monitor setting, all games are running 1024x768 at 60 hz

a few games are a little "small" tho - e.g. smash tv. ill have another fiddle with the different options....

thanks again!

Odd that 800x600 was worse . . . You DID select 800x600 in windows and adjust the desktop sizing using the screen adjustments on the monitor, correct?

[toffee]

Odd that 800x600 was worse . . . You DID select 800x600 in windows and adjust the desktop sizing using the screen adjustments on the monitor, correct?

yeah - did that. I think its the crappy onboard videocard that is in the Dell PC I am using. I will see what other video cards I have in my big-box-of-crap that I can use.....

that said I am fairly happy now with the way it looks - its Full Screen or at least 80% on all games.

[captainpotato]

I just had this issue whilst configuring AdvanceMAME... those screenmodes that stayed like that were ignored, and I just used the ones that didn't have that problem (not an issue as there was at least one per resolution).

If you are not using AdvanceMAME, give it a go and that may solve your problems.

[MiKman]

Seems to me you need to use hardware stretch and forget about auto switching resolutions...

Edit:
Should have read the whole thread before replying, my bad...