TV Out ATI 7000 horiz scroll TEARING?

[jjc]

OK, I have built 1 mame cab 2 years ago with 20" PC monitor.  Not being satisfied with the size or stretch of vertical games, I am buying pieces to prepare for a Bigger Mame cab.  I've seen that MANY people were satisfied with TV Out.  So, I bought a 27" Zenith S-video TV.

I used my GeForce 2 MX400 32Mb card  (Athlon 1.2GHz) and the TV out was...ok.  Not very clear, but it worked.  Then, reading that others loved the ATI cards, I've purchased (to test) a Radeon 7000 (not the best, I know - but for MAME 2d they should all pretty much be the "same", right?  It IS clearer!  However, I'm noticing that there's a lot of what I think is tearing on horiontal scrolling games like MetroCross, Gauntlet, NBA Jam, and some others.  Triplebuffering does pretty much fix it, but it is now just a little jerky.  Is this normal?  It it more noticable on the TV than the PC monitor - maybe because of size?

I went over to my Mame cab with PC mon and NO TEARING whatsoever - it has a Savage4 card in it- with a much slower processor - PIII 500.

Is this a typical ATI problem?  Do other Radeons do it???

I guess I'm OK with the triplebuffering but one more problem DOES exist even WITH triplebuffering.

MOONPATROL - the horizontal scrolling is jerky  (unaffected by triplebuffering setting) - the pc monitor running in parallel as the TV is NOT jerky.  Is this a problem with the refresh rates not lining up with the TV?  I have been doing commandline WINMAME 058b and it does not like -vsync - it says problem parsing the line - what the heck - is't in option listing MSDOS.TXT?  

PLEASE _ HELP - I'm ready to take it all back and save money for a 25-27" SVGA monitor with large dot pitch - do these exist?

[madk]

This may be completely unrelated to your question...but now much did that 27" TV run you?  I'm about to start working on my actual cab (got the control panel almost done) and I am thinking about getting a bigger TV.  Right now I'm going with a 21".

Thanks.
-madk

[Xiaou2]

a few more q's

did you have auto frameskip on?  Sometimes that auto crap jumps up and down when its not supposed to.  Turn it to no frameskip.

Latest ATI drivers?
Latest Direct X re-installed after card was put in place?
Mess with the tv out quality settings in the monitor properties settings?

Also, try the latest mame for curriosity sake.

[JustMichael]

If I remember correctly Moon Patrol runs at a different refresh rate (like 55hz or 57hz instead of 60hz).  This would cause the "tearing".
You state that you are running winmame .58b  and wondering why it won't take the -vsync option that is listed in the msdos.txt file,  well the msdos.txt file has the options for the dos version of Mame while winmame .58b is for WINDOWS.  Please look in the windows.txt file instead.  Perhaps you could try -waitvsync that is listed there?

[jjc]

OK, thread starter here:

I bought an open box at Circuit City for the Zenith for $179.  Not bad.  I actually went there to get the APEX 24" (strange size  and it looked GREAT) for reg. price of $159.  Then thought, why not for $20 more, get the big one.  Vertical size of this TV (27") would be just about the height of a 19" monitor.

OK, for some reason, the WINDOWS.TXT doesn't have meaningful info in it.  Just crap about hi there and what this version is...I will download the latest, though.

You're right, Moon Patrol is like 57 Hz.  Does anyone else with TV out see this?

I will try the 0 frame skip tonight...

[CthulhuLuke]

Ok, I don't have much experience with ATIs myself, but I do know there's a lot of cheap ones that aren't really ATIs out there.  Look on the box you got it in, if it says Built by ATI, you're golden, but if it says Powered by ATI, that means it's a knock off brand, and it was probably a shiat load cheaper, but also could decrease the performance, although 2d gaming should be the same on both.
  If this is a problem of refresh rates because you're using a TV, my suggestion before you start trying to download every single driver you can find, is to try this, http://www.trouble-makers.com/kami/emulation/main.html    it's TVMame32, a compiled Mame32 that has refresh rates specifically for running on a TV.  This might or might not fix your problem, and if you're worried about speed issues, I have a Voodoo3 3000 16mb with a 333mhz Celeron and I can run everything full speed except the NEW NEW games, like King of fighters 2000, etc.
 -Good Luck on fixing the problem
    -CthulhuLuke