MAME vector game questions...

[HaRuMaN]

I have a question... I am using MAMEWAH with command line MAME 086.  When I play on my TV using the TV out and S-Video connection, raster games look great.  However, when I try to play a vector game, the game is huge, and I only can view like the upper left quadrant of the game.  How do I correct this?

[seibu]

Specify a resolution on the command line. Chances are MAME is asking the OS "What's the biggest resolution I can run this vector game at?" and the OS is replying "Why, it's this super huge size", which is then run as an auto-pan mode over s-video.

[HaRuMaN]

ahh ok..  I just specified the resolution in an .ini file for the game.  What is the resolution of a standard TV set?

[ericball]

640x480 is typical (NTSC)
640x240 for non-interlaced

Horizontal resolution is a function of the pixel clock & blanking ratio.  So a DVD (720x480) uses a 13.5MHz dot clock, which gives a total line of 858 pixles @ 15.7KHz.  Square pixel NTSC (640x480) has 780 pixels per line or a 12.27MHz dot clock.

Note, people who use 800x600 for TVout aren't getting any additional vertical resolution.  Composite will top out at 320/455x480 due to aliasing with colorburst frequency (3.57MHz)

[HaRuMaN]

Thanks for the information.  It is proving helpful... 

[HaRuMaN]

Got another question...  my TV out won't let me output anything lower than 800x600, and it does the scrolling desktop thing.  Is there any way to force it to output a lower resolution?

It's a nvidia GeForce FX card

[Minwah]

ahh ok..

[HaRuMaN]

ahh ok..  I just specified the resolution in an .ini file for the game.

You can also make a vector.ini which will be applied to all vector games...

ahh cool, that saves me the trouble of writing a whole bunch of .ini files.  Does it still go in the INI folder?