Arcade-like quality on PC monitor!

[mikenotbob]

Hey... Let's just say I'm kind of excited.  This may be old news to you all, but I did a few searches and didn't really find anything, except for a very vague/brief note in the advance mame instruction file.

As a few may already know, some of us have to make compromises and use a PC monitor to up the quality of the 'vector experience'.  Yeah, I'm one of those who sacrificed the arcade monitor reality of hundreds of games to make a couple games halfway decent (ahem, asteroids. ahem, tempest).  I know, hundreds of you can't fathom why I'd do this, but there may be a few who can relate (one, maybe two. anyone? anyone?)

Anyway, to make a long story short, I finally dl'ed a copy of advmame. I got very excited over the perfect stretching it does, filling up every pixel of my screen on horizontals, and every necessary pixel on verticals.  I played with the various filters and scanline options, and fairly disappointed... that is, until I realized the key is TRIPLING the suggested resolution of the game.  After tripling the resolution, the 'scanvert3' option gives me the pc monitor an uncanny resemblence to an arcade monitor.  

I know, I know, all of you arcade monitor guys are gasping at the idea of this, and you're right, it's not 100% the same, but i feel it's about as close as us PC monitor guys can get.  You will always win in the quality race, and the only reasons going the PC monitor route is 'sane' (almost) is for the quality of the vector games (if you care) or if you're just cheapin out and using a spare monitor you have on hand (like anyone has spare 21" + pc monitors laying around. )

A few other details:
I'm using a Pentium III 600, and it seems to cut the framerate in half, but it's a consistent 50% and I am honestly 100% surprised that I don't notice a difference between a 50% framerate and 100% framerate, on about 98.5% of the games.  Advancemame does something different w/ framerated than the regular mame build (i think because they are 'fixed'), because this is something i'd surely notice in the old mame builds.  The games that it doesn't seem to work well with are games where only small objects in the foreground here and there have very smooth scrolling (ie, the ball in arkanoid, or the balls in Pang).  Games with complete scrolling backrounds (1942, and um, a million others) there's no noticeable difference. and games with mostly fixed background (Marvel vs. Capcom and the like) look freakin 100% as well.  I'm totally psyched about this, can you tell?  Again, though, I have a PIII 600 w/ 128 megs of RAM. With a faster computer I doubt you'd even get a drop in framerate.

So... that's the secret; Triple the resolution, it's under the 'Video' option in the Mame 'TAB' screen (in-game), under 'Mode', etc.. etc... then play with the various RGB filters (scan3vert worked best, horizontals gave me a freakin headache for some reason, along with moving a lot and looking fake)... if the filters aren't working, you may have to turn RGB 'on'.  Some games needed it (older ones), most didn't.  There were a few games that I felt simply looked better without it, worked great, just looked better without it, but besides the 5 that didn't work well and the 3 i preferred without it, the other 140 odd games on my machine rock hardcore because of it!

I hope this info was useful to someone.  


-----------------
Aye... I meant to post this in the software forum.  If any of the powers-that-be could move this bad boy over there, yeah, that would be great.

[)p(]

yeah count me in! Vectors rule...I actually think color vector games look better on pc monitors the on real vector monitors. This is not true for b/w vectors like asteroids...you can't even come close ;-)

you can also do an integer stretching by two and use effect filter...gives a bit of  as mooth feel to the image...

And this will sound weird but I actually like the image very much behind the glass in the cab when I use regular mame and just fix the size to 640x480 for non vector games and use hardware stretch to fill the screen. the stretch blurs it an at a 640x480 the scanlines are still very noticable on my monitor...I discovered this by accident and actually stopped using advance mame since then...

Peter

[telengard]

As a few may already know, some of us have to make compromises and use a PC monitor to up the quality of the 'vector experience'.  Yeah, I'm one of those who sacrificed the arcade monitor reality of hundreds of games to make a couple games halfway decent (ahem, asteroids. ahem, tempest).  I know, hundreds of you can't fathom why I'd do this, but there may be a few who can relate (one, maybe two. anyone? anyone?)

I'm definetly one of them.  I also run Daphne and Visual Pinball, so I had to go w/ the PC monitor.
I also have a rotating monitor so using a PC monitor it's easy to degauss.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I finally dl'ed a copy of advmame. I got very excited over the perfect stretching it does, filling up every pixel of my screen on horizontals, and every necessary pixel on verticals.  I played with the various filters and scanline options, and fairly disappointed... that is, until I realized the key is TRIPLING the suggested resolution of the game.  After tripling the resolution, the 'scanvert3' option gives me the pc monitor an uncanny resemblence to an arcade monitor.  

I've been using advmame for quite a while with lots of modes I created to utilize the *whole*
screen.  I also just recently found this.  I cheated however.  I use generate-triple, but that particular
generated mode is always 1/2" to the right for me so I invoke advmame w/ the -log which prints
the modeline(s) and I then cut and paste the generate-triple to my rc file.  I then use advv to
tweak it.  The scanvert3 is cool, the triad3dot is quite good.  I use that for games like altered beast
and can't believe how realistic it is.

I know, I know, all of you arcade monitor guys are gasping at the idea of this, and you're right, it's not 100% the same, but i feel it's about as close as us PC monitor guys can get.  You will always win in the quality race, and the only reasons going the PC monitor route is 'sane' (almost) is for the quality of the vector games (if you care) or if you're just cheapin out and using a spare monitor you have on hand (like anyone has spare 21" + pc monitors laying around. )

To me it's the best trade off, although I love the "bleeding colors' and brick type scanlines of an arcade
monitor.  Emulating that would be *very* cool, but it's probably next to impossible.


A few other details:
I'm using a Pentium III 600, and it seems to cut the framerate in half, but it's a consistent 50% and I am honestly 100% surprised that I don't notice a difference between a 50% framerate and 100% framerate, on about 98.5% of the games.  Advancemame does something different w/ framerated than the regular mame build (i think because they are 'fixed'), because this is something i'd surely notice in the old mame builds.  The games that it doesn't seem to work well with are games where only small objects in the foreground here and there have very smooth scrolling (ie, the ball in arkanoid, or the balls in Pang).  Games with complete scrolling backrounds (1942, and um, a million others) there's no noticeable difference. and games with mostly fixed background (Marvel vs. Capcom and the like) look freakin 100% as well.  I'm totally psyched about this, can you tell?  Again, though, I have a PIII 600 w/ 128 megs of RAM. With a faster computer I doubt you'd even get a drop in framerate.

So... that's the secret; Triple the resolution, it's under the 'Video' option in the Mame 'TAB' screen (in-game), under 'Mode', etc.. etc... then play with the various RGB filters (scan3vert worked best, horizontals gave me a freakin headache for some reason, along with moving a lot and looking fake)... if the filters aren't working, you may have to turn RGB 'on'.  Some games needed it (older ones), most didn't.  There were a few games that I felt simply looked better without it, worked great, just looked better without it, but besides the 5 that didn't work well and the 3 i preferred without it, the other 140 odd games on my machine rock hardcore because of it!

I hope this info was useful to someone.  


-----------------
Aye... I meant to post this in the software forum.  If any of the powers-that-be could move this bad boy over there, yeah, that would be great.

[telengard]

As a few may already know, some of us have to make compromises and use a PC monitor to up the quality of the 'vector experience'.  Yeah, I'm one of those who sacrificed the arcade monitor reality of hundreds of games to make a couple games halfway decent (ahem, asteroids. ahem, tempest).  I know, hundreds of you can't fathom why I'd do this, but there may be a few who can relate (one, maybe two. anyone? anyone?)

*** Looks like I hit post, when I meant to hit preview.  I'm still getting the hang of interleaved quoting
      This is the full response ***

I'm definetly one of them.  I also run Daphne and Visual Pinball, so I had to go w/ the PC monitor.
I also have a rotating monitor so using a PC monitor it's easy to degauss.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I finally dl'ed a copy of advmame. I got very excited over the perfect stretching it does, filling up every pixel of my screen on horizontals, and every necessary pixel on verticals.  I played with the various filters and scanline options, and fairly disappointed... that is, until I realized the key is TRIPLING the suggested resolution of the game.  After tripling the resolution, the 'scanvert3' option gives me the pc monitor an uncanny resemblence to an arcade monitor.  

I've been using advmame for quite a while with lots of modes I created to utilize the *whole*
screen.  I also just recently found this.  I cheated however.  I use generate-triple, but that particular
generated mode is always 1/2" to the right for me so I invoke advmame w/ the -log which prints
the modeline(s) and I then cut and paste the generate-triple to my rc file.  I then use advv to
tweak it.  The scanvert3 is cool, the triad3dot is quite good.  I use that for games like altered beast
and can't believe how realistic it is.

I know, I know, all of you arcade monitor guys are gasping at the idea of this, and you're right, it's not 100% the same, but i feel it's about as close as us PC monitor guys can get.  You will always win in the quality race, and the only reasons going the PC monitor route is 'sane' (almost) is for the quality of the vector games (if you care) or if you're just cheapin out and using a spare monitor you have on hand (like anyone has spare 21" + pc monitors laying around. )

To me it's the best trade off, although I love the "bleeding colors' and brick type scanlines of an arcade
monitor.  Emulating that would be *very* cool, but it's probably next to impossible.

A few other details:
I'm using a Pentium III 600, and it seems to cut the framerate in half, but it's a consistent 50% and I am honestly 100% surprised that I don't notice a difference between a 50% framerate and 100% framerate, on about 98.5% of the games.  Advancemame does something different w/ framerated than the regular mame build (i think because they are 'fixed'), because this is something i'd surely notice in the old mame builds.  The games that it doesn't seem to work well with are games where only small objects in the foreground here and there have very smooth scrolling (ie, the ball in arkanoid, or the balls in Pang).  Games with complete scrolling backrounds (1942, and um, a million others) there's no noticeable difference. and games with mostly fixed background (Marvel vs. Capcom and the like) look freakin 100% as well.  I'm totally psyched about this, can you tell?  Again, though, I have a PIII 600 w/ 128 megs of RAM. With a faster computer I doubt you'd even get a drop in framerate.

I have a 900Mhz box w/ plenty of memory (512M) and I find in real "busy" games like Robotron
things start to crawl, for instance, the sound gets all outta whack.  I've fiddled w/ vsync
etc and it doesn't seem to make a difference.  Shutting off the rgb effect seems to stop
it.

So... that's the secret; Triple the resolution, it's under the 'Video' option in the Mame 'TAB' screen (in-game), under 'Mode', etc.. etc... then play with the various RGB filters (scan3vert worked best, horizontals gave me a freakin headache for some reason, along with moving a lot and looking fake)... if the filters aren't working, you may have to turn RGB 'on'.  Some games needed it (older ones), most didn't.  There were a few games that I felt simply looked better without it, worked great, just looked better without it, but besides the 5 that didn't work well and the 3 i preferred without it, the other 140 odd games on my machine rock hardcore because of it!

I hope this info was useful to someone.  


-----------------
Aye... I meant to post this in the software forum.  If any of the powers-that-be could move this bad boy over there, yeah, that would be great.

[mikenotbob]

you can also do an integer stretching by two and use effect filter...gives a bit of  as mooth feel to the image...

Peter, I've used the integer strech2 w/ effects filter for a few games, notably 'ghouls and ghosts' whose graphics I feel are simply too good to mud up with scanlines.

And this will sound weird but I actually like the image very much behind the glass in the cab when I use regular mame and just fix the size to 640x480 for non vector games and use hardware stretch to fill the screen.

I'll have to give this a shot some time!

generated mode is always 1/2" to the right for me so I invoke advmame w/ the -log which prints
the modeline(s) and I then cut and paste the generate-triple to my rc file.

Telengard, I noticed similar things as well.  As good as advancemame is at stretching the image, each mode was always slightly off and needed a hardware adjustment..  Either a little too small, a little too large, or a little too much to the left or right, but always infinitely better than traditional mame.  Instead of messing with any software controls, i just spent some time adjusting each resolution w/ my monitor buttons.  I was surprised that the monitor was able to memorize so many different modes.

The scanvert3 is cool, the triad3dot is quite good..

triad3dot did look excellent along with one of the strong triad modes as well, but unfortunately my monitor doesn't seem to handle them too well. It must have something to do with the refresh rate, as each pixel seems to vibrate enough that it's visually noticeable, and quite headache inducing.  Luckily the scanvert options don't give me this unfortunate result.

I find in real "busy" games like Robotron
things start to crawl, for instance, the sound gets all outta whack.

Yeah, the same thing happened to me w/ Robotron.  Fortunately, it doesn't look too bad (IMO) without any filters, though.  What I really didn't expect, though, was that the filters actually got rid of (or lessened) the tearing effect I had on a couple games (Sunset Riders and PacLand, to name two).  My monitor is an old 21" (not multi-sync), so I'm really stuck with one, maybe two frequencies...  I tried a billion things, with and without advancemame, and couldn't kill the tearing regardless of what i tried. I pretty much gave up and just accepted it, then last night I fired up sunset riders w/ the filters on, and whattdya know, the tearing is gone!

[telengard]

generated mode is always 1/2" to the right for me so I invoke advmame w/ the -log which prints
the modeline(s) and I then cut and paste the generate-triple to my rc file.

Telengard, I noticed similar things as well.  As good as advancemame is at stretching the image, each mode was always slightly off and needed a hardware adjustment..  Either a little too small, a little too large, or a little too much to the left or right, but always infinitely better than traditional mame.  Instead of messing with any software controls, i just spent some time adjusting each resolution w/ my monitor buttons.  I was surprised that the monitor was able to memorize so many different modes.

Heh, I used to do that too.  I've gotten quite good at making video modes using advv that I can almost always
make a mode that takes up the entire monitor and is perfectly centered etc.

The scanvert3 is cool, the triad3dot is quite good..

triad3dot did look excellent along with one of the strong triad modes as well, but unfortunately my monitor doesn't seem to handle them too well. It must have something to do with the refresh rate, as each pixel seems to vibrate enough that it's visually noticeable, and quite headache inducing.  Luckily the scanvert options don't give me this unfortunate result.

That's too bad.  I actually fiddled some more and found I like the scanvert2 and filter on.  I had just came
back from funspot and noticed if you looked closely, most games were kinda blurry.  And the scanvert2
gives the illusion of the "brick" look.  The triad3dot, comes close but...  
I've also got a much better vector look going.  I had never noticed the display_intensity flag.  

I find in real "busy" games like Robotron
things start to crawl, for instance, the sound gets all outta whack.

Yeah, the same thing happened to me w/ Robotron.  Fortunately, it doesn't look too bad (IMO) without any filters, though.  What I really didn't expect, though, was that the filters actually got rid of (or lessened) the tearing effect I had on a couple games (Sunset Riders and PacLand, to name two).  My monitor is an old 21" (not multi-sync), so I'm really stuck with one, maybe two frequencies...  I tried a billion things, with and without advancemame, and couldn't kill the tearing regardless of what i tried. I pretty much gave up and just accepted it, then last night I fired up sunset riders w/ the filters on, and whattdya know, the tearing is gone!

Yeah without filters it's fine.  I've also been noticing that  even with the tripled resolution that the lower
the original resolution was the  worse it looks.  For instance, Altered Beast 320x224 looks great "tripled"
with scanvert2 and filter.  But 10 yard fight tripled with the same settings doesn't look so great.  I'm going
try quadrupeling(sp) the lower ones to see how they come out.

[AlanS17]

What's the problem with getting vector games to run on arcade monitors? I never had a problem when I had mine set up. I unhooked the PC, though, and gave the machine (Killer Instinct ) to my brother to hold onto. But while it was hooked up it played vector games just fine. I was running it through Windows using PowerStrip.

Worked pretty well. I never even knew some people had proiblems until just a day or two ago when posts like this started popping up. Where's the hitch??

I'm working on getting another cabinet so I can get my MAME machine back in business. I plan on using another arcade monitor (at least for the meantime).

[mikenotbob]

I haven't gotten around to fiddling with the vector controls yet, gotta give that a try.  Any recommendations on what works for you with the display_intensity and and any other options?  Does display_intensity affect the non-vector games as well?

On a side note, you are aware of and own a vectrex, right? Just making sure.  

[telengard]

I haven't gotten around to fiddling with the vector controls yet, gotta give that a try.  Any recommendations on what works for you with the display_intensity and and any other options?  Does display_intensity affect the non-vector games as well?

On a side note, you are aware of and own a vectrex, right? Just making sure.  

Yep, w/ AdvanceMame you can designate those changes for just vector games.
This is what I use on my PC monitor:

vector/display_resizeeffect auto
vector/display_rgbeffect none
vector/display_antialias yes
vector/display_translucency yes
vector/display_depth 16
vector/display_flicker 15
vector/display_gamma 2.0
vector/display_brightness 10.0
vector/display_intensity 3.0

The only thing that seems to be lost with these settings are the dots at the ends of a line.  I can't
remember if they can be seen on the "real thing".    I did  notice that on the real thing they
are very, very bright.  The  display intensity flag helps, also turning down the brightness
on my monitor so the black background was darker helped too.

As for a vectrex,  I'd like one, but I collect 8 bit computer stuff and can't imagine starting yet
another hobby.  

[mikenotbob]

Alans17:
Vector games work fine on arcade monitors, it's just that those that are a little obsessed with them enjoy the visual clarity of vector simulation on a PC monitor, which is closer in 'resolution' to a vector game (which didn't really have any resolution, pretty much. , vs. what it looks like on an arcade monitor.  
Running vector games is about the only time when the PC monitor is the definite advantage.

telengard:
Can't wait to try out those settings.  In regards to not having a vectrex, you're missing out.  If you one day feel like starting the hobby, you can often pick up a Vec w/o a joystick on Ebay for around $60.  A good, working joystick really jacks up the price of the unit, since the joys are such pieces of crap.  Then grab some schematics off of the net (all over the place) on how to modify a genesis controller to work with it (easy, and a totally superior joystick).  There's a multicart available with practically every game released on it (and then some), that's available cheap (for what you get), like $50-$70.  Not trying to force a hobby down your throat, but I think a lot of people may be scared away from the vec because of high ebay auctions, thinking it and the games are ridiculously expensive.