Main > Monitor/Video Forum
Resolution--fine tuning ??
wpcmame:
Sorry if I was unclear.
The game display will look best if you don't use any (or integer) stretch. Unfortunatly this means that some games will have borders or be cut off since the monitor will always display the same number of lines regardless of resolution.
I don't mind the borders but if you do, you need to think about which games are most important for you to display correctly. Basicly there are 3 monitor options:
240 visible lines: Most horizontal games will display without stretch but all vertical games need stretching. This seem to be the most common setting around here.
256 visible lines: All horizontal games and many vertical games will display without stretch but most horizontal games will have a thin (16 lines = 6%) border. Don't know how common it is but MinWah (creator of mameWah) uses this setting.
288 visible lines: All games will display without stretch but horizontal games will have a 16% border.
What I do is that I use the fact that the monitor tube isn't square. On my monitor approx 8 more lines are visible in the middle than in the corners. By adjusting the monitor to ~280 lines in the middle, ~272 lines is visible in the corners which equals a 10% border on horizontal games. A few vertical 288 line games will be slightly cut off but I don't mind if the text "Player 1" is missing at the top.
When you mention flicker I assume you mean interlace flicker. There are some myths around interlace but here is how it works:
When you display a non-interlaced image, the monitor draws only every second line creating what is called scanlines (thin black lines between the graphic lines) on the monitor. The size of the scanlines depends on the monitors' sharpness (distance between display elements). Arcade monitors generally have a rather blurry image so the scanlines are thinner than the lines containing graphics. PC monitors are sharp so the scanlines becomes the same size as the graphic lines and are much more visible.
When you display an interlaced image, the monitor will still only draw every second line but in every second frame it will swap the position of the graphic lines and scanlines. The effect is that the display will be without scanlines like when you display mame on a PC monitor.
The problem here is that with interlace each line is only updated every second frame. If neighbouring lines differ a lot in intensity (e.g. a thin white horizontal line on a black background) the display will flicker.
However, when you display a non-interlaced image like a mame game in an interlaced display the following happens: mame scales the game image by drawing every line twice. This means that neighbouring lines are identical and there is no flicker (well, if you look close, you can notice a slight flicker in a very bright areas) and the only effect is that the games display without scanlines.
Most people around here want to have the scanlines since that is how the games were displayed in the arcades. Personally I don't like them so I run all games in interlace.
When you stretch a game, the graphic card filters the image to make it look better but it doesn't include the scanlines in the process so the result will usually not be very good. The stretching also works better with more lines so it is best to use interlace for stretched games.
pacman:
Wow!! That's an explanation!!! ;D ;D
I will give a closer look to all of this. :D
So the best is to keep only resolutions with 240 lines in AVRES and create INI files again. I think I will try the most common one as you said. I do not mind having V games stretched but would like to have H games in full screen ;)
Thanks for your help! ;D
pacman:
Well although this is clear now I was wondering how do I setup AVRES utility to force my AVGA to display 240 lines ? (BTW are those calles H lines or V lines ? ::)). What about screen width then ? Is the 320 the best one to use for H games also? ???
Does anyone have the AVRES txt file correctly setup for AVGA9200 ??