Component Video Working with ATI Adapter (pics)

[Skadar]

Finally.... I just got component video working on my TV.  Amazing!  Absolutely better than S-video.  I am soooo pleased with this.

Here are my details:

MAME 99b
MAMEWah 1.61
JVC AV-27530 27" non-HDTV
Sapphire Radeon 9600 Atlantis w/ S-video and DVI outputs
Clone ATI DVI>Component video dongle (eBay $12)
Latest ATI Catalyst drivers (not sure that this even matters though)

In testing this televsion as a MAME cabinet monitor I first simply hooked up the S-video cable.  That was certainly easy enough and the picture was pretty good... but I knew that I had read about how a few people in the forums were able to get Component video working with this TV.

I gave it quite a shot last night but ended up giving up for fear of messing up something permanently.  I had downloaded PowerStrip which is a pretty scary program that looks as if it has the potential to cause damage.  But tonight I decided to try again... there was no need to install PowerStrip after all.  It is not needed.

Here is what I did.  I had my MAME computer connected to a regular PC monitor as well as my TV while setting this up.

1) Generated a "mame.ini" file by running "mame -cc" command.
2) Edited mame.ini file and changed "resolution" from "auto" to "640x480".
3) Hooked up my component video cables from my PC to my TV.
4) Set 480i dipswitch on the DVI>Component dongle.
5) ATI Catalyst Control Center on PC monitor:

a) Extended desktop to my TV.
b) Set TV sync rate from 60 to 30.  Set colors to 16-million.
c) Set TV desktop resolution to 640x432 (this made no visible change in my TV display, which was SERIOUSLY overscanning probably by 50%).
d) Set TV as my PRIMARY display.  This instantly altered my TV display to show my entire desktop with NO overscan.
e) Disabled my PC display

6) Started MAMEWah in 640x480 layout mode.  Looked very good.
7) Started Pac-Man game.  This revealed about 5% overscan vertically.
Entered Service Menu of my JVC AV-27530 TV:

a) Press "Sleep" button.
b) Press "Video Status" and "Display" buttons together.  This enters service menu.
c) Located "V-Size" setting and changed it from "43" to "33".  Perfect.  No overscan.

9) Played Pac-Man in perfect size and crisp resolution.  AWESOME!

[Skadar]

Some pictures for comparison.  Taken with a 4.5 megapixel digital camera in the dark.  The pictures don't really do this justice, but you can still see differences.  Check it out.

Pac-Man Detail
Notice how the double lines in the S-video blur together somewhat.



Mortal Kombat II Detail
Notice the floor texture and background rocks, etc.


S-Video Mortal Kombat II detail


Component Mortal Kombat II detail

Mortal Kombat II Detail
Notice the face masks of Sub-Zero and Scorpion


S-Video Mortal Kombat II detail


Component Mortal Kombat II detail

[Skadar]

I'm doing some more experimenting with MAME video settings, resolutions, and refresh rates.

1) Refresh rates - I don't see a difference at all with regard to selecting 30Hz or 60Hz from my Catalyst drivers in the windows desktop.  I did NOT attempt to force MAME via the mame.ini into using a specific refresh rate.

2) I took my Windows desktop back to 1024x768 resolution.  This gives me huge overscan on my monitor, but I really don't care.  I'm only using my cabinet for gaming and when I want to administer the PC I will use VNC remote administration from another computer wirelessly.  Setting at 1024x768 makes the desktop usable via VNC.

I realized (duh!) that I didn't NEED to change my screen via my TV's service menu!  All I needed to do to get rid of overscan while playing a game was to tell MAME to use 640x432 resolution.  Ahhh... but THEN I realized that MAMEWah would still show overscan and SNES games would show overscan.  So I set MAME back to 640x480 and scrunched my screen again via the service menu.

3) I messed around with the mame.ini video settings because I was noticing annoying horizontal tearing when playing Rolling Thunder or Shinobi.  The MAME docs mention this with respect to vsync.  There is an option that will make MAME wait for vsync in order to draw.  This is supposed to eliminate tearing with the trade-off being a performance hit.

Well, I tried it and wasn't happy.  Performance DID suffer and the tearing wasn't really eliminated... it was sort of spread over a wider area with a general lessening of the effect.  So I went back to no vsyncwait.

I've only noticed the tearing in those two games so it's not a big deal.  They are still VERY playable and fun.

That's it for now.

[elvis]

Try using the triple buffering option in MAME, as well as setting frameskip to 0.

On my cab (PC monitor running at 60Hz) VSync worked fine for removing tearing, but often dropped frames.  Likewise, auto frame skipping caused some games to have random jerkiness in places.  With triple buffering and frameskip 0, everything runs perfectly with no tearing and no jerkiness.

Frameskip 0 means that some games play slower than 100% on my system, but to be honest I don't enjoy most of these anyway.  All of the 80's and 90's games that I enjoy play perfectly with those settings.

[JoeB]

Sorry to bring this thread back from the dead, but I figured this would be a good place to ask it.

When using a TV with S-Video or Component, do you need to play all games in the same resolution and fix your PC/MAME to that resolution???

Because with arcade monitor + ArcadeVGA card, you can play with many different resolutions. 

Thanks in advance,