Main > Monitor/Video Forum
Soft-15KHz - slim new tool for 15KHz on normal vga cards
SailorSat:
It's exactly this problem.
cabMAME changes the speed at which the soundbuffer is read, so that there are no buffer underrun/overrun hickups.
TheManuel:
I guess I should ask what is the consequence of this problem; what does the user experience? Is it stuttering sound or something like that?
I have not played a lot with the recent MAME releases but I don't recall having experienced sound problems with triplebuffer and running kunfgum at 60Hz (original ran at 55Hz).
bent98:
I am amazed the mame team hasnt implemented this hack. What are the percentages of people who actually run mame at the exact refresh rates?
SailorSat:
for example the good old pacman runs at 60.61 Hz.
So if you run it on exact 60.00Hz, you are running with ~98,99%.
So this makes pacman about 1,01% slower (and the sound pitch those 1% lower).
I guess only real fanatics hear the difference :)
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The NeoGeo would be the same, but faster.
natively running with 59,18 Hz, you would run at 101,38% on 60.00Hz.
that would make the game a little faster and the sound pitch a little higher.
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But... R-Type for example is a example for this being pretty bad.
On a normal PC-VGA-Card, you would have something like 800 x 600 @ 56Hz, which pretty good hits R-Types 55Hz.
However on Soft-15kHz or the ArcadeVGA, it will run at 401 x 256 @ 53Hz, which makes R-Type run with ~96,36% which you most likely will hear (although its not that bad as it sounds).
TheManuel:
--- Quote ---The NeoGeo would be the same, but faster.
natively running with 59,18 Hz, you would run at 101,38% on 60.00Hz.
that would make the game a little faster and the sound pitch a little higher.
--- End quote ---
Now you have me lost. You said a few posts above that MAME does not change the pitch:
--- Quote ---you SHOULD, however mame doesn't change the pitch so if doesn't generate enough samples if the emulation is lower than 100%, and you get too many samples if it's faster than 100%.
--- End quote ---
Besides, doesn't one of those new parameters, refresh or refreshspeed automatically adjust the sound rate (I think this is what you aluded to when you said MAME alters the sample rate).
Also, catching up with this post, it should be noted that this problem only applies when using syncrefresh (which is on automatically when choosing triplebuffer in full-screen) because MAME runs the game at the refresh rate of the monitor. If not using these features, MAME runs the game at the original speed regardless of monitor refresh and screen tearing ensues.