Soft-15KHz - slim new tool for 15KHz on normal vga cards

[Mittens]

I've tried just the 15khz setting, but I can't connect it to my regular VGA monitor if something happens. I'll try it again tonight when I get home!

[Mittens]

Ok, new problem!

The screen for the arcade works now with Windows, but it only works if I boot up with my VGA monitor hooked up, then switch the cable. After that, the picture is clear without any shakiness (some scrolling line every now and then in some games, rarely).

However, when I boot up with my arcade plugged into my VGA port, it just goes to a bright black screen. Any reasons you can think of for why that may be?

[SailorSat]

Yeah, the VGA port is the secondary output ouf your card.
The arcade screen doesn't get detected as "valid" screen.
Grab a DVI-VGA adapter and plug in your arcade screen on the other output of your card.

[Mittens]

I knew having a box of those would pay off someday!

[Mittens]

Thanks for the help, SailorSat .

One question though! Is the slight buzzing/humming when the monitor is in the BIOS anything to be concerned about? The screen is more than just split at that point. It also has fast vertical scrolling. It's normal when Windows finally loads, and I know the JPAC says split screen at startup is normal, but I'm just curious about the slight buzzing and the fast scrolling. If it's nothing to be concerned with, then I think everything's been addressed!

[SailorSat]

I knew having a box of those would pay off someday!

Indeed

As for the buzzing, thats pretty normal as your screen can't sync.
I never had any issues with that, though I can't promise anything.

[jimmy2x2x]

Im still struggling to get some games scrolling smoothly!

For example 320x240 res as used by Fusion (megadrive/genesis emu)

When I enable Vsync, it sync's to 58.9 (which is the confirmed by using the overlay of powerstrip)

and the emulator wants to refresh at 60hz

the result is that about every 1.5 second there is a hiccup in constantly scrolling games (M.U.S.H.A or a Thunderforce game for example)

I was thinking about trying to tweak the resolutions to 60hz, but not all games refresh at 60hz (esp in mame)

Is there a solution to this problem? I see it a lot of mame games too

Many thanks for your untiring efforts SailorSat!

[SailorSat]

Hm...
Disable any kind of auto-frameskip.

Don't remember the detailed settings but didn't have any issues on my Fusion setup.

[jimmy2x2x]

No frame skipping is enabled, and all games run very smooth (except this fault)

Just to confirm, using the Fusions in game frame counter (matches fraps)

VSYNC on = 58.9fps - scrolling judders about once every 1.5 seconds (this is the vertical rate according to powerstip for 320x240)
VSYNC off = 60fps - screen tearing

Thanks

[dmarcum99]

Hi SS!,

I was asking for some free custom modelines in the monitors section but not having any takers.  BUT, I am having something a little wierd happening with modeline creation.  If you could provide some feedback it would be great.

First off, I am using a NEC-XM29 and XP(32bit) in my cab.  My video car is a Visiontek ATI 9200SE  (128mb)and running Catylist 9.5 drivers.  In Windows, I'm currently using MameUI32 (latest build).  I should also mention that while I am not using Powerstrip currently, it has been used before and still installed on my PC.

I was attempting to create modelines through advancemame and while I can create a modeline that looks great in advv it does not translate to the same image in Windows.  For example, for DK, advmame uses 400x256x16 8.5/16.1/60.0.  If I recreate the resolution in advv.exe and test it, it looks awesome.  But, when I take the modeline and place it in Soft15Khz, I get a lot of overscan when I use that same resolution in XP(32bit).  Here's the modeline I placed in the usermodes.txt file:

Modeline "400x256@60.00" 8.45856 400 424 472 528 256 257 258 267 -hsync -vsync

Here are pics showing the overscan I mentioned.  First two pics are from advmame and advv program.  The last three are in Windows XP using MameUI32 (latest build).

Again, any feedback you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

[SailorSat]

Phew thats a hard one...
First of all, try to create that move in ADVV in 32bit instead of 16.
For some reason older ATI cards used to change their timings based on the bit depth.

Other than that I'm pretty clueless.

[dmarcum99]

Thanks for the reply SS!! 
I have to say, your program has been a blessing indeed!  It's free, and if you are determined enough, you could create your very own custom modelines for all the games you want to play in full-screen edge to edge glory!!

I tried your suggestion about tweaking the modeline in 32bit, but it wasn't successful.  For a test, I tried my onboard ATI HD4200 gpu....the 400x256 worked great!  I was really happy until I discovered that I couldn't get the card to work with advcfg or advv.  In addition to that, the I couldn't run any horizontal resolution under 356.  I guess the pixel clock is too high and with out being able to use advv, I can't create any custom resolutions. 

I had a 400X256 custom res created in powerstrip, but I removed it afterward.  Would having powerstrip installed and having that custom resolutions in powerstrip cause with my ATI 9200SE and the 400X256 any issues?  I guess I should have tried the 9200SE again after I saw the HD4200 run it correctly....

So here's the $50 question...Is there a "newish" ATI gpu video card that does it all....I mean plays well with advcfg & advv, not screwy like my 9200SE, and lets all the lower resolution work?  This cab only runs mame and daphne....no PC games or anything like that so I don't need a powerhouse GPU.

[SailorSat]

Guess it's time to finish psremote xD

As for powerstrip, well IF powerstrip is running in the background it may enforce your old settings.

[wilch]

sorry if this has been asked already, but there are about 50 pages to this thread!

im testing my new vga-scart cable with a radeon 9250. i have my primary LCD connected to DVI & TV via scart to VGA. in soft-15khz, do i have to install 15hz for both displays or can i have it set to only the secondary while using the LCD as normal?

once i'm sure the cable won't blow my house up, or at least my card, i'll be trying it with a radeon hd 5870 via DVI-VGA adapter so can have it set to primary, but would still like to have dual screens if possible

thanks

[SailorSat]

Basicaly S15K works with BOTH heads. It's the same whatever output you select.
You LCD should still work as it reports some native resolution which most certainly is higher than anything S15K provides.

[wilch]

yeah i got it working and the LCD worked fine. i have a problem though, i selected composite sync in the ATI drivers and had to set horizonal to positive and vertical to negative to stop the image rolling. each time i change the resolution the screen goes black until i change vertical to positive then back to negative... if i start a program then i can't move the mouse cursor over to the ATI drivers on the LCD to do this so im stuck with a black screen. im not sure if this is a problem with the wiring of the cable or my drivers

[SailorSat]

You should not need to change any sync options (especially not composite sync).
What pinout did you use for the scart cable?

[wilch]

VGA     SCART   NAME
 1  ----  15     Red Signal
 2  ----  11     Green Signal
 3  ----   7      Blue Signal
 6  ----  13     Red Ground
 7  ----   9      Green Ground
 8  ----   5      Blue Ground
 5+10  ----  17   Sync Ground
13+14 (twisted) ---  20    Sync Signal (neg. H-Sync + neg. V-Sync = neg. C-Sync)

I have VGA 16 bridged to scart 20.
seems there may be a problem with the sync signal or ground?
i have done continuity tests & they showed no problems. 
i have vga shielding linked to scart shielding (this is a copper wire without any plastic/shielding around it) don't know if that is a problem or not.
here's exactly what i did; booted into XP with TV connected but turned off. enabled the second display but left the TV off and went into ATI drivers.
I noticed polarity & composite sync were not set to what i believed they should be based on reading on this forum, so i set Hor & Vert to negative and enabled composite sync.
I installed soft-15khz to both displays and rebooted, the TV picked up the RGB signal but was black. i used the LCD to go into ATI drivers and played with the polarity until i had a stable image.

i'm sure i'v botched the cable somehow because the colours all seem to bleed into each other, green is especially dominant and some reds look like an orange/brown colour

hope you can shed some light on the issue. thanks!

[SailorSat]

1. Do NOT enable composite sync. You have both Sync wires twisted together (VGA 13 and 14).

2. I would split VGA 5 and 10 and connect the blanking ground.
VGA 10 (Sync Ground) -> To SCART 17 (Composite Video Ground)
VGA 5 is "Common Ground" -> To SCART 18 (Blanking Ground)

3. If your TV shows "black" it most likely did not switch to RGB.

4. The color bleeding most likely is your sync --- VGA Sync is 5V where SCART usually only is 1V.

[wilch]

ok ill follow suggestions Sailorsat, but i'm a little confused with the sync voltages; should i connect a resistor to the VGA syncs to reduce the voltage so its closer to 1v to match the scart sync?

thanks

[SailorSat]

Thats an option if you have trouble getting image at all.
I personaly never needed them.

[Zebidee]

Although R-G-B should be roughly 0-1v, this is not so for the sync. TV Sync can be up to 5v normally. ArcadeVGA outputs at around 4-5v and a JPAC outputs at ~3.5v. You should not need to put a resistor on the sync lines - and you will probably get picture sync problems if you do..

Sync problems will express themselves in the sync itself - e.g. picture rolling or becoming diagonal at the top. Your RGB colours bleeding does suggest that your RGB is too high or something. Have you tried adjusting the brightness & contrast on your TV? I'd look here before adding any resistors to the R-G-B signal lines. I hope that you don't have any shorts between your RGB lines and/or their grounds.

You really need to have your video driver consistently outputting both Hsync & Vsync as negative. If you are having ongoing problems with the driver resetting or whatever, then I'd suggest that you uninstall the ATI driver completely. The use the 'cat-uninstaller.exe' program to completely remove anything ATI from your PC. Then reinstall the Radeon ATI 9250 driver using the older catalyst 6.5. Leave the sync alone. Then re-install Soft15khz.

Further info available on VGA-SCART cable wiring on the pinned thread.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=77370.new#new

[dmarcum99]

Hi SS!,

Wanted to let you know that I found out the cause of my overscan.  

It came from my drivers.  Your app suggests that we use cat 6.5 for older cards like my ATI9200SE.  Well, I downgraded to cat 6.11 off ATI/AMD's website and the overscan went away.  I was able to reporduce the overscan by using the cat uninstaller and re-installing cat 6.5.  This may be limited to just my brand/model of video card (visiontek 9200se 128mb), but I'd thought I'd pass it on.  

This past weekend, I tried a ATI X300....and it worked well.  Unfortunately, the X300 does not like advv & advcfg.  These apps would start, but when I went to test the settings, the screen would blank out.     I guess if I need the GPU power of the X300, I'll get all my timings made with the 9200se and swap out afterward.

BTW, your app ROCKS!!!    

[bent98]

Salior.

Its been a while. Havent posted in a year or two here. I just got around to updated my cabinet with latestest version of mame.

I am using your latest version of Cabmame 138 (dos version) with soft 15khz on a 27" Bill labs monitor with an ATIX1900XT video card in Win XP3 2bit. I am running D3d setting and it seems to be working great except when I play games like punchout and Nintendo Player choice games. Any hames that used 2 monitors for that matter. It appears both screens are compressed and flatten out. I tried many different settings but cant seem to get it to display properly. My old settings with mame 127 I used to set it to 512x448 I think. It will display both screens no problem.

Any suggestions? Aside from that all other games work perfect.

[bent98]

Also I am running build 43 of soft15. khz. I didnt upgrade to latest build since the updates really didnt appear to introduce fixes to my issue.

[SailorSat]

Mhm... Those multi-monitor games most like conflict with cleanstretch
There's no "automatic" fix

[bent98]

I'm ok with a manual CRT fix. I just cant figure out how to get it to display with any settings. Can you help?

[wilch]

thanks for the advice guys, been a busy week so haven't had much time to solder. i reinstalled catalyst 6.5 and left composite sync alone and now i can change resolution freely without any blackouts.
i'm still experiencing the green filter problem, i've tried dosbox which looks ok running in windowed mode, but when changed to full screen the green is dominant again so it seems to affect certain resolutions more than others.
there are no shots in the cable, but some wires are close to each other, i have gently bent & twisted the scart end and the wires never touched.

i want to follow SailorSat's suggestion "I would split VGA 5 and 10 and connect the blanking ground.
VGA 10 (Sync Ground) -> To SCART 17 (Composite Video Ground)
VGA 5 is "Common Ground" -> To SCART 18 (Blanking Ground)" but i'm not sure if this will help the colours or if this was advised based on my blackout problem.

also, quickres doesn't show these resolutions: 320x200, 320x240 or 320x256(for amiga emulation).
i created a text file in the same folder as soft-15khz called custom15khz.txt and types these line, based on what i've read:

Modeline  "320x200"   15.75  320 336 368 416  200 200 202 222 doublescan -hsync +vsync
Modeline  "320x240"   18.00  320 348 376 416  240 240 242 254 doublescan -hsync -vsync
Modeline '320x256@59,917' 6,68 320 340 372 416 256 257 260 268 -hsync -vsync

but the resolutions are still absent. can anyone explain why, or if these modelines are wrong?

thanks!

[SailorSat]

@wilch:
The R9200 won't do 320*X Modes in Windows. They get added as 321*X

Other than that, the 320x200 and 320x240 modelines won't work on a TV as they are...
a) doublescanned
b) have a pixelclock way too high
c) at least one has positive vsync polarity

Also please note, the "real" VGA mode (320x200) is actually 70Hz refresh, and most TV (and even my beloved Commodore 1084) won't do these.

For Amiga emulation use

Code: [Select]

modeline 'Amiga-NTSC-720x240' 14,5881 720 752 824 928 240 243 246 262 -hsync -vsync
modeline 'Amiga-PAL-720x288' 14,4768 720 752 824 928 288 289 292 312 -hsync -vsyncDo NOT tick the "LoRes" option WinUAE.


As for the dominant green. Well try two 1k Ohms resistors on the Sync lines.
Some TVs "drift off" into some kind of yellow with the "standard" VGA sync levels.
VGA 13 - 1k Ohm resistor - SCART 20
VGA 14 - 1k Ohm resistor - SCART 20

[I/O]

Salior.

Its been a while. Havent posted in a year or two here. I just got around to updated my cabinet with latestest version of mame.

I am using your latest version of Cabmame 138 (dos version) with soft 15khz on a 27" Bill labs monitor with an ATIX1900XT video card in Win XP3 2bit. I am running D3d setting and it seems to be working great except when I play games like punchout and Nintendo Player choice games. Any hames that used 2 monitors for that matter. It appears both screens are compressed and flatten out. I tried many different settings but cant seem to get it to display properly. My old settings with mame 127 I used to set it to 512x448 I think. It will display both screens no problem.

Any suggestions? Aside from that all other games work perfect.

I thought D3D was not supposed to be used when switching resolutions...

In any case, I do not think this is a soft15 issue. I can confirm that both cabmame and cabmameui 138 display as described by bent98. (Settings were D3D with switchres enable - resolution default was 640x480 - and without switchres enabled - resolution at desktop.) MAMEUI 138.2 displays properly.

[purplec]

Hi will a Nvidia Geforce 1GB GTS250 work with soft 15khz.

any help would be great cheers

[SailorSat]

Hi will a Nvidia Geforce 1GB GTS250 work with soft 15khz.

any help would be great cheers

You most likely need a edid dongle.



Concerning the dual-monitor games... I'll take a look.
I added some "fix" for those long ago (for outrunners). Maybe it's not working for games with a vertical screen setup.

[purplec]

Hi Sailorsat

Thanks for the reply

Im only using one screen with the graphics card. I can use this graphics card on my desktop instead.

What would be the best 1 GB PCI expresss card I should get to run soft 15KHZ. i would just liek to future proof this current setup for the next few years.

Cheers

[SailorSat]

Any Radeon HD4000 and newer should be fine.

[purplec]

Hi Sailorsat

Thanks again for the reply.

I think im going to go for one of these below

ATI Radeon HD 4550 1GB.

Do i need to install a different device driver instead of the standard drivers.

Sorry about all the questions im very new to this.

Cheers

[SailorSat]

Standard Catalyst should be fine.

[bent98]

Concerning the dual-monitor games... I'll take a look.
I added some "fix" for those long ago (for outrunners). Maybe it's not working for games with a vertical screen setup.

That would be great if you can find a work around for these dual monitor games. If they could just run 800x600 it would be fine.

My work around is running a different version of mame but its a pain in the butt when lauching from Frontend as I would have figure out every dual monitor game and edit XML file to point to different version of mame.

I would be grateful if you can make a fix and slipstream it into cab mame!

Its punchouts, armwrestle, and all Nintendo .VS games

[Sosetsuken]

Hey SailorSat,

Is there a good online modeline calculator that works with soft15khz?  I'm trying to get 496x384 but it looks wrong (spinny image). :/

[SailorSat]

Code: [Select]

# -= 25KHz Progressive =-
modeline '496x384-24,96kHz-60,0Hz' 15,575 496 512 576 624 384 392 400 416 -hsync -vsync
Online... Well none that I know of.
However I think most of them made are for VGA modes (with rather short sync period) anyway so you can't blame them

[SailorSat]

Vertical multi-screen will work in the next cabmame release.

for the self compiler -> src / emu / render.c (around line 1472)...

remove

Code: [Select]

height = height / screens_considered;
add

Code: [Select]

if (target->curview->aspect >= 1.2)
        {
            height = height / screens_considered;
        }
        else
        {
            width = width / screens_considered;
        }