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

[SailorSat]

Won't work with SVideo.

[Markade]

Hi SailorSat!

First of all, thanks for all you've done to our hobby! Your soft15 really  make happy a lot of people (me included) and I really want to thank you for that

I've watching this thread for a while, and I'm one of these with a nVidia card that can't take out the 15hz very well. So, I want to ask you about the Dongle:

- Does it works alone, or it works in conjunction with soft15? I mean... the only thing does the dongle is to "free" the "safe-mode" resolutions, or it gets 15hz by himself alone?

- I have found one post of you in a spanish forum from about 2 or 3 years ago (i'm spanish, by the way ) explaining how to do this Dongle. Since you say there's more than a year you don't do any dongle... Can you please share the way to program the eeprom? So, I will try to make one (only for me, i don't plan to distribute anything). I think this question should be done by MP, but maybe you are really willing to share that...

- Besides all of that, have you tried the software winmodelines with the nVidia cards? I know you were in touch with the creator of the software, so I bealive yes. I have a very "funny" problem with winmodelines. I can get the 15hz with it, but when a resolution changes when i'm in this mode (for example, if i'm in 640*540 and I run a PC-Game that works at 800*600 or at 640*480) the mode changes again to 31hz, and I have to reboot and start again. Do you know if your dongle also can solve this?

I really hope you answer me, 'cause I will be very happy to use my actual graphic card, and 'cause I will like to try if I'm capable to do the dongle.

Thank you very much!

[SailorSat]

Well the firmware is freeware =)
http://files.arianchen.de/soft15khz/s15kedid.bin

I've used PowerStrip to upload it to the dongle.

As for your WinModelines problem. I guess that interlaced resolutions get added as 30Hz/25Hz to windows and most games will select 60Hz (which usually is progressive).

[Markade]

Thanks for the answer!

Anyway... you didn't answer what I most need . Maybe it's obvious... but... so, the dongle is the answer to my problems, right?

[wilch]

Markade, do you have a link to the old spanish thread you mentioned? thanks

[Markade]

Markade, do you have a link to the old spanish thread you mentioned? thanks

I do

http://www.foromarciano.org/foro/thread/23/50/12350_1.html

But I don't know if you will find here what you need...

[iori01]

Hello SailorSat,

First, let me say to you a relly big thanks for your wonderful soft, that make lot of things possible with retrogaming.

I'm using ATI4350 by now on my New Astro City, soft15Khz works like a charm, but I plan to change the 15/24 chassis of my cabinet by a new one 15/24/31 auto switch to enjoy type x emulation in 480p

The problem is that some game I run in 480i by now , will be obliged to be in 480p after, and I think the result will not be the same.
For example I play Rival schools in 480i, If I put it in my normal PC with 480p, it's bad.

Do you know if it's possible to have 480i and 480p resolution at the same time on my computer ? maybe tweaking a bit with 640x480 for 31Khz and 641x480 for 15Khz ?

do you think it's possible ? Or am I completely crazy 

[tellaedhel]

Alright,
I have a problem with my arcade monitor... well, I hope its solvable since I am so close to getting my ultimate arcade macheen up and running.
I got my P4 with 1GB of RAM and an ATI Radeon 7000 with a 6.11 Catalyst ready to go... using hyperspin and mame along with few other software additions... Instead of spending me money on ArcadeVGA I went other way and spent $20 for regular VGA card... I am planning to use Sailor's great little tool, soft 15khz and J-PAC with my JAMMA. So, my problem occures once I conect my PC to a J-PAC via VGA cable... I get a double picture... The colours look great the sharpness is on top, however it is two screens split vertically. I tried installing all the frequencies for both card options in soft-15Khz, I tried only installing one, I tried using a DVI port on my video card and a VGAtoDVI convertor, nothing did the trick. Am I missing something? I change soft 15Khz settings in windows and try loading hyperspin with Win XP hidden. I used quickres first time to set my resolution to the lowest available - I believe it was 640-480 or something... any suggestions?

By the way, I am also writing a tutorial/personal experience with PC / arcade system from the scratch www.tellaedhel.com any suggestions and comments are more then welcome.

What other options do I have in order to resolve a double screen issue? I downloaded 6.5 Catalyst as I read that should be a version used, and I was going to play with resolutions a bit more... I am not sure if that could have caused this to occur.

Thank you in advance and SailorSat thanks for the software, very neat gadget.

[SailorSat]

Is it a 15kHz arcade screen? If so, don't install all three options! Just 15kHz and reboot.
(also make sure you have selected a 60Hz mode)

[tellaedhel]

Thanks so much for such a quick response. Ok, it is Wells-Gardner 19K4901 and I believe it is 15Khz... I will try one of the two card with only 15Khz (which I did, but I will be trying the other one later today) also, are we talking about 60hz refresh rate within the windows display settings/monitors?

[tellaedhel]

... next

[tellaedhel]

me again... I got it to work, it looks great, however, new questions occured. I managed to get some of the games work at the regular settings, the others will get a picture that is unstable, bunch of lines that is. I assume it has to do everything with the right resolution. I am not sure where exactly I enter those custom resolutions, is it into the mame software, or??? anyways, thanks for the help Sailor, 15khz worked after 4-5 hours of headache... I had to tweak thsoe little knowbs in the back of my monitor, but as I said, if I want to play those games with shakey picture I will have to re-tweak... so, eh long night

[larsoncc]

I have some questions, to see what I should be attempting next...  I have Soft-15khz running, but:

1.  If higher resolutions don't work (640x480 and up), is that an issue with my monitor (WG 25K7193) or Video Card (tried GeForce 3 and GeForce 6200)? Or is this perhaps an issue with QuickRes (not displaying interlaced resolutions)?

2. Is this project open source?  I'd like to modify the form to fit into a 640x240 screen, and position the buttons to the top of the form.

3.  NOOB MAME/MAME32 questions:  How do I force games into SMALLER resolutions (example, I'm running 640x240, want to run Ms. Pac Man [288], best I've done so far is cut off the bottom 48 px).  Is there a way to change the button for ESC (exit game) and in MAME 32, a way to change the "launch game" button from Enter to something else?

PS - one thing that I've found very useful in this experience is Remote Desktop in /admin (console) mode, and pinning the start bar to the top of the screen. 

[tellaedhel]

3.  NOOB MAME/MAME32 questions:  How do I force games into SMALLER resolutions (example, I'm running 640x240, want to run Ms. Pac Man [288], best I've done so far is cut off the bottom 48 px).  Is there a way to change the button for ESC (exit game) and in MAME 32, a way to change the "launch game" button from Enter to something else?

Cannot help you with first two questions but might be able to help you with this one. If I remember well (and I am not next to my computer to be able to check that out), in mame32, once you start a ROM you may press TAB on your keyboard and it will give you a few pretty good options... change your general controls / change your in-game controls (for that particular ROM you have just started), a very good option is game information (if your ROM does not work on your arcade system and it works on your LCD, and you are wondering what resolution you might need for certain non-working roms... you can find it here - correct me if I am wrnong) and finally, there is a user interface controls (or something similiar at the bottom), here you can change ESC function and ENTER function and so on...

Now my question is:
I have managed to get most of my Mame32 ROMs work perfectlly fine, however, there are few that I cannot play due to a, what I believe to be, sync/resolution issue (funny lines and z picture or somthing like that) wel, I am in a need of the resolutions for those games... pac-man, mr. pac-man, vs super mario bros, vs dr mario, lode runne (1,2,3,4) galaga88... any help out there?!

Thanks



tellaedhel.com

[wilch]

can anyone explain how to modify soft-15khz modelines so they have 50hz refresh rates?

[SailorSat]

1.  If higher resolutions don't work (640x480 and up), is that an issue with my monitor (WG 25K7193) or Video Card (tried GeForce 3 and GeForce 6200)? Or is this perhaps an issue with QuickRes (not displaying interlaced resolutions)?

ForceWare too new? Which one did you try?

2. Is this project open source?  I'd like to modify the form to fit into a 640x240 screen, and position the buttons to the top of the form.

Hm... Actually no one ever asked
I'll see what I can do.

[MonMotha]

can anyone explain how to modify soft-15khz modelines so they have 50hz refresh rates?

The easiest way would just be to recalculate them using standard mode formulas like the GTF, CVT, etc.  You may also find an interactive modeline calculator handy, though most are geared toward creating modelines that are "optimal" for PC monitors and will give poor or useless results in this situation.  Either of these methods will generally result in a mode that has a higher visible line count since there's a relationship between number of lines and horizontal scanrate at a given vertical refresh rate.  For example, you'll probably end up with something like 640x525@50Hz rather than 640x480.

If you want to keep all the sizes the same but reduce the refresh to 50Hz, what you'll do is lower the dot clock (first number) then increase the number of blank lines (easiest way to do that is probably to increase the last three numbers equally).  Basically, what you're doing is telling the computer that, while the extra lines exist, you don't want to use them and they should be blank.  You'll probably have to do this by hand, though a modeline calculator application may help you verify your results.

[larsoncc]

1.  If higher resolutions don't work (640x480 and up), is that an issue with my monitor (WG 25K7193) or Video Card (tried GeForce 3 and GeForce 6200)? Or is this perhaps an issue with QuickRes (not displaying interlaced resolutions)?

ForceWare too new? Which one did you try?

2. Is this project open source?  I'd like to modify the form to fit into a 640x240 screen, and position the buttons to the top of the form.

Hm... Actually no one ever asked
I'll see what I can do.

Oh, ForceWare can be too new?  I have latest installed.  Which is a good / ideal version?

[rexel]

hi
Ive done a bit of reading and couldnt find the answer.. but would a geforce 6220 (nvidia) pcie be compatible with soft 15khz?

[Gray_Area]

hi
Ive done a bit of reading and couldnt find the answer.. but would a geforce 6220 (nvidia) pcie be compatible with soft 15khz?

Yes. Mind the Nvidia 32-resolution limit.

[wilch]

@MonMotha; Thanks for the in-depth explanation, but I can't quite figure it out.
What I could really do with is a real-time modeline generator that lets you test resolutions on the fly. That way trial and error isn't reduced to restarting the computer every time I alter a modeline slightly. I'll give powerstrip a go, but I've heard it's quite advanced.

Or even better, does anybody have 50hz modelines for any or all of these resolutions:
321x240
321x256
640x240
640x256

Thanks for reading

[MonMotha]

@MonMotha; Thanks for the in-depth explanation, but I can't quite figure it out.
What I could really do with is a real-time modeline generator that lets you test resolutions on the fly. That way trial and error isn't reduced to restarting the computer every time I alter a modeline slightly. I'll give powerstrip a go, but I've heard it's quite advanced.

xvidtune will do just that on Linux.  No idea if there's something similar for Windows.  Windows has historically been pretty limited in terms of the ability to use exact video timings, hence why Soft15k is fairly driver dependent.

Or even better, does anybody have 50hz modelines for any or all of these resolutions:
321x240
321x256
640x240
640x256

Any reason you need these at 50Hz?  They'll be a fair bit lower than 15kHz (in the neighborhood of 12.5-13.5kHz), and some monitors may not like them.  They'll also not be what the game needs to run in, so it will run slow or you'll have to use e.g. triple buffering to convert the framerate down.  Are you trying to use them with a European TV via SCART or something?  I'm told most European TVs will happily accept 60Hz timings.

Anyway, here's some GTF-derived calculated modelines for the resolutions you provided at 50Hz:

# 321x240 @ 50.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 12.40 kHz; pclk: 4.17 MHz
Modeline "321x240_50.00"  4.17  321 305 328 336  240 241 244 248  -HSync -Vsync

# 321x256 @ 50.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 13.20 kHz; pclk: 4.65 MHz
Modeline "321x256_50.00"  4.65  321 305 336 352  256 257 260 264  -HSync -Vsync

# 640x240 @ 50.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 12.40 kHz; pclk: 8.33 MHz
Modeline "640x240_50.00"  8.33  640 600 656 672  240 241 244 248  -HSync -Vsync

# 640x256 @ 50.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 13.20 kHz; pclk: 9.08 MHz
Modeline "640x256_50.00"  9.08  640 608 664 688  256 257 260 264  -HSync -Vsync


The 321xNNN modes are altered slightly because the VESA specs disallow odd horizontal active pixel counts.  You may experience compatibility issues.
Note that the horizontal scanrates are quite low.  I suspect most monitors won't work with these.  There's somewhat of a way around this, but you'll probably end up with black bars at the top and bottom of the picture, and most TVs don't have an easy way to adjust it back out.
The dot clock is also quite low, and some video cards may not be able to do it.

[SailorSat]

Oh Boy, the EDID Dongle finaly goes pro!

The old ones are sold out for some time now, the new ones will be available at www.arcadeforge.de soon.

Before:


After:


P.S. Yes Yes.. one side will have screws

[lodoss118]

what will the new versions bring?

[SailorSat]

Nothing new actually. But no more soldering wire by wire

Enables 15khz with NVidia cards (GeForce 8 and newer)

[eerie]

hello all,

I just got a pc for my arcade. it has the intel integrated chipset 4500. Does any of you know if this chipset works fine with soft15? my os is win7 32bit but my plan is to ugrade it to win7 64. will it work with the 64bit os? any compatibility issues? maybe better with xp 64...?

many thanks 

[rexel]

hi
Ive done a bit of reading and couldnt find the answer.. but would a geforce 6220 (nvidia) pcie be compatible with soft 15khz?

Yes. Mind the Nvidia 32-resolution limit.

can someone explain what this means.. i take it that with this card it can only support upto XXXX resolution... so am i right to assume that as long as i am not playing the most recent games (which inturn demand high reso's) i should be fine?

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

hi
Ive done a bit of reading and couldnt find the answer.. but would a geforce 6220 (nvidia) pcie be compatible with soft 15khz?

Yes. Mind the Nvidia 32-resolution limit.

can someone explain what this means.. i take it that with this card it can only support upto XXXX resolution... so am i right to assume that as long as i am not playing the most recent games (which inturn demand high reso's) i should be fine?

nvidia drivers do now allow you to have more than 32 different resolutions available on the system. Since among all the games in MAME there are probably closer to around 110 unique resolutions, you have to choose a set of resolutions that will allow you to fit the games you want to play without having to loose pixels, or stretch or squash the image, or have too much of a boarder around the edge.

For example if Random Game 2: Nerf Herder runs at 320x240 and you didn't choose to add that resolution, but you did add 320x256, then you're going to have an 8 pixel blank space on the top and bottom of the image. Or if it was the other way around, the game runs at 320x256 and you only added 320x240, then you'll loose 8 pixels from the top and the bottom.

It has nothing to do with WHAT the resolution is, but with how many unique resolutions you've added.

[eerie]

hello all,

I just got a pc for my arcade. it has the intel integrated chipset 4500. Does any of you know if this chipset works fine with soft15? my os is win7 32bit but my plan is to ugrade it to win7 64. will it work with the 64bit os? any compatibility issues? maybe better with xp 64...?

many thanks 

no replies? any help sailorsat?

thanks

[SailorSat]

Phew... Well I guess you'll end up using the IEGD drivers. There require you to set your mode by hand.
Last time I checked those had a limit of 5 resolutions.

[rexel]

hi
Ive done a bit of reading and couldnt find the answer.. but would a geforce 6220 (nvidia) pcie be compatible with soft 15khz?

Yes. Mind the Nvidia 32-resolution limit.

can someone explain what this means.. i take it that with this card it can only support upto XXXX resolution... so am i right to assume that as long as i am not playing the most recent games (which inturn demand high reso's) i should be fine?

nvidia drivers do now allow you to have more than 32 different resolutions available on the system. Since among all the games in MAME there are probably closer to around 110 unique resolutions, you have to choose a set of resolutions that will allow you to fit the games you want to play without having to loose pixels, or stretch or squash the image, or have too much of a boarder around the edge.

For example if Random Game 2: Nerf Herder runs at 320x240 and you didn't choose to add that resolution, but you did add 320x256, then you're going to have an 8 pixel blank space on the top and bottom of the image. Or if it was the other way around, the game runs at 320x256 and you only added 320x240, then you'll loose 8 pixels from the top and the bottom.

It has nothing to do with WHAT the resolution is, but with how many unique resolutions you've added.

thats abit of a limitation ! only 32 when theres 110 possible...

whats a way around this? go a cheap ati card instead?

[SailorSat]

Not a problem as Soft-15kHz per default only uses 32 modes (as does the ArcadeVGA).

However, there are people who insist that a 320x224 neogeo within a "real" 320x224 mode looks different than in a 320x240 mode with borders. Even if there is no technical difference

[wilch]

@MonMotha
Thanks again for the help, I'll try those modelines this weekend. I want 50hz for Amiga emulation without having to use triple buffering so I can experience Amiga-like responses and smooth scrolling, but I guess Amiga emulation is far from perfect. I have tried the 50hz modelines included with soft15-khz but didn't like the results. I really regret selling my Amiga now, suppose I could emulate an NTSC machine instead and run at 60hz but may be too fast...

@Sailorsat
Is your new dongle + soft-15khz compatible with a Geforce GTX 260?
Thanks

[rexel]

hi just wonderig if a ati x300 would also work ?

[SailorSat]

Well x300 should work too.

GTX260? don't know, but worked with a GTX460.

[Eversynth]

Hi everyone!
Premise: A couple of years ago I did set up an arcade PC. The first time I used an ATI X1950Pro, but it turned out sub-optimal as it didn't work well with low resolutions. I also had to drive 2 TVs, so I ended up purchasing 2 ATI 9250 PCI.
BUT the 9250 PCI only supports up to Directx 8.1, and they are really inadequate for anything besides DOS and Emulation. I don't want to run advanced games, but even simple games require at least Directx 9.

NOW: I would like to purchase a recent card(s), one that supports REAL 320x240 resolutions, like the hd4350 and hd4550 can.
THE PROBLEM: Where I live the hd4550 is not readily available. (Too old?)

The question: Are there any other cards that fully support low resolutions out of the box, like the hd4350 and hd4550? In the official thread about supported cards on arcadeinfo.de only the hd4350 is mentioned...
If anyone can help me it will be appreciated. 

[apfelanni]

a world without ebay or amazon ??

[sk8ersublime]

I need some help with this thing...

I have a Geforce 7600GT running in Windows XP SP2 and I am trying to get this thing to work with my Wells Gardner 19K4901.

So I was using the standard Geforce drivers when i first attempted. and I could not get anything to work. So I installed forceware 169 and then reinstalled the soft15khz.

I rebooted the machine and I had all of the resolutions available from 200 something to 1024x768 all at 32bit. but if I select the resolution of 640x480 i get no picture, but if I select the native res of my LCD i get a non-synced desktop on the Arcade monitor.

Now here is another strange thing. If I turn the machine on with the LCD and the Monitor plugged in, I see the POST and BIOS, at 31khz of course so its just scrolling around, but its there...

If I unplug the LCD from the DVI port, I will not get any video at all on the arcade monitor, not even POST or BIOS.

Any ideas??? I have been reading as much as I can find on this thing, but I have no ideas and im about to throw this thing off my balcony...

[SailorSat]

Use the DVI port for 15khz once you disconnect your lcd

[sk8ersublime]

Use the DVI port for 15khz once you disconnect your lcd

I tried that, using a DVI to VGA adaptor with the CGA to VGA adapter I created. Pins 1-3 are RGB pins 5,6,7,8,10 are ground pins 13-14 are H and V sync. I followed the VGA pinout from ultrimarc.

So should I install the forceware drivers, reboot, install sync15khz, change resolution to 640x480, shutdown, unhook LCD from DVI and plugin CGA to DVI with the adapter?

Would there be any reason why I wont even get the POST or BIOS with just the CGA connected to either VGA or DVI?