mame.ini for TV with component

[krazy_kenny1]

What video-related settings should I have in my mame.ini if I'm using a DVI to component adapter with a TV? (I want the most accurate, arcade monitor-like results)

[Jeff AMN]

I'll check mine and share them. I LOVE the look of my arcade as I currently have it going through DVI to component.

[ahofle]

I think the most important are:

video                        ddraw
hwstretch                 0
switchres                 1

and then force resolution to either 640x480 or 640x432.

[krazy_kenny1]

and then force resolution to either 640x480 or 640x432.

Can you elaborate on that a bit?  Do you mean set the desktop resolution to 640x480 or 640x432 and then let mame set it to whatever it wants using switchres?  Thanks.

[Jeff AMN]

You'll want to set your Windows resolution to 640x480. To do this, you need to do the following:

Right Click on Desktop --> Properties --> Settings --> Advanced --> Adapter --> List all modes --> 640x480 True Color (32 bit) 60 Hertz --> Apply --> OK

After that your desktop should be set to 648x480. You will also want to set it to your primary (or only) display. At this point, or even before, you should set your preferred front-end to 640x480 as well. Now, when you fire up games you'll notice that the edges of the screen are cropped or that the screen is way off of center. To fix this, simply change the MAME cfg (.ini) file. Set the resolution to 640x432. Yes, 640x432 is the correct resolution for component inputs. If you go higher, you'll get part of your image cropped due to overscan. Again, 640x432 is the correct resolution setting. Save the cfg file, fire up your front end, and enjoy the closest image you can get to an actual arcade monitor with a TV set.

Example Pics:
Vertical Games look nice...


So do horizontal ones.


Close up shots.



Any bluriness can be attributed to my lack of a tripod and poor photography skills.

[krazy_kenny1]

You'll want to set your Windows resolution to 640x480. To do this, you need to do the following:

Right Click on Desktop --> Properties --> Settings --> Advanced --> Adapter --> List all modes --> 640x480 True Color (32 bit) 60 Hertz --> Apply --> OK

After that your desktop should be set to 648x480. You will also want to set it to your primary (or only) display. At this point, or even before, you should set your preferred front-end to 640x480 as well. Now, when you fire up games you'll notice that the edges of the screen are cropped or that the screen is way off of center. To fix this, simply change the MAME cfg (.ini) file. Set the resolution to 640x432. Yes, 640x432 is the correct resolution for component inputs. If you go higher, you'll get part of your image cropped due to overscan. Again, 640x432 is the correct resolution setting. Save the cfg file, fire up your front end, and enjoy the closest image you can get to an actual arcade monitor with a TV set.

Example Pics:
Vertical Games look nice...


So do horizontal ones.


Close up shots.



Any bluriness can be attributed to my lack of a tripod and poor photography skills.

Thanks!  Detailed responses kick ass

[krazy_kenny1]

I think the most important are:

video                        ddraw
hwstretch                 0
switchres                 1

and then force resolution to either 640x480 or 640x432.

Alright, I have the video set to ddraw and the resolution is being forced to 640x432.  I don't understand why I should have hwstretch off though if I'm forcing the resolution to 640x432?  If I do that, then most games will be displayed in a little tiny box since they aren't being stretched fullscreen.  So right now, I have it stretched which fills the screen, but makes the image a bit blurry due to the stretching...

[ahofle]

hwstretch intoduces blurriness associated with stretching (anti-aliasing).  That's why you want it off.  Did you remember the switchres = 1?  It's been a while, but those settings used to fill the screen for me.

[Zebidee]

Those are good general defaults, but you may find that some games will look better in 640x480 and/or with d3d instead of ddraw.  It all depends upon their native res vs 640x432, how well it scales etc.  You also want to try in your default mame.ini file:

window         0
maximise       1
keepaspect   1


Using powerstrip and setting MinLines=200 in the pstrip.ini config file will let you create some great non-interlaced modes such as 640x240, 640x256, 640x288, 448x240, 448x256, 448x288.  With these modes and some prudent "integer" horizontal stretching (eg native res 224x256 games look great in 448x256, or even 448x288 to eliminate overscan) you can make most games look fantastic.

[krazy_kenny1]

hwstretch intoduces blurriness associated with stretching (anti-aliasing).  That's why you want it off.  Did you remember the switchres = 1?  It's been a while, but those settings used to fill the screen for me.

If I'm setting the resolution parameter to 640x432 explicitly like you said, then isn't switchres going to always set it at 640x432?

[ahofle]

Without switchres, it may ignore your resolution setting:

"-[no]switchres

        Enables resolution switching. This option is required for the
        -resolution option to switch resolutions in full screen mode. On many
        modern video cards with hardware stretching support, there is little
        performance penalty at higher resolutions, so it is nice to be able to
        get rid of the monitor resync time when you run in full screen mode.
        This is also useful on LCD displays with a fixed resolution. The
        default is ON (-switchres). This option requires -ddraw.
"

[smackifilia]

I'm having the exact same trouble, and using the settings recommended here, especially yours ahofle, and with these settings at a desktop resolution of 680x432 I get the game running in a small box.  Ahofle, could you or someone else put their mame.ini on here so we can see the settings.  It would be much appreciated.  Hope this is not too much to ask.

[krazy_kenny1]

I'm having the exact same trouble, and using the settings recommended here, especially yours ahofle, and with these settings at a desktop resolution of 680x432 I get the game running in a small box.  Ahofle, could you or someone else put their mame.ini on here so we can see the settings.  It would be much appreciated.  Hope this is not too much to ask.

I'd like to see it as well.  I haven't been able to find any way to get a game to fill the screen correctly with hwstretch disabled, and I've been playing with it a lot.

[smackifilia]

I'm having the exact same trouble, and using the settings recommended here, especially yours ahofle, and with these settings at a desktop resolution of 680x432 I get the game running in a small box.  Ahofle, could you or someone else put their mame.ini on here so we can see the settings.  It would be much appreciated.  Hope this is not too much to ask.

I'd like to see it as well.  I haven't been able to find any way to get a game to fill the screen correctly with hwstretch disabled, and I've been playing with it a lot.

The problem seems to me is that mame is not forcing the 640x432 that we need.  Maybe the lines to force it to do that would be all that I need?

[jfh2112]

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but would this work for S-video as well?

[ahofle]

Yes, works for S-video.
Can you try the same settings, but force resolution to 640x480 instead of 640x432 (just to make sure mame is honoring your resolution selection as someone suggested)?  I also know in MAME32, you have to select a 'screen' (ie not 'auto') to be able to manually choose a resolution -- maybe something similar is happening here?  There is also a verbose mode in MAME that will tell you on the command line what resolution its using (I can't check at the moment what the exact command line switch does it).

I would post my mame.ini, but I recently started using an arcade monitor, so my settings are much different now.

[smackifilia]

Can you try the same settings, but force resolution to 640x480 instead of 640x432 (just to make sure mame is honoring your resolution selection as someone suggested)?

Gave it a try and it ended up stretching the top of the screen to just a little bit out of view and the bottom of the screen perfectly to the bottom.  It looked very much like when you load up a vertical resolution game on a 4:3 screen.  I did the math and 480 = 1.111... etc * 432, so I multiplied 640 * 1.111 and ended up with 711.111.   Put that resolution in and mame completely ignored it.  Which makes me think we were right to think that mame was ignoring the resolutions we were putting in before.

I also know in MAME32, you have to select a 'screen' (ie not 'auto') to be able to manually choose a resolution -- maybe something similar is happening here? 

Tried changing the screen variable from auto to 640x432 and got no results. 

There's multiple groups of these video variables(I.E.  Resolution Aspect, Resolution0 Aspect0, Resolution1 Aspect1), so I guess I'm gonna go play with those or try to figure out what they are and get something going.  Just thought I'd post the results of what 480 did. 

[ahofle]

So 640x480 was OK just a little bit beyond the top of the screen (overscanned)?  If that's the case, I would go with 480 and find the service codes to your TV and adjust the overscan there to size the picture down.  Then you will have a perfectly fit picture at 480i.

[krazy_kenny1]

Can you try the same settings, but force resolution to 640x480 instead of 640x432 (just to make sure mame is honoring your resolution selection as someone suggested)?

Gave it a try and it ended up stretching the top of the screen to just a little bit out of view and the bottom of the screen perfectly to the bottom.  It looked very much like when you load up a vertical resolution game on a 4:3 screen.  I did the math and 480 = 1.111... etc * 432, so I multiplied 640 * 1.111 and ended up with 711.111.   Put that resolution in and mame completely ignored it.  Which makes me think we were right to think that mame was ignoring the resolutions we were putting in before.

I also know in MAME32, you have to select a 'screen' (ie not 'auto') to be able to manually choose a resolution -- maybe something similar is happening here? 

Tried changing the screen variable from auto to 640x432 and got no results. 

There's multiple groups of these video variables(I.E.  Resolution Aspect, Resolution0 Aspect0, Resolution1 Aspect1), so I guess I'm gonna go play with those or try to figure out what they are and get something going.  Just thought I'd post the results of what 480 did. 

I had previously tried 640x480 as well and had the same overscan on the top and bottom.  I still had to enable hwstretch though, or I'd get the little box in the middle of the screen.  Are you saying yours filled the screen at 640x480 without hwstretch?  I haven't been able to find out how to enter my tv's service menu.

[smackifilia]

I had previously tried 640x480 as well and had the same overscan on the top and bottom.  I still had to enable hwstretch though, or I'd get the little box in the middle of the screen.  Are you saying yours filled the screen at 640x480 without hwstretch?  I haven't been able to find out how to enter my tv's service menu.

No, mine most definately did not.  I was playing Street Fighter, and it was the same width as when it plays in its original resolution(the small box), but the length was looking almost like what I wanted it to look like, but it had the overscan at the top.  Its really hard to keep plugging away at this when Direct3d looks so good.  But I really do want the most authentic experience I can get out of this tv.

By the way I'm not sure if my tv has a service menu either.  I don't think it does; its a sony and I'll give a report if I find it.  Be sure to update if you can get the resolution problem fixed.   

[ahofle]

I thought you said when you tried 640x480 that it overscanned on the top?  How can it overscan if it's in a tiny box?  I just tried ghosts n goblins at 640x480, ddraw, nohwstrech, switchres and it filled the screen on my PC monitor.  Also what MAME version are you using?

[krazy_kenny1]

I thought you said when you tried 640x480 that it overscanned on the top?  How can it overscan if it's in a tiny box?  I just tried ghosts n goblins at 640x480, ddraw, nohwstrech, switchres and it filled the screen on my PC monitor.  Also what MAME version are you using?

I'm using 0.116 windows command line version.  When you say "at 640x480" do you mean you have your windows desktop set to 640x480 or you have the resolution parameter in mame set to 640x480?  If you just have windows set that way and mame is set to auto, the your PC monitor is just switching to whatever resolution Ghosts and Goblins runs at...something I'm not sure a television is capable of...

[ahofle]

When you say "at 640x480" do you mean you have your windows desktop set to 640x480 or you have the resolution parameter in mame set to 640x480?  If you just have windows set that way and mame is set to auto, the your PC monitor is just switching to whatever resolution Ghosts and Goblins runs at...something I'm not sure a television is capable of...

I meant the MAME resolution (I rarely trust 'auto').  My desktop is at 1280x1024 on this particular PC and I'm running GnG at 640x480.  I'm not sure why you are getting a little box with those settings.  Maybe someone else currently using a TV with component inputs can provide some more feedback.

[tiobolinha]

JEFF, Hi. I registered at this forum mainly to ask you how you got this quality with the TV. I know it's been a while since your post but your pictures look exactly the way I wan't to config my cabinet.

First: How did you go from DVI to component? Did you use a simple cable or an active converter? I have a few video boards I can use: A Nvidia 9400GT, An ATI EAX550GE a Nvidia 8600GS and a few more at my office's PC junkyyard. I will hook this up on a CRT 29" Toshiba TV which is great because it's not flat but has component in.

Second: I canīt use the direct draw as explained because I too have the tiny screen problem. Maybe it's a problem that comes with the new versions of mame. Maybe it's something else. Maybe the video board hardware scaling. I'm confused on so many possibilities.

Before anyone sugests I'd like to make clear that in Brazil arcade monitors aren't a possibility because we don't have those great D9200 or new good stuff. All we have is used chinese junk from old arcades so we are pretty much stucked with TVs, CRT monitors up to 17" and LCD. I LOVED your image. Please share!

I REALLY wan't to pull this off. Please HELP!!!

Marcelo.

You'll want to set your Windows resolution to 640x480. To do this, you need to do the following:

Right Click on Desktop --> Properties --> Settings --> Advanced --> Adapter --> List all modes --> 640x480 True Color (32 bit) 60 Hertz --> Apply --> OK

After that your desktop should be set to 648x480. You will also want to set it to your primary (or only) display. At this point, or even before, you should set your preferred front-end to 640x480 as well. Now, when you fire up games you'll notice that the edges of the screen are cropped or that the screen is way off of center. To fix this, simply change the MAME cfg (.ini) file. Set the resolution to 640x432. Yes, 640x432 is the correct resolution for component inputs. If you go higher, you'll get part of your image cropped due to overscan. Again, 640x432 is the correct resolution setting. Save the cfg file, fire up your front end, and enjoy the closest image you can get to an actual arcade monitor with a TV set.

Example Pics:
Vertical Games look nice...


So do horizontal ones.


Close up shots.



Any bluriness can be attributed to my lack of a tripod and poor photography skills.