Pulling my hair out, Betson, AVGA2 and MAME

[XtraSmiley]

OK, finally trying to set up my MAME machine.  Here is what I'm using:

Slikstik cab controller and front end
MAME32 119
AVGA PCI version
C2D PC with 2 gigs of RAM
Betson multisync monitor

OK guys, the problem I am having is I cannot get the games to look right.  I figured with the card and monitor it would be good to go no problems, but it is not.

I loaded the stuff from Ultimarc to include the Gavin Benson utility and applied it to my MAME32.  Now some things just look terrible and with way to many scan lines.  Like Samurai Showdown looks terrible.  With hardware stretch turned on it's much smoother but now too blurry.  With 1941 the game is missing the top and bottom, even when I use the monitors adjustments to shrink it down.

It also seems like the adjustments I make with my monitor control panel, affects all games, not just ones with that resolutions.

Oh, and last but not least, my rotary controllers don't turn the Ikari Warrior guys per click, sometimes it takes one click, sometimes 3 or 4.  Is there a way to set this to one turn per click?

[rockin_rick]

Use direct draw, hardware stretch off, switch resolutions enabled.

Rick

[rockin_rick]

Have you seen this -

http://retroblast.arcadecontrols.com/articles/monitor.html

About your monitor controls - I don't think that every different resolution saves it's own settings -

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=71580.0

With the LS-30's - IIRC, the joysticks have 12 positions, but the characters only have 8.  This may have something to do with your issue...  But perhaps there is some other issue...

Rick

[XtraSmiley]

Rick, thanks for the links.  It seems very similar to the advice from Ulitmarc's site, but I will try the MAMEwah res tool next.  The Benson one seemed OK for some games, but not for others.

Why can't this be easier!!?!

As for the rotary sticks, I have the Happ one's, using the Ulitmarc rotary interface.  I see what you mean about 12 and 8, but I think MAME just reads these as [ or ] for example, so I'm not sure why it doesn't work 100% of the time when I move the Ikari guy with a [ to the left.

Anyone else with any info please jump in here.  I just can't seem to get everything to look right.

As far as Capcom games like Street Fighter II, how does everyone do it?  When I use original settings there is a HUGE black area around the games, if I use HW Stretch, then things get blurry.  What do you guys do?

Thanks again.

[rockin_rick]

When I first used my avga, I was having video problems like you describe.  I could not get it to look good.  I was using Mala and had directdraw enabled, however my mame.ini setting were overriding the mala settings (or mala had a bug) and it was using d3d.  Changing mame.ini settings made it work.  And it looks incredible.  I think that once you get directdraw working right, your stretching issues will not be an issue.  Oh, I did not yet bother with the avres (or gavin) util at all (yet) and it is really nice.  I am not sure how the mame.ini plays out with mame32...

Do not give up!

Rick

[AMDman13]

I have the same set up using Betson Multisync and AVGA2. Some of the vertical games will be cut off. For these you will  just be forced to use 640x480 with hardware stretch.

[XtraSmiley]

Thanks guys, I downloaded another MAME to mess with, got the Resolution Tool and now I have no idea what to set them at.

There is a screen on the left that has the breakouts, you select one and it shows all of the games in the middle, now I go in there and I can  change the game rez, but nothing matches.  For instance Mercs has nothing close to what the game is suppose to be and neither do games like Smash TV.  What resolutions do you use?

Can someone just post an INI file that has this done already?  Wouldn't that be easier than doing it by hand?

[rockin_rick]

Don't bother with that tool for now.  When I got directdraw working it was night and day.  Even to the point where that tool is not necessary.

Edit your mame.ini by hand.  Use the directions at the ultimarc avga instructions page -

http://www.ultimarc.com/avgainst.html

They are in red and under the 'Configuring Windows Command-Line MAME (MAME.EXE)' section.

Rick

[XtraSmiley]

Rick, I am using MAME32 and did all those options using the GUI.  It does look better, but not perfect.  Games like Merc and Smash TV are not correct.  Will I have to adjust these by hand?

Can someone using the same set up as me (Betson or D9200 and AVGA) just post their file for me to try out?

[rockin_rick]

Here is the mame.ini file that I use with normal mame 115 (non-mame32).  Change the filename to mame.ini.

Rick

[XtraSmiley]

Here is the mame.ini file that I use with normal mame 115 (non-mame32).  Change the filename to mame.ini.

Rick

Thanks man.  Have you adjusted any of the resolutions for the games or is this a generic one with the adjustments made like hardware stretch?

[rockin_rick]

I really haven't done much with this.  I don't have a cab ready, and I just wanted to try out my PC and AVGA with and arcade monitor.  I used a CGA only monitor, so I didn't want to tweak things all out since it was not the final setup.  When I first turned it on, the pic was 'blurry' due to hardware stretch and d3d.  Once I finally figured out that I had to modify the mame.ini file not just the options in mala, it was great.  I didn't mess with it any more.

The file I posted is just the basic mame settings.  I think that the utilities that adjust the resolutions create an .ini file for each game, with their own info.  IOW - those tools don't modify the mame.ini file.

Rick

[AMDman13]

You will find that the Resolution Tool will make all games as close to arcade perfect as can be. With a few exceptions. Then if you need to adjust said game you can do them individually which is nice. You will find that some games exact resolutions are not covered by the AVGA2, but there is usually one that is close enough that no one will know the difference.

[XtraSmiley]

You will find that the Resolution Tool will make all games as close to arcade perfect as can be. With a few exceptions. Then if you need to adjust said game you can do them individually which is nice. You will find that some games exact resolutions are not covered by the AVGA2, but there is usually one that is close enough that no one will know the difference.

Thanks.  Is there a step by step guide to using the RT?  When I open it all the games are set to be "set by MAME" and they are not set to the closest thing.  If I have to do it by hand, is there a way to know what the closest resolution is for each game?

Thanks. 

[vindes]

I'm not in front of my cabinet, so this is off the top of my head.

Bring up your resolution tool and decide what game you want to adjust.  Lets say you want to do Robotron.

In the res tool, choose the "find game" menu option.  It'll ask you what game, and type in "robotron".  It will search through your games and pick things it thinks are matches for robotron and display them in the center panel.

Click on the robotron you want to try in the center panel.  In the left panel the tool will highlight what resolution the real robotron runs at.  I don't remember what it is, but lets say it's 320x244.

Then double click on robotron in the center panel.  It will then give you a popup to let you define the .ini file for robotron.  If it shows you a bunch of stuff already in the ini file (it's in the white box toward the right of the popup) just delete everything in there.  Then from the pulldown menu at the left choose the resolution you want robotron to run at.  Choose something close to the original resolution.

Hit ok to get out of that.  Then under the one of the pull down menus there's an option to write ini files or create ini's or something like that.  Choose that, and select the "For selected game only" option and it will create your new robotron.ini file.

Then you can test it with mame32 or whatever you want to use.  Hopefully it will be at the correct resolution you just specified.

If it's not, then there's probably something wrong with your mame.ini file.

If you get that working you should understand the basic operation of the resolution tool.  What you really want to do is have the resolution tool generate all your ini files for you automatically.  There's an option under one of the menus to do that.  I've found that it doesn't pick resolutions perfectly, so when you find a game that doesn't look right you'll have to go back into the res tool and manually adjust.

Usually all games with the same original resolution will look right or they'll all look wrong.  That's where the option "All games with same resolution" option on the popup for writing ini files comes in handy.

Sorry if that's not perfectly clear, but best I can do off the top of my head.

[XtraSmiley]

Thanks a ton man, that is exactly how it works, I guess my problem is I don't know what resolution to pick, most don't even seem close to the choices.  In fact it doesn't seem like there are even any that are dead on.

I think I'm going to just spend some time seeing what works best.

It just seems to me that with the many people out there with Multisync monitors and AVGA cards, there would be a set ini file available that has this already done.

If there isn't, maybe I'll post mine when I get done doing it all.

[rockin_rick]

The tool will generate individual .ini files for each and every game.  Perhaps this is why that is not already out there.  Although, I don't see why they couldn't be all zipped up into a zip file...  Since I haven't done this, I have no idea of how big that would end up being.  Seems like this would be something that Ultimarc could/should distribute with there AVGA software/CD...

This is from the Ultimarc website -

Note about 224-line resolutions (eg Neo-Geo): The list does not contain any 224-line resolutions for the reason that is explained fully in the Arcade Monitor FAQ, basically arcade monitors cannot display these modes without top/bottom borders (otherwise the vertical refresh rate would be > 60Hz), so using a 240 line mode instead gives exactly the same result. (ie MAME inserts the borders instead of the resolution mode).

The ArcadeVGA card allows your PC to exactly duplicate the original game-boards video logic. To do this the resolution must match that of the original game, or be slightly higher (giving small borders). For the best gaming experience, you can over-ride MAME's choice of resolution. MAME often does not pick the best resolution. Here are some pointers: Choose a resolution that has an H and V value equal or slightly greater than the original game unless there is a resolution that is only a few pixels less, in which case choose this one. For vertical games on a horizontal monitor, choose a horizontal resolution which is about double the game resolution as you want side borders. The resolutions of 352 Horizontal are especially suited to vertical games. You will find that vertical resolutions of 240 and 200 or less are indistinguishable from each other. The reason for this is given on the arcade monitor FAQ page. A few games with a vertical resolution of between 301 and 450 will need Hardware Stretching because arcade monitors cannot display these resolutions, see arcade monitor FAQ for the reason.

Rick

[ahofle]

For Smash TV, use 401x256
for Mercs, use 512x384

[XtraSmiley]

For Smash TV, use 401x256
for Mercs, use 512x384

Well those work great using the MAME32 drop downs, but they are not available when I use the rez tool.  I'm pointing the thing at the AVGA 9200 .txt list but 512x384 is not a choice for me at all so I can't choose it for Mercs.  I'd like to be able to use the tool so I can apply the 512x384 to all the game that use the Merc driver and not have to do them one at a time.

Also, what is the refresh rate you use with these two?  Thanks.

[ahofle]

Well those work great using the MAME32 drop downs, but they are not available when I use the rez tool.  I'm pointing the thing at the AVGA 9200 .txt list but 512x384 is not a choice for me at all so I can't choose it for Mercs.  I'd like to be able to use the tool so I can apply the 512x384 to all the game that use the Merc driver and not have to do them one at a time.

You probably won't be able to do it by driver (CPS1) because most of the CPS1 games are not vertical.  But for future reference you can do that without the resolution tool by creating a 'cps1.ini' file in the ini/drivers directory with driver specific settings.

Also, what is the refresh rate you use with these two?  Thanks.

I just use the defaults.  You'll probably get screen tearing, but you can always try triplebuffer to help with that.