Why Advancemame is cool

[Ummon]

Now, this can be done with the alternate modes SailorSat created for high refresh-capable monitors. But Advancemame does it automatically. This is on an old 17" Dell PC monitor.

[gonzo90017]

So what am i seeing here?
No i'm not being sarcastic.

[Ummon]

Click on the images. If you can't see the native scanlines, then click on the image so it zooms in.

[Jack Burton]

I concur, advancemame is awesome.  I have tried to go back and play on regular monitors without native scanlines and I just can't stand it anymore.

[TOK]

I see the scan lines, but the main thing I notice is that nearly the bottom is cut off your vertical image.

[Ginsu Victim]

I see the scan lines, but the main thing I notice is that nearly the bottom is cut off your vertical image.

And the top.

[TOK]

I am be having some bad grammar. 

[ahofle]

So what modes are those running?  And if they are CGA, how are you running them on a high res PC monitor?

[Ginsu Victim]

This thread inspired me to run out and grab AdvanceMAME (0.84). I'll install it in my cabinet tonight and give it a whirl.

[Jack Burton]

I see the scan lines, but the main thing I notice is that nearly the bottom is cut off your vertical image.

And the top.

You usually have to adjust the monitor screen size and position settings after changing resolutions.  Looks like he forgot to do that.

Advancemame does not cut off any part of the screen.

[ahofle]

According to Ummon in another thread, advancemame automatically adjusts the screen pots for you. 

[NickG]

Those "native scanlines" on the DK are going the wrong way, LOL. 

[TOK]

Is this just switching on the scanline effect built into MAME? I've messed around before, the results look similar but its been a while since I've used it.

[Jack Burton]

According to Ummon in another thread, advancemame automatically adjusts the screen pots for you. 

Eh, it kind of guesses but I've never seen it get it just right on the first try. 

The scanlines visible when Donkey Kong is played in it's native resolution are not software based scanlines.  They are the real scanlines produced by the monitor.   I don't think the ones in the picture are real scanlines since they are on a Dell monitor.  I don't think there was ever a dell monitor that could do 15khz.

As far as scanlines going the wrong way, I don't know if Donkey Kong cabs came with a true vertical monitor or used a rotated monitor.  It doesn't affect the image quality.  The important thing about playing in native resolutions is that each pixel of the in game graphics is equal to one pixel on the monitor.

[telengard]

AdvanceMAME was great.  I wish it was still supported.  I spent a *lot* of time getting those perfect modes for games.

I now have an arcade monitor and thanks to some tool I found on these boards (can't remember the name) I get the same results with none of the work.  I did have to sacrifice a little bit with vector games though.

~telengard

[Ummon]

People aren't getting the first sentence in my post. These are real hardware scanlines. Obviously the orientation is off; and there's no such thing as a 'real vertical monitor'. The reason there's cutoff is because I didn't set the rc up for this monitor; I set it up for my Impress' arcade monitor (which, if it does std and med res, I'm assuming is in CGA mode). However, I just set the clock. I didn't go and set the format, so it sensed the monitor used at runtime and created the modeline accordingly.

@aholfe: I said the program will adjust the game's geometry, not the monitor's. SailorSat and I talked about this briefly in one of the threads here a couple/few months ago.

@telengard: not exactly. There's no work because the modes have already been created for you. They're only so applicable, though.

[ahofle]

You never answered the question about what resolution you're running there.
You're basically claiming to be running 15khz resolutions on a high res PC monitor?  Because that's the only way you would have those huge scanlines, other than fake MAME ones. 

[Jack Burton]

Ok, no such thing as a real vertical arcade monitor.

How did you pull this sort of black magic off?

[Ummon]

Maybe I'm wrong, but from what I've read CRT monitors work one way: they display from left to right, top to bottom relative to the monitor's horizontal orientation. Hence, for vertically displayed games, the monitors are turned and the game code is appropriate to that orientation.

Ahofle, what are 'fake' resolutions?

[TOK]

Here is the scanline option switched on in MAME. This is on an LCD monitor.

[ahofle]

Ahofle, what are 'fake' resolutions?

I meant fake scanlines (the software generated ones in MAME).

[protokatie]

Maybe I'm wrong, but from what I've read CRT monitors work one way: they display from left to right, top to bottom relative to the monitor's horizontal orientation. Hence, for vertically displayed games, the monitors are turned and the game code is appropriate to that orientation.

Dunno if right or wrong, but the beam of a monitor can be made to go anywhere with the right hardware. (By "default", monitors use the left to right in relation to their horizontal orientation.) But if you look at vector screens as well as oscilloscopes it isnt hard to imagine a raster screen being made to scan in another manner. It was my understanding that old B/W vertical computer monitors designed for wordprocessing scanned from left to right top to bottom from the monitors vertical orientation. (Thus making it not necissary to have a rotated mode in the computer's gfx board)(odd thought, maybe this is where oddball modes like 320x480 came from? Maybe used for vertical monitors???)

[Namco]

Now, this can be done with the alternate modes SailorSat created for high refresh-capable monitors. But Advancemame does it automatically. This is on an old 17" Dell PC monitor.

What do you mean by "this"? Depends what your definition of the word "this" is.

It took me a long time to figure out what you were talking about there. Thanks for not qualifying what "sailorsat" is or explaining what the post was about. I don't see what the big deal is when you can add the resolutions to your driver's list of supported resolutions and running with switchres on and hws off. I got those "native scanlines" too when I ran sf2 at -r 384x224, didn't need advancemame to do it.

[fjl]

I'm lost here. What exactly is this topic about? Making scanlines on a PC monitor without using MAME's built in scanline option?

What's the difference?

[Hoopz]

We need to get a certain someone in here to tell us that the original programmers meant for their games to be displayed on LCDs not monitors with tubes and that Mame is incorrect because the code is wrong.

 

[fjl]

Wrong? How so?

[Hoopz]

 

[fjl]

No, I'm not about to put, "programmers, LCD preffered, incorrect MAME coding" and see what pops up on the search function.

[Stub]

To be honest the search function on this board blows. I have a hell of a time with multi word searches, I think the relevance ranking is purely random.

[leapinlew]

We need to get a certain someone in here to tell us that the original programmers meant for their games to be displayed on LCDs not monitors with tubes and that Mame is incorrect because the code is wrong.

 

Don't worry Hoopz. I got it. 

[Hoopz]

To be honest the search function on this board blows. I have a hell of a time with multi word searches, I think the relevance ranking is purely random.

Well, at least you tried it unlike efjayel who never does.  It's not perfect but those that try to help themselves instead of expecting to be spoonfed, help out the community more than the leeches.

Don't worry Hoopz. I got it. 

I knew certain people would.   

[fjl]

So I'm a leech? Just because I'm not as smart as you I'm not allowed a better explanation? I have ADD. How is that my fault? 

[Hoopz]

Work smarter, not harder.  I never said you weren't smart.  Anyone who knows their limitations should also learn how to use a system to make things easier. 

All people ask is that you search before asking sometimes.  You never search and expect people to spoon feed you.  Take responsibility and try to help yourself.   

[Ummon]

We need to get a certain someone in here to tell us that the original programmers meant for their games to be displayed on LCDs not monitors with tubes and that Mame is incorrect because the code is wrong.

 

Heheheh. Yeah, no doubt, G.

Okay, here it is. If you set the display_adjust parametre in to generate_yclock, and then give some generally appropriate values in device_video_clock, Advancemame will attempt to display an image accordingly. Very quickly, it takes into account the mentioned parametres and also analyzes your hardware. In this case, I had a PC monitor hooked up. I had clock settings for an arcade monitor, but hadn't set a device_video_format so Advancemame ignored the specific clock values and created a high-refresh mode: something like 31khz by 119.1hz. (If you look in the soft15 thread, SS created a set of modes for this.) This gives real hardware scanlines. In fact, some modes that have been problematic at 15khz, for example the stock soft15 352x288 mode, are smoother at high refresh.

In any case, that's the point of the thread. With some general parametres relative to your monitor's specs - or not necessarily as in the above case - Advancemame will automatically give you a good, if not perfect, display regardless of game, and regardless of monitor. The only caveats I think are those monitors, especially Gateway presentation monitors, that only do VGA or VGA/SVGA. It has to be able to do 15khz or go up to 120hz.

[Hoopz]

Heheheh. Yeah, no doubt, G.

Okay, here it is. If you set the display_adjust parametre in to generate_yclock, and then give some generally appropriate values in device_video_clock, Advancemame will attempt to display an image accordingly. Very quickly, it takes into account the mentioned parametres and also analyzes your hardware. In this case, I had a PC monitor hooked up. I had clock settings for an arcade monitor, but hadn't set a device_video_format so Advancemame ignored the specific clock values and created a high-refresh mode: something like 31khz by 119.1hz. (If you look in the soft15 thread, SS created a set of modes for this.) This gives real hardware scanlines. In fact, some modes that have been problematic at 15khz, for example the stock soft15 352x288 mode, are smoother at high refresh.

In any case, that's the point of the thread. With some general parametres relative to your monitor's specs - or not necessarily as in the above case - Advancemame will automatically give you a good, if not perfect, display regardless of game, and regardless of monitor. The only caveats I think are those monitors, especially Gateway presentation monitors, that only do VGA or VGA/SVGA. It has to be able to do 15khz or go up to 120hz.

A succinct recap.   

[Ummon]

A slight addition:

The only caveats I think are those monitors, especially Gateway presentation monitors, that only do VGA or VGA/SVGA. You'll get a 'native' mode, but it'll be progressive scan.

[fjl]

Okay, so if I'm getting this right, your basically changing refresh rates and this in turn creates hardware scanlines?

I always thought scanlines where created from the dot matrix layout of the arcade/tv monitors being used.

[Namco]

If I had one, I'd put a link to a faq on the subject here, or a wikipedia link or something... preceeded by a slap forehead emoticon. 

[fjl]

I'll take that as a "No." 

So then scanlines where created by the original arcade hardware and had nothing to do with the monitor? And just to know if I am correct, a scanline is a blank line between pixels right?

[Ummon]

I think Namco was saying in general, 'gee-whiz!'. Scanlines - or, rather, blank lines - are the result of the number of traces the guns make on the screen. In this case, interlace. (Why they didn't make it progressive I don't recall if I read about somewhere, though after looking at some things, a guess is it was due to a combination of limitation of the monitor and (RF) signal transimission.) If you change one variable of the equation - say the vertical refresh, this changes the scan rate - you get the same resolution, hence the same visual result.

You might be thinking something like, 'well, in (say) 1280x1024 I can change the refresh from 60 to 75 to 85 and it's still the same resolution'. Of course it is. Windows automatically calculates the display mode and you'll notice in your monitor menu that the scan rate changed, also. Now it automatically fitting the screen depends on whether the mode conforms to a VESA mode or/and Windows and your video adapter and drivers can accommodate that with the mode in question.

[RayB]

Scan lines are completely the result of the number of lines spread across the tube height, + the focus setting! There is a knob on all arcade monitors called Focus, which controls how sharp the line drawn by the gun is. So you can imagine if the setting is set to really sharp focus, and a low number of lines are being drawn across the screen, there will of course be room for "blank" areas between lines. Typically you want your monitor focus set to just the right balance where scan lines are minimal, but pixels not too blurry either.

So to answer efjaywel, no, its NOT generated by the game board hardware. It's purely the monitor.

[tikbalang]

here is a tutorial:

http://easymamecab.mameworld.net/html/monitor1.htm

[fjl]

So to answer efjaywel, no, its NOT generated by the game board hardware. It's purely the monitor.

I knew it!

So now lets go back to other thing I don't understand, the topic at hand.

What are they getting advancemame to do? Force the PC monitor to somehow do scanlines?

[Ummon]

Scan lines are completely the result of the number of lines spread across the tube height, + the focus setting! There is a knob on all arcade monitors called Focus, which controls how sharp the line drawn by the gun is. So you can imagine if the setting is set to really sharp focus, and a low number of lines are being drawn across the screen, there will of course be room for "blank" areas between lines. Typically you want your monitor focus set to just the right balance where scan lines are minimal, but pixels not too blurry either.

So to answer efjaywel, no, its NOT generated by the game board hardware. It's purely the monitor.

E, It would be best to read this page.

...Triad Shadow Mask - Trinitron hybrid type layout. Wellsgardner's D9200 uses a layout like the one above, as do most modern arcade monitors and TVs.

And to read the following pages to understand the rest.

[RayB]

have, did, stand by my explanation.

[Ummon]

Oh. I meant both quote references for efjayel.

[Hoopz]

Oh. I meant both quote references for efjayel.

Unless you spoon feed him, it aint gonna happen.