Black bar at bottom with ArcadeVGA and WG9200

[clnilsen]

I am slowly making progress on my Cab project, and got my new Avga card connected to a W-G 9200 monitor. One problem I am running into is that with may Roms, I loose about 2-3 inchs of display at the bottom when running many roms. Pacman and D-K seem to run fine, but most everything else seems to have this display issue. I am running mame 127 from the command line w/ the parameters provided from Ultimarc. If i don't use the parameters, I don't seem to have this problem. Any ideas on things to check to trouble shoot this, or had a simiary issue?

Thanks!

Chuck

[RayB]

This is an old known issue people have to learn about... check the Wiki on resolutions and the sacrifices you have to make. ie:

You must choose between two situations that each have their pros and cons:

1. Set MAME to stretch and squash the picture to fit for every game. Using this mode means you are not getting the original game's real resolution (which kind of defeats the point of using an arcade monitor).

or

2. Set MAME to run games at "true resolution" which means you then have to tweak your monitor vertical size to a setting that lets you adequately see all games, but you will get black bars on some games, and the screen drawing off outside the frame for others. Different games used different resolutions and were meant for one machine with the monitor set correctly. So that's the compromise. A vertical game like PacMan, displayed on a horizontal monitor will have some top and bottom cut off, while a horizontal game like Shinobi will have black bars top and bottom.

[ahofle]

Well with a multisync like the D9200, he should actually be able to fit those games. 
Can you give us more information?  What game specifically? What resolution are you running the game at?  Have you tried adjusting the vertical/horizontal sizing and position using the on screen display?
Other than a few unusual vertical games, you should be able to run just about everything with no stretching on that monitor.

[scotthh]

I was losing 2" of screen with the PC vs. a jamma board on a WG7191. I found this thread which talks about adjusting a pot on the monitor board (separate from the remote board) if the frequency of the input has changed. Annoyingly, WG's site doesn't have a manual for your monitor. The manual for the 9400 states that there are pots on the PCB in addition to the OSD controls. I don't know if this will solve your problem. But it solved JoeB's and mine.

[retrometro]

which game and at what resolution / refresh are you running?  I have a WG 9400 and could try to duplicate it to see about the stretch issue.

[clnilsen]

Well with a multisync like the D9200, he should actually be able to fit those games. 
Can you give us more information?  What game specifically? What resolution are you running the game at?  Have you tried adjusting the vertical/horizontal sizing and position using the on screen display?
Other than a few unusual vertical games, you should be able to run just about everything with no stretching on that monitor.

Well, I have the windows resolution at 640x480- true color - 60mhz.  Everything looks fine in normal windows, so i'm not sure if i should adjust the v/h sizing to fit the games and deal w/ crappy windows or if there is a fix for this that everything looks good.

Roms that run fine include Donkey kong, Pacman, and galaga. It happens on most other games.. just looking at my machine running right now (randomly selecting) Simpsons, Moon Patrol, Defender, Spiderman the video game, Paperboy, and NBA Jam (rev2).

[ahofle]

Adjusting the size under one resolution should not affect the others -- it's a digital monitor and stores geometry settings in memory.  Try adjusting the sizes and see.  Write down the former values if you are really worried about it, but it should be fine.

[clnilsen]

Adjusting the size under one resolution should not affect the others -- it's a digital monitor and stores geometry settings in memory.  Try adjusting the sizes and see.  Write down the former values if you are really worried about it, but it should be fine.

Thanks! I was able to adjust the Vertical to get the picture to not roll at least on all the games i mentioned. Unf I still have a 2"+ black bar at the bottom, with the game only using about 80% of the screen top to bottom (fills all the way accross). Is this something I should just live with?

[ahofle]

Rolling?  I don't remember you saying that.  Can you post a picture of the screen?  Have you tried adjusting the vertical size and position?  Also it would help to know what game you are running as well as what resolution you are running it at.

[RayB]

Monitors have a V SYNC pot for the rolling, and V SIZE for stretching the screen. Adjust the size one, not the sync one.

[AndyWarne]

Something strange here because many of the symptoms you have indicate it is not in fact a D9200 monitor. Is it definitely a D9200?
Andy

[Ummon]

Hmm. He sure needs to read my sig just for good measure.

[clnilsen]

Something strange here because many of the symptoms you have indicate it is not in fact a D9200 monitor. Is it definitely a D9200?
Andy

Andy:

Here's Pictures as requested. I am 99.9% certian it is a 9200. Thats what the instructions said that came with the cab when I bought it. It has a VGA port on the back which would seem to confirm to me it's at least that model - I'm not using a hacked cable or anything.

Ummon, I'll take a look at your wiki as well, thanks. I have actually spent quite a bit of time searching the net and reading ultimarc's forums as well. I'm sure it's something obvious i am missing, but I'm just not familiar enough with this particular setup to troubleshoot it further.

Here's a picture of "normal" with MaximusArcade and one with NBA jam playing with the bar.

[clnilsen]

Also, I know the greyish bar at the bottom of the particular NBA jam pic i posted is just the scanline from the Camera; what i am refereing to is the 2" black area below that that has no graphic display on it.

Thanks!!

[clnilsen]

Oh, and one good pic from Donkey Kong as a reference on the same system

[RayB]

Well in that NBA Jam photo you have a black bar at the TOP too. And Donkey Kong is entirely fitting in the screen. So if you would go back and read my original answer to you you will see that that is exactly what's going on.

[ahofle]

NBA Jam is also 399x253 resolution, which is somewhere between a normal 4:3 aspect ratio and 16:9.  That means a certain amount of space on the top and bottom are normal (I'm assuming you are running 401x256 for that game).  What other game(s) exhibit this behavior?
Also have you adjusted the vertical size/position to center it a bit and minimize the bars some (like the third time this has been asked)?

[clnilsen]

NBA Jam is also 399x253 resolution, which is somewhere between a normal 4:3 aspect ratio and 16:9.  That means a certain amount of space on the top and bottom are normal (I'm assuming you are running 401x256 for that game).  What other game(s) exhibit this behavior?
Also have you adjusted the vertical size/position to center it a bit and minimize the bars some (like the third time this has been asked)?

First, yes I have tried adjusting the V Size/position to fix this issue, prior to posting. The image does not seem to want to cross that dark area, as when I move the image position down it "rolls' on itself. As so which resolution I am running this at, I have windows running at 640x480- true color - 60mhz, then I guess whatever native resoultion the game is. As suggested upthread, i adjusted the "windows" size/position to get that looking right, then ran mame with moon patrol, re-adjusted to get THAT where it is.

As to which games have this issue.. quite franky 95% of the roms I have do this (DL 0127 roms from [romsite name redacted]). Specific samples (I tried to get a variety of ages here) : Paperboy, Moon Patrol, Spiderman the videogame, simpsons, defender, etc. I might say the samle of ones that WORK is easier to track than ones that DON'T exhibit this behavior. I can try and get a take a larger sample tonight.

Ummon: I also read your wiki - thanks! Much of what you link to is what I read in my reserch before buying the Arcadevga. Particularly the video card comparion. It was one of the reasons I bought this card in the first place.

The command line variables I am running Mame with is -switchres -nohwstretch -video ddraw

Also want to thank everyone again for their help. Hopefully we can fix this.

[ahofle]

Can you try one other thing?  Launch Paperboy and bring up the on screen display and then post what frequency the monitor is running at.  Should say something like 25khz @ 60 Hz.

[AndyWarne]

Generally the picture on OSD monitors like the D9200 should not "roll in" on itself because any resolution the monitor is incapable of displaying would result in an "out of range" error on the screen.
Good advice above, what is the OSD actually showing the frequency to be?
Theres a chance it could be a monitor fault unfortunately.

[clnilsen]

Can you try one other thing?  Launch Paperboy and bring up the on screen display and then post what frequency the monitor is running at.  Should say something like 25khz @ 60 Hz.

it say 24.4khz/60hz

thoughts?

[AndyWarne]

The D9200 should be able to display that res OK.
Using the Galaga icon on the taskbar, can you try all the resolutions and list the ones which dont display properly?
Andy

[Ummon]

Well in that NBA Jam photo you have a black bar at the TOP too. And Donkey Kong is entirely fitting in the screen.

It's not. There's space above and below. Simple adjustment, but still.

cl, simply, basic mame doesn't automatically fill the screen for each game. A multisync has various 'modes' and various resolutions match with those modes. Then you have to adjust the screen geometry to fit.

[RayB]

Yeah I think he's saying that as much as he tries, it won't fit the screen.....

[clnilsen]

Yeah I think he's saying that as much as he tries, it won't fit the screen.....

That's exactly what I am saying. I am travelling for work right now, but should be home tomorrow and I will try what Andy suggests and see if any results change.

Is it possible that there is an issue where the monitor will display perfect in vga mode, but when switching to a lower resolution/hz that it is messed up? I guess I would think it is a all-or-nothing thing.

[clnilsen]

The D9200 should be able to display that res OK.
Using the Galaga icon on the taskbar, can you try all the resolutions and list the ones which dont display properly?
Andy

Thanks again for the guidence here... I tried what you suggested and here is the results:

ALL resolutions (both 16 and 32 bit color) gave the proper output horizontally, but displayed the "black bar" issue on the vertical dimension (similar to the pictures posted upthread) with the following exceptions:

• 488x384 16 and 32 bit color: Display output was a small box in the upp er left hand corner, about 60% of the full tube width both in the vertical and horizontal
• 640x480 well displayed
• 800x600 needed adjusted to fill the screen, but is now well displayed
• 1024x768 and higher resulutions is out of range (As expected, but included here for completeness)
• and one more data point - my bios boot up screen displays the same symptoms of the black bar during boot up

Thoughts?

[Ummon]

Bios screens are usually 640x480, but may be 740x480. The rest, I dunno. Take 256x240 for games of either that res or 256x224. There should be plenty of range in the settings to adjust. If not, this might be better off in Monitor/Video.

[clnilsen]

Bios screens are usually 640x480, but may be 740x480. The rest, I dunno. Take 256x240 for games of either that res or 256x224. There should be plenty of range in the settings to adjust. If not, this might be better off in Monitor/Video.

Thanks! Is there a mod that could move this post?

[AndyWarne]

It sounds like the monitor is having trouble with non-interlaced resolutions but OK with interlaced. Is the on-screen display correctly displaying each resolutions parameters?
Andy

[clnilsen]

It sounds like the monitor is having trouble with non-interlaced resolutions but OK with interlaced. Is the on-screen display correctly displaying each resolutions parameters?
Andy

Sorry to take so long to check in on this. I switched it to one of the non-correct resolutions, and hit the settings button on the monitor (where you bring up the adjustments), but it doens't tell me anywhere any information other than the refresh rate (i.e. 15.5mhz/60hz) is there somewhere I shoudl be looking?