The NEW Build Your Own Arcade Controls

Software Support => GroovyMAME => Topic started by: hayaeti on July 07, 2012, 04:42:29 am

Title: Going insane - arcade monitor and sides of screen.
Post by: hayaeti on July 07, 2012, 04:42:29 am

Hi guys. 

Quick backstory.  Had a power outage and my old mame machine died.
Got a new one put together and tried using one of the ArcadeVGA 3000 cards but wasn't quite happy.
Decided to go get a old radeon and use the calamity drivers and arcade monitor (which is either a D9200 or D9800)

Everything seemed to go well, but I have one of two problems... (which only seem to come into play with CPS2-esque res games.
With one set monitor spec settings I load up final fight and I see this...

(http://www.palgamer.com/ffight.jpg)

with another I get the whole screen and everything looks PERFECT.... until I start playing and walk from left to right.

The moment the screen starts scrolling I am noticing that the sides are fatter than the middle of the screen and things stretch as I move, it makes everything look very funky! (and not in a good way)

What can I do to fix this?  this is with using '-nohwstretch' as if I don't use that, it all fits on the screen perfect but looks horrible.

tldr:  when I scroll, the sides of the screen stretch out and make the sprites bigger.

This wasn't a problem with my old pc hooked up to the same monitor with the original AGP arcadevga.  So I would like to think I could get this working.  At the moment I'm stuck with a perfect picture with no sides, or full screen with stretchy sides.


The problem isn't so much what's in the picture, but I figured I'd explain both my issues.  The one in the picture can be fixed by using different monitor spec lines as provided on this site, but how do I fix the stretchy-sides as it scrolls?  if I could fix this, my machine would be complete!

Title: Re: Going insane - arcade monitor and sides of screen.
Post by: Calamity on July 07, 2012, 05:21:05 am

Hi hayaeti,

It sounds strange to me that a modeline could cause stretching on the sides of the monitor. Anyway, before we go any further, launch Arcade_OSD and set the resolution 384 x 224 @ 60 to full screen. You'll see a grid in the background, check if you notice the stretching here too.

Title: Re: Going insane - arcade monitor and sides of screen.
Post by: hayaeti on July 07, 2012, 07:29:42 am

Hi Calamity, thanks for the quick reply.  Unfortunately when I go into arcade_osd I can't find that resolution.

The closest I can find is 288 x 260 60vfreq 59.993hz 15.718khz
When I open that up, it looks fine, and when I manually change the y res to 244 it looks fine too.

I think it has something to do with the frequency? when I bring up my montors osd while playing final fight it says 17.8/59hz, which is what I think Final Fight is meant to be played at?

Title: Re: Going insane - arcade monitor and sides of screen.
Post by: Calamity on July 07, 2012, 07:36:41 am

The resolution must exist, otherwise GroovyMAME wouldn't be able to use it. Unless you're using magic resolutions ?

If you attach a log of the game I'll see what's your current setup:

groovymame.exe romname -v -md 4 >romname.txt

Quote

I think it has something to do with the frequency? when I bring up my montors osd while playing final fight it says 17.8/59hz, which is what I think Final Fight is meant to be played at?

Did you run VMMaker with the same monitor_specs you're using in mame.ini? This is a required step.

Title: Re: Going insane - arcade monitor and sides of screen.
Post by: hayaeti on July 07, 2012, 07:51:33 am

Now you understand why I'm going insane :P
ps.  did I say thanks for helping?


I'm running the commandline as such btw

C:\mame>mame ffight -nohwstretch
which says...
SwitchRes v0.013f: [ffight] (1) horizontal (384x224@59.61)->(384x224@59.61)->(384x224@59.61)

see here for my log :)

http://www.palgamer.com/ffight.txt (http://www.palgamer.com/ffight.txt)

what have i broken? :)

Title: Re: Going insane - arcade monitor and sides of screen.
Post by: Calamity on July 07, 2012, 08:10:54 am

Ok, I'm seeing the issue now. That find_best_mode algorithm definitely needs a rewrite. Anyway, try this:

- In case you still don't have it, get the latest versions here: http://aburamushi.net/calamity/VMMaker_1.3c_Arcade_OSD_1.3b.rar (http://aburamushi.net/calamity/VMMaker_1.3c_Arcade_OSD_1.3b.rar)

- Edit vmmaker.ini and set YResMin_XML = 224

- Set the same monitor settings as in mame.ini

- Run VMMaker and restart.

Now you should have the required 224 lines resolutions and everything should be fine.

Title: Re: Going insane - arcade monitor and sides of screen.
Post by: hayaeti on July 07, 2012, 08:36:14 am

Yes!!! that fixed it up straight away!

You sir are a genius! and I'm so glad I haven't spent the last couple of days trying to get this to work only to find out I'm an idiot :D

Thanks so much for all the work you do for this scene :)

Title: Re: Going insane - arcade monitor and sides of screen.
Post by: Calamity on July 07, 2012, 09:07:00 am

Glad to see that it worked!  :)