Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum

Software Support => GroovyMAME => Topic started by: Zipper on April 15, 2015, 06:34:26 am

Title: Running Shinobi and Robocop at a nice resolution
Post by: Zipper on April 15, 2015, 06:34:26 am
Hi - Very sorry if this has been answered in the past, or if I'm overlooking the obvious. I have a lot to learn.
I'm running groovymame 158 with crt emudrivers on 32 bit XP using an arcade monitor. I love it.
I'm having a slight problem though...  2 of my favourite games seem to pick a small and flickery resolution. I have attached the log for Shinobi.
Can you see what I need to do to get picking a screen-filling resolution? Thanks very much.
Title: Re: Running Shinobi and Robocop at a nice resolution
Post by: Calamity on April 15, 2015, 07:13:48 am
Make sure there's no atwork available for those games (it gets in the middle when assigning the proper resolutions). Also make sure to delete the .cfg files related to these games (check in the ./cfg folder).
Title: Re: Running Shinobi and Robocop at a nice resolution
Post by: Zipper on April 15, 2015, 07:22:24 am
I renamed the artwork folder and cleared the cfg files - and it's all sorted. I'm very grateful for your help, Calamity.

Make sure there's no atwork available for those games (it gets in the middle when assigning the proper resolutions). Also make sure to delete the .cfg files related to these games (check in the ./cfg folder).
Title: Re: Running Shinobi and Robocop at a nice resolution
Post by: Zipper on April 15, 2015, 04:03:08 pm
I'm very happy with the way these games are running through Groovymame. The picture and scrolling is excellent  ;D.
The only difference between this and real hardware seems to be an occasional drop in sound pitch I'm getting. It accompanies a drop in speed by a few % (which can be seen when running after pressing F11, displaying the speed). I can understand that this would be GM trying to keep the sound synch'd with the speed of emulation.
It seems pretty random when it happens, I've attached a log (Shinobi) and my mame.ini, just incase I'm doing something I shouldn't be.. but I have a feeling it's probably the age of my PC showing!
I'd welcome any suggestions from anyone that may have seen something similar.
Title: Re: Running Shinobi and Robocop at a nice resolution
Post by: Calamity on April 15, 2015, 04:28:31 pm
I don't know what cpu you're using but that doesn't happen on a semi-decent system. Anyway I recommend you disable all services that are not strictly required, google for a list of them, there's usually a lot of crap running in the background which you can safely remove.
Title: Re: Running Shinobi and Robocop at a nice resolution
Post by: adder on April 15, 2015, 04:42:33 pm
Quote from: Zipper
I'd welcome any suggestions from anyone that may have seen something similar.
letting us know some specs regarding your pc setup will be useful
there was some talk about problems some people encountered until they went into their pc bios setup and disabled speedstepping/EIST (enhanced intel speed stepping) and if possible disable halt/waitstate features (C states, C1E...) see example pic below:

(http://www.legitreviews.com/images/reviews/800/Foxconn_P45_ELA_CPU_Config.jpg)

Title: Re: Running Shinobi and Robocop at a nice resolution
Post by: Zipper on April 15, 2015, 04:53:46 pm
Thanks for this jadder. I'll disable C1E support and see how it goes right now. I really appreciate the reply and screenshot.
I've got an Inter Core2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz. 2GB ram.
... And I'll disable any services I see that aren't needed. Thanks guys.
Title: Re: Running Shinobi and Robocop at a nice resolution
Post by: adder on April 15, 2015, 04:59:52 pm
looking at your specs i think your pc should run shinobi ok without dips in emulation speed/stability, so it does seem that currently something is not right with your system/setup/settings.
Title: Running Shinobi and Robocop at a nice resolution
Post by: Zipper on April 15, 2015, 10:30:25 pm
Went for a fresh XP32 install and it seems to have done the trick very nicely. Stable 100% in Shinobi, Robocop etc. Thanks for the advice guys.  :cheers:
I inherited the PC, and sometimes it seems no amount of cleaning can get it performing like a fresh install.

One strange thing to report - when I first plugged my arcade monitor in (using the primary port of the graphics card and DVI adaptor) and rebooted, it wouldn't display a stable desktop resolution.
I had to plug my standard LCD in, then use Arcade OSD to chose a (random) 15khz frequency. It fell out of range for my LCD, but I was able to swap to my arcade monitor and set that as the desktop resolution in the Arcade OSD menu.
None of the resolutions available gave a decent desktop, but they could be displayed at least. After a subsequent reboot, a windows information bubble popped up asking if I'd like to optimize the desktop. I went for it, and it initially seemed to pick a resolution out of range, but when I pressed escape I ended up with a 640x480 desktop that was fully usable. It seemed a really convoluted way of getting a good desktop to appear - but it worked  8). The same thing happened the previous time I set it all up too.

(Radeon HD4350 and Nanao MS9 monitor)