Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum

Software Support => GroovyMAME => Topic started by: keropi on December 21, 2015, 05:22:55 pm

Title: Would vertical games look OK with a horizontal screen cabinet?
Post by: keropi on December 21, 2015, 05:22:55 pm
Hiya!
Sorry if this has been asked before bu couldn't get a definite answer: how would a vertical game look when used with a vertically-oriented cabinet?
Supposedly we have an arcade cabinet setup that suits horizontal games (like 384x224px) and we use groovymame with it - the cabinet has a real low-res arcade monitor.
Now what would happen if we try to run a vertical 240x336px game on this setup?
Would groovymame scale the image so it would fit in the screen? Will the end result be good? I understand scanlines will be wrong - but you can't have it all.

I found an old-style arcade cabinet with a horizontal setup - most games that I want to use with it are horizontal ones (low res old ones, not fancy high-res/3d stuff) but it would be great to be able to play some vertical classic shmups too. I am just starting to "seriously" investigating how to build the setup so excuse me if something I wrote doesn't make sense  :dunno

Thanks in advance for any help/info!

Title: Re: Would vertical games look OK with a horizontal screen cabinet?
Post by: Sledge on December 22, 2015, 01:58:20 am
Depends on the size of screen etc... smaller the screen, the smaller the vertical games will get..
I had a 29" screen mounted horizontally and used to play all my vertical games on that as well, and they were very playable.
But I recently got another cabinet to use as a vertical screen, so now i'm in the process of splitting the games between the 2.

But yeah, Vertical games on horizontal screen are fine..
Title: Re: Would vertical games look OK with a horizontal screen cabinet?
Post by: PL1 on December 22, 2015, 02:04:07 am
It is completely normal to see stutter on pacman's sprites if you run it rotated on a horizontal monitor, for instance (is this the case?) On the other hand, pacman runs perfectly smooth on its native orientation (and thus, native refresh).


Scott
Title: Re: Would vertical games look OK with a horizontal screen cabinet?
Post by: keropi on December 22, 2015, 03:36:45 am
Thanks so much for the replies , now I understand things better
I didn't think about stuttering issues - makes sense there are. It seems that for now I'll have to do with them , I'll consider vertical games as a bonus  8)
The cabinet in question was a MVS one, not sure about the screen size but I doubt it's 29".
Thanks again.
Title: Re: Would vertical games look OK with a horizontal screen cabinet?
Post by: keilmillerjr on December 22, 2015, 08:43:01 pm
Thanks so much for the replies , now I understand things better
I didn't think about stuttering issues - makes sense there are. It seems that for now I'll have to do with them , I'll consider vertical games as a bonus  8)
The cabinet in question was a MVS one, not sure about the screen size but I doubt it's 29".
Thanks again.

I have an mvs-2-25. They come with 25" screen. Vertical games would appear to have plenty of real estate. However, I have never tried. I have zero interest in non neo geo games.
Title: Re: Would vertical games look OK with a horizontal screen cabinet?
Post by: sean_sk on December 22, 2015, 09:27:57 pm
I run vertical games on a horizontal monitor and there are a couple of things i take into account when doing this. First is resolution of the vertical game and whether it will run in it's native reolution on a horizontal monitor. I have a standard 15khz monitor in horizontal orientation and all vertical games up to 288 lines will run in their native modelines. Anything higher than that and Groovymame will run them in interlaced mode, which means they wont be as sharp.

The second issue is refresh rate. There is a marvellous feature in Groovymame that runs in conjuction with Powerstrip that allows me to get all games up to 264 lines to run at their correct refresh rates. There are other methods (and no doubt more simpler, but i use the PS method because I use an ArcadeVGA and because of versatility) to acheive this. Getting 288 line games to run at their correct refresh rates on a standard arcade monitor is an impossibility as it pretty much runs the monitor way beyond specifications and you risk serious damage.

The game you mentioned would run in interlaced mode by default and definitely wouldnt look as good as native but it would suffice. You could force it to run in a lower progressive res but of course scanlines wouldnt match with games resolution and it could look even worse than interlaced. I've tried forcing a res and results were mixed and mostly looked rubbish.
Title: Re: Would vertical games look OK with a horizontal screen cabinet?
Post by: megamoze on December 22, 2015, 11:48:55 pm
I have a 24" inch monitor mounted horizontally and the vertical games seem just fine to me.  They're plenty big, no refresh issues, etc.


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Title: Re: Would vertical games look OK with a horizontal screen cabinet?
Post by: haynor666 on December 23, 2015, 05:07:19 am
Unscaled images looks ok but due lower frequencies that required I don't recommned it - triple buffer is noticable. Stretched (shrinked  in this situation) image looks really bad on low res TV. Little better option are interlaced resolutions (higher than source one). You can also get exact required frequency.
Title: Re: Would vertical games look OK with a horizontal screen cabinet?
Post by: big10p on December 23, 2015, 08:58:15 am
Any vertical game with a res above 256, I run in an interlaced mode. I could run games like Pac-Man (288 vertical res) in a progressive scan mode but don't for 2 reasons:
1) 288 progressive can only do a vertical refresh of about 54fps, so the game runs slow when synced.
2) I have my vertical size set to a sweet spot to accommodate all modes I use. 288 progressive displays with a significant top/bottom portion off-screen.

I hardly notice any flicker when playing in interlaced modes. The higher the vertical res, the less flicker is noticeable. I also haven't noticed any stutters in games like Pac-Man. Everything looks as smooth as silk, to me.  :)