Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum

Main => Monitor/Video Forum => Topic started by: superlime on April 23, 2006, 11:08:57 pm

Title: Videocard driver hacking? (or, disabling really high resolutions in windows?)
Post by: superlime on April 23, 2006, 11:08:57 pm

I've got a standard resolution Sanyo 20-EZV from a Nintendo VS cab that I'm trying to drive with a windows machine.  I've been able to set a 640x480 interlaced mode with PowerStrip, which gives me a viewable (non-scrambled) image on the arcade monitor.  I've gone through with advcfg and advv and set up all my video modes and adjusted them to fit on the monitor properly.  However, when I run advmame, it sets the correct resolution for a split second and then PowerStrip changes the resolution back to 640x480 interlaced...giving me a really scrambled interlaced image.  If I turn off PowerStrip, advmame can set the proper resolutions and runs great.  However, if I reboot and don't have PowerStrip enabled I get a bad desktop when I boot back up.

I'd like to somehow disable the resolutions that are unviewable on my monitor.  I've done a small bit of driver inf hacking, so I'm thinking it should be a simple matter of changing what the inf thinks the card should be able to do.  Anyone have any experience (positive or negative) with messing with something like this?

If I'm able to hack something together that ends up working well, I'll post it for others to use.  :)

Thanks in advance,
-superlime

Title: Re: Videocard driver hacking? (or, disabling really high resolutions in windows?
Post by: Hiub1 on April 23, 2006, 11:44:59 pm

How about just erasing the resolutions from powerstrip? I know that once I add the resolutions in PS I can exit out of it and using QuickRes from ultimarc I can change to whatever resolution there is. I believe you might be getting a bad desktop on boot from powerstrip since it has a bug that it won't drive the arcade monitor correctly even though you have it set at the right resolution. To solve this, just add the resolutions you want through PS, then it'll ask you to reset the pc. For now, let PS start on boot, and once it starts, turn PS off and use QuickRes to change to that desired resolution you just added and plug in the Arcade monitor. You should be able to get windows to display in a 320x240 non interlaced mode at 15 kHz without a problem. Once that works, you can set PS so that it does not start on boot, and windows should boot up in the last resolution it was set in, in this case being 320x240 or whatever. This worked perfect for me using the same monitor you got, a Radeon 9200SE and the latest catalyst drivers.

I wasn't really sucessful at getting AdvMame to work today, any tips on how you went about doing it?

Hope this helps, Fred.

Title: Re: Videocard driver hacking? (or, disabling really high resolutions in windows?)
Post by: superlime on April 24, 2006, 12:17:53 am

Mmm.  Good point on it sticking with a resolution.  It may have been resetting the resolution because I was doing cold power downs (I'm probably not sticking with my current machine setup, so I haven't been very nice to it).  I'll give that a try on Monday and see where it gets me.  :)

For advancemame, originally I was booting to the AdvanceCD and trying to work out of there..  For some reason the version of advcfg bundled in that one kept setting my monitor to like 150hz refresh...  I had the same problem with the version I'd downloaded for windows.  I poked around on the site some more, found a newer version (.104 I believe), and now everything seems to run much better.  I believe I generated the original cfg just using the "Arcade Standard" defaults in advcfg.  I can grab my .rc files for you if you still get stuck.  After I got the initial cfg file, I went in with advv and tweaked each of the resolutions to actually fit inside my screen (most were off at least one edge).

I'm currently running with an Nvidia Geforce 4200 ti, which has done a *really* impressive job with low pixel clocks.  I've got a 9250 AIW, but it didn't seem to perform as well.

-superlime

Title: Re: Videocard driver hacking? (or, disabling really high resolutions in windows?)
Post by: wpcmame on April 24, 2006, 02:04:49 am

Just use powerstrip to create a non-standard desktop resolution (e.g. 648x480i).

Windows will then use the interlace resolution directly and you don't need powerstrip at all.

Title: Re: Videocard driver hacking? (or, disabling really high resolutions in windows?
Post by: Hiub1 on April 24, 2006, 09:38:40 am

I tried running the AdvCfg but it would start displaying at some funny resolution that would make both of my monitors go out of sync. If you wouldn't mind, could you email me your .rc files? You can shoot them over to fholgado at gmail.com.

Thanks for your help, Fred.