WG K7400 W/Groovymame and AVGA

[Gamemaster86]

Apologies if the answer is somewhere else but having spent hours searching I'd like to request some help.

My Set up is as follows :

XP 64
ArcadeVGA 3000
Groovymame v148 and 149
Wells Gardner K7400 Monitor

I am having major trouble running quite a few games take for instance MK II does not display as I think it goes out of range. Another I've tried is carnevil which seems to do the same. One thing I have noticed when looking at all the resolutions that I can change to with the galaga Icon, is that there are 3 listed which when I select the monitor seems to go out of range. These are 320 x 200, 400 x 256, 512 x 448. I'm not sure why these don't work considering I selected standard arcade monitor on the Trisync app. I know that using arcade OSD will not make a difference due to the card i'm using. In the mame.ini file I have tried both arcade_15 and generic_15 and neither works when I run MK II or Carnevil. I haven't tried many other games but most seem to work. I did wonder if entering the numbers for my exact monitor into CRT_range would help, besides i'm not sure how to work these out.

The specs for my monitor are in the link http://www.wellsgardner.com/pdf/Spec/K7400_25.pdf

I did manage to connect to my cab with team viewer and found that when I run MK II and look at the info it says:
Video - 400 x 254 (H) 54.706840 Hz
Switch res - 400 x 256p 53.000 Hz 15.635 kHz

So maybe if it was running at 400 x 256i it would work but I don't know.

I can attach my mame.ini if needed.

Would really appreciate some newbie help.

TIA

[Calamity]

Regarding mk, you probably just need to adjust the vertical sync potentiometer on your monitor, as 53 Hz it's a bit far from the usual 60 Hz area. You should be able to find a sweet spot where all modes are in sync. As for the other modes, I don't have a clue of what's going on,  maybe a picture or better a video might help.

[Gamemaster86]

Thanks for the reply.

I did try adjusting the V-HOLD control using the separate control pcb, but will also try the H-Hold control on the mainboard itself.

If no luck I will post a pic or video.

Do you have any idea how I can work out the custom specs to enter in mame.ini, so I can get the best out of my monitor in GM?

BTW GM is an awesome program so thank you 

[Gamemaster86]

Regarding mk, you probably just need to adjust the vertical sync potentiometer on your monitor, as 53 Hz it's a bit far from the usual 60 Hz area. You should be able to find a sweet spot where all modes are in sync. As for the other modes, I don't have a clue of what's going on,  maybe a picture or better a video might help.

Thanks, all sorted 

Turned out to H-Hold control which wasn't on the control panel, but on the monitor board itself. I managed to find a level which works for all of the avga resolutions and is suitable for vertical games too.

Would you be able to help me figure out what the custom values for my monitor would be in the .ini file?

Thanks

[Gamemaster86]

Anybody able to assist or point me in the right direction of working out the crt custom range for my monitor?

[Calamity]

Hi Gamemaster86,

There's no point in working out custom ranges for your monitor as long as you're using an AVGA 3000 under Windows, because no custom timings will be possible, just the predefined video modes will be usable.

So it's enough to select generic_15 or arcade_15 for the right modes to be chosen by GroovyMAME.

[Gamemaster86]

Ah ok, sorry I didn't realise.

Thanks for getting back to me

[Gamemaster86]

Hi Gamemaster86,

There's no point in working out custom ranges for your monitor as long as you're using an AVGA 3000 under Windows, because no custom timings will be possible, just the predefined video modes will be usable.

So it's enough to select generic_15 or arcade_15 for the right modes to be chosen by GroovyMAME.

Hi again,

So I decided to invest in a 4870 and have successfully installed the crt emu driver and ran vmmaker. It generated over 500 modelines but cut it down to 101 (used the magic resolutions switch).

Would I be able to get some help with the custom specs for my monitor? I'm running the WG K7400 and have found the v-sync range but don't know what to put for the other values of the crt range in mame.ini. The manual is here if anyone can help http://www.wellsgardner.com/pdf/Spec/K7400_25.pdf

Thanks for the great and continued work that you do for the scene 

[Calamity]

Hi Gamemaster86,

Good to see you decided to go for a HD 4xxx card. Well actually GM already has a preset for the WG K7000. After seeing the K7400 manual, the specs look much the same.

However, if you want to refine the settings, I start by increasing the Hfreq max a little bit, to see how much it will take:

monitor custom
crt_range0 15625-15800, 49.50-63.00, 2.000, 4.700, 8.000, 0.064, 0.160, 1.056, 0, 0, 192, 288, 448, 576

Above is the current "k7000" preset. Try increasing the remarked value until you reach 16200. Then check if games like dspirit, pacman, 1942, etc. still sync.

[Gamemaster86]

[img]Thanks for these, they are helping :-)

However I have had to modify the H-front porch, H-sync pulse and H-back porch settings like this :

15625-16000, 49.50-63.00, 1.000, 5.700, 7.000, 0.064, 0.160, 1.056, 0, 0, 192, 288, 448, 576.

Games like SF2 fit well with this option running at 384 x 224 @ 59.629 Hz and MK 2 400 x 256 @ 54.7 Hz, seems to fit the screen well.
Wheras Toki which runs at 256 x 224 @ 59.610 Hz and Mslug 1,2,3  320 x 224 @ 59.1 Hz have gaps on each edge about 1cm in size.

Additionally vertical games like Dsprint running at 400 x 288 and 1942 running at 400 x 256 have bowed edges all the way down. This is the same even if I leave the V value at 15800 or increase to 16200.

I've attached some pictures of the 2 vertical games and my mame ini for reference. If you need any logs or more pictures please let me know.

Thanks again for any help you can give.

[Gamemaster86]

Any ideas, from anyone?

Thanks

[Calamity]

Hi Gamemaster86,

I wouldn't use 5.7 for the sync pulse, it's certainly too long, and the excess is going to be added to the h back porch anyway, so I'd say these values are equivalent and more sensible: 1.000, 4.700, 8.000

Anyway, regarding low res modes (256x, 320x) having thicker borders, etc., it may help to use the "dotclock_min 8.0" option, so low resolutions are calculated with double width, which at the same time doubles the precission of the calculated borders.

As for the bad geometry, I'm afraid that's something you can't correct with modelines. Use the Nokia Monitor Test program and check how the grid behaves.

[Gamemaster86]

Hi Calamity thanks for the response. I think most of the troubles are due to a geometry problem with my monitor so going to focus more on that then fine tine.

Thanks for the help.