Tearing on TV

[Maccy]

Hi,

I've connected my old PC (AXP 2400+,1Gig RAM, NVidia Vanta, Windows XP SP3, Soft15khz) to a 14" TV through a SCART-RGB cable. I'm trying to get a smooth scrolling in games like Wonder Boy or Vs. Super Mario with standard MAME 0.137 but I cant go anywhere even with -triplebuffer/-waitvsync/-syncrefresh. I've tried all the possibile combinations of the aforementioned sync options, together with -video ddraw -nohws -switchres 320x256@60hz (even tried with different resolutions). Tried a different TV setup but the results are the same. Tried with different MAME builds and different driver versions. At the moment I'm not concerned about sound problems that will occurr running the game at non-native speed, since my first objective is to remove tearing. After removing the tearing, i will use the syncaudio of CabMAME or MAME32UIFX.

I'm thinking about replacing the video board with an Ati Radeon 9250. In your experience could it make any difference in terms of tearing?

Seeing the games at their native resolution is really another world, but that line that traverse the screen, in different ways depending on sync/buffering options or resolutions, is really irritating.

Thank you in advance.
Maccy

[LeedsFan]

I'm currently installing Mame into a bartop and I had these similar issues. I've not fixed it yet but I had another issue regarding original resolutions.

In the bartop right now I have mame v.132 and for some reason on the bartop I could only get Mame to run at 98% original speed (pressing F11). This is on old classics like Pacman, Donkey Kong etc. I also have the screen tearing too like you with very occasional sound issues.

I just found out that something in Mame was changed at v.125 regarding the video drivers and this caused the devs to change some original resolutions to non standard ones. So I just decided to roll back to v.124 which was the last version before they changed this.

I just tried v.124 on my main desktop and it's working flawlessly. No tearing, all games running at 100% with no frameskip and original resolutions back in the games I was having problems with. Although I had to compile my own version to have no nag screens, hi-scores etc.

I gotta go to work now but when I get back I'm gonna try it in my bartop. If I still have problems not running at 100% then I know it's the rig in the bartop that's at fault and nothing else. It's running an ArcadeVGA, AthlonXP 2400+ and 1 Gig ram, so there shouldn't be any issues with speed on the classics. I will let you know how it goes.

[Maccy]

Just out of curiosity I will try 0.124 too. Thank you for your feedback.

[Maccy]

0.124 solved my problems 

Thank you very much. I wonder If now we got tearing due to a superior accuracy in the emulation or it is simply a bug...

[ptinolv]

I also have tearing but i never took the time to actually try to remove it. Does v0.124 remove the tearing "directly" or are there options to activate (-triplebuffer/-waitvsync/-syncrefresh)?

[Maccy]

In my case any of the options removed the tearing but in some introduced stuttering.

[LeedsFan]

Glad it worked for you! It worked for me too.  

I have no idea what exactly was changed in Mame v.125. All I read was a line somewhere that mentioned "video drivers re-written". And something about getting "pixel placement".

Mame devs only concern themselves with as close to 100% emulation as possible. If this means some performance issues later on down the road then so be it. I can totally appreciate this stance though. We as users can simply roll back if we want to, or wait for better hardware to become available that will run it fine.

[Maccy]

I found what was (probably) the problem. I've re-tested different standard MAME build and the problem was not there anymore (!??), including with  MAME 0.137u3. After that, I've tried CabMAME 0.137 and the problem reapperead. Finally I've tried CabMAME 0.136 and tearing disapperead. So my conclusion is that, at least on my hardware, the problem is in latest CabMAME.

Bye and thanks!