ArcadeVGA Resolutions VS arcade monitor, help a dude!

[Jefferson]

First of all thanks everyone or your patience and help so far. I'm in the final-ish stages and I've been lighting up the monitor forums HARD these days.

I have a WG model #25K7131 (horiz), AVGA3000 and I-PAC4. Running XP, Maximus Arcade and Mame135 (compiled with hiscores and no-nags)

I'm wrestling with AvRes (you know, the easy solution to our resolution woes) and man I am having trouble getting a consistent picture. My windows is running at 640x480 its a little flickery, I hear this the normal choice so I'm fine with it. But another note on windows, when I click on the AVGA Galaga bug, and select an odd resolution (say 800x600 like I did last night) my monitor goes nutso and even playing with vhold I'm unable to see clearly enough to switch it back and had to shut it down and restart. In the AVGA literature they say that there are only 4 windows modes available (640x288, 640x480, *800x600* and 1024 autopan) Is this a symptom that I've installed incorrectly or something? Might be helpful to know that its the same nutso as when my comp just starts up, the intel ThinkCentre page, before things smooth out for a series of black screens and cursors and my desktop finally appears (often the monitor is just warming during that very first startup image, esp now that I got a SmartStrip goin.)

Onto the bigger problems.
-I've watched Epyx's AvRes tutorial (), and he went with 'proportional' over 'closest x,y', I've noticed that doing this squishes my Capcom games all skinny. Which I'm sure E. Honda likes but I sure don't.
- My Ms. Pacman and other verticals are rock solid in clarity, THAT is what I'd like to achieve, BUT the tops and bottoms are cut off. I thought that selecting Hardware Stretch and Stretch Res 288 was supposed to correct this and scale it down for my horiz monitor?
-Donkey Kong is screwed, it makes the monitor go nuts like my windows misstep. Not a Vhold issue, just a mess.
-Also, IN GENERAL, I'm having to tweak the vhold in the MA frontend and in mame games that I consider 'running well' If theres white flashing going on in the game (like Krang in the first level of Turtles in Time, the picture 'bounces') There seems to be a sweet spot in the vhold pot between 95% perfect clarity (white seems to vibrate just a hair) and rolling picture. It wouldn't bother me, except my Ms Pac, altho cut off, is crystal clear and not as affected by the minute movements of the vhold.
-I has just kind of assumed 640x480 for the frontend and all console emu's would make my vhold needs consistent. But now I just read that consoles needn't be that high.

I'm sort of whittling away and reading a ton of stuff to try, but it looks like clicking '60hz only' in AvRes might help? OR going into the Arcadevgares.txt and manually filtering out some wacky Hz's or sizes?

Or am I just screwed cause my monitor isnt multi-frequency, or cause I'm using plain old MAME?

Any guidance here would be greatly appreciated. I'm so close!!!!

[manman]

what sync rates does your monitor support?  I'm rather new to this stuff too, but if it's anything 31kHz or below I don't think 800x600 would work- 640x480 would be the highest.  you say it's flickery at that res? maybe try 640x288?

I have a tri-sync and even though it's supported I have issues w VGA direct to the monitor @640x480...  going through jpac @ 15kHz is the only thing it really likes.  my monitor is one of a subset from that model (nanao ms-2930) that has issues w xbox 360 VGA signal @ 640x480 as well, and people say a sync converter fixes it so I'm hoping that fixes my arcadevga issue as well.

As far as avres, I thought all that did was create ini files for all your roms with the proper (i.e original arcade) res in it.

[MonMotha]

800x600 interlaced at about 47Hz yields about 15kHz horizontal scanrate.  It will be VERY flickery, and some monitors just may not be able to handle vertical refresh rates that low.  IIRC, the K7000 has a "50/60Hz" control that you will almost certainly need to adjust to use this mode.

[Jefferson]

So granted, most things look ok. But smash TV is all skinny and ms pac is cut off, how do I go in and fix this stuff in the .inis?

I dunno what my monitor supports but its not tri sync or multi rez, its a WG 7100 and it came in my TMNT,

[manman]

I'm pretty sure that's the same one I have in my SF II CE 'big blue'.  I'm pretty sure it's just standard res (15 kHz), maybe mid...In that case I don't think 800x 600 should work (at least at 50-60 vert sync) but I could be wrong...

I think on the installation info page for the avga3k on ultimarcs site it breaks down how to use avres and what settings to use in mame.ini etc.

The "skinny" problem I may be able to help with cuz I was experiencing something similar.  I can't remember the exact resolution, but with some of the neo geo games, native res is like 1 pixel off horizontally or vertically from a resolution that the card actually supports.  go into the ini file for the games you are having problems with and check the res.  then click the galaga ship icon for setting avga res.  if the res in the ini file is not there that's your problem (or at least part of it).  just change it to the closest res you see supported and save the file.  That fixed it for me.

[Jefferson]

Great. Will attempt some .ini rez edits when I get home tonight.

Does anyone else have that 'white bounce' though? Like the image jolts for a second when I pause Mame, or when white things flash on screen.

Is it because I'm cranking my contrast? Lowering the contrast and black level seems to lessen the jolt effect. Since the AVGA is running 1V and the monitor 'can' accept 1 but is normally 5V, maybe putting in a video amp would let me turn the contrast and blk level pots some?

[MonMotha]

Great. Will attempt some .ini rez edits when I get home tonight.

Does anyone else have that 'white bounce' though? Like the image jolts for a second when I pause Mame, or when white things flash on screen.

Is it because I'm cranking my contrast? Lowering the contrast and black level seems to lessen the jolt effect. Since the AVGA is running 1V and the monitor 'can' accept 1 but is normally 5V, maybe putting in a video amp would let me turn the contrast and blk level pots some?

Weak capacitors in the power supply section is a common cause, but cranking the contrast will exacerbate the problem, especially if you also had to turn up brightness (which means your black is probably actually a little gray).  A video amp would be recommended.

[Epyx]

@Jefferson

Hiya Jefferson. Since writing that tutorial/review I have made some additional discoveries. THe big one...even after using AVRES many games still require manual tweaking. For example, the Capcom/Neo Geo games still require manual tweaks.

Use these manual settings for the "System games" like:

Neo Geo ->  320x224
CPS/CPS2 -> 392x240
Donkey Kong -> 352x256

That should set you straight with the issues you were having. Note: You will also have to use your monitor settings to adjust the picture somewhat. My D9800 remembers frequency settings so I set the games then for games that share a frequency I found the best compromise.  PM me if you have any more questions.

Also, I use 640x288 as my FE resolution so that my games are constantly syncing between frequencies as most games I play are at 15khz and only a few modern ones at 31khz.