ArcadeVGA - problem ?

[horgio]

1st post guys so be gentle with me 

I've started a MAME cabinet project and thought I'd get the PC rig sorted out 1st.  I work in IT so have access to a large amount of kit, it's an aladdin's cave of old and not so old parts.  Early on I decided to use an ArcadeVGA card (probably for the wrong reasons but I'll cover that in a different post) and when the card arrived I picked the best machine we had laying around and got started...That's when the nightmare began !!

Basically, I can't get the card to work when using 16bit or 32bit colour.....

I have tried almost everything to get this working but with no joy.  Ive tried 3 different (spec) host PC's, same thing.  I get the Windows XP boot screen and then the monitor goes into standby.  Windows is working fine in the background but no picture.  I've tried different monitors (LCD & CRT) same problem.

Annoyingly, when I install Vista onto the PC it works fine, but I don't want to use Vista.  I think that this rules out the hardware which points towards a problem with the drivers but I've tried installing them from the supplied CD more times than I can remember and I still have the same problem.  When I boot XP in VGA mode it's perfect, 640x480 8bit....as soon as I change to 16bit or 32bit the screen goes blank and I have to reboot.

Does anyone have any ideas before this drives me insane ??


Than

[BobA]

Which arcadevga card do you have and what connector are you connecting your monitor to?

[horgio]

Which arcadevga card do you have and what connector are you connecting your monitor to?

I have the ArcadeVGA 3000 PCIe model and I'm connecting the PC monitor to the DVI connection, using a dongle.

[BobA]

Only info I could find on the XP driver install

Windows XP Driver Install.
Install the card into the AGP or PCI express slot. The card must be installed to install the drivers.
If Windows displays a message "New Hardware Found" you MUST quit this and not let the standard Windows drivers install.
If your PC has previously had any ATI card installed, you will need to remove the existing ATI drivers. Do this by downloading and running this utility:
Start (or restart) Windows. The Windows screen should be displayed at 640 X 480 interlaced, 16 colours. To use the ArcadeVGA built-in modes the ATI driver needs installing. Insert the Ultimarc CD. Run the driver Setup program in the correct folder (XP). Reboot as prompted.Windows may ask if you want to replace newer files with old. You MUST choose to replace all the files.
Right-click on the desktop, select "properties" and set the colour depth to "32 bit colour".
Blue Screens in XP Windows XP may try to invoke the built-in Microsoft ATI driver and this will not work with the ArcadeVGA card, and causes a blue-screen error. If you see this ,re-start and hold down "F8" and choose to start in Safe Mode, then install the ATI driver from the ArcadeVGA CD. To do this, you will need to enter device manager, right click on the expanded video card listing under 'Display Adapters' (or, the undesignated option, if the device has not been recognized at all, and has a yellow X next to it), clickon properties, go to driver tab, and click on 'update driver'. This is the only way to install the driver in safe mode, as attempting to install via ATI's setup utility will produce error messages and result in a failure to install. You will need to point the driver install to the correct location on the CD as mentioned in "Forcing a driver install", further down this page.

[Chappie]

I had the same problem a year back or so and to be honest with you I cannot give you the right path to fixing it. It was a combination of a fresh install with a different video card, then installing the ArcadeVGA card, then the provided drivers disc, then rubbing my belly and patting my head while tapping my feet and it worked. Some combination of the above mentioned items I hit the right combo after about 5-6 hours of different methods. The one thing you can count on though is that Andy from Ultimarc will help guide you, so give a shout out to him.

Steve

[horgio]

Thanks,  I'll give him a shout. I'm guessing by the 'shipping' message on the website that he's on holiday so I'll leave it a few days and keep trying.  It's annoying as I thought the PC side of this project would be the easy bit !!