Why Buy Arcade VGA when I can get Soft 15khz?

[xmrkite]

My question is that it seems like soft 15khz can replace the need to buy an arcade vga card. So why do people still buy arcade vga? Does it have any major advantages I don't know of? (other than you see the bios and windows loading screens)

-Thanks

[dextercf]

+1

[Nephasth]

As someone who has used both, I will only use soft15kz from here on out.

[xmrkite]

As someone who has used both, I will only use soft15kz from here on out.

Why is that?
-Thanks

[Nephasth]

Price. They both accomplish what I want a video card to do in an arcade machine.

[dextercf]

Could you please elaborate the differences, in practice, for us?

[ahofle]

The main difference is that the ArcadeVGA converts the POST/boot screens (which are higher than a typical arcade monitor can handle) into CGA resolutions.  With Soft15khz, you don't get 15khz resolutions until windows has loaded.  There are some other workarounds to avoid that with Soft15khz though.

[apfelanni]

the main difference between avga ( i m refering to the old 9200 / 9250 cards ) and soft 15 k is the setup of the software . the windows driver setup of the avga have been a real pita , same as finding perfect working ati catalyst drivers . u may choose which kind of crappy driver software its gonna be.

after succesful installation all are doin fine . better spend the saved money on quality controls or screen ( or a more powerful graphiccard ). 

[nnndoh]

well, in had an ati hd 4650 with 1 gig memory installed, soft15k and very bad framerates with nearly every game
now with an arcadevga flawless gameplay , like andy say's "60 fps garantee on streetfighter "

[rexel]

Some people, including a good friend of mine, are completely dumb founded at getting Soft 15Khz to work.  I get a lot of angry texts and e-mails like I'm somehow responsible for their inability to follow directions.  So if you get off on telling people, "Works for me, not sure what your problem is... consider a new hobby" then it's an excellent option.

despite simple soft15khz instructions instructions... i.e install software, click install soft 15khz.. reboot.. presto...

im one of those people (just starting) and already cannot get soft15khz to work and now googling like mad to find out whats the go..

i believe avga is more convenient and easier..

[Bravo911]

I too had strange issues with soft15k, some jitters, and some modeline problems, stuck in an arcadevga and most problems disappeared.

Sent from my XT910 using Tapatalk

[fredster]

How about just buying this $30 card and hooking your PC straight up to a Jamma machine?

http://www.jammaparts.net/13-mame

You don't have to use the controls, just the vid part

[ahofle]

Soft15khz is great, but honestly I don't understand why anyone would use it now that CRT Emu Driver is around.  You just install it, tell it what type of monitor you have and it generates correct resolutions with CORRECT REFRESH RATES for you. 

http://mame.groovy.org/

[Jack Burton]

Soft15khz is great, but honestly I don't understand why anyone would use it now that CRT Emu Driver is around.  You just install it, tell it what type of monitor you have and it generates correct resolutions with CORRECT REFRESH RATES for you. 

http://mame.groovy.org/

Does it support Nvidia cards?  I'm had a look around that link and downloaded the multisync_xp version and it gave me some strange errors when I tried to install. 

[ARTIFACT]

Soft15khz is great, but honestly I don't understand why anyone would use it now that CRT Emu Driver is around.  You just install it, tell it what type of monitor you have and it generates correct resolutions with CORRECT REFRESH RATES for you. 

http://mame.groovy.org/

very interesting!

I will try it

[rexel]

Soft15khz is great, but honestly I don't understand why anyone would use it now that CRT Emu Driver is around.  You just install it, tell it what type of monitor you have and it generates correct resolutions with CORRECT REFRESH RATES for you. 

http://mame.groovy.org/

ok so how do u use this thing.. ive run the 6.5 crtemu drivers for my ati...redirected the vmarker ini file to direct where mame file is.... then executed vmaker... restarted... now what?
ive run arcade osd.. but dunno how to read this... how to confirm if running 15khz and ok for the arcade machines?

[ahofle]

In vmmaker.ini, I also changed the following to '1' after pointing to the correct mame executable:
   ListFromXML = 1      ; Processes Mame XML and get video mode list from it
   GenerateXML = 1      ; Extracts XML from Mame (only needed once)

Then set monitor type to your type of monitor.  Mine is a D9400 so I chose that.
; Monitor Type. Valid types: D9800, D9400, D9200, EGA, VGA, MULTI, H9110, PAL, NTSC, GENERIC, CUSTOM

   MonitorType = "D9400"

You can run the quickres utility from ultimarc to see if the resolutions were installed correctly (little galaga icon in the task bar).  You should see a bunch of low resolutions displayed.
http://ultimarc.com/quickres.exe

Next install groovymame to a fresh directory, and create a config:
groovymame.exe -cc

Find the newly generated mame.ini and make sure monitor is set to your type (cga, generic, etc).
Run groovymame.exe yourgame and it should be running at the exact resolution and refresh rate.

[rexel]

thanks ahofle..

- ive got no idea what type of arcade monitor mine is so ive yep ive switched to 'generic' monitor in the vmaker.ini file...
- wasnt aware of the listxml and generatexml steps (didnt read anywhere these steps were required??).. so ill do that
- im trying to run this via mala front end... in order to use mala and run groovymame.. do i just redirect mala to the groovymame.exe file instead of the mame.exe file?

- how do u go about checking if its 15khz and therefore safe for the arcade machine?

[ahofle]

If you choose GENERIC (or maybe CGA?) vmmaker should only generate 15khz resolutions for you I believe.
Run a simple 320x240 game like a NeoGeo one.  You should be able to tell if it's correctly pushing 15khz because otherwise it probably wouldn't display at all.

[rexel]

thanks for that.. but id  want something abit more conclusive to confirm if yes 15khz..

btw.. is that the way to link mala with groovymame?

[Paradroid]

You should probably jump over to the GroovyMAME forum: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?board=52.0

Calamity is super helpful.

[ahofle]

btw.. is that the way to link mala with groovymame?

Yep.  I actually had to rename the executable to something smaller like gmame.exe for hyperspin to work correctly.  Not sure if that is an issue with Mala.

[dmarcum99]

+1 for groovymame over the other options.(use ATI 4000 series up to 4890)

Groovymame has a livecd(gentoo) that worked out well for me.  It was easier for me to get it to work than windows version.  Hardly any configuring....you have a bunch of monitor options to choose from and pick one.  Downside is that you only have wahcade or advancemenu as front-end options....but I designed a custom theme for my cab and it's more than enough for me.

[Gray_Area]

Soft15khz is great, but honestly I don't understand why anyone would use it now that CRT Emu Driver is around.  You just install it, tell it what type of monitor you have and it generates correct resolutions with CORRECT REFRESH RATES for you. 

http://mame.groovy.org/

One of the reasons GroovyMAME is possible, is because it uses Soft15. It just does everything for you in the set-up. Further, because it adds so many mode lines, it bypasses the issues some cards may have with the stock Soft15 set. Of course, the stock AVGA set is tweaked for 15khz display - but we know what limitations it has, don't we? No, some probably do not. Don't google, kids, just read the stuff here.