Can't get some vector games to play on new cab (groovymame live CD)

[dmarcum99]

Hoping to get some help/advice for my issue using the groovymame liveCD.

Building a cab for a friend and using the roms and other images from my personal cab.  On my cab, using the 64-bit liveCD and an ATI 4850.  Star Wars plays without issues.

The issue...I'm building a Star Wars themed cab and many vector games won't display on the new cab..hense my issue.  The cab I'm building has a WG D9200 and using the D9200 settings on the liveCD setup, when I try to start the game, the screen goes blank and erratically spits out the "NO SIGNAL" on from the on-screen OSD.  This "no signal" reaction is not the same as a regular "no signal" indicator as the pulsing is more regulated and timed (when normal).  I tried all the multi-sync monitor options and so far none of these settings work.  I get the same result as using the D9200 settings.  I also removed the video card and attempted to use the onboard video...no dice.

For grins, I selected the CGA and it worked??

The specs of the cab I'm building:
groovymame 1.565 64-bit CD
D9200 monitor
ATI 4670
amd motherboard with onboard 4200 graphics disabled
phenomII with 2gb ram

List of games not working:
Star Wars
ESB
Battlezone
Lunar Lander
omega race
space duel
star trek


Any advice??.. I can send any files needed.

[Calamity]

I've tested some of those games on last live-CD and they work fine. I'm using the monitor H9110.

Of course, it would be interesting to see a log of one of those games, just to know what resolution they're trying to activate.

You can try forcing another resolution by means of an ini file by now.

[dmarcum99]

Sorry Calamity...I'm so used to groovymame "just working" that I haven't figured out how to access logs.
But, when I go to the console and type : groovymame starwars

It looks like groovymame is trying to use a res of 1520X1136@40.00
Obviously this is way out of range of my monitor's capabilities....and the refresh rate of 40.00hz...yuck.

I get the same response for the other games that do not work.

Side note...I'm not sure what is going on, but earlier I indicated that selecting the CGA option from the menu got the games working.  Well they worked, but at a 49.00hz v refresh rate.  They flickered and jittered so badly, and using the beam flicker slider didn't help.  It was apparent that the refresh rate was way off, but hitting F11 kept showing 100% framerate.  Is this value based of the attempted vert refresh rate of the selected resolution or the vert refresh rate that the game should have been ran at??

**edit**  I used:  resolution 640x480x32@60.00  directly in the vector.ini file and also tried game specific ini files and I get the games to work, but there's a catch.  The vector games that I did not have problems with run at 100% (F11 key) but the ones that previously DID NOT WORK now run at 150% (F11 key) using the res settings I just placed in the ini file.  I checked my OSD for all the vector games and the OSD says 60hz for all vector games, but the F11 key has 150% for those that previously did not work...I guess this means that since the PC wanted to originally run these before at 40hz (without an ini file) and now it's at 60hz(with ini file)....i.e. 150% I guess that means the F11 key is displaying the % of the original calculated optimal refresh rate.

[Calamity]

Edit mame.ini with these settings:

monitor_specs0    15250-16500, 50-80, 2.187, 4.688, 6.719, 0.190, 0.191, 1.018, 0, 0, 288, 448
monitor_specs1    23900-24420, 50-80, 2.910, 3.000, 4.440, 0.451, 0.164, 1.048, 0, 0, 384, 768
monitor_specs2    31000-32000, 50-80, 0.636, 3.813, 1.906, 0.318, 0.064, 1.048, 0, 0, 576, 768
monitor_specs3    37000-38000, 50-80, 1.000, 3.200, 2.200, 0.020, 0.106, 0.607, 0, 0, 600, 768

This will force every refresh to be above 50 Hz.

If obtained refresh is too different from native refresh the vsync option won't be activated, that's why you still see 100%.

[Rattus]

Sorry to bump such and old thread, but I'm having trouble with some Vector games also on my Horizontal cab running Groovymame 0.151 Star Wars and Battle Zone shudder and roll.

Should I edit the mame.ini setting as you posted? if so where in the mame.ini exactly do I paste that? I don't currently have a list saying monitor_specs0 through to 3 so I asume I have to paste the whole block of txt somewhere?

Or would I be better to just go for a clean install on Groovymame 0.162 if that is better for these vector games?

[Calamity]

Sorry to bump such and old thread, but I'm having trouble with some Vector games also on my Horizontal cab running Groovymame 0.151 Star Wars and Battle Zone shudder and roll.

Should I edit the mame.ini setting as you posted? if so where in the mame.ini exactly do I paste that? I don't currently have a list saying monitor_specs0 through to 3 so I asume I have to paste the whole block of txt somewhere?

Or would I be better to just go for a clean install on Groovymame 0.162 if that is better for these vector games?

You have to do the same thing (set VfreqMin = 50) but using the new format crt_range instead of monitor_range. Check this thread for reference: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,116023.0.html