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Problems with GroovyMame, ArcadeVGA 3000, MakVision Tri-Mode 25”. Missing step?

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msingleton1977:
Thanks Calamity. It looks like with my reload I forgot to edit the monitor specs in mame.ini so they were all just set to auto. Once I changed them to match the NANAO MS-2930/MS-2931 specs I didn't need to change the 448 to 400 and it looked good.

Everything is now almost perfect!! The last issue I'm dealing with is with Horizontal games like Pacman and Galaga. They look correct now pixel wise but cut about 2 inches off the screen on the top and bottom unless I adjust verticle size on the montior's remote control board drastically. But, the problem is once I do that the verticle games drastically shrink. Certian resolutions require different settings on the pot controls (size and position). Is there a way to fix this or do you just shoot for the best average? 

krick:
What you need to do is make vertical games fit and then live with the "letterboxing" on horizontal games.  For most games, the letterboxing is barely noticeable once you're playing.  You should be able to find settings that work for most games so you don't have to fiddle with it.

The other option is to wire up a remote pot so you can easily tweak the height when switching to/from vertical games.  I know some people do this, but I think it's a lot of work for something that isn't really that noticeable unless someone points it out.   Another thought would be to wire up a resistor of some sort in parallel with the pot with a switch so that you could toggle between two settings for vertical and horizontal games.  The trick would be finding the correct resistor value.  Again, too much work, in my opinion.

Are there any specific horizontal games that you think look particularly bad once you adjust your monitor for Pac-Man?

msingleton1977:
Thanks for the suggestions Krick!

The horizontal games don't look bad they are just too small for my tastes.

I would rather set the games for horizontal (since that's the majority of my games) and then have the vertical games letter box. Any way to do that? Custom .INI resolutions for the handful of horizontal games I play?

krick:
I'm not sure what you mean by "too small".  On my 25" horizontal monitor that I have adjusted to fully show pacman, horizontal games like Mortal Kombat look fine.

The pictures below were taken when I was using an ArcadeVGA, but with my current setup, they look the same.
Notice that Mortal Kombat is slightly squashed vertically, but I wouldn't call it too small.

Is there a specific game (or games) on your setup that look particularly bad?   Maybe there's another problem.

You could probably force all the vertical games to run at 640x480 or 800x600, letting MAME stretch the image to fill the screen while preserving the aspect ratio.

If you want to only affect vertical games, create a blank file called "vertical.ini" in your mame root folder and put a resolution setting in it.  Something like...

resolution 800x600

...or whatever the maximum is for your monitor.  You may also need to add...

hwstretch 1
keepaspect 1

...but I'm not sure.  Just experiment.  I'm pretty sure you can get the results you want.

Anyway, here's the pictures I mentioned above...

msingleton1977:
Thanks Krick! The setting I had before is very similar to your screen shots. I only have a handful of vertical games so I would rather not have a couple of inches of shrinkage on the horizontal games.

Your vertical.ini solution works perfectly and now I'm only losing 1/4th of an inch on my horizonal games. Everything looks great now! Thanks so much for yours and Calamity's help.

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