Mame to TV flicker?

[Royale]

Hello!

So i have plugged in a PAL Thomson tv to my laptop in the hopes of succesfully being able to play Mame on tv. However when i plug it in via the composite cable the image on the TV is decent, not crisp.

But my main problem is that is somehow seem to flicker. Its not  like its a sync issue, But it seems to flicker a little little little (I can go on for a while) bit and its out of focus somewhat. This strains my eyes and the best way to describe the problem it would be trying out someones elses glasses. I feel slight sick and my eyes hurt after a while.

I have so far tried it on two different computers and two different crt tv's.

I have an Intel chipset on my laptop so i have not been able to try soft15kzh but i did not think that was required?

Please help im getting desperate and i do not feel like playing my mame cab with the LCD screen anymore.

Best Regards

Kim

[Royale]

Yeah its not limited to mame its windows too. Gaah its like looking into a friggin weld beam. Im so confused with this is actually happening, tried every possible resolution and nothing seems to fix it. Regular tv works well but not the pic from windows.

Cmon now anybody?

[adder]

need more information if u want help, its too vague what u provided. first guess seems your cable is not so good (composite is pretty nasty)

and what do you mean by composite signal, do laptops even output that way. do u mean svideo?  what cable are you using, what scart pins (if at all etc).. need to know how you are outputting video exactly, and how you are inputting into tv

are u running the tv in 60hz mode or pal 50hz

note: if u are running the tv in pal 50hz mode none of the mame games you play will run smooth by the way (eg. 60hz games will run very wrong)

(note: you will need to use mameuifx and force all games to run at 60hz speed if you plan to use a regular tv not an arcade monitor) .. composite is not so good though, you want to be aiming for rgb, but it does make things more tricky unfortunately (eg. soft15khz and modelines, vga to rgb scart cables, etc)..

[Royale]

Ok IŽll try to explain to the best of my abilities.

First of i use a VGA cable on my laptop, i have a vga output for external screens. From the it goes to this little device http://www.grand.com.tw/con_hand_view_II.php?menu=2  (The pal version) on the output from the converter i have both tried Composite and S-video to a scart plug (http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh315/PaulWirral/adaptador_s-video_scart.jpg) . Only difference when using s-video is that it makes the color a little bit brighter.

Running the tv in PAL 50hz. I have tried several different resolutions on the computer but nothing seems to fix it. I can get the picture steady to about 99% but if you are eyeballing like the edges on the screen or overall edges on the desktop wallpaper you can see small vibrations.

[adder]

thanks thats much better information

i would say your problems seem to lie from being forced to use a composite signal which is poor quality, plus if you could get true svideo instead of composite that might help, but personally im yet to find a tv which supports svideo through the scart socket. some tv's might actually have a real svideo port on them which would be great, but again these are hard to find

on top of all this you really should be looking to run the tv in ntsc 60hz mode. try to get the tv into 60hz mode (most large pal uk tv's do actually run in 60hz mode just fine), and try to get that convertor box into 60hz mode also, as well as your laptop desktop (windows) resolution at 60hz. you might find that alone gets rid of the flicker once you get everything running at 60hz not 50hz.

then, if (big if) all that above can be done you would need to run mameuifx with all games set at 60hz speed (With vsync/triple buffer turned on and , and then hope that convertor box can operate properly and keep the video running smooth without juddering/screwing up

you need a lot of things in your favour unfortunately. personally id scrap the whole project and do this:

get a tv which supports 60hz and use a vga to rgb scart cable only (if you cannot make your own, then buy one), dont use any kind of convertor box inbetween pc and tv, just use cable, then set your windows desktop to 60hz and use mameuifx set at running all games at 60hz, and set up soft15khz, at the least just one modeline eg. 640x480 at 60hz.. then just use mameuifx hardware stretch/bilinear filter for all games, and 'sync to monitor refresh' and 'refresh speed' ticked, and 'syncronize audio with emulation speed' ticked, and preserve the game aspect ratios + turn on vsync/triple buffer... then you get all the games running at 60hz, full screen mostly (sometimes the odd small black border) and all running perfectly smooth (both video and sound) note people might argue that if you use any video stretch its bad, but mameuifx does an amazing stretch, you cant see any artifacts etc its really great in my opinion

[Royale]

Allright, i will try to solder one of the RGB to scart cables. I did try to make one in the past and it was a pain in the ass. Got to check Ebay for an existing one.
On another note i ordered an Arcade forge UMSA you think that will do the trick?

PS: I have no idea how to run the tv in NTSC 60hz mode. I have tried several 60hz resolutions and the tv seems to have accepted them well except for that annoying flicker, but that is there in every resolution i have so far tried.

Gotta check out Mameuifx when i have the cable/UMSA

[adder]

actually i have realised another problem which you are aware of already i think;  u cant actually run soft15khz as it does not work with intel gma drivers (neither does powerstrip or any other 'modeline' related program i have tried)

the arcade forge umsa* looks very interesting and possibly very good, but the bad news again is it requires you to put your laptop into a 15khz mode (eg. with soft15khz...)of course you cannot actually run soft15khz program on your laptop anyway so you wont be able to use the arcade forge umsa

it sounds like you are moving towards the problems i am having (as i also have a laptop with intel gma). the only thing i ever got out of it was a composite picture in 60hz, but it looked a bit dull and blurry, so i gave up with the laptop and have now bought a cheap used desktop pc off ebay with ati video card so i can actually run soft15khz and other stuff which intel gma cant cope with

maybe you should think about doing the same thing (then you can use your arcade forge umsa for starters...)

ps. its easy to run the tv in 60hz mode, you just make sure the signal being sent from the laptop/pc is a 60hz signal and not 50hz (in windows xp.. go to desktop, right click, then choose 'properties' button, then click 'settings' tab, then 'advanced' button,  then choose 'monitor' tab and where it says 'screen refresh rate' choose 60hz (note: when outputting to tv, make sure you check again that you are still in 60hz, and not switched back to 50hz. if so, change back to 60hz). and then check all your other video settings/menus etc, to make sure 50hz is not chosen anywhere...


* i know i said try to avoid video converters in general but of course that doesnt include dedicated built 'specifically for arcade fans' hardware which of course i would recommend, i just dont recommend cheap unbranded 'made in china' converters.

[Royale]

I sure hope the UMSA will solve the problem as the computer in the cab is not a intel based laptop Just wanted to make sure everything works on the TV before i rip out the LCD screen at the cab.