J-PAC / SOFT15KHZ Assistance!

[kwagner101]

Hey All -

My name is Kevin.  Just taking on my first mame cabinet project after being given 3 free cabinets from a guy retiring in the business.  I am modding up a Tekken 3 Jamma cabinet - and all seems to be going well.  I purchase a J-Pac board from Ultimarc, have had my control panel updated and wired accordingly.  My biggest issue is in the CRT monitor hookup.  I didn't want to purchase the Arcade VGA card and have soft15khz downloaded, which I assume I can run and achieve my solution.

However, I need a little help on just how to do this.  I have MAME32 running as a frontend - and am just looking at MAME as my only emulator at this time.

From everything I read, I need to change the resolution to 680x480 - then install soft15khz.  I am assuming I just select the 15khz for my install.  From what I understand - and sorry that I'm not super techy, I think I have Radeon 9200 graphics card(s).  Two monitors appear when I check my display settings - and when I go to install softkHz.

When I tried to do these steps and take my PC out to the cabinet, I achieved a launch of the windows screen - in duplicate - on the CRT monitor. (Side note - I have the JPAC video cable running to my tower - and the Jamma video cable connected to the CRT)  Once WIndows booted up, it became a scrambled mess - with some squealing from the JPAC board. 

After I took the tower back in and hooked it up to a standard monitor, I realized that mame32 won't run now due to my display settings being changed.  It tells me to download directx, etc. 

My questions are the following.

Is there a walkthrough on how to install/run soft15khz?
If I am seeing a split screen on startup on the cabinet, what might I be doing wrong?
Should I remove MAME32, or use another front end - since my resolution settings seemed to kill the program?  Should I download the DirectX?

Any feedback would be helpful here.  I am like 95% of the way there, and just want to get the images on the cabinet monitor!

Lastly - for anyone that might know - when I try to reset my display settings back to original - and uninstall soft15khz - my PC crashes EVERY time I go to apply the new settings.  DOn't know if I can get back to default (perhaps in safe mode) - but I'm sort of stuck in low, low resolution world.

Thanks!

Kevin

[Cyberflexx]

Like you, I ma building me a new MAME machine.  My original is right at 10 yrs old or so but still works, I just wanted bigger and updated hardware.  Here is my setup:
25inch Hantarex Polo 25
Dell Optiplex 754 Desktop
ATI X1300 Video
2 gig ram
160gb Sata hard drive

Software: MicroXp install by eXPerience, HyperSpin and Maximus Front ends

I too was having some issues with my monitor and it took me a while to figure it all out.

 The Jpac needs the PS2 to be hooked up thats how it gets its power.   I hooked mine into the right PS2 port ( if looking at if from the vga port side). 
Before I do anything, I hook it up to my PC lcd panel, install the driver for the video from the manufacturer, soft15khz doesnt like windows built in driver.  I set my video to 640x480 on the PC, setup Soft15khz to run at 15khz and shutdown the PC.  I make sure the Jpac is set with the jumpers on 31khz and 15khz and leave the 25khz open.  I hook up the VGA to the Jpac, then boot up.  The WinXP boot splash screen is double and a little distorted but when it gets to loading into MicroXP it works fine and looks perfect.  I had to tweak some of the monitor settings with the remote board to the monitor.  Oh.. I forgot to mention that I am running my PS2 from the Jpac to a usb adapter and then into the PC as my PC doesnt have PS2 ports.  IF you are getting double screens, thats soft of a good thing as its a test mode.  Mine was scrambled but I needed to adjust my monitor vert and horizontals..

This might help you:

http://www.ultimarc.com/jpac2.html