Issues with ArcadeVGA 3000+WG U2000+GroovyMAME

[vindic8r]

Hi All -

Here's my setup: ArcadeVGA 3000 + Wells-Gardner U2000 + GroovyMAME 0.149 + Win 7
Running at 640x288 and using the latest drivers from Andy
According to the U2000 service manual, the Horizontal Refresh Rate is 15.1 KHz to 18 KHz

The issue: All games are strangely distorted, the worst is vertical games. Text is completely unreadable and the screens themselves are far smaller than they should be. Sinistar, for example, has about 2" of usable vertical space top and bottom that it's not using.

Note that the monitor's pots are all set correctly - everything looks fine in HyperSpin and Windows.

I've been banging my head against the wall for the past week trying to figure out what the heck I'm doing wrong with my setup. No matter what I try tweaking in mame.ini, I'm just not able to get most vertical games to look good. I'm sure there's some setting that I'm overlooking.

Attached is log output and mame.ini.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks in advance!

[sean_sk]

Not sure if this will help.....

But I also have an AVGA and I know that I had to set "lock_system_modes" to '0' and  "refresh_dont_care" to '1'.

Try that for starters, and then you can go from there.

[Calamity]

Hi vindic8r,

It looks like you're using remote desktop to launch your games. When using remote desktop, a "mirror" video driver is used over the normal video driver, this blocks DirectX normal behaviour. So, disable third party remote desktop software, if any, and launch games from the arcade machine, plug a keyboard if necessary. Remote desktop may seem the right way to manage your arcade cabinet but you should only use it for copying files, etc. Then use the options suggested by sean_skroht, and probably -video ddraw rather than -video d3d too.

[vindic8r]

Thanks for the speedy reply, Calamity and Sean. Much appreciate that, guys. I'll give these suggestions a go tonight and see how it works.

The issue with my setup is that Windows is nearly unusable at 640x288. Most windows bleed off the screen. Even a simple task like editing a text file can be a pain. So I usually remote into the box via a separate account "Admin" to do any set up work, then just execute actual tests from the cab itself via the "Gamer" account. What I suspect happened here is that I either stupidly ran the test from the remote after I ran it from the cab, and overwrote my log output, or for some reason, the cab didn't log properly. And I'll bet it was that latter. I hate to go on a tangent, but I'll wager this is related to a mountain of other problems I'm having...

The "Gamer" account that I use on the cab doesn't seem to have access to edit any files. It's totally bizzaro. I'll create a new text file, and as soon as I close it, I can never edit it again. I can't even change a file's name! I'm going to spend time trolling the webs tonight and see if I can troubleshoot. Perhaps disabling auto-logon and setting a password on the "Gamer" account will fix this. I'll try that tonight, too.

And I'm sure that Calamity is reading this and thinking, "dude, you should have installed Linux".  Tell me about it. 

[vindic8r]

Oh, and the Gamer account is set up with Administrator privileges. Bizarre.

[vindic8r]

I fixed the permissions issue with a workaround for now. I'll deal with that later.

So I made sure I am using DirectDraw. I then tried the settings that sean_skroht suggested. It failed on load. The log files seem to indicate that it was unable to find any of the custom active video modes. See "sinistar.txt" for the log.

I also tried flipping them, so:
"lock_system_modes" to '1' and  "refresh_dont_care" to '0'.
Then it loads in, but man, does it look like garbage. The larger font in Sinistar is barely legible, and the smaller text is just a blur. Also, there is notable unused space on the top and bottom. See  "sinistar_flipped.txt" for the log output.

Then I tried setting them both to '1'. Still no dice.
This also failed on load. See attached "sinistar_bothon.txt" for the log output.

As a last ditch effort, I tried the settings suggested by sean_skroht, while changing the monitor to 'generic_15'. Fails on load. See attached "sinistar_generic.txt" for the log output.

I hope this helps get us closer to what's going on here.

Any other thoughts?

[Calamity]

So I made sure I am using DirectDraw.

Sorry vindic8r, my fault. I meant -video d3d, not ddraw.

Your logs look correct now, except for that.

[vindic8r]

No worries, Calamity. Alas, I tried that too, and while it now at least loads in, things are still looking less than ideal. The screen is still much smaller than it could be, with even more distance (~2") between the top and bottom of the monitor. Additionally, there's notable sound stuttering. I've attached a log file of the output, using Direct3D, with "lock_system_modes" set to '0' and  "refresh_dont_care" to '1'.

I went ahead and tried turning off refresh_dont_care (='0') and results were nearly identical, but with a slightly larger screen and slightly less sound stuttering.

Any other thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks for all the help.

[Calamity]

Hi vindic8r,

Your log shows an odd resolution change, here:

SwitchRes: v0.014b:[sinistar] Calculating best video mode for 492x359@60.096153 orientation: rotated

This might mean one of these things:

- You're using artwork, or it's available to MAME for some reason (try removing it or enabling -artworkcrop)
- You did some manual change to the video options from the ui in the past that are messing with our settings now (try removing any .cfg file inside the .\cfg folder)

Now, regarding the speed issue. I'm curious why it's picking -triplebuffer, did you force it from mame.ini? You should leave -syncrefresh, -waitvsync and -triplebuffer disabled by default.

There's an issue with interlaced resolutions in W7 regarding their refresh. To solve it, do either one of this things:

- Set 'frame_delay 1' in mame.ini, or
- Use 'video ddraw' but make sure to run GroovyMAME with admin rights.

[vindic8r]

Great suggestions here, Calamity. Thanks again.

I only enable overlay artwork, not bezels. So that shouldn't be an issue, hopefully. Right? I guess I could turn overlays off, too. I need to play some games that use them to see how they look, once I get through these initial hurdles and then I'll make the call.

Man, I feel like an idiot. I think I might accidentally have included my /ini folder with a custom sinistar.ini that I was using before I switched over to GroovyMame. I'll make sure that's gone, as well as any .cfgs that might be interfering.

-triplebuffer was my bad for sure. I'll disable that, as well as -waitvsync and -syncrefresh.

After giving that a go and see how things run, I'll implement either of your suggestions to rectify the W7 refresh issue.

[vindic8r]

Major headway! I'm still using Direct3D, but with frame_delay = 1. Some games look pretty great. Others, not so much. Audio issues are gone.

Millipede looks great. Very little unusable space top and bottom. Same can be said of Donkey Kong.



Tapper looks great. It just tends to offset to the left a bit.


Sinistar, though- still a bit of a challenge. There's plenty of space left right up and down for it to grow. Here's a shot with the game info open. It's going to 720x480 interlaced?


Seeing the same thing with NARC.


So close! And only because of all the support here. Many thanks Calamity and sean_skroht!

Any thoughts on how to get Sinistar and NARC a bit bigger? Is it even possible?

[vindic8r]

Sorry for the photo bombs. One more point of reference: my desktop and FE are sized perfectly to fit the monitor at 640x288. So I'd hate to mess with the monitor pots at all.

[Calamity]

Looks like you enabled 'cleanstretch' in mame.ini? It's better to leave it alone so GroovyMAME decides when it's good to use it. I think that's the issue with sinistar and narc.

Sorry for the photo bombs. One more point of reference: my desktop and FE are sized perfectly to fit the monitor at 640x288. So I'd hate to mess with the monitor pots at all.

Think about this. Having your v-size pot fixed at 288 lines will result in 99% of horizontal games that are in the range of 224-256 lines to have thick black borders on top and bottom. In other words, there's no such thing as an universal v-size setting when you're dealing with native resolutions on a CRT. So in case you want to use a fixed v-size adjustment, it's better to adjust it for something intermediate like 256 lines, so 224-240-line games will have some borders but not massive, 256-line games will be spot on, and 288-line games will only loose a few lines up and down.

[vindic8r]

Good points, Calamity. I turned off cleanstretch and changed the desktop resolution to 632x264, which is the closest I could get to x256. Then I brought in the vertical height pot just a bit, so that my desktop and FE are slightly letterboxed. This seems the fairest solution, and confirmed that in Pac-Man, you can still see how many lives and fruit you have. All else looks as good as I think it will be, given your point below on vertical scale.

Sinistar is still far less than ideal, though. Again, I feel like it's got plenty of room to go left and right, so I would think it could scale up a bit. And it seems odd that it's selecting 720x480i as the resolution. I know this goes against the whole point of groovymame, but should I consider a custom ini or cfg file for it?

[vindic8r]

FWIW - Here's the latest sinistar log file. There's an error message at the end. Not sure if that's relevant.

[Calamity]

Try setting 'aspect 4:3' in mame.ini
720x480 is the best resolution for that game from the ones available