CRT Emu Driver (win) multi refresh rates on PCI-E card

[filevans]

hello all

basically i can add multiple modelines for the same resolution on my ATI AGP card, and tweak them after using arcade OSD, for example

640x480 50hz
640x480 53hz
640x480 60hz

but with my other PC which the ATI PCI-E card it doesnt work properly:

although they add ok and they appear in arcade OSD, when you go to tweak or edit them nothing happans, and in fact are clones of all the same refresh rate, say in theis case the 60hz one, and when you try to move up and down or change settings, nothing will move, only what i might describe as the main 640x480 60hz mode, it will let you tweak, none of the other ones of 50hz or 53hz.

i dont get this problem whatsoever on my PC with the AGP card, works absolutely perfectly and i can add as many resolutions with different refresh rates as i want pretty much and then go into them individually and tweak them

ive tried reinstalling the driver multiples times, and reinstalling windows xp too

some kind of limitation on my PCI-E card would it be, its an X300 i think from memory

can anyone help me out with it?

as its frustrating as i want the extra umph of my faster PC with PCI-E, but havent been able to use it so far properly
thanks all

[Calamity]

Does this happen to all the resolutions you tested, or just to 640x480? Are you by any chance using 640x480 for the desktop? ArcadeOSD can't edit the modeline currently used by the desktop, as it is a shared resource. Well it can modify it but changes don't take effect dynamically. If you're planning to modify 640x480, try setting your desktop to a different resolution temporarily.

[filevans]

it is happening on every single resolution, i just gave 640x480 as a simple example, same problem on every resolution i tried

and i know about not being able to edit the current desktop resolution yes, absolutely nothing to do with that, and actually you can edit the desktop resolution you currently have set by applying set as desktop resolution, ive done that lots of times

if you check my modelines you can see theres a few resolutions i have set up with more than one refresh rate, same problem with everything

and anyway, say even if i did  have 640x480 say 50hz resolution set as desktop, i could still edit the 640x480 "60hz" modeline, but doesnt work, it wont move up or down, cant apply any settings, just there seems to be like a master refresh and others are clones and wont allow anything else to be set, even though they are displaying as being there

[Calamity]

Are you using the 32 or 64-bit version of the driver? It could be interesting to check if the modelines installed by default with the driver are editable at all. Just notice there's a problem with the 64-bit package based on Catalyst 9.3 where it won't install any modelines by default (that's why I'm asking about the version).

[filevans]

yeah no problem,
32-bit in both cases, both the PCI-E and AGP PCs both have identical versions of Windows XP on, SP3 32-bit
i just have these drivers:
crt_emudriver_6.5_1.2_xp32_multisync.rar
crt_emudriver_9.3_1.2a_xp32_multisync.rar

[Calamity]

yeah no problem,

Sorry, does this mean you tested editting the modes that are installed by default with the driver and it works?
I have a possible theory about what could be failing and the result of the mentioned test would be the key.

[filevans]

sorry about that, i will be able to check that in about a week when i get home and let you know,
the modelines that are installed with the card do they have some duplicate resolutions with alternative refresh rates already so i can test those properly? as i cant quite remember that at the moment, thanks

[Calamity]

sorry about that, i will be able to check that in about a week when i get home and let you know,
the modelines that are installed with the card do they have some duplicate resolutions with alternative refresh rates already so i can test those properly? as i cant quite remember that at the moment, thanks

I'd say some of them come with both PAL/NTSC refresh rates, like 320x240@50/60, etc. In the worst case it's trivial to generate a suitable modeline table for testing with VMMaker. Regarding the X300 PCI-e, this is the card I used more extensively for testing as it is compatible with both 6.5 and 9.3 versions of the driver, and I had zero problems.

[filevans]

test completed
I re-installed the 6.5 1.2 driver from scratch and left all the original resolutions untouched, and tested 640x480 60hz, 61hz and 62hz resolutions, only the first one will move and allow any editing, the 2 other modelines of 61hz and 62hz wont move, same problem
thanks for your help

[Calamity]

Ok, that completely destroys my theory, so... I think you mentioned that all refresh rates are clones of the first one... Have you checked this by testing the refresh rate with ArcadeOSD ("5" key)?

This would suggest the driver is actually creating the custom mode as required, say 640x480@51, but when it has to read the custom timings for that mode it just can't find them for some reason, and it defaults to the most similar one it has. It's odd because I've seen really weird things but not this one, and believe me I've tested this for years.

Maybe a stupid question but won't you be testing all this while having a PC monitor connected to the second head?

[filevans]

no i just have the normal vga plug connected to a crt tv without using a second monitor

i will get back to you with the refresh rate test and the exact model of my card too, thanks

[Calamity]

I have no explanation for this... if only it would affect just to interlaced modes... but you mean it's the same for progressive modes too...

[filevans]

yes same problem on all modes

[filevans]

yes ive tested now with 5, and all 3 modelines, 60, 61 and 62 are all 59.953 hz

here's my Video Adapter Properties   :

Device Description   RADEON X300/X550 Series Secondary
Adapter String   RADEON X300/X550 Series
BIOS String   113-A33406-100
Chip Type   RADEON X300/X550 Series Secondary (0x5B70)
DAC Type   Internal DAC(400MHz)
Memory Size   128 MB
   
Installed Drivers   
ati2dvag   6.14.10.6614 - ATI Catalyst 6.11

[filevans]

its frustrating, as although my PC with AGP is quite fast, its not fast enough to run certain emulators, for example i use ePSXe with edgbla's gpuBladeSoft plugin which is able to automatically switch to the psx games native resolution, its the only one that does that, but it runs a bit too slowly on that system, thats why i want to use my faster PC with PCI-E, so i can run the emulator at fullspeed

[filevans]

do you have any suggestions what i can do about it, can i resolve it by getting a new motherboard or ATI card?

is there any debug mode or log i could send you that might help fix the problem?

[Calamity]

Hi filevans,

I sent you a couple of links by pm yesterday, please let me know if you got it.