GoovyMAME questions - cab with a WG 9200 Multi-Sync Monitor

[cmoses]

I built a cabinet a few years back for a MAME machine, I was lucky enough to come by a 27" Wells Gardner D9200 monitor that only needed a power cord tweaking to get working perfectly.  I have used it in my cab and have really enjoyed it.  I have HyperSpin on the cabinet and just run it at 640x480 resolution. I have been looking to update the cab with the latest MAME version and HyperSpin and also have decided that I want to get more authenticity out of the monitor and the games I play on it.  I have occasionally looked at GroovyMAME and  figured it would be the way to go when the time comes.  I was hoping to verify a few things before beginning this journey.

1. It looks like Win XP64 is probably still the best OS to go with for compatibility with the Calamity EMU drivers and Switchres.
2. I have a nVidia card in their currently but will probably swap it out with a Radeon HD6450 2MB card that I have to take advantage of the EMU drivers.
3. Can I still use HyperSpin as my FE? I think I read that it would limit some resolutions that I have?
4. Is there a good walk through/ tutorial to follow?  Loading OS, what updates add ons are needed? How to load GroovyMAME, Calamity drivers, Switchres, etc?

Thanks

[Calamity]

Hi cmoses,

1. It looks like Win XP64 is probably still the best OS to go with for compatibility with the Calamity EMU drivers and Switchres.

Yes.

2. I have a nVidia card in their currently but will probably swap it out with a Radeon HD6450 2MB card that I have to take advantage of the EMU drivers.

A Radeon HD 6xxx won't work. You need to stick with HD 4xxx cards.

3. Can I still use HyperSpin as my FE? I think I read that it would limit some resolutions that I have?

Yes, you can use it. You just need to keep in mind that Hyperspin has a bug so it will crash if you define too many video modes. Keeping the total number of modes below 70-80 should be enough and GroovyMAME will work just as good.

4. Is there a good walk through/ tutorial to follow?  Loading OS, what updates add ons are needed? How to load GroovyMAME, Calamity drivers, Switchres, etc?

The best way is to search through this forum. Everything that you may need has been covered already several times.

[Bunghoolio]

Hi Moses, I just went through the newbie pains myself in the last month or two. I also have a 9200. Using a ATI x600 card, xp 32 pro. If you look at my past posts you will find some useful information in the most recent ones. I believe I posted some of the "tutorials" that I used. Some of the tutorial are tailored to older software versions and can be misleading. Seems like you just need to invest a good amount of time searching and reading and trying different configurations. I put in some long nights before I started to see good results with most games on my 9200 - and I still have a firefox session with over 100 tabs open on this stuff alone. One of the hardest parts was finding a resolution set that worked well in my mame.ini file, Calamity is the Man when it comes to this stuff, he helps more people than should ever be expected, myself included. His knowledge is so much greater than us newbs, that it can be hard to comprehend at first. Searching with the following dropped in google helps me a lot "searchword  site:forum.arcadecontrols.com"

 I'm taking a break, spending most of my time watching the Olympics actually. But my buttons and joysticks will be arriving soon, so I'll get back into it and can help you if you need it. I'm using Mala instead of Hyperspin though. Next, I want to learn about setting up porches and screen geometry values as talked about at the end of one of my postings: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,137326.msg1421628.html#msg1421628