Assistance needed on last remaining game fixes..

[silverslc]

Ok just down to the stragglers..

Im about 93% complete. All games looking beautiful with some exceptions.  Need some help here..


OK the issues can be broken up into 4 separate scenarios

1. Games load perfectly with sound but the screen remains black. Can exit freely.
2. Games start fine with images and sound and after a few moments game freezes. Have to "ctl alt del" to end process
3. Games start fine and continue to run perfectly but playing within a small box. Can exit freely.
4. Games start fine but are either pixelated or squished.

The games that are in category (1) are...
Aero Fighters (starts w it audio only, No picture/black screen)
Columns (starts w it audio only, No picture/black screen)
Golden Axe the Duel (starts w it audio only, No picture/black screen)
Run & Gun (starts w it audio only, No picture/black screen)
Smash TV (starts w it audio only, No picture/black screen)
Toobin (starts w it audio only, No picture/black screen)

The games that are in category (2) are...
Arch Rivals (starts w/ correct pic and audio...hangs, then force quit)
Blasted (starts w/ correct pic and audio...hangs, then force quit)
Iron Horse (starts w/ correct pic and audio...hangs, then force quit)
Journey (starts w/ correct pic and audio...hangs, then force quit)
Joust 2 (starts w/ correct pic and audio...hangs, then force quit)
Pigskin (starts w/ correct pic and audio...hangs, then force quit)
Rampage (starts w/ correct pic and audio...hangs, then force quit)

The games that are in category (3) are...
Street Fighter EX (Plays fine but in small window in middle of monitor)
Tekken (Plays fine but in small window in middle of monitor)
Tekken 2 (Plays fine but in small window in middle of monitor)

The games that are in category (4) are...
Gain ground (extremely pixelated)
Scramble Spirits (extremely pixelated)
Golden Axe Revenge of Death Adder (black bars on each side vertically)
Spiderman (black bars on each side vertically)

Ive attached game logs for at least on game from each category. These literally are the last games giving me grief. Just need assistance
Its obvious that the issues are related since categorized games share similar and or exact resolutions. 


specs,
19" 15khz arcade monitor
win xp 32
ati x600
Core 2 duo 3.0ghz
2GB ram

Grooveymame ver. 0.146u4
Vmmaker ver. 1.4
Emudriver 1.2b
Catalyst 9.3
Hyperspin FE

Thanks!

Nick

[silverslc]

Moderator ... maybe move this to Games with "ISSUES: report here! sticky"

Thanks!

[Calamity]

Moderator ... maybe move this to Games with "ISSUES: report here! sticky"

Thanks!

Hi silverslc,

First of all thanks for your detailed report, that's the way to do it. The "Games with ISSUES thread" is for games that work bad in proper setups. All these games work fine for me so it's certainly a problem with your setup:

- Your frontend Hyperspin is a big part of the problem because it's known to conflict with the multithreading option in GroovyMAME, which is required by certain games. Probably turning off multithreading in mame.ini will somewhat fix the poblem (for 1 and 2), although it will disable some GM features. My advice is to use another frontend (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,143410.0.html) or to learn how to configure Hyperspin properly to avoid this issue.

- Your GroovyMAME version is ancient. Please update. Probably most of the issues you're seeing will just solve themselves by updating. If the problem is you have an old romset, update your romset. Don't search for a MAME version that matches your romset, that's an error, I've gone through that. Search for a romset that matches most recent MAME version, that's the way to go.

[silverslc]

Well I simply upgraded groovymame and it indeed fixed just about all issues! 

Thanks Calamity!

The upgrade also fixed some screen tearing that I was going to bring up later. It only happens on flashes ..like in the basement level in final fight (lvl2.1)with the flashing light. I would get smooth scrolling but I still got tearing on bright strobing and flashes with older version of groovy. Im happy to say with the upgrade this was also resolved 

As for the last remaining issue...Aero fighters.. is still being stubborn. Its a vertical game but the sides are chopped off.  Ill get a log attached later.

Other than that everything seems to be working great..with Hyperspin I may add. Not a superfan of it especially after reading about how it interacts with the emulator software. I just spent way to much customizing it.

Anyway thanks again Calamity!

[Calamity]

Just a note: newer versions of GroovyMAME have multithreading disabled by default so HS users don't crash their system with it. Try enabling it as it is the intended way to run it, and check if crashes as it did with the older version (it will probably do).