Groovymame Graphics issue. Help!

[mikehaggar]

Hi all, I bought an Astro City Cab which came with a pc that I'm not sure how its hooked up as I'm not technical but its not using groovymame as there is screen tearing.
Then I have this custom made jamma pc using groovymame but the picture isn't very good. The scanlines are huge and the games look blocky. I used to own pcbs and I was recently at arcade club and saw many original boards running on arcade monitors and none of them had huge scanlines with blocky pictures.
Attached is a screenshot of the pictures on the two pcs. The left one is groovymame and the right one is whatever this other pc is using. Excuse the blurryness of the right picture. (The camera wouldn't focus, it doesn't look like that in real life)
How do I get groovymame to output a picture without the blockyness and scanlines like the right picture (which looks more like a proper board). Bare in mind in not technical. Thanks!

[sean_sk]

I reckon the pics on the left look pretty good. It doesn't seem blocky to me and as far as I can tell that looks normal. It looks like the game is running at the modeline it should be running at. I would have thought that this was the desired result to be achieved with Groovymame. It's certainly why I use GM. What monitor is GM running on? What resolution is GM reporting the game is running at?

[mikehaggar]

It looks worse in real life and you shouldnt be able to visibly see scanlines at a distance. Some games look really blocky. Not sure what resolution or anything. Dont know how you check. Its a custom made pc using groovyarcade and linux

[Calamity]

The scanlines look so sharp because that's a multisync monitor, so it has a finer dot pitch than a standard resolution arcade monitor has, and probably it's a huge one (29"). Multisync monitors look different than standard arcade monitors.

The left picture is the one that's properly configured, it is supposed to look like that, as the other folks already told you.

The one on the right is poorly configured. You can obtain the same thing with GroovyMAME by forcing a fixed resolution, like this (in mame.ini):

Code: [Select]

resolution 640x480
filter 1

... or using vaseline ...   

[mikehaggar]

I thought nanao MS9-29 15khz monitors were not mulitisync?

[sean_sk]

I thought nanao MS9-29 15khz monitors were not mulitisync?

I'm assuming the Astro City cab is the one with the Nanao MS29-9 monitor, which is on the right, yes? I don't think Calamity is talking about that one. He's talking about whatever the monitor is on the left since you haven't mentioned what it is yet. Is it the same monitor as the one on the right?

Anyway, I'm not sure how you think these games should look on a CRT monitor but the left one is actually how its supposed to look. I don't know about the others here on this forum, but I like my scanlines well defined and even. Like what you have on the left.

EDIT: Ok, excuse me for my ignorance, but I just saw that you posted the same thing in another thread and you mentioned that they were the same monitor.

[mikehaggar]

The scanlines look so sharp because that's a multisync monitor, so it has a finer dot pitch than a standard resolution arcade monitor has, and probably it's a huge one (29"). Multisync monitors look different than standard arcade monitors.

The left picture is the one that's properly configured, it is supposed to look like that, as the other folks already told you.

The one on the right is poorly configured. You can obtain the same thing with GroovyMAME by forcing a fixed resolution, like this (in mame.ini):

Code: [Select]

resolution 640x480
filter 1

... or using vaseline ...   

Its a custom made pc using groovyarcade and linux. How do you find the mame.ini and how do you change it? Thanks!

[Doozer]

Its a custom made pc using groovyarcade and linux. How do you find the mame.ini and how do you change it? Thanks!

If you look for the mame.ini file, you can edit it with :

Code: [Select]

vi /home/arcade/.mame/mame.ini

If you are not familiar with vi command, you can easily find guides on the Net.

[mikehaggar]

The scanlines look so sharp because that's a multisync monitor, so it has a finer dot pitch than a standard resolution arcade monitor has, and probably it's a huge one (29"). Multisync monitors look different than standard arcade monitors.

The left picture is the one that's properly configured, it is supposed to look like that, as the other folks already told you.

The one on the right is poorly configured. You can obtain the same thing with GroovyMAME by forcing a fixed resolution, like this (in mame.ini):

Code: [Select]

resolution 640x480
filter 1

... or using vaseline ...   

I typed in the above info and it worked exactly how I wanted it but only on capcom games it seems and Mortal Kombat 1 and 2. Everything else I checked still looked blocky. How do you get it to work on all games? What else do I need to change? Thanks in advance!

[Paradroid]

Everything else I checked still looked blocky. How do you get it to work on all games?

I hope you realise the irony of trying to reproduce the ---smurfy--- "every game scaled to 640 x 480" scenario using GroovyMAME. This is the antithesis of what everyone involved with the software has worked hard to achieve...

[mikehaggar]

Well I'm telling you now I was just in arcade club a place filled with original pcbs on tons of different original arcade monitors and not one game looked blocky. I dont think you get how blocky some of the games look. It makes them look like they're on a HD. This filter makes them look like the pcbs I own so something is going wrong with my set up if you're saying they should just look good as they are. Also to me the best thing about groovymame is getting rid of the screentearing on mame

[big10p]

Bear in mind most (all?) of the cabs at Arcade club will be using much smaller 15Khz monitors. Yours is huge in comparison and surely higher res multi sync? As has already be said, this is what makes the difference.

[mikehaggar]

That may be so but Im stuck with this cab now having been told how great the monitor was (which if it makes the games look blocky means its crap) but the filter fix calamity mentioned has worked in as far as capcom games are concerned but everything else looks blocky. How do I fix it? Don't want to have to go back to screentearing mame :s

[cools]

Take one of the PCBs you own that is also emulated in MAME.

Plug the PCB in, take a photo.
Switch back to MAME, run that game, take a photo.

[Calamity]

mikehaggar,

Maybe it's the automatic prescaling feature what makes the result vary between games. Create an empty file named horizont.ini, place it in the same folder where mame.ini, then open it and type the following (and only the following):

prescale 1