ArcadeVGA clips vertical games at top and bottom

[krick]

I just set up a system to test my ArcadeVGA with my cabinet using a horizontal arcade monitor.

Installed it, installed the drivers and control panel, then ran AVRES.

Or some reason, horizontal games come out perfect, but vertical games are cut off at the top and bottom.

It seems to be doing the vertical letterboxing thing correctly but maybe a little too much letterboxing if you get what I mean.

I can fiddle with my monitor controls to get it almost fitting on the screen but then the horizontal games are squashed vertically.

Any ideas?

[menace]

Try Mamewah's arcadevga resolution tool--read the documentation an give that a try.  things I didn't get the first time I tired:

when you hit auto--its not actually writing the ini files, its just telling you the resolution it will pick when the time comes.
for a monitor oriented horizontally you may have to set the number of lines to not be greater than 256 or 240 (there are 2 fields in this program that let you do this)--use the test button to see what your monitor can display.

i found my vertical looked best at 256x240 with hwstretch on (some games didn't need it but others did so i just set it on for all verts)

hope that helps get you started.

[wpcmame]

I think this should be in the FAQ.

There is one thing that you must understand about graphic cards. They can't control the distance between the lines on the monitor. Modern monitors can auto-adjust so that the image fills the entire vertical height but with an arcade monitor the only way to change the vertical size is the knob marked "Vertical Size" or "V.SIZE".

Normally when you put a game into a cabinet you adjust the monitor so that the image fills the entire screen. The problems start when you put a PC into the cabinet and switches between games with different vertical resolution. You don't want to mess with the V.SIZE knob everytime.

What you have to do is to fix the number of lines you want your monitor to display and then accept that some games doesn't fill the entire monitor or are clipped at top/bottom. If you accept that the game display is a bit distorted you can use stretch but watch out for the refreshrate (more about that later).

So here is a little guide.
Look at what games you want to play and what resolutions they got. Most horizontal games use   224,240,248 or 256 lines. vertical games on a horizontal monitor use 256 or 288 lines.

Lets take two cases.
1. You don't play vertical games on the horizontal monitor but you do play some games with 248 lines.
To adjust your monitor, use a resolution with 248 lines and adjust the monitor so that the image fills the entire height. I don't know what pixelclock the  ArcdeVGA card uses for its resolutions so I can't help you adjusting the horizontal size. Best thing is probably to use 320x240 and then adjust the monitor so that the black borders on the sides are the same size as the ones on top/bottom. If you use advancemame use a resolution of 330x248 (4:3) and adjust it so that it fills the entire monitor.

Now with 248 lines on your monitor you will get black borders on all games that uses less than 248 lines. 240 line games will give you ~3% black borders and 224 line games give ~10%.

2. You want to play vertical games with 288 lines on your horizontal monitor. Adjust the monitor in the same way as above but use a mode with 288 lines (e.g. 384x288). Note that vertical games don't use the entire width of the monitor so it doesn't matter if you can't see the corners.
With 288 lines on your monitor you will get big black borders on all horizontal games. 240 line games will get 20% and 224 line games get 29% or almost a third!

I use around 280 lines (missing a few lines on vertical games) on my 25" monitor which means that horizontal games is the same size as on a ~20" monitor. I probably wouldn't set it up with more than 256 lines on a smaller monitor.

What about stretch then?
MAME got a feature that allows you to stretch/shrink the image to any size that you want. With that feature you can have all games fill the entire monitor but with a more or less distorted image. There is one thing to watch out for: refreshrate.
Arcade monitors got restrictions on what refreshrate you can use for different resolutions. Approx. values are
240 lines 60Hz
248 lines 57Hz
256 lines 55Hz
288 lines 50Hz
This means that if you adjust your monitor to 256 lines, a game that fills the entire height of the monitor (with or without stretch) can't use a refreshrate of more than 55Hz. The limit is 50Hz for 288 lines. The choise here is if you want the game to fill the entire height (with stretch) or if you want it to run at the correct refreshrate. Some games are more sensitive to differences in refreshrate than others. E.g. horizontal scrolling games will show tearing effects. Note that either the refreshrate is correct or not. It is not better to run a 60Hz game with 57Hz than 50Hz.
You can't run your vertical games at their correct refreshrate on a horizontal monitor. Fortunatly these old games usually doen't use scrolling. One exception is BombJack where the background will flicker if not run at 60Hz. For BombJack I use a special mode with 247 lines and 60Hz to avoid the flicker but I miss some lines at top/bottom.

[AndyWarne]

That's an excellent description. I'll certainly look at adding some or all of this to the Arcade monitor FAQ.
Thanks!
Andy

[Minwah]

Yes, good explanation wpcmame

Just to re-iterate what menace said, in my Resolution Tool use the Resolution Selection menu to select effectively the max no. lines your monitor is setup to display - probably ~240-264 lines.  This option is there for this *exact* reason - I suffered the same problem myself which is mainly why I wrote the program

[menace]

I think this should be in the FAQ.

I agree--done.