Installed emudriver on R9 380 and WG D9200 monitor and only 640x480 available?

[electricd]

Hello-

I am resurrecting my MAME cabinet that used to use WinXP and an ArcadeVGA card.  This time I built on Windows 10 with ATI Raedon R9 380 and am still using my Wells Gardner D9200 monitor.  When I used to have this cabinet setup on the old setup windows would output at 800x600, but since installing the new setup and the latest CRT Emudriver I can only get the monitor in 640x480 in windows.  It seems to work OK in MAME with the switchres (I think..not sure how to check?) and games look great, but the limited resolution in the OS makes setting up things hard like LaunchBox as the interfaces don't work at 640x480.  Is there a way for me to force the card to output at 800x600 since I know this monitor supports it?  Don't want to do anything that would compromise the stability of the build, but would be nice to have a bit more screen area for windows.  Thanks!

[Zebidee]

Have you run VMMaker.exe to setup your emulated monitor EDID and video modes yet? It will be with your crt_emulator driver setup files

It comes with a preset monitor profile for the D9200.

[electricd]

I did run vmmaker but maybe I did it wrong?  Can I run it again and replace current settings?  Do you happen to have a link to most current instructions for that step?  I used instructions from calamity forum but images didn’t work so maybe I missed a checkbox or something?

[Zebidee]

I did run vmmaker but maybe I did it wrong?  Can I run it again and replace current settings?  Do you happen to have a link to most current instructions for that step?  I used instructions from calamity forum but images didn’t work so maybe I missed a checkbox or something?

There are no images in Calamity's instructions for HD5000+ cards??:
http://geedorah.com/eiusdemmodi/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=1052#p1052

I was wondering if you'd missed Step 3, because you mentioned having "only" 640x480. But now I look at the default "user_modes - super.ini" I see that 640x480 is the only standard resolution listed.

You should also check out this post from ahofle regarding D9400 and 800x600. Looks like you need to add it to your "user_modes.ini" (or is it your "user_modes - super.ini" when using super modes? Heck, add it to both files).
http://geedorah.com/eiusdemmodi/forum/viewtopic.php?id=414

One way to see what video modes are installed is to use arcade_osd.exe, which comes with the install package. You can also use this to change the desktop mode.

[electricd]

There are no images in Calamity's instructions for HD5000+ cards??:
http://geedorah.com/eiusdemmodi/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=1052#p1052

I was wondering if you'd missed Step 3, because you mentioned having "only" 640x480. But now I look at the default "user_modes - super.ini" I see that 640x480 is the only standard resolution listed.

Correct, I just get ALT pointers to the images and the links provided don't load images either (and I am logged into that forum too).  I will go back through the directions and see if I can make changes you suggested and report back. 

[electricd]

thank you so much!  Adding the 800x600 mode to the 2 INI files and going back through the VMMaker was the fix.  I also loaded the instructions in Archive.org and was able to see the images from there:

https://web.archive.org/web/20240613000748/http://geedorah.com/eiusdemmodi/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=1053

Not sure why I can't see them on the live version, but maybe that will help someone else in the meantime. 

I still have a couple of questions after getting 800x600 working in the desktop.  I selected user_modes -super.ini when choosing but it only had 640x480 plus 800x600 (that I added) and a bunch of 2560 x (lots of verticals).  My D9200 monitor doesn't support 2560 horizontal, so I am not sure why it is in there or why I selected "super" other than thats what the forum said.  Sorry to be such a newb, but using these mode INI files, what do they actually do?  I basically want to support 800x600 in windows and then be able to launch games from MAME in their optimzed best resolutions that my monitor will support.  I also plan to run NES, SNES, Daphne, and maybe a couple of other emulators, but not sure yet on how to select outputs for them.

ED7

[Zebidee]

thank you so much!  Adding the 800x600 mode to the 2 INI files and going back through the VMMaker was the fix. I also loaded the instructions in Archive.org and was able to see the images from there:

No worries, glad you are sorted out now 

Ahhh, Calamity's image links seem to be dead. It is not just you - I don't even see the images OR their placeholders in my browser. Good that you found it on the Archive.

I still have a couple of questions after getting 800x600 working in the desktop.  I selected user_modes -super.ini when choosing but it only had 640x480 plus 800x600 (that I added) and a bunch of 2560 x (lots of verticals).  My D9200 monitor doesn't support 2560 horizontal, so I am not sure why it is in there or why I selected "super" other than thats what the forum said.  Sorry to be such a newb, but using these mode INI files, what do they actually do?  I basically want to support 800x600 in windows and then be able to launch games from MAME in their optimzed best resolutions that my monitor will support.  I also plan to run NES, SNES, Daphne, and maybe a couple of other emulators, but not sure yet on how to select outputs for them.

CRT have a truly fixed or limited number of vertical lines. This is because they scan horizontal lines stacked vertically to make the images). That is why you often see people talking about resolutions in the vertical only (e.g. 240p, 480i etc).

Horizontal is different. CRT monitors are analog and there's really no physical limit to how high the horizontal resolution can go. If you plotted the image out on a chart (like you can do with an oscilloscope), then it is just a line with peaks an troughs, like a stock market chart. You can make as many horizontal divisions to that line as you want. Just like you can divide any line into an infinite number of points. 

So yes, your D9200 really does support 2560 horizontal.

With Super resolutions, Groovymame's switchres component can simply stretch the game's horizontal to 2560. This maintains aspect ratio and can be done without any distortion. Why 2560? it just happens to be easily divisible by many many common game resolutions, which simplifies calculations to integer scaling and facilitates maintaining aspect ratio.

If you aren't using Groovymame already, you should definitely download and use that, and it will use the Super resolutions.

So, back to the "user_modes - super.ini". 640x480 was added there primarily for use as a desktop mode. You've added 800x600 now, which is great. If there are other games you want to play that don't support Supers, you can just cut/paste any other modes you want (from the other user_modes.ini file as a start).

iirc Win7+ supports up to 120 video modes, but keeping it to 20-30 prevents slowdowns while GM sorts through the list.

[electricd]

Thanks, this makes sense and is very helpful.  In the future if I want to add more resolution modes and add them manually to the super.ini file, do I just go through the VMMaker setup again and load modes and that is it?  Wasn't sure if i had to "start clean" somehow when I make a change, or if just repeating the process (including export to GroovyMame) is all that is needed to add modes?

[flybynight]

another desktop res you could add is:
496x384

That will let you play Sega Model 2 (m2 emu) and Model 3 (supermodel emu) games at their native resolution.


Sega naomi games (demul or flycast) run native at 640x480 and modern teknoparrot games like outrun 2 SP SDX run fine at 640x480.

[Zebidee]

Thanks, this makes sense and is very helpful.  In the future if I want to add more resolution modes and add them manually to the super.ini file, do I just go through the VMMaker setup again and load modes and that is it?  Wasn't sure if i had to "start clean" somehow when I make a change, or if just repeating the process (including export to GroovyMame) is all that is needed to add modes?

You'd just need to click on "generate" and "install" the modes again. No need to re-install the driver or EDID emulation.