Help with ArcadeVGA issues, please!

[StLouisRod]

Ok, I've installed an ArcadeVGA on a Windows XP home edition PC, along with the included video drivers and ATI control panel. It is outputting to a 25" standard res arcade monitor.

The windows desktop appears fine, and I can change resolutions to 800x600 and 1024x768, though the later two modes really push the monitor past it's limits and don't produce a very attractive mode. So I want to limit the resolution settings to 640x480 only so that Windows games don't try to use those resolutions.

My first step was to remove the "quick resolution" bee icon in the tray so that users don't accidentally set the res higher than 640x480. The ATI tab let me check the option "disable quick res icon", but it would not keep the setting! So I had to run MSCONFIG and remove it from the startup entries... (SHEESH!  )


Anyway, even though I have the monitor set to Standard VGA 640x480, the slider still allows up to 1024x768. So, at Andy's suggestion, I went to advanced properties, display tab, and selected the default monitor. I set it's maximum res to 640x480 @60hz and clicked OK and rebooted. But it made no difference! The resolution slider still has all three choices. In device mangler, my monitor says Default Monitor. Any ideas  ?

My second issue is when playing DVD's, either in Media Player or WinDVD, the bottom half of the picture is chopped off! Andy suggested I go to advanced options and turn off overlays, but that made no difference. It could be a problem with just anamorphic DVD's, but I haven't tried non-anamorphic DVD yet to prove my theory. Any other ideas  ?

Thanks!
Rod.

[jerryjanis]

My second issue is when playing DVD's, either in Media Player or WinDVD, the bottom half of the picture is chopped off! Andy suggested I go to advanced options and turn off overlays, but that made no difference. It could be a problem with just anamorphic DVD's, but I haven't tried non-anamorphic DVD yet to prove my theory. Any other ideas  ?

Yeah, I had this problem, too.  It also happened when using Daphne to play the mpeg files.  I was able to get Daphne to work properly by adjusting a setting that was something along the lines of turning off overlays, or hardware acceleration, or some such thing.  I never got DVD's to play properly, but I'm sure that it's just a matter of finding DVD player software that offers lots of options.  I found that with WinDVD and stuff, there simply weren't many options that you could tweak.  I have since moved to Linux, though, which plays DVD's just fine on the arcade monitor, using Mplayer.  There are versions of Mplayer available for Windows (it's free, by the way), but I don't know anything about using it under Windows.  I don't even know if DVD support is available under Windows or not, or if it would fix the problem if there were.

[jlampc]

Wooo....I thought it was just me with the DVD issues. I am running an arcade VGA and I had the same problem. when the overlay starts up the movie does not fit. I can scroll inside if I click and drag. I think the issue is a driver one. When I use Windvd on another pc, It asks to change resoulution so the overlay fits. On the MAME machine it never asks...I'm assuming the driver prevents the DVD software from changing resolutions.  I plan on trying power DVD this weekend to see if it makes any difference.. I wasted 3 hours trying to fix the dvd dispay problem. Luckily the DVD was just a perk I can skip if there is no fix.
 
ThanX  

[jlampc]

Ok, DVD playback Problem Solved. Kind of....
It seems WinDVD doesn't like the drivers for the ArcadeVGA card. I unistalled WinDVD and installed Power DVD and now all is well. The program is able to resize the overlay to fit the screen and nothing is cut off. I watched kill bill on my Arcade screen last night. not bad.