advancemame blank screen :(

[buks]

Okay, I've been playing with advancemame/menu for a few days now and have got nowhere..... Time to ask the experts

Details :
Gentoo Linux 2.6.7
svgalib  1.9.19
advmame/menu - latest versions as far as I know
AMD 350MHz (slowish hence wanting to use svgalib !)
HP Ultra VGA 1280 17" monitor
nvidia geforce 64mb agp

When I try advmame, advmenu or advcfg all I get is a black screen. advcfg goes through the setup screens okay its when it tries to display the "test" screens that it goes black/blank.

I've set the horizontal and vertical clock speeds as per the monitors manual in /etc/vga/libvga.conf as follows ;

HorizSync 30 69
VertRefresh 50 160

I then added these values to advmame.rc along with the pclock setting of 5-110 (the 110 comes from the monoitors manual). Not sure why but I have to include a range and advcfg recommends strating at 5.

I'm begining to think the pclock setting is wrong for my monitor (just a guess though).

Just to confuse the issue, I decided to see what happens if I run advmame/menu in X (running xfce4) and it works !!!! Why is this ? Unfortunetely, too many games are too slow under X so its not an option.

If I run xmame.svga <game> then the game works (and a lot faster than under X) so I'm assuming that my svgalib settings are all correct.

Anyone following me so far ? I'm really stuck here and would appreciate any help given. I've tried changing the pclock range and re-running advmame and the only difference i get is some games report that there is no video mode available. On one occasion I did get some random lines and colours on the screen but I had to reboot to get rid of them (probably not a good idea to mess with them then ).

Any help appreciated.

Many thanks for listening,

Buks

[DaveJ-UK]

My advcfg settings if they help (for a Hantarex MTC 9000) :

pclock 8-90
vclock 15.62
hclock 50

I managed to get a perfect picture, but ended up buying a JPAC + ArcadeVGA and going the Windows route because I didn't fancy spending hours hacking up a keyboard...

[buks]

Dave,

Am I right in thinking the Hantarex is an arcade monitor ? Its just that I'm using a standard PC monitor which I think operate at much higher frequencies (if thats the correct term !).

Buks

[DaveJ-UK]

Yes I am using an arcade monitor.

If you're using a pc monitor you have no need to use advmame! Advmame modifies various registers on your video card to allow it to output a signal that can be used by an arcade monitor. If you are using a standard pc monitor, the signal output by your video card does not need modifying, therefore you have no need to use advmame. Just use the standard command line version of MAME.

You should only use advmame with an arcade monitor and a hacked interface, neither of which you are using if I understand you correctly.

[buks]

Dave,

Thanks for the info -  I'll stick with xmame.svga then.

What about advancemenu though ? Seeing as thats one of the few frontends that works under svgalib it would be ncie to be able to use that. Or is advmenu only for arcade monitors too ?

[Tilzs]

Well there are other advantages I like about advance mame even if you aren't useing an arcade monitor. There are a bunch of nice features that have been added that aren't in regular mame.

Secondly I've had that blank screen problem as well useing advcfg. I don't know if I ever figured it out or if I did, i don't remember. I know that at one point I upgraded svgalib and advmame refused to work at all. later with another update of svgalib, things worked.

You might want to play around with any nvidia patches for the kernel and nivida drivers. You may or may not have some luck with that.

[buks]

Cheers Tilzs.

Last night I managed to get  advmenu working but only once ! Theres too many config files for my liking.....

Think I'll abandon advmame for now as xmame.svgalib works fine (apart from theres no sound !).

Need to spend a few more hours messing about methinks.

Buks