Need help getting "arcade" resolutions on my ArcadeVGA

[kcm3]

First of all, let me say that I've always used advancemame in the past on arcade monitors, and this is the first cabinet I've put an ArcadeVGA into. It's really pretty amazing -- almost "too easy" to get a picture on my arcade monitor!

Anyway, once I installed it, my cab boots into Windows98 and displays at 640x480 interlaced no problem. Trouble is, I can't seem to get to any of the arcade resolutions. I want to run windows in 640x288, and also used lower res for games.

I let the system set up a generic VGA device as described in the docs. It also detected te monitor as "generic monitor". After a reboot I installed the AVGA drivers. The installer said some kind of test would be run after rebooting to test the monitor's capability or something, but this didn't seem to happen. If it did, it was instantaneous. Then I installed the ATI control panel and another reboot. Now, I expected to be able to change the resolution with the ATI control panel. However, the control panel only will go down to 640x480. This is true whether I use the actual control panel or the res-change menu from the taskbar. The options in the menu are only 640x480, 720x480, 800x600, 1024x768. Also, I had mamewah set to use 640x288, but the resolution doesn't seem to change when it launches. Same goes for when I launch mame.

How do I get the system to recognize that I can use lower resolutions? Does it have something to do with the fact that the "test" didn't seem to run? I reinstalled the drivers to see if it would run on second attempt, but again either didn't happen or is really fast. Is there a particular file that I should run to execute this test/setup?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'd really like to get to a non-interlaced mode.

[wboy]

Grab the gui frontend version of MAME32

Go to the properties of any game (or even the default game properties popup).

In the display resolution dropdown for that game (usually reads auto by default), do you see the list of available resolutions, or ar you only seeing 640x480 thru 1024x768?

[StephenH]

Go into the control panel, and open "system".  Click on "device manager".   You will probably see a PCI or AGP video item there, listed as an "unknown device" or "PCI Video controller", possibly with a "?" icon.  

If you find one, delete it, as well as the ArcadeVGA device.  Then, restart and let it redetect it.  Assuming the ATI drivers are installed, it should detect it.  You may then have to restart again, but then it should regonize your ArcadeVGA card, and give you the arcade resolutions.

[kcm3]

I deleted both the Generic Display Adapter and the AcradeVGA in the device manager. Restarted, and it did detect my AcardeVGA, but the behavior is no different than before. I still can't get any low resolutions. Anything else I might be able to try?

[daeven]

I don't think you'll ever get Windows 98 itself to run at lower than 640x480.  THe ArcadeVGA does a good job of converting Windows at that resolution to display on the arcade monitor.

Are you trying to use AdvanceMAME with that card?  That is not a good combination.  Use regular MAME, or MAME32.  MAME will select a resolution compatible with the ArcadeVGA that makes sense when you start a game.

[kcm3]

According to the ArcadeVGA docs you can run windows on an ArcadeVGA at 640x288. Is that not true for win98?

I'm using regular windows MAME, not Advancemame. And, like you said, it should choose an appropriate resolution, but that's not happening. it's running everything in 640x480 interlaced, so most everything looks poor. I also tried running the ArcadeVGA res. tool, which is supposed to setup ini files so that MAME knows the best ArcadeVGA resolutions to use for each game, but that didn't seem to make a difference.

[dabone]

For a quick check that the res tool is working go to your mame\ini dir
and type "type pacman.ini"

what resolution does it say?

I bet you it still says auto.

Also when you do run the autoresolution tool be sure to only select 60hz modes so you won't get rolling between games.

and did you load the quickres utility?

http://www.ultimarc.com/quickres.exe

this will allow you to quickly select windows resoultions (Including all the strange arcadevga res.)



Also I like this version of the resolution select tool.

http://mamewah.mameworld.net/downloads/avga_mame_res_tool.zip

Be sure to delete all no 60hz modes and get rid of all interlaced modes of you don't want it to flicker badly.


Good luck.

(Remember after running the tool, go take a look at the ini for the game. If it's still set for 640x480 or auto you didn't do something right.)

[kcm3]

Strangely enough, the ini files did actually have resolutions in them. I re-ran the res tool with only 60hz modes, tried again, and now I am getting arcade resolutions in mame. Not sure what the problem was before.

As for the quickres utility, I guess it can't run on Win98, it pops up and complains that it requires at least NT4. But that's no big deal. Once I get everything configured, I don't need to be in windows itself anyway. Just would have been nice to work non-interlaced while I setup sonfig files.

Thanks for your help. Things are working smoothly.