Very bad first experience with AVGA 9200

[Gradius]

I've recently purchased a new 9200 model to replace my old 7500. I'd like to know if this is a bug of my card or is a normal issue with this model or its drivers. I'm been trying to discard the possibility of bad config issues, either in windows, driver, dx, mame, etc, and I've tried anything I can imagine. The problem is that games move jerky. And I'm talking about standard 60hz games, not rare 55, 57hz games. I see hiccup in scrolls every one or two secondsm which I didn't experience with my old card. I have to raise the rate to 61hz in order to fix the problem. I cannot believe this. With my old card I could be sure that all res modes at 60hz are perfectly synced with MAME 60hz games. Could I've tried with DX8 and DX9, using catuinstaller and drive cleaner in order to completelly remove all traces of my old installation. Maybe I should install Powerstrip and find out what's the exact refresh rate used by the modes built in this card. There must be a missmatch that is causing the hiccups. Let me clarify that I'm using the same enviroment for the 7500 and 9200 model (restoring norton ghost images for the tests): Pentium 4 3Ghz, 512mbs, windows98SE. Could anyone confirm this issue? If it's an issue with the card, have I the right to send it back to Ultimarc's and get my money back?

[krick]

It sounds like you're having tearing issues.

The usual fix for that is to put "triplebuffer 1" in your mame.ini file.

See this thread...
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,9195.0.html

However, there was an issue reported with triplebuffer and the drivers for the AVGA9200 that I'm not sure has been fixed yet.

See this thread...
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,22938.0.html

[Gradius]

The problem I think is with the refresh rate for the modes built in the card. I can get rid of refresh rate in windows98 using triple buffer and in windows 2000 using vsync (tested this morning with the 9200). But in both cases hiccups appear, because the refresh rate of the 240 modes (for instance) seems not to match standard 60hz (must be a little higher). I cannot tell the exact refresh rate values for these low res modes because powerstrip doesn't work with them when I switch to them for windows desktop resolution. But taking a look at the rates of 640x480, it seems the 7500 has a refresh rate that is a little below 60, which results in no problems at all with 60hz games, but being a little higher, as I think happens with the 9200 model, hiccups occur. That's why raising to 61/60 in mame kill those hiccups. That's my theory. Just to the tests. Use Space Invaders DX, the screen after the Taito logo and winners don't use drugs. There's a long scroll there with large letters. It should be smooth all the time.

[AndyWarne]

I am looking into this. It appears that the R9200 chip handles the granularity of the pixel clock in a different way to the R7000. So the lower res modes work out at a higher clock. I am looking into introducing a correction factor to cure this. Should be done in a few days time.
Andy Warne

[Gradius]

Can this problem be fixed with a new set ot drivers? Please confirm because I'm about to sell my card, but I'll consider now if there's an easy way of righting the wrong. I'd need to be sure about the accuracy of the clock in all modes. Are you sure 640x480 is not wrong too? I've checked it out with Powerstrip and the values are also different with respect the old 7000 card.

[Breaker]

Hi Gradius,

I read this thread with interest as I also have a newer 9200-based AVGA.

I'm wondering what monitor you're using?
I'm running XP with a WG D9200 and haven't noticed a problem as yet, but it would be good to have a heads-up with this particular issue as I'm still in the initial configuration process.

Thanks.
Breaker.

[Gradius]

A SCART TV using homemade VGA-SCART cable.

[wboy]

I use a nanao monitor (win98) and the problem is definately noticable.

take a fast scrolling game like wboy "Wonder Boy".  make sure "sync to monitor refresh" is not enabled as this visually fixes it, though mame will report the game is running faster than 100%.

even with triple buffer enabled, you have a noticeable jerk every second or so in game.

There are two 9200 based cards I understand?  I can only confirm the newer MKII version has the problem.

Just so people don't freak out about the new AVGA, I'll quote an email I recently received from Andy:

"I have been working on this issue exclusively since you mentioned it. I decided to develop a way to get the clocks even more accurate than on the older card. It's nearly done. Probably will be done by the end of this week."  I first notified Andy of the problem roughly two weeks ago now.

re: 640x480, yes, its appears to runs faster than expected, as I general hardware stretch vertical games to this res and noticed games also run fractionally faster than 100%.

[Gradius]

The question is, how will we fix the problem. Will a new set of drivers fix the problem? Will we have to send the cards back to Andy so as to have them fixed? Will we have to update the internal information of the card with some kind of flash utility?

[wboy]

from what I understand, purely a driver update is all that will be needed.

[Callindril]

I am looking into this. It appears that the R9200 chip handles the granularity of the pixel clock in a different way to the R7000. So the lower res modes work out at a higher clock. I am looking into introducing a correction factor to cure this. Should be done in a few days time.
Andy Warne

Been 3 weeks...any news on this ?

[Tritoch84]

I'm sorry, I don't know much about cards, but does this problem have any effect on a newly ordered 9200 I bought? Or just the AVGA cards?

[saint]

Hey guys, for what it's worth, Andy's taking some time off for the holidays until Jan 7th.  He probably won't be keeping up with this thread until then. I have no doubt that he'll work diligently to resolve the issue though when he returns

--- saint

[wboy]

Andy was meant to get around to updating the main Ultimarc site before he left for his break but obviously didn't get a round to it.

The new drivers have been released and can be found at:

http://www.ultimarc.com/avgadrivers.html

IMPORTANT NOTE:  These drivers are only for the ArcadeVGA 9200 series video cards under Windows based operations systems.

The problem identified is only an issue under Windows, not DOS!

* DO NOT update to the new drivers linked above if you are using the ArcadeVGA 7000 series video card (first release of the specialist card).

* DO NOT update to the new drivers linked above if you are using the a normal PC based 9200 series video card supplied by ATI or other 3rd parties using the same 9200 chipset.


I have been testing these drivers periodicallly for about a week now and everything seems as good if not better than what I can produce from the ArcadeVGA 7000 series card which I still have and use in my other cabinet.

[jimj]

The new drivers have been released and can be found at:
http://www.ultimarc.com/avgadrivers.html

I installed the new drivers, rebooted, had to reinstall the trisync utility.  Everything seems to look ok again.  When I check the driver version it's listed as "7.15.10.7000".    Is this the correct version # for the new drivers?  The reason I ask is that I know the date of the driver did not change (2/24/2004), so I'm not sure if the new drivers really got installed.

[pacman]

Hi guys,

Hi bought the AVGA 9200 beginning of Jan and have installed last drivers for XP. I have made a test using MAME32Plus 0.92 and launched 'Wonderboy'. Well if I keep my eyes on the scrolling row of trees than it looks like there is an hiccup avery 3 secs..this is not something noticeable while playing normally, just if you concentrate your eyes on the background. Do you think this is still the triple buffering issue ?? Or is there something I can do to fix this ?

[hiperco]

I too am interested in improving the "tearing" situation.  Pac Land is a good test of this, the buildings end up tearing pretty badly as they go by...

(This game played perfectly with Advancemame/DOS with a TNT video card...)