NVIDIA GeForce FX5200

[moonpatrol 4 lyfe]

I've been looking at Ultimarc's Arcade VGA card, and it looks awsome.  Unfortunately, there's no way I can run it at the same time as my GeForce FX5200 card.  I've been reading that you can produce the same results on an arcade monitor as Ultimarc's card with an ATI card.  Can I do this with my GeForce card?  I found that AdvanceMAME does support my card, but other articles I've read said that ArcadeVGA had a superior display on arcade monitors.

[menace]

I've been reading that you can produce the same results on an arcade monitor as Ultimarc's card with an ATI card.

not entirely, the AVGA has the arcade resolutions built within the chip--they are standard on board--a typical ATI does not so you lose that functionality that has to be made up with software.  And although if you take the time to learn advmame you will get good results they will never be as good as the AVGA, not to mention the AVGA is ALOT more plug and play than advmame--my first advmame setup took weeks to tweak and i still had to compromise to play pacman and rygar--one being very tall and the other being wide.

Can I do this with my GeForce card

not sure, never used a geforce card for mame--in a nutshell--you can use any video cad for mame so long as there are drivers written for it that allow it to operate at 15khz.  so far the trident t-64 series of cards seem to be best non-AVGA cards simply because they have a good driver available.

[desmatic]

you will get good results they will never be as good as the AVGA

WTF?

[desmatic]

The FX5200 worked fine, though I tested it some time ago. I recommend using cards made by PNY, as they follow the reference design exactly.

[moonpatrol 4 lyfe]

CRAP.  I dont suppose they  make an AGP switch, or splitter or something where I could have 2 cards in one port, and then just choose one or the other on startup?

How much better quality is the ArcadeVGA going to be over my card?  When you said you had problems with pacman, was that displaying a vertical game on a horizantal monitor?

Thanks again!
Bill

[menace]

No I've never heard of an agp splitter...  as far as quality goes the AVGA and say a trident look the same image wise--its displaying the various arcade resolutions accurately where you run into trouble.   for instance pacman is 288x224 (or something like that) but a horizontal monitor only has at most 240 lines to display so the card either has to remove some lines or size the image down (what the avga does in layman's terms)

i would suggest getting a second pc for a mame cab and use your original pc for video editing--thats what i did--it cost a bit more but having a dedicated pc for each is WAY more efficient

as for desmatic

WTF?

what do you mean wtf?  can you honestly tell me you get the same results on a standard pc video card as you would using an arcadeVGA?  please enlighten us on how you did that with a geforce card as opposed to just saying WTF...

[desmatic]

No I've never heard of an agp splitter...  as far as quality goes the AVGA and say a trident look the same image wise--its displaying the various arcade resolutions accurately where you run into trouble.   for instance pacman is 288x224 (or something like that) but a horizontal monitor only has at most 240 lines to display so the card either has to remove some lines or size the image down (what the avga does in layman's terms)

i would suggest getting a second pc for a mame cab and use your original pc for video editing--thats what i did--it cost a bit more but having a dedicated pc for each is WAY more efficient

as for desmatic

WTF?

what do you mean wtf?  can you honestly tell me you get the same results on a standard pc video card as you would using an arcadeVGA?  please enlighten us on how you did that with a geforce card as opposed to just saying WTF...

I don't use an arcadevga as it doesn't support anything other than 15.7 kHz.   It's only advantange, however, is that is supports interlace modes and hardware stretching.  If you don't like stretched images, then you'd probably be better off with AdvanceMAME. 

If we stick with puckman as an example, then as you point out it can never be perfectly emulated when played on a horizontal monitor at 15.7 kHz. You need to either stretch the image or run it at 50Hz.  If you want to stretch the image, you'd probably be better off with an arcadevga, if you want it pixel accurate then you'd be better off running the game at 50 Hz in AdvanceMAME. 

Any way you slice it, though, when you use an arcadevga, all the comprimises are made for you.  In advancemame you make the comprimises you want.  Not to mention you don't have to sacrifice the aspect ratio of 224 line games.  If you have a D9200, then the comparison is a joke, advancemame is clearly superior. Don't get me wrong, I think arcadevga is a great card, but when you say results with it surpase what you could get with advancemame, I say wtf.

[menace]

I was always told remember your audience--I don't think a new guy to the hobby is going to get superior results with advmame as opposed to the AVGA--the learning curve is just too steep--if advmame was so easy--everyone would use it, as it is only a minority have taken the plunge--myself included.

I still would like more info on what driver's you used etc--just for future info

but as far as ponying up for a new 9200 monitor as opposed to a regular arcade monitor and a AVGA,  he might be looking to do that and he might not--I assume not since it is a significantly larger chunk of change.

[Tritoch84]

No I've never heard of an agp splitter...  as far as quality goes the AVGA and say a trident look the same image wise--its displaying the various arcade resolutions accurately where you run into trouble.   for instance pacman is 288x224 (or something like that) but a horizontal monitor only has at most 240 lines to display so the card either has to remove some lines or size the image down (what the avga does in layman's terms)

i would suggest getting a second pc for a mame cab and use your original pc for video editing--thats what i did--it cost a bit more but having a dedicated pc for each is WAY more efficient

as for desmatic

WTF?

what do you mean wtf?  can you honestly tell me you get the same results on a standard pc video card as you would using an arcadeVGA?  please enlighten us on how you did that with a geforce card as opposed to just saying WTF...

I don't use an arcadevga as it doesn't support anything other than 15.7 kHz.   It's only advantange, however, is that is supports interlace modes and hardware stretching.  If you don't like stretched images, then you'd probably be better off with AdvanceMAME. 

If we stick with puckman as an example, then as you point out it can never be perfectly emulated when played on a horizontal monitor at 15.7 kHz. You need to either stretch the image or run it at 50Hz.  If you want to stretch the image, you'd probably be better off with an arcadevga, if you want it pixel accurate then you'd be better off running the game at 50 Hz in AdvanceMAME. 

Any way you slice it, though, when you use an arcadevga, all the comprimises are made for you.  In advancemame you make the comprimises you want.  Not to mention you don't have to sacrifice the aspect ratio of 224 line games.  If you have a D9200, then the comparison is a joke, advancemame is clearly superior. Don't get me wrong, I think arcadevga is a great card, but when you say results with it surpase what you could get with advancemame, I say wtf.

Great post! I thought I was the only other guy on here that knew that.

I mentioned something along these lines in another thread, and I think people on here might be a little touchy about the subject, so I left it alone.

And we are talking about what looks good, not the "learners curve", like you said, he will get better with it, and in the end, have a better product. People are smarter then you think!

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,28979.0.html

[Tritoch84]

what do you mean wtf?  can you honestly tell me you get the same results on a standard pc video card as you would using an arcadeVGA?  please enlighten us on how you did that with a geforce card as opposed to just saying WTF...

The arcade VGA is a standard pc video card.... it has some changes in bios, but I can't think of anything else that makes it different from the "Standard PC Video Card" it's made from.

[menace]

Great post! I thought I was the only other guy on here that knew that.

I mentioned something along these lines in another thread, and I think people on here might be a little touchy about the subject, so I left it alone.

And we are talking about what looks good, not the "learners curve", like you said, he will get better with it, and in the end, have a better product. People are smarter then you think!

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,28979.0.html

in fact we are talking about the leaner's curver--it won't get to "looks good" stage without the learning curve so to dismiss it out of hand is probably not the best thing.  I suppose i spoke to hastily saying you would never get the same results but I still think the AVGA is the way to go for the new enthusuiast to get up and running and looking good in the shortest amount of time.

Tritoch--what are people sensitive about anyways--I'm confused by both your threads--in one you state you thought you were the only one who knew this (knew what--in the link you posted you were just discovering powerstrip?) and the other you explained the avga is a regular card with changed bios--besides stating common knowledge, what did that have to do with setting up a geforce with advmame so that the windows desktop comes through as well as a solid mame display?

[Tritoch84]

Sorry for confusing you.

I agree that AVGA is the way to go for a newbie who wants a fast good picture.

Alot of people on the board seem scared to suggest that their might be something better then AVGA. I was only agreeing to what the post said, thats all. The thread I posted was just for information, (you don't *have* to use a AVGA) not my post.

Your right about the learners curve I guess, I've just never been the person to give up anything if it will turn out a better picture in the end.

Sorry for the confusion!

[desmatic]

I was always told remember your audience--I don't think a new guy to the hobby is going to get superior results with advmame as opposed to the AVGA--the learning curve is just too steep--if advmame was so easy--everyone would use it, as it is only a minority have taken the plunge--myself included.

I still would like more info on what driver's you used etc--just for future info

but as far as ponying up for a new 9200 monitor as opposed to a regular arcade monitor and a AVGA,  he might be looking to do that and he might not--I assume not since it is a significantly larger chunk of change.

Fair enough.  I follow what you're saying and agree, you do need to know what you are doing to best the results of an arcadevga setup, particularly on a standard 15.7 kHz monitor.

On a multisync PC monitor or D9200, the setup is fairly straight forward though.  The only real issue is driver support which, in all truth, isn't very predicatable yet.

As far as what setup I use, it varies considerably.  I'm very familar with advancemame and dance from card to card and from setup to setup.

The absolute best setup, unfortuneatly, depends on your OS and monitor type.  There is no one perfect solution yet, though a PNY TNT32 card is pretty close.  A full summary on the matter can be found at

http://easymamecab.mameworld.net/html/hardware.htm

Right now I recommend

Win98 (or DOS) -- Trident Blade T64
Linux -- Matrox G400, Visiontek or PNY TNT32, PNY Geforce TI 4600.

The card make matters by the way.  Stick to PNY for recent Nvidia cards, and visiontek for older ones.

[moonpatrol 4 lyfe]

Allright, so AdvanceMAME with a D2900 monitor beats ArcadeVGA with a normal arcade monitor.  How superior is this comparison?

With my Konami TMNT montior, is ArcadeVGA going to give me a better picture than AdvanceMAME with my GeForce FX5200?

And, does anyone have any configuration files for AdvanceMAME, so if I do go this route, I dont need to spend 3 weeks tweaking it?

Thanks again,
Bill

[menace]

what monitor is in that tmnt?  that makes a huge difference as far as your advmame files--these typically aren't interchangeable unless you are running the same videocard AND monitor as someone else.

I will make no more quality comparisons--if you like tweaking go advancemame--if you like plug'n' play go AVGA

[desmatic]

Allright, so AdvanceMAME with a D2900 monitor beats ArcadeVGA with a normal arcade monitor.  How superior is this comparison?

quite massive

With my Konami TMNT montior, is ArcadeVGA going to give me a better picture than AdvanceMAME with my GeForce FX5200?

And, does anyone have any configuration files for AdvanceMAME, so if I do go this route, I dont need to spend 3 weeks tweaking it?

Thanks again,
Bill

menace is right.  there aren't any configs out there (except for my d9200 one) as they vary per setup and personal preference.  Basically, it comes down to how much reading your up for and how much you know about computers.  You need to be technically literate on CRTs, electronics, and computers in general to get AdvanceMAME up and running on a 15kHz setup.  On a PC monitor or D9200, you really only need to be computer literate.

As anyone here will tell you, ArcadeVGA is pretty much idiot proof.

While not as idiot proof, there is also easycab and omnicade which can ease the OS hardship of an AdvanceMAME setup.