understanding monitor resolution...

[loganq2]

Thanks to FrizzleFried and others in the mame ini thread for some direction regarding ini files, but I'm still pretty clueless about screen resolution.

I'm using an ArcadeVGA card and a 1980's 19" arcade monitor mounted vertically, and Mame .111b,  in order to play the old classics such as Pac-man, Astroblaster, Galaxian, etc. and have it running at  60hz vertical sync.

I've found that every resolution I've tried other than 352x288 cause scrolling, and if I adjust for that scrolling, then the 352x288 games scroll when I go back to them.  For instance if I adjust to 512x512 to play Satan's Hollow, I must readjust the vertical sync on my monitor - then back again for Galaxian.

Fried educated me that my old monitor isn't robust enough to handle large resolution switches, and I'm OK with accepting that I can't play games like Satan's Hollow, Spy Hunter, etc. without readjusting from the 352x288 resolution games.

But regarding trying to optimize the other games, I absolutely can not find any resolutions except 352x288 or 512x512 that will run.  I installed mame .106 and ran ArcadeVGARes and none of the 30+ games I had would display with the values that ArcadeVGARes picked for them.

However, if I change the ini files on the games yo 352x288 they display well again.

So, am I limited to 352x288 (or 512x512)  for every game?  Is there another resolution I should try?  Most of the games I've been running seem to look pretty good at 352x288: Pac-Man, Frogger, Astro Blaster, 1943 and Pheonix.  Gorf displays, but is a little too long.

I understand that different resolutions change the number of pixels that seem to display on my monitor, and I see how that changes the amount of what is shown on the screen.  But I really don't understand how to know what resolutions my arcade monitor can show and what resolutions particular games prefer.  And I don't understand why when I set the resultion to 352x288, many games appear the same size, but then something like Gorf is super-long.   Other than Andy's arcade page, is there somewhere I can look to read up on this?

[FrizzleFried]

For vertically mounted monitors...take the ARCADEVGA.TXT file that the Mame Resolution Tool loads up to know the resolutions available...and then REVERSE all the numbers...

640x480 become 480x640
640x288 becomes 288x640
etc...

I think you will be surprised with the results.

[loganq2]

Thanks FrizzleFried for the response!

I changed the ARCADEVGA.TXT file as you suggested and wound up with a lot of slightly scrolling full screen displays with a little cut off on the top and bottom.  I could probably adjust the scrolling, but the size was too big anyway.

I also added 352x288 to the file, but the program did not choose that for any of the games -- and I'm sure that is the optimal resolution for some of them!

Can you explain (or direct me where to read) more about how monitor resolution works?  I tried making changes to experiment, but any change seems to result in a picture too big, that is the picture has plenty of border and I change to 353x288 or 352x289 and the picture becomes huge with just one increment.