Advmame and RivaFB

[SeTTleR]

Hi,

first of all I'd like to say "Thank You" for the many many hints, I found here. But now I got some serious problems with my Mame-Machine.
I've got an AMD Athlon XP 2200+ with an MSI KT880 Delta-FSR Mainboard, 5120 MB RAM and a Geforce 2 GTS. My Cab is an ADP TV-Ideal Twinline with a Valvo VCC93 Chassis and a Philips Tube. The Connection between the PC and the Cab is a J-PAC. I use Debian Sarge as Operating System.
I use the newest Version of advmame and advmenu. Advmenu is up and running but I have some Problems with advmame. I think that the rivafb is the cause for this problem.
I cannot use advcfg. Everytime I start it, i get a black screen. When I kill it with ctrl+c I get the prompt and I can see the menu from advcfg. So the problem is: How do I configure advmame to use the correct modelines? Btw. it's the same with advv: black screen.
I copied the modelines from the standard.rc in the contrib directory of the advmame-source into my advmame.rc. This works for nearly the half of my games. With the other half of the games, i got some fuzzy pictures and I can quit the game with the correct Hotkeys (so the game is working, only the picture is not ok) or the PC freezes and I've got to reset it.
The other problem is: How do I configure the rivafb so that I can see a shell on my arcademonitor? I've got the fbset program and a PAL and NTSC entry in the /etc/fb.modes file which I got from the Examples somewhere under /usr/share/doc/ directory but that does not work for me.
I think that's all an issue with the rivafb-driver.  Ah btw. I use the standard Kernel-Image from Debian Sarge (2.6.8.1 or something). I compiled my own Kernel from the 2.6.11.7 Vanilla-Source but there i cannot get the rivafb working correctly. Everytime I start advcfg I get something like rivafb_pan_display start and rivafb_pan_display end in a loop so that I have to reset my PC. Is there a Patch for the rivafb or something? I have not found anything at google.
Sorry for Typos and wrong grammar.. I am from Germany

Bernd Wittefeld

[elvis]

In the AdvanceMAME folder you'll find patches for both rivafb and svgalib which help forcing low pclocks and other things that need slight fixing for advmame/advcfg.

When you decompress the AdvanceMAME source, check the "/contrib/mame/fb/" directory, and the "readme.txt" file in there.

To patch, simply 'cd' to your linux kernel sources location and type:

patch -p1 < /location/advancemame-0.9X.X/contrib/mame/fb/linux-2.X.XX-fb.h.diff

(obviously replacing the various X's with the version that matches your software).

I don't know anyone else using fb for AdvanceMAME.  Most of the folks I see use svgalib instead.  I couldn't really say which is better, as I've never objectively compared the two.  Perhaps if fb still gives you troubles, investigate svgalib instead and see how you go?

And no need to apologise for your English.   There's a few folks on these boards whose first language is English and their typing is much harder to understand than yours.

[SeTTleR]

Hey,
thanks for the answer. I've seen the patches in the Contrib-Directory, but they are for Kernel-Version 2.4.21 and 2.4.22. I tried a 2.6.11.7 Vanilla-Kernel, so I have not tested the patches. I think I will try svgalib or buy a Matrox G400.
I don't know what's the problem with the rivafb. Perhaps my card isn't well supported by that driver.
Another question: Can anyone of you play SNES or Genesis games with the linux framebuffer or svgalib on an arcade monitor?

thanks for your help

Bernd