horiz games = good/ vert games = too tall ??

[Stobe]

I'm sure this is covered here somewhere, but I have not found the correct search terms to find the answer...

I am running MameWAH on a horizontal arcade monitor, and my horizontal games look great.  But some of my vertical games (pacman, DK, etc) are stretched too tall.  I can use my vertical size pot on my monitor to get them all into view, but this makes the horiz games look funny.

Is there a software setting in mame config I am missing that will solve this problem.  Can I just "scale" down some vertical games to fit within the viewable height of my screen?

Thanks for any help.  I want to be able to see my Ms. PacMan score, lol.

-Stobe

[SirPeale]

Vertical games aren't meant to be played on a horizontal monitor. 

Change from an arcade monitor to a VGA one and that'll work.

[Stobe]

Vertical games aren't meant to be played on a horizontal monitor. 

Change from an arcade monitor to a VGA one and that'll work.

Oh...  I must be the only idiot using an arcade monitor with mame?  (j/k)

The aspect ratio of Windows looks correct, and my 640x480 mamewah layouts are showing right, but when it loads some vert games is when it stretches off the screen.  This is waht was confusing me.

-Stobe

[SirPeale]

Yes, because you're using horizontal applications in the manner which they're designed for.  When you have a vertical game in a horizontal monitor, yeah, it doesn't look right.  If you use the flag -ror or -rol it'll be the way it should, but on it's side.

[Howard_Casto]

I've went over this before on another thread.... manually set mame to run at the maximum resolution it'll handle and use hardware stretch... all will be well as you are only running one resolution.  This is the ONLY way to run every single game in mame on an arcade monitor without having to tweak the monitor's settings for every other game or have a thousand custom profiles, manually tweaked in powerstrip or advancemame.(And even then ps and advmame don't get em all). 

No it won't work in dos, only windows.  This is the very reason I've been preaching for everyone to ditch dos for years now. 

[wpcmame]

This is how it works:

The graphic card can't control the distance between the lines on the monitor. This means that a vertical game like pacman (288 lines) will be bigger than a normal horizontal game (240 lines). To view both games fullscreen the distance between the lines need to be altered and this can only be done on the montior.

This is the same for all monitors, not just arcade monitors.

However, in modern monitors there is often software that allows you to store different settings for different frequencies. This is how a PC monitor can display both 640x480 (31KHz) and 800x600 (35KHz) at full screen even if the number of lines are different.
(note here that the actual resolution isn't considered, only the horizontal and vertical frequency)

Problem with arcade monitors is that most of the time they are "stupid" analog devices with just one setting for distance between lines. Either your vertical games don't fit or your horizontal games get black borders.

Another problem is that you often run both horizontal and vertical games at the same frequecy (15KHz) so even a smart monitor will not work.

The best setup is to have a multi-frequeny "smart" monitor and run horizontal games at 15KHz and vertical games at 18Khz or 35KHz.

Once again. Software on the PC like powerstrip and advmame can't alter the distance between the lines on the monitor.

[Howard_Casto]

Once again. Software on the PC like powerstrip and advmame can't alter the distance between the lines on the monitor.

This isn't completely true either.  Adjusting the frequency and adding line buffers (and all kinds of other stuff I don't even pretend to fully uderstand) can sometimes "fake it". 

Resolution has a lot to do with the screen size it'll fill but not everything.  Don't beleive me... look at old pc monitors...and I mean really old long before the built in adjustment circuitry.  Set it to 640x480 and adjust the picture.  Now set it to 320x240.  Look at the results.  When running at 320x240 it's not going to be prefectly aligned like it was at 640x480, but it'll usually be very presentable.  By your logic it should only fill a quarter of the screen.  See to have the same monitor display different resolutions, the timings (or ferquencey) is adjusted to essentially make one line as wide as two, or what have you.  Resolutions that a multiples of each other usually look similar.  Resolutions with extremely odd aspects and as a result odd frequencies are what cause the problems. 

The goal with powerstrip and advancemame is to tweak the frequency end of things with all your resolutions so that they "like" each other. You also use them to block out resolutions that are too different. They can help somewhat.  With that being said, advance mame and powerstrip still aren't the answer.  As I said, they can only do so much.


And for the record imo the worst possible setup is to have a so-called "smart" monitor, also known as a monitor hybrid.  A monitor hybrid is too crisp and has the wrong dot pitch.  They have the limited resolution and high cost of a arcade monitor and the horrible, pixelated look of a pc monitor.  All-in-all the worst of both worlds.  If you are going to get a hybrid, you might as well get a pc monitor.  They are essentially the same thing, only the pc monitor will be considerably cheaper and support higher resolutions, so you can play pc games on it. 

[wpcmame]

Resolution has a lot to do with the screen size it'll fill but not everything.  Don't beleive me... look at old pc monitors...and I mean really old long before the built in adjustment circuitry.  Set it to 640x480 and adjust the picture.  Now set it to 320x240.  Look at the results.  When running at 320x240 it's not going to be prefectly aligned like it was at 640x480, but it'll usually be very presentable.

To display 320x240 on a VGA monitor you need to double-scan it. That is why it fills the same area as 640x480. Monitor still draws 480 lines but every second line is black since there is no graphics data to draw there.

By your logic it should only fill a quarter of the screen.

Yes if you draw every line.

See to have the same monitor display different resolutions, the timings (or ferquencey) is adjusted to essentially make one line as wide as two, or what have you.

The monitor includes a circuit that moves the beam from top to bottom at a constant speed (and another cirucit that moves it from left to right at a constant speed). When the refresh-signal arrives it moves the beam quickly back to the top again and starts over.

Look on a monitor schematic. Do you find some kind of analog computer that can detect different frequencies (horizontal and vertical) and based on what it finds alter the speed of the other circuits.

And for the record imo the worst possible setup is to have a so-called "smart" monitor, also known as a monitor hybrid.  A monitor hybrid is too crisp and has the wrong dot pitch.

Haven't checked it myself but I'm told that the D9200 is a monitor where the tube got arcade monitor specifications (dot-pitch etc) but electronics that can handle multiple frequency input

[Howard_Casto]

I've got a d9200 (only because I got a REALLY good price for it) they are essentially a glorified pc monitor. 

[Grasshopper]

I've just started using Advance MAME and I have to say it's awesome. I'd never go back to using standard MAME now especially for a cab.

I believe there's a good chance the DOS version of Advmame (which I'm using) will be able to solve your problem. The Linux version might also work but from what I've been reading the Windows version should be avoided. It doesn't offer as much control over the display as it has to use Windows drivers.

Advance MAME comes with a useful utility for setting up custom graphics modes. One of the parameters you can change is the blanking period before and after the scanlines are drawn. I'm guessing that if you increase these parameters then all of the display will become visible. You may also have to alter other parameters such as the frame rate to compensate. Be careful though, it's theoretically possible to damage some monitors if you enter parameters they cannot handle.

BTW, if you tell Advance MAME what your monitor's scanning range is, then it won't let you use modes that are outside the monitor's range.

[Grasshopper]

I've went over this before on another thread.... manually set mame to run at the maximum resolution it'll handle and use hardware stretch... all will be well as you are only running one resolution.  This is the ONLY way to run every single game in mame on an arcade monitor without having to tweak the monitor's settings for every other game or have a thousand custom profiles, manually tweaked in powerstrip or advancemame.(And even then ps and advmame don't get em all). 

No it won't work in dos, only windows.  This is the very reason I've been preaching for everyone to ditch dos for years now. 

I strongly disagree with this. Hardware stretch looks awful. You can achieve far better results with Advance MAME. Sure, it's a bit more work but well worth it in the end.

[Minwah]

I've went over this before on another thread.... manually set mame to run at the maximum resolution it'll handle and use hardware stretch... all will be well as you are only running one resolution.  This is the ONLY way to run every single game in mame on an arcade monitor without having to tweak the monitor's settings for every other game or have a thousand custom profiles, manually tweaked in powerstrip or advancemame.(And even then ps and advmame don't get em all). 

I strongly disagree with this. Hardware stretch looks awful. You can achieve far better results with Advance MAME. Sure, it's a bit more work but well worth it in the end.

I agree with you, Grasshopper.  Hardware stretch is handy at times but looks godawful, and really defeats the point of using an arcade monitor (with the exception of trying to fit medium/high res. games onto a standard res. monitor).

It is easy (with the help of software) to create suitable ini files for each game to get the best (unstretched where possible, and close to native res.) results.

If you're going to hwstretch every game you pretty much might as well just use a PC monitor