Puleeeeeze help a brother out!!

[techn0crat]

I posted a message about a week and a half ago entitled "u3100 issues"
which got like 84 page views and no replies...

To sum the message up I'm having some serious difficulties with old school mame
games (I got everything else running grrrr8!!) on a u3100 in their native resolutions.

Since then I've figured out a lot including the facts that:

- You need to be running at 56hz to use the svga modes on a u3100
- Advancemame doesn't work unless you're using Linux or DOS

Again, I'm running a cocktail system with a 3rd control panel and I've looked
EVERYWHERE trying to find some info on how to to set up windows mame to
run older games with various low native resolutions.

I tried using the mame_resolution_tool to no avail,
all the tools I need to use are greyed out and there's no
documentation on this "info" file anywhere?
(Is this a master list of all the resolutions
of all the games mame supports?)

Maybe I got a little greedy with the questions in that last post,
so I'm only gonna ask two.

-What's the difference (concerning my problem) between a u3100 and a d9200?

-What resolutions is the u3100 paired with an avga capable of, and how do I make
mame switch to them automatically?


Daphne, MK2, NeoGeo, no prob....
I just can't get galaga and/or pacman to run
in their native friggin resolutions!!! 


Could someone please throw me a bone here???
I'm ready to rip my hair out here....
I know cad and I'm a graphic designer... I'd be happy to help someone out
with a logo, panel graphics, a marquee, or even some cad work if they can
help me out with these older games and their cursed modes....
Thanx,
TC

BTW- I've tried WG tech support and they won't return my calls, is this typical?

[techn0crat]

Here's that original post I was talking about:

Hey you guys have a great forum here.
I was hoping someone could shed some light on my problem.

I'm building a cocktail table which is almost finished with the exception of the video.  I'm using an Ultimarc avga card and a WG U3100 monitor.

Everthing works fine more or less with a regular computer monitor hooked up.
But when I plugged the U3100 in, the screen looks like it's too long and the left
side extends back around to the right side of the screen. If I change the resolution, things get bigger or smaller but the wrap-around issue wont go away.

After fiddling with every pot on the monitor in an attempt to adjust the picture,
I tried plugging said WG U3100 into the upper (HDI) jack via an hdi-to-vga adapter.
Success!, at first.
But I can't go higher than 640x480 without getting
a scrambled picture.  In addition to that, the majority of my roms
(pac man, galaxian) cause the picture to scramble until I hit escape.
A few work perfectly (Q-bert, Robocop) and some don't load at all.

So.....
What am I doing wrong?

Which plug should I use on the avga, the top(hdi) one or the
bottom(vga) one?

Is there anyone out there who has a cocktail-type setup with an avga and a U3100? Or any kind of setup with an avga card and a U3100? If so, what mame/frontend/etc are you using?

Am I better off going with advanced mame? What frontend is the best?

Do I need to use a resolution tool? If so, which one is the best?

Is there a good faq somewhere about hyrbid monitors? (that's what I have, right?) or some kind of documentation other than the circuit diagram that came with the monitor?

Any help would be most appreciated We're not worthy!
and I promise I will pass said knowledge along to the next poor soul
I run into confronting similiar problems.

TC

[ahofle]

Isn't that a VGA only monitor?  You won't be able to run Pacman or Galaga (both 288 line games) at native resolutions on that monitor if that's the case.  You can either run them at 640x480 and get black bars on top and bottom, or use hardware stretch which will fill the screen at the expense of a blurred picture.  I could be wrong, but I'm not sure the AVGA is doing anything for you at all with that monitor.  A D9200 (or other multisync) on the other hand not only supports VGA modes, but it also supports medium (25khz or ~512x384) and low resolution (15khz or ~320x240) modes.

[techn0crat]

That's weird because other low-res games like q-bert run fine.
Does anyone else have an opinion on this?.   My next cab is prolly gonna be a neo-geo
stand up, so shelving the u3100 for that and getting another one for my cocktail is def an option.  I just want to make sure I get the right one next time. (something that autoswitches  between various low-res modes.

As for the avga, I swapped it out with a savage4(I think that was it), and everything ran in a little box in the middle of the screen, so I think it's doing something... could be wrong...
Can anyone shed some light on this?

thanxs.
TC

[ahofle]

A good start would be to post your mame.ini, qbert.ini and pacman.ini files.  Also what version of MAME are you using? 

[techn0crat]

I'm running mame v0.116
Here's my mame.ini:

<UNADORNED0>              /

#
# CORE SEARCH PATH OPTIONS
#
rompath                   roms
samplepath                samples
artpath                   artwork
ctrlrpath                 ctrlr
inipath                   .;ini
fontpath                  .

#
# CORE OUTPUT DIRECTORY OPTIONS
#
cfg_directory             cfg
nvram_directory           nvram
memcard_directory         memcard
input_directory           inp
state_directory           sta
snapshot_directory        snap
diff_directory            diff
comment_directory         comments

#
# CORE FILENAME OPTIONS
#
cheat_file                cheat.dat

#
# CORE STATE/PLAYBACK OPTIONS
#
# state                   <NULL> (not set)
autosave                  0
# playback                <NULL> (not set)
# record                  <NULL> (not set)
# mngwrite                <NULL> (not set)
# wavwrite                <NULL> (not set)

#
# CORE PERFORMANCE OPTIONS
#
autoframeskip            1
frameskip                 0
seconds_to_run            0
throttle                  1
sleep                     1

#
# CORE ROTATION OPTIONS
#
rotate                    1
ror                       0
rol                       0
autoror                   0
autorol                   0
flipx                     0
flipy                     0

#
# CORE ARTWORK OPTIONS
#
artwork_crop              0
use_backdrops             1
use_overlays              1
use_bezels                1

#
# CORE SCREEN OPTIONS
#
brightness                1.0
contrast                  1.0
gamma                     1.0
pause_brightness          0.65

#
# CORE VECTOR OPTIONS
#
antialias                 1
beam                      1.0
flicker                   0

#
# CORE SOUND OPTIONS
#
sound                     1
samplerate                48000
samples                   1
volume                    0

#
# CORE INPUT OPTIONS
#
# ctrlr                   <NULL> (not set)

#
# CORE DEBUGGING OPTIONS
#
log                       0
verbose                   0

#
# CORE MISC OPTIONS
#
bios                      default
cheat                     0
skip_gameinfo             0

#
# DEBUGGING OPTIONS
#
oslog                     0

#
# WINDOWS PERFORMANCE OPTIONS
#
priority                  1
multithreading            0

#
# WINDOWS VIDEO OPTIONS
#
video                     ddraw
numscreens                1
window                    0
maximize                  1
keepaspect                1
prescale                  1
effect                    none
waitvsync                 0
syncrefresh               0

#
# DIRECTDRAW-SPECIFIC OPTIONS
#
hwstretch                 0

#
# DIRECT3D-SPECIFIC OPTIONS
#
d3dversion                9
filter                    1

#
# PER-WINDOW VIDEO OPTIONS
#
screen                    auto
aspect                    auto
resolution                auto
view                      auto
screen0                   auto
aspect0                   auto
resolution0               auto
view0                     auto
screen1                   auto
aspect1                   auto
resolution1               auto
view1                     auto
screen2                   auto
aspect2                   auto
resolution2               auto
view2                     auto
screen3                   auto
aspect3                   auto
resolution3               auto
view3                     auto

#
# FULL SCREEN OPTIONS
#
triplebuffer             0
switchres                 1
full_screen_brightness    1.0
full_screen_contrast      1.0
full_screen_gamma         1.0

#
# WINDOWS SOUND OPTIONS
#
audio_latency             1

#
# INPUT DEVICE OPTIONS
#
mouse                     0
joystick                  0
lightgun                  0
dual_lightgun             0
offscreen_reload          0
steadykey                 0
joy_deadzone              0.3
joy_saturation            0.85
digital                   none

#
# AUTOMATIC DEVICE SELECTION OPTIONS
#
paddle_device             keyboard
adstick_device            keyboard
pedal_device              keyboard
dial_device               keyboard
trackball_device          keyboard
lightgun_device           keyboard
positional_device         keyboard

#
# CORE COMMANDS
#

#
# CONFIGURATION COMMANDS
#

#
# FRONTEND COMMANDS
#

#
# CONFIGURATION OPTIONS
#
readconfig                1

as for the games, I never made .ini files for them,
and i can't find any that mame made either.
are these the same thing as the .cfg files that are in xml format?

Here my .cfg for qbert:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- This file is autogenerated; comments and unknown tags will be stripped -->
<mameconfig version="10">
    <system name="qbert">
        <video>
            <target index="0" view="Pixel Aspect (15:16)" rotate="270" />
        </video>
        <input>
            <port type="DIPSWITCH_NAME" mask="4" index="7" defvalue="0" value="4" />
        </input>
    </system>
</mameconfig>

no resolution in there tho... I'm confused.

any help would be really appreciated!
thanx,
TC

[ahofle]

My guess is you'll have to use 640x480 and hardware stretch for those games that are scrambled or only fill up a tiny box in the middle.  To test, make a pacman.ini file in your mame/ini directory and add the following to it:

screen0                   \\.\DISPLAY1
resolution                640x480@0
resolution0               640x480@0
hwstretch                 1


You can try removing the hwstretch (especially for horizontal games), but I'm guessing the image will not fill up the screen if you do that. 

[weasel-like_animal]

TC, did that end up working? I am having those issues as well, but have hit and miss results. I am also using Mame.106.