What are the best MAME settings for S-Video + 27" TV setup?

[ARTIFACT]

(I posted this in the Software forum since it's kind of a mame question, but was asked to post here instead)

the title says it all

thank you for your help ... there are many settings to tweak and I want to make sure it's all setup how it should be

interestingly, my laptop (GeForce 6800 GO + S-Video) which I was testing things with before acquiring my dedicated cab PC (GeForce MX 4) had a better "look" in the image... I don't know if it was a mame setting or the different video card output (I have since deleted the emu from there so can't check).

it looked nice with the scanlines very "visible" even when the image is still.

on my new dedicated pc, the image looks okay, but mostly "blurry with subtle scanlines" when still, and then while the image scrolls: much sharper scanlines / more like what I want. At all times, the image appears to be flickering / shaking subtly as well. Known symptons for a card with bad quality S-Video output? Or are those MAME settings? Windows Settings?

What do you think?

Before I go spend more $ on an ATI (which people seem to like), let me know about setting combinations I should test my setup with.

THANKS!

[ARTIFACT]

in case it makes any difference, my cab TV is a Sony Trinitron from 2000 (curved horizontally but flat vertically). No component input.

[ARTIFACT]

I spent a bit of time reading thru this thread:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=68054.0

Please let me know if there is more information I should know about

thank you

[Justin Z]

I have had the same problems others in that thread did -- if I don't enable hwstretch I get a small screensize in most games.

I still have been unable to find a workaround for it, so I leave hwstretch on and in my opinion it looks fine -- sharp, clear delineated lines, no smoothing or blurring noticeable.

[ahofle]

Are the games that show up as a little box all vertical games?  Try setting 'switchres' to 0 for those (switch resolution to fit = 0).  Hwstretch = bad on TV/arcade monitors.

[ARTIFACT]

I can't wait to test all these settings tonight!

[Justin Z]

Are the games that show up as a little box all vertical games?  Try setting 'switchres' to 0 for those (switch resolution to fit = 0).  Hwstretch = bad on TV/arcade monitors.

Good question, and I'm not positive.  I'll check it out tonight.  Doesn't seem like it, but since I haven't given much thought to it, you may be right about this line of thinking.

I'll be especially interested if this turns out to be true to see the difference between hwstretch = 0 and 1 because it looks exceptional to me even with hwstretch on.

Thanks.

[ARTIFACT]

when I do that

it looks okay

picture vibrates quite a bit (perhaps a tweak in my nvidia control panel)

IMAGE IS NOT ALWAYS FULL SCREEN

for example final fight looks stretched horizontally like a letterbox

[ARTIFACT]

for *some* reason the best looking result is with the defaults:

d3d
no resolution switch
hardware stretch

go figure!

not the "sharpest", but otherwise it is either very blocky (SF2 looks like the SNES version!!) or stretched in weird ways (letterbox)


if anyone has suggestions, I am listening


would the soft-15khz app help me in any way? I know it's S-Video, but is it worth testing with that?

[wpcmame]

Sorry but I don't get it.

AFAIK S-video can only transport a normal TV-signal, i.e. PAL, NTSC & SECAM. This means that the output signal will always be 480i/60HZ (NTSC) regardless of the game/desktop resolution.

The question is only where you want the scaling/refreshrate conversion to happen.

1. Set the desktop to 640x480x60Hz, hwstretch=1 switchres = 0
Scaling from the game resolution to NTSC will occur in DirectX
(Hopefully the svideo circuit doesn't mess with a 640x480x60 signal)

2. Use ddraw or hwstretch=0 and switchres=1
Conversion to NTSC will be made by the svideo circuit on the graphics board
(For this you need to use powerstrip or soft15KHz. Not sure if the svideo circuit can convert custom resolutions to svideo though)

Another source of confusion is the mame resolution settings. Mame will always go through all resolutions available and select the one it think is best. The resolution specified on the command line or ini-file get a high priority.

This means that if you specify a resolution in the ini-file that doesn't exist mame just ignores your setting without any errormessage.

[ARTIFACT]

well although I understand many of the video concepts, I wasn't 100% sure about the limitations of S-Video.
I grew up in europe, where it's all PERITEL / SCART and haven't really used S-Video in the past.

So thanks for clearing up some of my misunderstandings wpcmame

my take on this is that not all video cards are made equal when comes to S-Video output quality... Read my comment about my laptop outputting MUCH nicer looking video (same resolution, yes, but scanlines are more defined, picture doesn't "shake", etc). Thus, I will try another ATI video card that I can borrow for a couple of days and see if that helps. I'll also follow your suggestions above with both my current card and the one I'll borrow.

Last resort is to pick up a TV with component input on the cheap, and plug using an adapter. I understand component can send out more resolutions ala RGB correct?

Thanks for all the input / help here!

[Justin Z]

Yeah component is definitely nicer, and it's the setup I've got.  You'll see quality that approaches SCART with component.  I've still yet to try the settings as ahofle laid them out.

[Justin Z]

Unfortunately no luck with any of those settings.  Bizarrely, MAME crashes when I try to load TRON with hwstretch off.  I don't know what that's about.  I tried some horizontal games with it off and really noticed no difference whatsoever in quality, so I'm fine with it as-is.

[ahofle]

I'm starting to wonder if something changed with the video rewrites since I had a TV last (probably was before then that I was still using a TV with MAME).  There used to be a 'clean stretch' option that stretched the image without any anti-aliasing or artifacts.  Seems to be gone now. 

[ARTIFACT]

hwstretch 0

gives me a tiny screen in most games

i tried another card (ATI) and the s-video image was WORST than with my nvidia card - CHECKERBOARDS throughout the picture

I then tweaked my nvidia image from the nvidia software (disabled the flicker filter, etc) and it's MUCH BETTER. Still, I kept hwstretch "1" because I want games full screen and not tiny