Having difficulties; should I buy an ArcadeVGA?

[MattWilson]

I've recently gotten a JAMMA cabinet that I've been trying to convert into a MAME machine. The monitor is a WG K7400, and it works fine with the PCB that came with the cabinet (Tekken Tag). I got the Ultimarc J-Pac and tried several options, none of which worked with my nVidia GeForce 5700 Ultra:

1) Using Soft-15Khz and running MAMEWah
2) Booting with AdvanceCD and using AdvanceMAME (SUPPOSED to be compatible with my card!)
3) Booting with Fraggal's BootCD

Not only did option 1 not work, but now I can't even use Windows on a computer monitor, and booting to Safe or VGA Modes don't work (I dont think this is related though).

I read the AdvanceCD instructions and pasted the config lines into advmame and advmenu.rc respectively, but upon launching, all I get is garbled sprinkles, followed by other garbled sprinkles. Keep in mind, when my computer is just starting up, the screen goes vertically nutso and it wraps around, but I can still read the text, I can still recognize the DELL logo. AdvanceCD/Menu/Mame is just pumping out snow, it's different. I guess it's possible something is wrong in the .rc files, but I don't know what, because I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't want to make any careless mistakes here.

Should I just forget all this and get an ArcadeVGA? Or am I overlooking something obvious?

[StephenH]

Yes, I beleive ArcadeVGA may solve these problems.  Please note that with a 15Khz arcade monitor you can't go over 300 vertical pixels (non-interlaced).   If you interlace, you can run 640x480 or 800x600, but not in non-interlaced.   

[MattWilson]

Hey, here's a followup.

I was able to get my cab running! After spending hours restoring my ability to get back into Windows and resetting everything, trying out Powerstrip became my savior. 640x480i works just fine, after lowering brightness and contrast on my video card. I don't know why soft-15khz didn't work out. Aside from a little blue bleeding, everything looks good.

Thanks for the help!

[essence25]

Well soft15khz did some strange stuff for me too, but on a fresh xp install and ATI 9800 pro all resolutions are available and a gorgeous bright image.
Running mame32 here and its clear on my 27" Neotec 500DX monitor. Tri-sync.

What I cant do is run Super Contra properly since the closest res for it is at 50hz. Sound stutter and game running at 85%. But arcade vga has the exact same resolutions also. So far soft15khz works exactly like an arcadevga.

I do get the pc boot screens also on this monitor. 720x480x60hz.  for the desktop

I dont know why they set 800x600 at 50hz instead of 60hz I cant stand it. Same goes for the 1024x768. If anyone knows how to make a custom file
to chage those two to 60hz would be nice.

[SailorSat]

I dont know why they set 800x600 at 50hz instead of 60hz I cant stand it. Same goes for the 1024x768. If anyone knows how to make a custom file
to chage those two to 60hz would be nice.

Thats because the 31kHz modes are simply the 15kHz modelines without the interlace.

create a textfile called 'custom31khz.txt' in the soft-15khz directory and add the following lines...

Code: [Select]

modeline '800x600@60' 40,0 800 840 968 1056 600 601 605 628 -hsync -vsync
modeline '1024x768@60' 65,0 1024 1048 1184 1344 768 771 777 806 -vsync -hsyncthen uninstall and reinstall soft-15khz.
/!\ please note that 800x600@60Hz is 35kHz, and 1024x768@60Hz is 48kHz.