There is a community of us who use nvidia cards inconjunction with MAME and multisync arcade monitors. In the quest of getting as close as possible to the real arcade games of old(pacman, donkey kong, etc..) there is a program out there called SOFT 15KHZ. What it does it allow Nvidia and ATI cards to run and at very low resolutions.
http://community.arcadeinfo.de/showthread.php?t=8170o 15kHz
240 x 240 @ 60Hz
256 x 240 @ 60Hz
256 x 256 @ 60Hz
256 x 264 @ 60Hz
304 x 240 @ 60Hz
321 x 240 @ 60Hz *
321 x 256 @ 60Hz *
336 x 240 @ 60Hz
352 x 256 @ 60Hz
352 x 264 @ 60Hz
352 x 288 @ 50Hz **
368 x 240 @ 60Hz
384 x 288 @ 50Hz **
392 x 240 @ 60Hz
401 x 256 @ 53Hz * **
448 x 240 @ 60Hz
512 x 240 @ 60Hz
512 x 288 @ 50Hz **
632 x 264 @ 56Hz **
640 x 240 @ 60Hz
640 x 288 @ 50Hz **
640 x 240 @ 60Hz
512 x 448 @ 60Hz Interlace
512 x 512 @ 60Hz Interlace
640 x 480 @ 60Hz Interlace
720 x 480 @ 60Hz Interlace
800 x 600 @ 50Hz Interlace **
1024 x 768 @ 50Hz Interlace **
* "Fake"-Resolution to avoid DirectX-Problems.
** Says 60Hz in Windows.
o 25kHz
448 x 384 @ 60Hz
512 x 384 @ 60Hz
o 31kHz
512 x 448 @ 60Hz
512 x 512 @ 60Hz
640 x 480 @ 60Hz
720 x 480 @ 60Hz
800 x 600 @ 50Hz **
1024 x 768 @ 50Hz **
This allows us to display arcade games very close to their original resolution. Soft 15khz accomplishes this by adding those resolutions to the registry. However these resolutions that you see above work for about 95% of games. Unfortanuatly a lot of the classics like pacman run at say 304x240@58z. This casues games sound and graphics to stutter because of the 2hz difference from the original game. This can easily be fixed adding an addition modeline to reflect the proper resolution and refresh rate through Soft 15KHZ, however there is a limitation with Forceware drivers
Theres a limit of 32 modelines with Nvidia drivers
A "bug" in the ForceWare.
They read/write from/to the CUST_MODE registry key with a 3000 byte buffer, while one mode is 92 bytes.
32 Modes * 92 Byte = 2944 Bytes = fine.
33 Modes * 92 Byte = 3036 Bytes = buffer overrun.
If you add more modes via the default NVidia controls you'll end up with garbage in the registry the first way.
If you add more modes via Soft-15kHz the data in the registry is fine.
However, on bootup, the driver reads only those 3000 bytes, which cuts off the 33rd mode and anything behind it, causing the whole CUST_MODE string getting detected as "faulty" and droped, hence the card generates the modes itself IN 31kHz.
This was taken from this thread
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=66402.240Can the 3000 byte buffer be increased in the driver?
This is an update in MAME 123u3 that will allow for limitless monitor configurations.
Updated info.c to output raw video parameters (pixclock, htotal,
hbend, hbstart, vtotal, vbend, vbstart) via -listxml if they have
been given. [couriersud]
This is great news, but only for ATI users ATM. Hoping someone out there can figure out how to increase this buffer size so Nvidia users can take advantage of this increased functionality of soft15khz and mame.