Hantarex Polo 25" flickering....causing nausea

[Danzig8155]

Hello all, I am a bit of a newbie here, though I have been registered for quite some time....and have been doing home brew arcade projects for about 2 years now.

Recently I aquired a Mortal Kombat II cabinet in tact; Monitor, speakers, Jamma harness...everything but pcb's and control panel.

I purchased the ArcadeVGA and J-PAC, and I'm running a Emachines computer with windows XP, MAMEWAH front end and MAMEUI 32.

Everything works pretty well....only problem is the screen has a flicker to it that is barely noticeable unless you look at the edge of the monitor. I can only play for a little while until I look away and everything seems to be jittery, and it's making me feel a little nauseaus.  Is there anything to adjust or anything at all to make the flickering stop? Also I have the resolution set to 640x288 to run windows so I can tweak as I go.

Any help would be appreciated. Though I've never really posted here, I've used numerous pages from this forum over the years to help with projects, so Thanks to all here, specially Saint for the book. 

[Malenko]

expect flickering while running at that resolution, I had the same thing on the NeoMAME project.
When you run at game at a native resolution does the flickering stop? If it does then its the resolution causing the flickering and nothing else. I must note I wasnt running AVGA I was using Soft15Khz on an Nvidia card.


just curious, why run MAMEWah for a front end and MAMEUI32 ? Not that Im advocating change, but I ran MAME32 (command line) and MaLa and loved it, and when I mame my next cab I plan to do it again.

[Danzig8155]

When I run the games it's still flickering. Thats kind of the problem...cos I spen most my time playing the games, but i can only play so long before my eyes start getting wierd.

As far as MAMEwah and MAMEUI, it was just a quick thing to see how it would work, being my first actual cabinet and all. I am open to any suggestion at all though. (Plus it was easy to setup in my opinion  )

Also the refresh rate with using the AVGA is set to 59. I can't get it to change to anything but that, but would the refresh rate be a problem? And what resolution would be best? I can't go any higher than 640x288 or the screen is flickering massively...even in 640x480.

[Malenko]

are you running the games in the native resolution? the lower the better with arcade monitors

[Danzig8155]

Yes, I used the MAME res tool to get the native resolutions as close as possible. That was going to be another question actually....A few times now when I load a game, say Mortal Kombat II for example...nothing will come up on the screen...then it will have a message saying "Illegal resolution 01: 401x256" or whatever the resolution is set to. I hit enter and it will go "Illegal resolution 01, 02, 03, 04" then it will start the game like normal? any idea what thats about?

And even when I run the games in native resolutions I have the slight flickering...I can't even play it right now cos it makes me very dizzy.

[Kevin Mullins]

http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2005/03/change-refresh-rate-of-your-monitor-avoid-flickers-and-headaches/

A few times now when I load a game, say Mortal Kombat II for example...nothing will come up on the screen...then it will have a message saying "Illegal resolution 01: 401x256" or whatever the resolution is set to. I hit enter and it will go "Illegal resolution 01, 02, 03, 04" then it will start the game like normal? any idea what thats about?

Sounds kinda like it's cycling through different resolutions until it finds one that actually works on your video card / monitor. (?)

[Danzig8155]

I tried before to change the refresh rate through the desktop properties...but the only refresh rate that even pops up for me in the drop box is 59. I've read around about the tri-sync patch fixing some shking problems, could that maybe possibly work?

Also, the ATI control panel for the AVGA does not work correctly. When i try to run it, I just get the windows message that it has encountered a problem and needs to be shutdown. I've tried fixing and reinstalling it from the Ultimarc cd but nothing.

[Malenko]

try to run MKII in 400x254

thats the res I ran on my set up using soft 15, I think whats happening is the monitor can do the res you're picking so its defaulting to the desktop res which is the res that flickers.

[Danzig8155]

Sorry for taking so long to reply. So I tried completely reinstalling windows...reinstalling the arcadevga and drivers and control panel. The control panel still don't work, I got ahold of Andy at Ultimarc about that and also asked him why when I have the arcade monitor and a pc monitor hooked up at the same time, I can't make them two seperate displays through the display properties.

I tried something with the resolution on the arcade monitor based on what Andy said to me....I tried 640x240 resolution, and low and behold the monitor wasn't flickering in windows mode. However when I ran Mortal Kombat II in 400x256, it seemed as the flickering was still there and made my eyes hurt again.

Heres something else....When I was running MKII (this time straight from MAMEUI without MAMEWAH), I ran it at 400x256 right? Well it was smooshed in on the sides. I realized it was in MAME under screen properties that i hadn't checked "Switch resolutions to fit". Once I checked that the game filled the screen, and started to flicker. Without the Switch resolutions checked, it's smooshed and doesn't flicker. Why?!?!

[Malenko]

because your monitor flickers at 400x256 , can you try running MKII in 400x254 ?


Also, if you arent switching resolutions then its scaling MKII up to the desktop resolution of 640x240

[MonMotha]

MK2 runs at a strange resolution.  I don't remember the hardware native res, but it's only like 53Hz vertical refresh (they add more vertical lines to bring it back up to 15kHz horizontal).  53Hz is pretty darned slow, especially by US monitor standards, and on some monitors and for some people that could flicker quite visibly.  That's the way it was running right off the arcade hardware.  Nothing you can do about it if you want native display.

[Danzig8155]

Well I figured if I ran windows at 640x240 and it didn't flicker....maybe the solution was the 240. So I tried MKII at 399x240....and it worked perfect. No flickering at all. The only problem of course is a little of the screen is cut off on the bottom. But I played Mortal Kombat, MKII, Metal Slug 2....none of them had flicker problems....so maybe my monitor just can't handle resolutions above the 240?

Another thing Andy from Ultimarc suggested was maybe my JAMMA edge connector had some wires crossed...like video red where the green is supposed to be and so on.  Looking at a MKII manual downloaded from KLOV...on the left side of the JAMMA chart you have video red at pin 12, blue at 13, ground at 14, green at pin N, video sync at P, and service switch at R. Looking at my JAMMA connector, is it looking from the front where the board connects, or the back where the wires come out to compare it to? This MKII cabinet was a Soul Caliber 3 conversion, so a few wires got snipped for the speakers and so on. I may just buy a whole new JAMMA harness all together.

[Malenko]

well just for fun can you try MKII at 400x254?

[Danzig8155]

Ran MKII at 400x254, and it ran smoother than I've seen  yet on my monitor. Nothing cut off on the screen...did the same to MKI as well. Thanks Malenko! 

I tried applying the same resolution to MK3 and WWF Wrestlemania....but i get that scrunched on the sides look. I have switch resolutions checked, and I changed the .ini files.

One more thing Malenko. Your MKII cab....the CPO....what type do you have? The reason I ask is because I purchased a CPO from MAMEMarquees website, and I'm a little thrown back at the color of it. It said original blue, but it's more of a dark blueish/purple....I know the original is more of a light blue, is this correct?

One I ordered:
http://www.mamemarquees.com/mortal-kombat-orig-blue-p-926.html

Other I found and am considering:
http://www.arcadeoverlays.com/storefrontprofiles/DeluxeSFItemDetail.aspx?sid=1&sfid=17232&c=383928&i=11008374

[Malenko]

its definitely got a purple hint to it. These were just taken , its 6am and its DARK so the flash is going crazy. I can snap a pic after work when the suns out to see if it makes a difference.

This is a dedicated from the factory CP, that the previous owner drilled a hole into for a run button.

[Malenko]

and in case you were wondering, my nephews play on the player 1 side and they block A LOT  they've actually worn off the decal to the point where I pealed it off, I have some spares

[Danzig8155]

Yea I guess it looks like the one I got. This is just a quick fix at the moment to test out the games and some stuff...not the final product. I tried  taking one with out the flash, cos the flash makes it look alot lighter. It's actually a darker color. I like those dragon decals you got on the buttons.

[RayB]

Do you have the option on to let MAME choose best resolution?