Constantly adjusting screen size using ArcadeVGA and New Astro City

[pookycade2]

I've searched and while there are snippets on this topic, I still haven't found my question answered.

I have an old ArcadeVGA version 1 card. Works great and is connected thru a J-PAC to a 29" Nanao 15kHz (possibly also 25kHz but could never get that mode to run) monitor found in a Sega New Astro City). To generate the .INI file I used the AVRES utility. I was running MAME32UI, but was going to try to switch to MALA.

I can run everything, horizontals/verticals (monitor is in horizontal position). Thats not the problem. The problem is that whenever I switch back to the MAME32UI (at 640x480i) I have to adjust the horizontal and vertical picture size so that it looks right and fills the screen appropriately. Run another game (say MS Pac Man) and I get to readjust the screen size again. Change to Track and Field and adjust the screen size again .... you get the picture. It is so inconvenient that I took the monitor adjustment controls (which is a separate circuit board on the New Astro City) and mounted it on the outside of the cabinet. Can you say UGLY ?

Is there anyway around this short of staying at 1 resolution for all games (such as 640x480i or 640x288) and then hardware stretching. Of course, hardware stretching would defeat the whole purpose of a Arcade monitor.  I don't see this as a commonly reported problem so maybe I am doing something stupid here.  If I subbed out a WG Tri-sync unit would it have this problem too. That would be a little waste of money since the Nanao is a great monitor, but this is so annoying that it might be worth it.

[Ummon]

Read    monitor     wiki.

[Kevin Mullins]

I find the "monitor wiki" to be about useless.

(my opinion of course)

[pookycade2]

Read    monitor     wiki.

You know, in perusing the search function in trying to find an answer to this question I came across lots of threads where you have posted. Obviously you are a prolific poster and been around lots longer than I have. You certainly probably know alot about the topic. However, it seems the majority of your posts are always the same thing "read monitor wiki".

Ok, I have read the monitor wiki (and in fact I read it before posting this question). You obviously took the time to read the qeustion and post. How about actually posting an answer instead of a not so useful comment. The answer to my question is not there (at least not in any readily identifiable form).

Prove me wrong .... paraphrase exactly where in the wiki it answers my question. In fact, I'll make it easier ... paraphrase anywhere that it says anything about having to adjust the monitor controls for screen size depending on the game that is run and how you get around this problem other than hardware stretching.

People come to these forums for help, and while yes stupid questions are often asked, or for people like yourself questions that have been asked about 1000 times, providing a reply to the effect of "try google" is pretty darn unhelpful and frankly annoying.

[malelanct]

Theres alot of info on this topic in the soft15khz sticky thread, where sailorsat talks about the fact that these monitors are "dumb" and will not remember screen settings for different resolutions.  i can try my best to paraphrase

basically your only option is going to be to use cabmame or advancemame, and create a custom modeline for each game, which will position the screen in the right spot, with the right offset,

other then that, you're kind of screwed,

i'm guessing the reason this is this way, is because it was cheaper to manufacture screens like this, and since they were only displaying one game at one resolution, it didnt really matter

there is talks in soft15khz thread regarding a possible utility, to maybe be created in the future to sorta automatically detect the offset required and generate a modeline to center the screen at that resolution.  unless i misunderstood, as far as i know, nothing like this exists yet.

hope this is more helpful to you.

[Jack Burton]

I find the "monitor wiki" to be about useless.

(my opinion of course)

agreed.

[pookycade2]

Theres alot of info on this topic in the soft15khz sticky thread, where sailorsat talks about the fact that these monitors are "dumb" and will not remember screen settings for different resolutions.  i can try my best to paraphrase

basically your only option is going to be to use cabmame or advancemame, and create a custom modeline for each game, which will position the screen in the right spot, with the right offset,

other then that, you're kind of screwed,

i'm guessing the reason this is this way, is because it was cheaper to manufacture screens like this, and since they were only displaying one game at one resolution, it didnt really matter

there is talks in soft15khz thread regarding a possible utility, to maybe be created in the future to sorta automatically detect the offset required and generate a modeline to center the screen at that resolution.  unless i misunderstood, as far as i know, nothing like this exists yet.

hope this is more helpful to you.

That was definitely much more helpful. Thanks alot. I was thinking exactly this...that these cabinets were really only ever meant to display 1 game at a time, so adjusting the monitor in those instances wouldn't be a big deal if you only had to change it once every few months.

Do you know if the tri-sync monitors, particularly the WG 9800 series, have this problem as well ?

thanks

[Kevin Mullins]

I would think you would still have similar issues if you still only plan to run at ONE resolution.

Now forgive me for NOT knowing MAME diddly, but I would lean towards having to tweak each game with a res tool of sorts for each game that isn't right for ya.
The other thing that I see is you noted such games as Ms. Pac.... which is meant to be displayed on a vertically mounted monitor (obviously) so when displaying it on a horizontally mounted monitor you WILL have to tweak something in order for it to display remotely correct. Take that same game and tell MAME to rotate it 90degrees and see if it fills the screen better.

My limited $.02

EDIT:
I know you mentioned the AVRES tool ...... but I have seen references to this one as well.
MAME Resolution Tool (this was the first place I could find it)

[MonMotha]

MAME, when outputting "native" video, really does just output video exactly how the original board did.  This means that there are some rather large variances in number of active vs. blank lines, porch widths, sync widths, etc.  Some digital monitors have a lot of "memories" and will hold settings for your most commonly used games, but many only have one or two memories per resolution (e.g. there may be a memory for 14-15k, one for 15.1-16k, one for 23-24k, one for 25-26k, etc.).  If you only play a few games, this may work for you, but if you play lots of games, you may still end up adjusting frequently.  YMMV.

Remember, the monitor only knows a few things about your video.  It does NOT know what game you're playing.  Many games are indistinguishable from the data the monitor knows but have differing blank areas.

The reason for older monitors not having separate "memories" is that their "memory" for settings is physical knobs and dials.  Things change when you physically move them.

There are some nifty tricks you can do to "box in" the video to try to make everything about the same without sacrificing "nativeness", but you'd have to configure that.

Disclaimer: I don't run MAME.  Real game hardware all the way   I do frequently swap boards, though, and yes, I do have to re-adjust even my digital monitors for most of them.

[Ummon]

On the page linked in my sig. These tell all about how CRTs work, the difference between analog and digital monitors, the details of native resolution display, and how to set an analog monitor for overall best display of games (which is mode/resolution-dependent) :


As well, one should read either or both of the following links before attempting a native display set-up:

http://easymamecab.mameworld.net/

http://kirurg.org/emame/timing/

[Kevin Mullins]

As well, one should read either or both of the following links before attempting a native display set-up:

http://easymamecab.mameworld.net/

Yeah, the first of which has been a broken link for a LONG time.
Along with many links that point to "mameworld.net"

And mamedev.org/ seems to have retained very little of this sort of information.
There's this: http://mamedev.org/devwiki/index.php/FAQ:Video 

[pookycade2]

MAME, when outputting "native" video, really does just output video exactly how the original board did.  This means that there are some rather large variances in number of active vs. blank lines, porch widths, sync widths, etc.  Some digital monitors have a lot of "memories" and will hold settings for your most commonly used games, but many only have one or two memories per resolution (e.g. there may be a memory for 14-15k, one for 15.1-16k, one for 23-24k, one for 25-26k, etc.).  If you only play a few games, this may work for you, but if you play lots of games, you may still end up adjusting frequently.  YMMV.

Remember, the monitor only knows a few things about your video.  It does NOT know what game you're playing.  Many games are indistinguishable from the data the monitor knows but have differing blank areas.

The reason for older monitors not having separate "memories" is that their "memory" for settings is physical knobs and dials.  Things change when you physically move them.

There are some nifty tricks you can do to "box in" the video to try to make everything about the same without sacrificing "nativeness", but you'd have to configure that.

Disclaimer: I don't run MAME.  Real game hardware all the way   I do frequently swap boards, though, and yes, I do have to re-adjust even my digital monitors for most of them.

great info and to a (former) electrical engineer this all of course makes perfect sense. I'm surprised that for the MAME pseudo-"only run NATIVE" purists out there this hasn't received a more complete guide. You are almost certainly right that with some creativity you could indeed box-in the video and with the advent of all the mame overlay artwork it would seem more possible than not. However, it seems the artwork, specifically cropping, was made more to fill the empty space in an LCD than help the arcade monitor MAME boxes.  That someone hasn't tackled this yet with full guide and such is a little surprising given the rabidness of the community to go after these things.

Theres a discussion going on over at xxxxin1 on improving the output of that pseudo-JAMMA MAME board to arcade monitor, which I had looked into to solve my problems. It seems that board also hardware stretches in its MAME config giving default blurry video but requiring only 1 resolution.
http://www.xxxx-in-1.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=443#5349

I actually have by chance a 4:3 Samsung 29" CRT HDTV for install if I so desired. Again purists would scoff, but I just want something that is easy for my family to play so that it actually gets used. Its always a compromise trying to have the "arcade feel" and trying to make it easy to use. You could stick that monitor into the cabinet, use hardware stretching with the full 1080i resolution and get something that approximates my real arcade monitor with a true tube, but with a more friendly output not needing constant adjustment. With 1080i you'd have enough pixels to play with to hopefully make it look halfway decent. Not saying I'm going to do this, but I am considering all options.

[SailorSat]

Thats will work fine for most cases and depending on the tube, you actually get a "classic" TV Tube which will look pretty oldskool itself.
At least I did on my m2c 29" 'hdtv' monitor.

[Jack Burton]

Would it be possible for somebody to make a digital adjustment box for analog monitors that remembers resolutions and screen settings? 

Advancemame can kind of do this right?  You can set  your screen off-set and advancemame will try to match the image to your monitor.  It seems to work "all right".  Not perfect, but definitely playable.  You usually lose a few pixels to the left and right.  It seems to do a very good job with vertical centering. 

In the past I wanted to put to repair and put the 25" arcade monitor that came with my cab back instead of the 19" PC monitor I have in there right now.

But now there's no way that will happen.  I got extremely luck when I got a 19" digital multisync for free, and now I wouldn't take anything in the world for it.  I'll sacrifice the size for the ease of use.

also, you wouldn't happen to still have that Astro cab would you?

[pookycade2]

Would it be possible for somebody to make a digital adjustment box for analog monitors that remembers resolutions and screen settings? 

Advancemame can kind of do this right?  You can set  your screen off-set and advancemame will try to match the image to your monitor.  It seems to work "all right".  Not perfect, but definitely playable.  You usually lose a few pixels to the left and right.  It seems to do a very good job with vertical centering. 

In the past I wanted to put to repair and put the 25" arcade monitor that came with my cab back instead of the 19" PC monitor I have in there right now.

But now there's no way that will happen.  I got extremely luck when I got a 19" digital multisync for free, and now I wouldn't take anything in the world for it.  I'll sacrifice the size for the ease of use.

also, you wouldn't happen to still have that Astro cab would you?

You would think ultimarc would have come out with something like this if it was doable. The problem is that it would seem very monitor specific

Not only have the New Astro city, just purchased a second one for dedicated vertical games. Going to put in the 60 in 1 board since it seems to be generally well regarded. $600 total shipped across country http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=86599  Its not NEW like the thread says, but it was in decent condition on arrival and the guy is pretty standup to deal with. I consider that a pretty darn good price since its usually $400 direct from Japan with another $600 shipping costs on top of that.

[Ummon]

As well, one should read either or both of the following links before attempting a native display set-up:

http://easymamecab.mameworld.net/

Yeah, the first of which has been a broken link for a LONG time.
Along with many links that point to "mameworld.net"

Actually, it seemed to be a casualty of the MW service switch, but was back up several days later. I hadn't checked it since then, though. Still, the Embedded Mame page is a good resource.

[Ummon]

And easymamecab did survive. Rather than .net, it's .info :

http://easymamecab.mameworld.info/

[Kevin Mullins]

Cool..... just wish there had been a better job at redirecting some of that stuff.
(I really don't keep up with the MAME stuff to begin with honestly)

One of the best "How it Works" type sites I've seen yet.
http://easymamecab.mameworld.info/html/monitor1.htm