Help with soft15khz and quickres

[Nataq]

Ok. I have read and read about soft15 to a point where I am completly lost. Its a shame that there is not a comprehensive guide anywhere. The sticky post is full of users experience that couldnt answer my questions. A straight setup guide would be great. Anyway, before saying to read other posts let me tell you that I tried and lost many hours...

My setup:
ATI 9600 pro with DVI to component dongle to TV that works like a charm. Picture is good but could be better.
I am using Catalyst 6.5 since soft15 pop me a message a should use this version with older card (9600 pro is an older card I guess)
I am running a PC monitor as monitor 1 and TV as monitor 2.
I installed soft15 on monitor 2 (TV). Soft15 software tell me it is active.
I installed quickres (from the icon on the taskbar it gives me only 3 resolution to chose from (640x480, 800x600, 1024x768)
I am running AtomicFE as my frontend in 640x480
MAME.INI is set to switchres.

My questions :

1) I cant see any changes using soft15 or not even if it says active in soft15. Something is wrong...
2) Why quickres not offering me any other resolutions than the 3 basic ones from the taskbar  (640x480, 800x600, 1024x768) ?
3) How is quickres useful to me if I am using a frontend ? I mean, I am not in Windows to change the resolution manually. My cab boots up in AtomicFE directly.
4) When in MAME with switchres 1, games are not running full screen... they show as a very small square in the middle of the screen. Seems like it stills in 640x480 and trying to display a lower res. How come ?

Another unrelated question when I'm at it. My screen is too large. Left, right and bottom is cut. Is that what we call overscan ? Catalyst driver doesnt want to let me fix the screen when using component out (tells me to switch to 720p or 1080i to do it but my TV obviously doesnt support that). Is there another way to fix this properly beside playing with the TV service menu ? Then again, maybe im doing it wrong with all the resolution stuff so it could possibly fix itself when I'll be using soft15 correctly.

Thank you very much!!!

[LS1]

I'm going through similar issues with my setup, but I think installing/running soft-15 is a simple one time thing, run it, click the install for the 15, 25, 31 resolutions and you're done.  It just adds resolutions to your registry.  Then you should see all the resolutions in quickres.  I think i had to restart to get them to show up in quickres.

I second the idea of a simple guide to setting it up, the thread is like 40 pages of fairly useless info to me, with a few tidbits of decent info.

You need the extra resolutions once you leave your front end and run mame.  The front end isnt be able to set the resolutions on a game by game basis(i'm not sure though about atomicfe since i use mala), mame does that.

most older tv's should have some knobs on the back to let you adjust horizontal and vertical height, and shift, if not the service menu can.


***after rereading your post, I'm really not sure soft-15 is needed for a tv, its meant specifically for connecting to arcade monitors.

[Nataq]

Lower resolution than 640x480 (or maybe only one lower but close) doesnt show up after soft15 and quickres installation... My card shows as suported though. Why would it be ? I'll try just the TV connected without PC monitor... But any idea ?

[northerngames]

use the AVres tool from ultimarc for the emu's make sure you soft 15K is installed on C: not desktop.

640X480 should be set for desktop only everything else gets set lower with the AVRES tool

[Nataq]

I'll give this software a try but all of a sudden soft15 seems to work and I cant say why... It really make a difference.

Now some of the games dont look right like Pac-Man Jr. I'll have to play with the resolution. I know lots of topic talk about that and I wish there is a simple compromise for those vertical games instead of configuring each game one by one. Something like for resolution X use resolution Y instead. Is there some trick like this somewhere ?

Thank you again

[Nataq]

Keepaspectratio to 1 did the trick hehe sorry, should have tried before.

Strange thing I'va noticed is that I dont have switchres set to 1 but still everything looks better then before it seems. Maybe im doing it wrong again. Need to try the software you talked about...

[northerngames]

if your not running the AVres yet do so as it will make all the games run native instead of doing them one by one.

[Nataq]

ARRRGGHHH...

AVres doesnt give me other resolution and I lost my good config somehow. Now games are displayed in a very small window in MAME and I cant seem to get back the picture I had before.

For resolution, my guess is that I dont have lower resolution then 640X480 cause I'm on a TV, not an arcade monitor. Am I right ?

And why a;ll my games are showing small now? MAME.INI doesnt seem to fix anything...

[Ummon]

Search under 'TOK component'.

[Nataq]

I read some of the threads there and it seems that there is a driver/video card issue if I am not seeing the lower resolutions. I will try PowerStrip and see.

[Nataq]

I was able to create a custom resolution in powerstrip (320x240) but again everything (FE and MAME) shows in a very small windows instead of fullscreen. It appears to me that it runs 320x240 in a 640x480 screen... Any details I should take care of while creating the resolution ? I set it to 60hz is that fine ? I begin to think it is a driver issue.

320x240 should display in full screen automatically or not ? What is it doing for you guys with standard TV ?

Using AVres and running MAME with switchres to 1 gave me the same result (running in a very small window). Looks like the 9600 card I have cannot display the resolution correctly. I would like some confirmation on this from you guys... Any drivers I should use to correct this problem ? I have tried Catalyst 6.5 and the last one (9.x or something).

Tell me what video card you have so I can look forward to buy a working one.

640x480 do look good though with soft15 but if it can be better with little effort (change video card) why not.

Thank you!!

[northerngames]

I use quikres for desktop
soft15K for software
AVres to do the resultion settings
sapphire X1950 pro 512MB DDR3 this card is a bit overkill for just classic gaming but it does work great for running soft 15K

also running the most current ATI driver 9.X

[Nataq]

And you are running MAME on a TV ? Not an arcade monitor ?

I am wondering if it is the TV that wont take the 320x240 resolution. Powerstrip let me chose 320x240 so the drivers should be ok im assuming. Is 60hz ok for this resolution ?

I thought maybe increasing the TV V and H setting by the service menu could do it but it wont me go as far as filling the screen and in fact still missing a lot to fill. I dont think it is the good way.

Still looking for people that had similar problem...