The NEW Build Your Own Arcade Controls
Main => Monitor/Video Forum => Topic started by: Blacksmith on June 21, 2005, 10:08:09 pm
-
Last summer, after finishing up my mame machine with new computer and brand new wgd9200 monitor$$ I was happy. My brother came over and raved about how great it was and how much he wanted one. We started brainstorming and decided that we could build him one at a considerably cheaper cost using an old arcade cab(nba jam) , used monitor, and my old pc. Worked hard on it for a while last year, then got side tracked. Just finished up the pc this weekend and put it in the cab. Keep in mind that my mame was stick built from scratch and is not jamma and the monitor is virtually an oversized pc monitor that is just plug and play. I have no experience with arcade monitors or the whole jamma deal. Needless to say, it ain't working! When I power up the game the monitor rolls terribly. I can adjust it to where it almost stops completely, but the key word is almost. Anyway, the screen is somewhat bright with small horizontal white lines going through it (very annoying). The computer gets me to the desktop screen briefly then the screen goes out and becomes grey with the white horizontal lines. I believe the wires are all correct, as I have traced them from the jamma harness to the monitor. I feel screwed. Is there anybody out there in the Cleveland, Ohio area that is a mame/monitor guru that can make a house call. I thought I could finish this thing up for my brother's 50th birthday bash this weekend, but I think I'll be going to walmart and buying one of those $20 atari joystick/tv games!
-
Well I am not in the area for a house call but I recall an event that happend to me about 2 years ago with something that sounds like that problem. Basically it was a resolution problem. All I had to do was hook my pc up to a better monitor get into windows and adjust the resolution down. After that I hooked the old display back up and problem was gone. You may want to take the resolution down slowley till you find what works. I hope this helps you out. Good Luck!
-
Exactly HOW much does it slow down? Does it slow down enough to read everything on the screen?
What method are you using to hook the PC to the monitor?
-
adjusted the resolution down to 800 x 600. I believe thats as low as it goes. The monitor wiring is connected to a jamma connection and that connects to a j-pac. I sort of got talked into building this cab with the whole arcade monitor and jamma/j-pac setup. My first cab was scratch built with the wells gardner D9200 monitor that plugs right into the pc. No muss/no fuss! I have no skill or working knowledge of arcade monitors to really be of use. This was a mistake. Anyway, adjusting the resolution down didn't help. And I had to connect the pc to my desktop to do it. The screen rolling slows down to a fast crawl, but doesn't stop. By the time it gets to the desktop, the screen goes blank/grey with the white horizontal lines. Good news is that for the brief period that I see windows xp loading, its in color, although very washed out looking.
-
What type of video card do you have?
-
the ultimarc vga card
-
You mean the ArcadeVGA?
Do you have the drivers properly installed?
-
Setup your display to 640x480.
The 9200 will do multiple refresh rates but standard monitors have only 1. (60Hz is the best to set everything up as)
Also, you CANNOT run the trisync util with a standard monitor.
And third. The arcade vga should be wired to the monitor like this.
VGA Monitor
1 RED
2 GREEN
3 BLUE
5 GROUND
13 HSYNC
14 VSYNC
Or if you monitor only supports composite sync just connect 13 and 14 together and connect to the sync pin.
Good luck.
Later,
dabone
-
I'm a little slow on the uptake...No the drivers were not installed. So are you saying disconnect the ARCADE monitor from the pc and connect my regular pc monitor back up to it and install the drivers? Regarding the wires to the monitor, do I just follow them back to the j-pac where the jamma harness/monitor wires are connected?
-
Yeah, get those drivers installed.
As for the wiring, if you're using a J-PAC then you don't have to worry about which wires are leading in. You're not using a VGA break-out cable. Assuming this is the same monitor that was in there previously when a regular game was actually working, the monitor should be wired correctly. I'm not saying it is, but it should be.
Get those drivers installed first, though. If you're still having problems we can work from there.
-
didn't get a chance to do it today, but will attempt it in the morning and I'll let you know. Thanks for the info.
-
Alan,
so I bring my mame pc upstairs and hook it up to my extra pc monitor so I can install the vga drivers like we discussed, but all I get is a little box on the screen that says out of frequency 15mhz/59mhz or something like that. So I decide to throw the mame pc into my original mame cabinet to see if I can load the drivers from the WG9200 monitor. The pc starts to boot up, I get to the desktop screen and just get ready to pop in the ultimarc vga driver cd-rom and the screen goes black and doesn't come back. I tried this multiple times and the screen goes black every time when I get to desktop screen. Anyone want a mint looking mame machine cheap? What am I doing wrong, cuz I don't think I'm doing anything right.
-
If you waited on the real monitor it should have come up once you were in windows with the desktop.
you really need to have both monitors in the same place so you can swap them as needed. Bootup will be in 15kHz on the aracde card, till windows loads, then it takes over from the bios and forces it to whatever x/svga mode is selected. When that happens, plug in the normal monitor, do the install of the driver, and then when it goes back to out of range, swap back to the arcade monitor.
the alternative is to remote desktop into the computer to install the drivers, but you wil
-
When I installed my video card, I actually used 2 cards and 2 monitors. I had my cheapo video card hooked up to a pc monitor and the card for the arcade machine hooked up to the j-pac. That way I could see what I was doing while I was configuring. When I was all done, I pulled the PC monitor's video card out of the machine and it just continued to default to the arcade monitor. TADA!
-
boy, I didn't follow that at all? slow down, I'm stupid.
-
Ok, any version of Windows since Windows 98 supports multiple monitors with multiple video cards. So I installed 2 video cards - one for a PC and one for the arcade machine. The arcade machine's video card was primary, and the PC's was secondary. That way I could play with the arcade monitor and video setup all day and still be able to see something because the display on the PC monitor is independent and working. So I could use programs showing on the PC monitor to set up the arcade monitor.
Then when I was done, I shut down the computer and pulled out the video card for the PC monitor. With only one card and monitor left, the computer started up and defaulted to the only remaining monitor - the one in the arcade machine. It kept the settings I had given it when I had previously adjusted it.
This was done using a non-ArcadeVGA card, but it worked quite well. I can't imagine why I wouldn't work for you.
-
ok, thats my weekend project. I'll let you know. By the way, I don't know where you are located, but you could have been here by now!
-
The saga continues! This is where I'm at...I have my original pc video card in my mame pc. I put in the ultimarc vga driver disc to install the video drivers. I click on the Install ArcadeVGA Windows XP Drivers and it immediately takes me to the Install Shield Wizard to start loading the Drivers and then I get a message immediately thereafter saying "Set up failed to run installation: (0x80040703)
I'm about done with this boat anchor! HELP before I go postal! (no offense to any postal workers viewing this message.)
-
Try pulling the video card out and installing the drivers. Then put the card back in.
-
If I pull the video card out I have nothing to plug the monitor in to so how can I see what I'm doing???
-
Your motherboard doesn't have onboard video? You don't have a spare cheapo card lying around?
-
I think he's already done that Alan:
The saga continues! This is where I'm at...I have my original pc video card in my mame pc. I put in the ultimarc vga driver disc to install the video drivers. I click on the Install ArcadeVGA Windows XP Drivers and it immediately takes me to the Install Shield Wizard to start loading the Drivers and then I get a message immediately thereafter saying "Set up failed to run installation: (0x80040703)
I'm about done with this boat anchor! HELP before I go postal! (no offense to any postal workers viewing this message.)
-
Oh I'm blind. Hmmm...
-
I get the impression that he hasn't tried both video cards at once (maybe they are both AGP?).
The ArcadeVGA card only outputs at 15kHz. The other card defaults to SVGA (30, 31 whatever, it's way too early). You would need a PCI video card (or an onboard one) to boot to windows (with the ArcadeVGA in the computer, but it doesn't need to be plugged into a monitor).
-
No, I don't have a video card on the mother board and just one agp slot. Now what?
-
Here are the official instructions:
Windows XP, 2000 and 98.
Install the card into the AGP slot. The card must be installed and connected to an arcade monitor to install the drivers.
If your PC has previously had any ATI card installed, you will need to remove the existing ATI drivers. Do this by downloading and running this utility:
Start (or restart) Windows. The Windows screen should be displayed at 640 X 480 interlaced, 16 colours. To use the ArcadeVGA built-in modes the ATI driver needs installing. Insert the Ultimarc CD. Run the driver Setup program in the correct folder (98 or XP or 2K). Reboot as prompted. Windows may ask if you want to replace newer files with old. You MUST choose to replace all the files. After re-boot, install the ATI control panel by running Setup in the "Cpanel" folder on the CD.
Right-click on the desktop, select "properties" and set the colour depth to "32 bit colour".
Blue Screens in XP/2000 Windows XP may try to invoke the built-in Microsoft ATI driver and this will not work with the ArcadeVGA card, and causes a blue-screen error. If you see this, simply re-start and hold down "F8" and choose to start in Safe Mode, then install the ATI driver from the ArcadeVGA CD and re-boot.
http://www.ultimarc.com/avgainst.html
you might try booting into safe mode first to change your resolution to 640x480 or less and remove your old drivers
-
I have literally had it with this whole system! Today my nephew (computer wizard) and I spent HOURS on this thing and I'm no further ahead then before. I decided to try and make it easy on myself and put this new mame pc into my old mame cab that has the WGD9200 monitor in it. I put the vga card into the agp slot and connect the monitor to it. System boots up and I've got a picture on the monitor, but the resolution looks kind of funky. I believe its 600 x 480 with 16 colors. I know that I have to install the drivers now so we try it about 100 times with no luck. I end up with error messages and such. We try it from safe mode and still no luck. For whatever reason we can't get the pc to accept the drivers for this card. WTF?? The newest problem is when I went to Ultimarc's site for instructions they prompted me to download a program that wipes out your old video card drivers so I did that. Now when I try to load the new drivers I get a small window that comes up and says "Direct X8 is not installed. Please install it before installing the display driver." I can't find Direct X8 on the net, only X9 and this program is calling for X8. I'm so f---d! I hate mame!
-
Go ahead and install directx9.
The video driver problem can be a pain in the ass, but it can be solved.
I've also had luck pressing f8 while booting, selecting vga mode and then installing the drivers.
Later,
dabone
-
dabone...more like da-MAN! Thanks. That must have been the missing link. Finally got the drivers loaded and the WGD9200 looks as it should. Next question is this: should I now install the ATI control panel and adjust the colour depth to "32 bit colour" as suggested in Ultimarc's intruction page on their site? Also, keep in mind that this particular pc was initially and still is slated to go into another mame cab which has a conventional arcade monitor in it not the WGD9200 that its working with now. Should it be good to go in it after I finish configuring it on the 9200? Thanks again.
Rich
-
OK monitor guru's, now that I have the pc vga card drivers installed and the mame pc seems to be working correctly on my WGd9200 monitor its time to install it on the arcade monitor and see what happens. First of all I will tell you that the monitor is a USED Wells Gardner model 25K7193. I was told that it is in great working shape and I took the guy's word for it as I had nothing to test it on. So this will be the true test. Before I hook it up, I want to slow down and make sure that things are wired correctly. Currently the monitor's chasis has a 9 pin connector on it and the pins are labled in this order: 1st pin "-H Sync," 2nd pin "-V Sync," 3rd pin "Ground," 4th pin "+H Sync," 5th pin "+V Sync," 6th pin "Ground," 7th pin "Blue," 8th pin "Green," 9th pin "Red."
The wires connected to the pins are as follows: "-H Sync," "Ground," "Blue," "Green," and "Red."
All of these wires go back to the jamma harness and are connected to my j-pac.
I would like to know if I need to add or delete any additional wires before connection of the mame pc?
Thanks. Rich
-
Try it as it is. If you get vertical rolling you'll have to get the vsync hooked up. But try it first as it is.
-
Hey Alan, I'm getting a picture on the arcade monitor FINALLY! Thanks to everyone so far. How do I attach pictures of the current screen so you can see whats happening with it? I need step by step instructions to upload these to this site.
-
When you write a message, there's an option below it called "Additional Options..."
Just lcick that and it'll open up a spot for you to opload a picture. It accepts any popular web format, but it doesn't like BMP's.
-
tried to attach some pics, but it says its unable because they are too big. Can you give me your email and I'll send them that way?
-
Sounds like you're taking them in too high of a resolution. Is there any way you can describe it? I don't know if I can handle a file that large, either.
-
here is one pic that shows what the monitor is doing at the moment. Notice the white lines going from left to right and the picture tends to roll alot and is hard to stop. also kind of bright.
-
I still am wondering if the wires are correct from my earliar posting and if the -vertical sync needs to be hooked up. also, is a new capacitor kit needed?
-
Turn the screen control down. It's found on the flyback.
Then try your horizonal hold.
-
I turned down the screen control and it made the picture a little better, but I still have the white horizontal lines and the screen rolls. Still wondering about if the wiring is correct and should I add or delete or change anything and what about a cap kit?
-
Did this monitor come with the arcade machine it's in now? Had it been previously wired for use in this machine?
-
No, different monitor. Bought it seperate. Still wondering about the vertical sync wire and caps.
-
It sounds like the cab was originally wired for a monitor with a composite sync and you've got one with seperate syncs. If you've already tried tuning the vsync adjustment and it didn't help then try this.
Take the wire that you've got going into the horizontal sync, split it, and send the second wire branching off of it into the vertical sync.
Even after you do this, it might still roll, but at least you should be able to properly tune it with the vsync adjustment now.
-
Or could I add a vertical sync wire to the chasis pinout and run it back to the vert sync on the jamma harness. (I'm assuming that there is a v-sync on the harness, but will have to check.)???
-
The JAMMA harness only supplies composite sync. It doesn't supply seperate hsync and vsync.
-
after further investigation, I believe that the wire on the chasis board was connected to the horizontal sync pin ( I think). It is very difficult to distinguish on the picture of the pin layout on the bottom of the chasis. Anyway, I moved the wire over to what I think is the v-sync pin on the chasis and the monitor's picture didn't change that I could see. My biggest problems right now are that the picture still rolls pretty bad and I have the thin white or grey lines going from left to right across the monitor. I'm not sure what this is, but could those lines be caused by "refresh rate?"
-
You need sync signal going into both the horizontal and vertical syncs. Split the sync wire and send it into both hsync and vsync. Give that a shot.
I don't know what the lines across your screen are yet, but let's get a stable picture first and then worry about what it looks like.
-
Here is the update: No good news yet. I spliced the sync wires into two separate wires and ran them to the monitor and j-pac with no apparent change in picture. Picture still rolls horribly and when I try to adjust the rolling the adjustment pot (I think thats what it is?) is so touch that I just can't seem to get it to stop. Could the adjustment pot be bad too? Anyway, picture is still kind of faded looking if you can see it in my pic and I still have the white/grey horizontal lines running across the monitor. The second pic is of the back of the monitor itself. I have six adjustment screws on the end of the picture tube, but am unable to read what they adjust as the board must have all of that info on the other side. Does anyone know what these adjust and what order the are in from left to right. I don't really care to start turning them and mess anything up and I am also a little intimidated by the DANGER High voltage tag right underneath them! Hope somebody can talk me through this. This sure is frustrating!
-
Ok, see that large bundle of wires going down into your cab?
(The ones that are soldered to the board, not the rgb input wires)
Follow that and you will find your remote adjustment board.
(Do not power on the monitor with that board disconnected, it can damage the monitor)
This is a small board with (Usually) 6 pots on it that have most of the monitors adjustments.
DO NOT adjust the pots on the neck board, as they control the color balance.
The manual for your monitor is here I think. (It looks like a 7000 series.)
http://www.mikesarcade.com/arcade/manuals/monitor/WG-K7000.zip
There are no harmful voltages on the remote adjustment board, but plenty on the main monitor board.
p.s.
Happy 4th!
Later,
dabone
-
I have been using the remote board to try and stabilize the rolling that I've been experiencing with the vertical hold pot. I have been unsuccessful trying to get the rolling stopped. The adjustment pot for the vertical hold seems extremely sensitive to the touch and does allow me to slow down the rolling at times, but it won't completely stop it and if you just touch the adjustment pot it really starts rolling. Do these things go bad? Nobody posting has been able to give me the right answer for this problem yet. Also, the horizontal white/grey lines are still a problem as well as the screen colors look washed out or faded. Can I adjust the colors with the adjustment screws on the back of the monitor shown in the pic? Also, do I do this with my hand or a small screwdriver? I don't want to get zapped!
-
Here is another question for you:
I have two LED display lights on my J-pac that indicate sync function and neither one of them are lit. Does that mean anything regarding all of the problems that I'm having and what do I do to resolve it?
-
Just looked at my cab with jpac and I have 2 leds lit.
So that probally means you aren't getting correct signal to the monitor.
Do you have a dos boot floppy to try?
If you are running a arcadevga card just grab a dos boot off of
http://www.bootdisk.com
Then if everything is working right you should be able to get a dos prompt on the arcade monitor. (This is to check if your card is working correctly, ruling out any windows driver issues.)
Later,
dabone
-
dabone,
I have no idea what you just told me to do??? Yes, I am running arcadevga card in my pc. What is this dos boot that I'm supposed to download and what am I supposed to do with it? I just don't know what you are talking about. How is this supposed to get the led's to light up on the j-pac?
-
Dos boot is loading msdos from a floppy disk.
Goto bootdisk.com and grab a boot image, run it with a blank floppy and it will create a bootable floppy disk.
If the arcadevga is working correctly, then you will get a a:> after you boot the floppy.
Just curious, you do have the keyboard cable plugged in to your jpac?
(The jpac draws power from the ps2 connector)
Error for the jpac from the ultimarc website.
Error Conditions:
LED never lights:
Board faulty, cable faulty, PC not powering up correctly.
LED gives two short flashes and the I-PAC is connected via USB:
The board has mis-detected a PS/2 interface. Check USB controller is enabled and working on the PC. Try another USB device as a test.
LED gives one short flash then stays off:
I-PAC has detected a USB controller but the PC is not detecting the device as having been connected. Check USB drivers on PC.
LED flashes 3 or more times after initially lighting:
Switch test failed. Check chart below for failing input. Check switch wiring. Try disconnecting this wire and see if the flash pattern changes.
LED lights as soon as power is applied, never flashes but just stays on constantly:
See the first line of the table below
full troubleshooting page is at
http://www.ultimarc.com/jpac2.html
Later,
dabone
-
maybe I have this stuff hooked up wrong? I just had the keyboard connected to the pc because it isn't inside the cab yet so I just left it hooked up that way. I dissconnected it from the pc and hooked it up to the j-pac and fired it up that way. Didn't get any illuminations from either led. I'm kind of confused about this hook up I guess. I thought that the j-pac was getting power somehow from the monitor cable that is connected to it? Guess thats wrong.
-
To all that have stuck with me thusfar, thanks. My stupidity has no bounds it seems! Well, I now have a stable picture for the most part. Turns out, in my blindness, I never hooked up the cable from the j-pac to the pc as dbone instructed, so I was never getting power to the j-pac to handle the sync issue. After doing so, the picture stabilized immediately and my seizures stopped! I was able to adjust the color too. Here are the new problems:
when the screen changes from desktop to mame games the vertical roll starts immediately until I stop it with the adjustment knob. (this will suck during game playing I'm sure) I think it has something to do with resolutions? What do I do for that?
Next problem is vertical and horizontal height and width don't look right. If I adjust it so I can see the whole picture on the screen I have to make it much smaller than the bezel. Doesn't seem right?
Another problem is when I go to my itunes program the screen changes to a yellowish color. Very weird.
Any thoughts on the newest probs?
-
Along with my other questions regarding my monitor, can someone please put into terms I can understand what exactly the ATI Control panel does in the ArcadeVGA card utility program? I did not install it and am wondering if it could be the answer to the rest of my monitor issues?
-
No power? Yup, that would do it. :)
I could give you pointers from here, but most of them would be for regular video cards. I've never actually used the ArcadeVGA so I can't answer alot questions specific to it. I'll continue to watch the thread and help where I can, though. Good luck.
-
Ok, this monitor is NOT going to look at good as your 9200.
Usually you will lose a little bit around the edges.
Not sure about the itunes, thats not usually an app you run on a cab.
To fix the rolling problems after game launch use this utility
http://mamewah.mameworld.net/downloads/mame_res_tool.zip
and remove all non 60hz modes.
Then generate your ini files.
Later,
dabone
-
I'm using emuloader, not mamewah. Will that resolution tool work?
-
The res tool is for mame. It has nothing to do with mamewah.
Later,
dabone
-
I'm not sure how to generate the ini files for the resolution tool. I've got the ATI control panel loaded on the pc and the resolution tool program as well. Can you walk me through it?
-
Post a request over here.
http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=arcadeospc2jamma
it's Mamewah's support board.
(He also answers questions about the res tool also)
Later,
dabone
-
Talking to a friend of mine he thinks that maybe the monitor will not really support a great looking screen during desktop mode or itunes screen and maybe thats why the screen looks a little blurry and turns yellow? Is there another music program that I could use on the mame machine that might run at a lower resolution? Have to be easy to set up! Something that resembles a juke possibly?
-
Alot of the programs mentioned in the Audio/Jukebox/MP3 forums will suit your needs. Try googling a particular one called Arcade Jukebox, though. It's very basic, but works well.
-
just downloaded it and am trying it out.
-
I have this same monitor in a Neo Geo cab. I was able to get it working, but I have similar resolution issues and I'm not sure how to handle it.
One issue is that I can run the monitor at 800x600 and it looks pretty decent, but the bottom part of the screen is pinched and the vertical sizing knob doesn't turn enough to compress the screen to completely be displayable... for example in windows, I don't see the task bar. I'm not sure how to fix this. I can run at 640x480 but this seems to create more problems in mame.