( ( advmame && svgalib && arcade_monitor ) == lingering_questions! )

[tetujin]

greetings all,

    so i've been reading a lot of the forums and a lot of the external sources (easy mamecab site, www.mame.how.to, etc.), and i still have some questions about my potential setup, and was hoping someone here could give me the details i'm looking for.  first, a bit about my setup.  we (my friends and i) have a working Dynamite Cop cabinet converted from WWF Wrestlefest, a pc running SuSE 9.3 on a GeForce2 MX, and advmame/advmenu running with svgalib.  SuSE boots up into runlevel 3 by default, and i've got advmame/svgalib running just great on my pc monitor (dell p991) at home with all the different resolutions, etc., having used advcfg with hardly any problems.

    so my question to you all is: since i've managed to configure advmame and svgalib well enough for my pc monitor, is it pretty much the same setup process with a JPAC and the arcade monitor we have in the dynamite cop cabinet?  i understand that i need to rerun advcfg with the arcade monitor and that the JPAC will split my initial 31Khz horizontal scan rate for the arcade monitor, yadda yadda, but i'm wondering what else is different.  is it much harder to use advcfg with an arcade monitor?

    also, on the easy MAMECab site, the recommended cards for running advmame with an arcade monitor are the "Nvidia TNT2*, Trident Blade T64, or Matrox G400* + JPAC (or Video Amplifier)."  are these the /only/ cards that can output a 15kHz signal, or are they just easy(er) to work with?  what i'm getting at is, will my GeForce2 MX work?  is there already information about what pixel clocks and scan rates my card will output, or do i need to test it somehow?

    what i'm ultimately trying to find out is if i can use this geforce card that i have or if i need to get one of the cards listed + a JPAC or video amplifier, or if i should skip the whole thing due to greater complexity than i've already experienced (advcfg w/pc monitor) and get an arcadeVGA card.


    sorry, one last question also:  is linux/advmame/advmenu/arcadeVGA ever a recommended setup?  my impression from the arcadeVGA site is that it's predominantly a windows/dos-based  solution.

thanks very very much for your time.  i know i'm asking a lot of questions.

    gratefully,

        -tony.

[tetujin]

*bump*

i'm surprised to not have any responses.  am i asking really obscure questions, or am i asking nonsensical ones?

granted, it's kind of moot at this point; i'm moving to XP and MAMEwah at this point, but for the future, it would be nice to know the answers.

[wpcmame]

so my question to you all is: since i've managed to configure advmame and svgalib well enough for my pc monitor, is it pretty much the same setup process with a JPAC and the arcade monitor we have in the dynamite cop cabinet?

In theory yes.

i understand that i need to rerun advcfg with the arcade monitor and that the JPAC will split my initial 31Khz horizontal scan rate for the arcade monitor

No, the JPAC will not change the 31KHz signal into 15KHz. It will just remove every second sync signal to avoid monitor damage.

is it much harder to use advcfg with an arcade monitor?

Once you get a stable 15KHz signal to work from (so you can see advcfg display) there is no difference.

(The above answers is based on that you configured advmame to generate custom resolutions on your PC monitor. If you just run all games at 640x480 then an arcade monitor is much more difficult)

the recommended cards for running advmame with an arcade monitor are the "Nvidia TNT2*, Trident Blade T64, or Matrox G400* + JPAC (or Video Amplifier)."  are these the /only/ cards that can output a 15kHz signal

In theory all VGA cards can do 15KHz (its part of the VGA standard). In reality it is combination of the card, operating system and drivers.

will my GeForce2 MX work?

The card itself can do 15KHz just fine but I think there are some problems with the SVGALIB driver (missing interlace?).

  is there already information about what pixel clocks and scan rates my card will output, or do i need to test it somehow?

The only interesting part is how low the pixel clock can go.

what i'm ultimately trying to find out is if i can use this geforce card that i have or if i need to get one of the cards listed + a JPAC or video amplifier, or if i should skip the whole thing due to greater complexity than i've already experienced (advcfg w/pc monitor) and get an arcadeVGA card.

If you don't need more 3D power than a Radeon9200 and don't have the time/will to experiment, go for AVGA.

  sorry, one last question also:  is linux/advmame/advmenu/arcadeVGA ever a recommended setup?

advmame + AVGA is never a recommended solution. Either you use AVGA and normal mame or you use advmame and a supported graphics card.