Setting up native resolutions in Mame

[Shogun]

I had a friend pick up an NEC XM-2960 off of Craigslist for me and he lives a ways away but I will pick it up next month. I got this to run mame and older consoles on.

My question though is about resolutions. I've been playing Mame on a 19 inch PC monitor at 640x480 but now I have the ability to run in 15khz and native resolutions. I'm running Mame Plus (Ash version) so is there a way I can tell Mame to just run the games in their native resolutions and it will switch the res when the game runs?

I am doing this all out of my main computer which is running an ATI Radeon 5770 which has 4 outputs. I have an LCD which I will run DVI>HDMI as my primary monitor, an 19 inch CRT via VGA>DVI as my secondary, and I will run the NEC off to the side via VGA>DVI.

I am trying to do this as easily as possible. If the mame version I have (or another version) has the ability to tell my video card to switch to the low resolution on the third monitor via the default game settings this would be the easiest for me.

I've read about Power Strip but have no idea how to set custom resolutions and from what I've read you need to set a resolution for every game which sounds like a pain. If there is an easier way to do this I'd be open to this. Soft15khz from what I understand is a custom driver and I would only be able to run in low res mode which wouldn't work because I work from home and need the first two monitors to operate at normal resolutions. I guess a way around this is to create a seperate partition and boot Windows XP (I'm on Windows 7 now) with Soft 15khz but this sounds like a bit of a pain too.

Last choice I guess is to just build another PC with an Arcade VGA but like I said I'm trying to do this as easily as possible on my current computer.

If anyone has any knowledge about this stuff and can point me in a direction I'd appreciate any help.

[Shogun]

So after doing some research I can see an easy path may not be applicable. This thread has gotten a number of views but no replies so maybe nobody here is outputting mame at near stock resolutions but there is interest in doing so? I will keep posting updates and my findings as I come across them.

First this controller came in:



I'll use this as the main controller in Mame. I guess you could say I'm kind of building a mamecab minus the cabinet? I don't really like the thought of having to move a giant arcade cabinet so my plan is to just put the monitor on a table and hook the controller up to the PC and away we go.

The thing is most people are hooking up their PC to dedicated arcade monitors. The NEC I'm getting is a studio monitor that handles 15.5-16.0KHz all the way up to VESA 1600x1200 (93.8KHz/75Hz) depending on the model. So I don't need any pinouts, I can just use a VGA cable. The question is will my 5770 video card output 15khz and what is required to get it to do that? I'll post back when I find more info.

[CRTGAMER]

I know Mame kicks the resolution around depending what game is loaded. For instance, Vector Games are displayed at a higher resolution then the older raster games. Same thing on different era games. I think just turning all the graphic options on gives the best pic. I do leave the side panel art turned off to get a full game play image.

[Anapan]

I'm interested too so please keep us posted on what you find. I got an ArcadeVGA card, and downloaded Soft15kHz a while ago, but have yet to actually start testing any of the stuff (don't even have a PC that the card fits into...).
I was just planning to spend a few hours searching through mameworld before I tried hooking anything up to my 1084. I've only ever used MAMEUIFX32 and the dos version before that. I just assumed that setting the right options would make the game force native resolutions when the graphics driver made them available.
Edit, just looked through my bookmarks and these ones are pertinent
http://web.archive.org/web/200512231226 ... nitor.html
http://mamewah.mameworld.info/downloads.htm

I'm planning to get a mini barebone PC from Newegg, mounting the 1084 monitor on it, and turning it into a mini bartop-type cabinet.

[Shogun]

I've been doing a ton of reading about this subject and I'm not sure I can pull this off without spending more money. If I have to build another computer I will its just not what I want to do. At some point when I'm settled I wouldn't mind a cab but in the mean time this will work fine. My video card will actually let me change the monitor resolution to 320x240 at 60hz. However when I put it in that mode the whole screen looks like its using billinear filtering like in mame (everything is blurry). Maybe when I hook up the NEC it won't look like that. I won't have the monitor until about mid-feb so I'll post back then.

As for other Mame versions I've got everything set up perfectly in Shmupmame right now. I'm not so sure I can go back to other slower versions of mame after using the lagless version so we will see how it goes.

[Shogun]

A note regarding the NEC XM series of monitors is that you won't be able to hook up a Playstation 2 with anything higher than S-video without a sync splitter. Here is the back input panel for reference:



From what I've read this requires creating a custom cable and soldering it together with the sync splitter. Sounds like a bit of a pain and the jump of image quality between S-video and component isn't worth it. It's annoying how many threads there are about composite vs component (which should be a given) instead of other things like S-video vs component or component vs RGB. These threads go on for page after page of people providing lots of opinions but not a single actual picture comparison. Anyhow none of the games I'll be playing support progressive scan. It'd be nice if you could just do something as simple as a component cable to 5-BNC or 15 pin VGA and call it a day. Some people are using an Ultimarc J-PAC to get RGB out of the PS2 but I'm not exactly sure how this works:



On another note I love the HRAP3 stick but it is a constant annoyance that it doesn't work with the PS2. I was thinking there'd be some sort of hack to open up the USB ports on the PS2 or maybe somebody had figured out a way to go from USB to Playstation cable but after looking around for quite a while I have never seen a converter that went USB to any video game cable. Perhaps the signal can't be reversed. I was trying to see if you could buy a Playstation to USB converter and then solder something up to get the signal to go the other way and the cut the male end of the Playstation cable and make it a female via an extension cable but I saw no mention of anything like that. I think I'm just out of luck and will have to lay down at least another $60 to do a mod with something like the Mayflash stick which is the cheapest stick I could find that had a common ground. The HRAP3 does not have a common ground which means you can't throw in another PCB to make it multi-system compatible without a lot more work. Playstation 2 joysticks seem to be few and far between. Even my HRAP3 which I paid $60 for is now retailing in the $90 range. I think I got lucky and just made the purchase while they had a surplus or something.

[mesmer]

I have mame working just fine in my cab. I use the regular latest mame. I have 'Soft 15khz' installed. http://community.arcadeinfo.de/showthread.php?t=8170
Also, setup mame with the same settings recommended by ultimarc: http://www.ultimarc.com/avgainst.html

HARDWARESTRETCH MUST BE OFF
YOU MUST USE DIRECT-DRAW NOT DIRECT 3D
SWITCH RESOLUTIONS MUST BE ENABLED

The results are perfect.

edit:

Soft15Khz does not prevent you from running all your regular resolutions. It just adds the ability to switch to the low ones.

Also, FYI, I've built the LM1881 circuit for my PS2 to connect to my monitor as well, not a big deal. Before you do, see if the monitor will take C Video on the H sync, it might just work without the stripper.

[Shogun]

I have mame working just fine in my cab. I use the regular latest mame. I have 'Soft 15khz' installed. http://community.arcadeinfo.de/showthread.php?t=8170
Also, setup mame with the same settings recommended by ultimarc: http://www.ultimarc.com/avgainst.html

HARDWARESTRETCH MUST BE OFF
YOU MUST USE DIRECT-DRAW NOT DIRECT 3D
SWITCH RESOLUTIONS MUST BE ENABLED

The results are perfect.

edit:

Soft15Khz does not prevent you from running all your regular resolutions. It just adds the ability to switch to the low ones.

Also, FYI, I've built the LM1881 circuit for my PS2 to connect to my monitor as well, not a big deal. Before you do, see if the monitor will take C Video on the H sync, it might just work without the stripper.

Awesome I was worried soft15khz would require a reboot each time to switch between low and higher resolutions. As for the PS2 I googled around and it looks like the NECxm29 does take composite sync on H sync"

For sync signals, either connect composite sync and switch to "Hi-Z" or composite video and switch to "75 ohms"

Something to consider for getting the most out of the PS2. Thanks for the info. I'll be picking up the monitor on the 28th.

[Shogun]

Well I finally built the media center and got it all hooked up to the NEC. Getting native resolutions was easier than I thought. I installed soft15khz and quick res. Soft 15khz modifies your registry so you have the lower resolutions available. Quick res is an application that allows you to select those resolutions. I have a Geforce 8600 series video card with the latest nforce driver and it still worked fine.

I copied over shmupmame 2.2 and changed the settings to D3D, no hw stretch, and switch resolution to fit. I previously had shmupmame set to 320x240 but now it is on auto. I wish there was a way to tell what resolution mame is switching to when it starts up the game. My monitor only displays the frequency. I know its in 15khz but no idea on the resolution. I've been looking for an app that will display the resolution when a program or game switches the res kind of like fraps does with fps but no luck so far. I would like to know because I think something weird is going on with Neo-Geo games.

I'm also using a nifty program called Joystick2Mouse which allows me to use my HRAP to move about windows. Once I get settled I'll look into mamewah and some of the auto resolution utilities if needed.

Before I had everything hooked up I was planning on using an Extron Emotia to get the correct resolution but so far everything looks great. Playing Crimson Clover on the monitor with the big speakers is amazing. The XM29 Plus is amazing. It has handled every resolution I've thrown at it. Only downside is some resolutions produce a horribly irritating buzzing noise. I will hear a repeating EEEP.....EEEP.....EEEP. So I keep windows in 640x480 and all is well. I'll post up some pics later on in the week.

[Shogun]

Here are some images I took for comparison sake. Excuse the not so good quality of the photos.

Donpachi:

No scanlines in Yoko mode on my computer CRT @ 640x480
Emulated scanlines in Yoko mode on my computer LCD @ 1280x1024
Tate mode on the NEC XM29 Plus (notice the NEC's thick scanlines) @ 320x240 I think

Same setup as above on NEC
Same setup as above on NEC

Aero Fighter:

Same setup as above on NEC
Same setup as above on NEC

Ketsui:

Same setup as above on NEC


I like having the resolution settings in Mame on auto because its simple. So far I am happy with the outcome. Some might complain about the thick scanlines on the NEC when compared to a Sony but I sit about 10 feet away and it looks great.