Questions that do not deserve a thread

[nmalinoski]

On a different note, are there cheap deinterlacer options? PS2 on my OLED shudders with the OSSC, and I'm not terribly keen on spending framemeister money for a system I only occasionally use if it's avoidable.

Try setting 480i/576i proc on the OSSC to Passthru; if it works, just let your TV do the deinterlacing. If not, you can use that Corio2 you mentioned.

[DejahThoris]

On a different note, are there cheap deinterlacer options? PS2 on my OLED shudders with the OSSC, and I'm not terribly keen on spending framemeister money for a system I only occasionally use if it's avoidable.

Try setting 480i/576i proc on the OSSC to Passthru; if it works, just let your TV do the deinterlacing. If not, you can use that Corio2 you mentioned.

I'll give it a shot!

[DejahThoris]

I have tried that and haven't seen any difference at all. Still "No sync" unfortunately.

Assuming that this display really won't take video-level clean composite sync, I think the one last option you have to getting everything functioning on this display is to run everything through the OSSC, then the OSSC into an active HDMI->VGA converter (Portta or Tendak), and then that into RGB2 on the display, with the sync switch set to 2.2kOhm. According to the manual, you won't be able to use 480i passthrough, and I have no idea if the display will take 240p RGBHV, so you'll likely be stuck with line2x for both. An additional warning is that I have no idea if the 480i line2x bob deinterlacing will have a similar detrimental effect on plasmas as it seems to have on OLEDs, so you may want to stick to 240p-only sources, or use an additional video processor after the OSSC that can properly deinterlace 480i to 480p (configure OSSC for passthrough for 480i, line2x for 240p).

Well, I got everything working with a PA250 in line to clean the sync *except* the PS1. No progress on that front.

[vol.2]

Well, I got everything working with a PA250 in line to clean the sync *except* the PS1. No progress on that front.

I forget which kind of sync the PSone outputs in RGB, but have you tried switching it? i.e. if it's luma, use csync or composite video, and vice versa

[DejahThoris]

Well, I got everything working with a PA250 in line to clean the sync *except* the PS1. No progress on that front.

I forget which kind of sync the PSone outputs in RGB, but have you tried switching it? i.e. if it's luma, use csync or composite video, and vice versa

Aside from buying a different cable I wouldn't know how. :/

I'll have to look around the internet a bit.

Google suggests it's csync. Which would be the same as the majority of the other things I have hooked up.

[nmalinoski]

Well, I got everything working with a PA250 in line to clean the sync *except* the PS1. No progress on that front.

I forget which kind of sync the PSone outputs in RGB, but have you tried switching it? i.e. if it's luma, use csync or composite video, and vice versa

Aside from buying a different cable I wouldn't know how. :/

I'll have to look around the internet a bit.

Google suggests it's csync. Which would be the same as the majority of the other things I have hooked up.

The PS1 doesn't output CSync without a hard mod. Sync-on-composite is the default for most cables, but sync-on-luma is preferred. If you want clean composite sync from the console without modding, you'll need a cable with a sync stripper.

[BuckoA51]

Are there free 3D printer model files for the PC Engine CD Rom gears, if so can anyone give me a download link? (yes I did try Googling it).

[DejahThoris]

The PS1 doesn't output CSync without a hard mod. Sync-on-composite is the default for most cables, but sync-on-luma is preferred. If you want clean composite sync from the console without modding, you'll need a cable with a sync stripper.

Sounds like most people don't know the difference between sync on composite and csync then, ha. I'll see if finding a guide to mod the console will help. It already had been modded for the PSIO so it's not like I'm worried about the purity of the console.

Like I'd said, I now have an Extron PA250 in line, which apparently doubles as a sync stripper. That fixed all the other consoles that weren't working. But the PS1 doesn't seem to play nicely with it. Isn't it silly to need to have a sync stripper in cable to send it to a sync stripping device? Ha.

[vol.2]

The PS1 doesn't output CSync without a hard mod. Sync-on-composite is the default for most cables, but sync-on-luma is preferred. If you want clean composite sync from the console without modding, you'll need a cable with a sync stripper.

Sounds like most people don't know the difference between sync on composite and csync then, ha. I'll see if finding a guide to mod the console will help. It already had been modded for the PSIO so it's not like I'm worried about the purity of the console.

Like I'd said, I now have an Extron PA250 in line, which apparently doubles as a sync stripper. That fixed all the other consoles that weren't working. But the PS1 doesn't seem to play nicely with it. Isn't it silly to need to have a sync stripper in cable to send it to a sync stripping device? Ha.

You could buy a cheapo scart cable: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R ... itleDesc=0

And then sub in Luma (Y) which is #5 on the PS1 pinout:
https://pinouts.ru/Game/PlayStationAV_pinout.shtml

for Composite Video, which is #6 on the pinout.

Here's the scart diagram so you don't screw up. lol:
https://www.videogameperfection.com/for ... ble-issue/

If you're not sure, make sure to test continuity across the cable. (keeping in mind that inline capacitors can effect a continuity test)

[DejahThoris]

The PS1 doesn't output CSync without a hard mod. Sync-on-composite is the default for most cables, but sync-on-luma is preferred. If you want clean composite sync from the console without modding, you'll need a cable with a sync stripper.

Sounds like most people don't know the difference between sync on composite and csync then, ha. I'll see if finding a guide to mod the console will help. It already had been modded for the PSIO so it's not like I'm worried about the purity of the console.

Like I'd said, I now have an Extron PA250 in line, which apparently doubles as a sync stripper. That fixed all the other consoles that weren't working. But the PS1 doesn't seem to play nicely with it. Isn't it silly to need to have a sync stripper in cable to send it to a sync stripping device? Ha.

You could buy a cheapo scart cable: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R ... itleDesc=0

And then sub in Luma (Y) which is #5 on the PS1 pinout:
https://pinouts.ru/Game/PlayStationAV_pinout.shtml

for Composite Video, which is #6 on the pinout.

Here's the scart diagram so you don't screw up. lol:
https://www.videogameperfection.com/for ... ble-issue/

If you're not sure, make sure to test continuity across the cable. (keeping in mind that inline capacitors can effect a continuity test)

UPDATE: Turns out the BNC cable is already sync on Luma.

http://imgur.com/a/PTEr8YK

My Saturn cable is luma and has no issues (SCART cable then SCART -> BNC w/sync stripper). So I'm at a loss.

[vol.2]

UPDATE: Turns out the BNC cable is already sync on Luma.

http://imgur.com/a/PTEr8YK

My Saturn cable is luma and has no issues (SCART cable then SCART -> BNC w/sync stripper). So I'm at a loss.

Then can you go in the other direction?
In the offhand chance that the PS1 is having some kind of luma sync peculiarity, you could either temporarily rewire you existing cable or try things out on a cheap ebay cable first.

Either that or just use the PS2 that you have instead. I pretty much always use my PS2 for all PS1 games.

[DejahThoris]

UPDATE: Turns out the BNC cable is already sync on Luma.

http://imgur.com/a/PTEr8YK

My Saturn cable is luma and has no issues (SCART cable then SCART -> BNC w/sync stripper). So I'm at a loss.

Then can you go in the other direction?
In the offhand chance that the PS1 is having some kind of luma sync peculiarity, you could either temporarily rewire you existing cable or try things out on a cheap ebay cable first.

Either that or just use the PS2 that you have instead. I pretty much always use my PS2 for all PS1 games.

I'll give it a shot today.

Using the PS2 would make using my PSIO pretty difficult though, so probably not going to go that route. : P

[DejahThoris]

Swapping over the sync has brought me to "Out of Range". Not good at all, but a slight improvement?

[vol.2]

Swapping over the sync has brought me to "Out of Range". Not good at all, but a slight improvement?

lol. I'm stumped.

[DejahThoris]

Swapping over the sync has brought me to "Out of Range". Not good at all, but a slight improvement?

lol. I'm stumped.

You and me both.

[insofaras_itself]

Can anyone comment on the quality of the Hori Real Arcade Pro 4 and N for PS4/PC? I'm looking for a first stick that would be easily customizable in the future should I want to replace the stick itself. Other suggestions appreciated.

[vol.2]

I'm looking for a device to horizontal center an image that can output composite video and maintain 240p when its fed. (ie an NES)
I gather the emotia can do this, but I'm looking for cheap. Is this impossible?

I have extron RGB rxis, maybe there's a good quality device that can combine it's output to composite?

[FinalBaton]

I'm looking for a device to horizontal center an image that can output composite video and maintain 240p when its fed. (ie an NES)
I gather the emotia can do this, but I'm looking for cheap. Is this impossible?

I have extron RGB rxis, maybe there's a good quality device that can combine it's output to composite?

Not 100% sure but I think the Extron interfaces actually pass through composite. I'm 100% sure they pass s-video tho. For composite, it should be the Green bnc output. And of course, you gotta send your composite feed on on the Green line of that DE-15 input too (just use a DE-15 to BNC adapter). Fudoh will confirm whether this works or not. As I said, I'm not sure

[Fudoh]

yes, this works. But depening on the source and monitor you might run into serration problems (curvy top).

[vol.2]

Not 100% sure but I think the Extron interfaces actually pass through composite. I'm 100% sure they pass s-video tho. For composite, it should be the Green bnc output. And of course, you gotta send your composite feed on on the Green line of that DE-15 input too (just use a DE-15 to BNC adapter). Fudoh will confirm whether this works or not. As I said, I'm not sure

yes, this works. But depening on the source and monitor you might run into serration problems (curvy top).

Thanks! I didn't realize this.

[Galdelico]

Hi everyone,
I've recently got a new laptop - i7 8750H, 16GB, GTX 1060 6GB, Win10 Home - which I'd like to test with some arcade emulators. Point is, last time I messed about with them, it was an era when I had a Flatron CRT monitor, connected to my Pentium II... So I regressed to a 'complete noob' status, nowadays.

I had a look around and found out FinalBurn Alpha is in a transitioning phase, at the moment, NeoRageX seems abandoned and super old and MAME looks... Well, intimidating I would say, at least with this latest 0.211 release, which I tried out of mere curiosity.

So, my question is: do we have some easy to follow guide - or is there one, out there, you can point me at - in order to optimally configure MAME, from basic stuff (such as, is MAME even the better choice? I'm mainly interested in arcade/NeoGeo stuff...) to more specific topics (HLSL settings for example, which I)? I'm not afraid of tinkering, so I'm open to try other people's ini files, as a starting point, and further investigate from there.

Thank you all in advance! ^_-

PS - Should that matter, I'm not playing on my laptop's screen, but I'm sending everything out to an AOC external 24"/1080p/144hz (60hz supported too) display.

[Dochartaigh]

I had a look around and found out FinalBurn Alpha is in a transitioning phase, at the moment, NeoRageX seems abandoned and super old and MAME looks... Well, intimidating I would say, at least with this latest 0.211 release, which I tried out of mere curiosity.

I'm going to follow this as well. MAME really is SUPER intimidating....like it's absolutely horrible to get setup. Just knowing where to map the buttons needed to play a game so you can play the majority of games with the same button layout + be able to enter coins and have a start button + a shortcut button combo to exit out and save and load games etc. is a nightmare (which FYI I started a topic on this on no less than 4 forums/groups and not a SINGLE person chimed in with any help...so I'm assuming nobody else knows how to do this either lol).

RetroArch is another I tried quasi-recently...same problem with mapping keys, figuring out which emulators to use and setup, to get the actual game menu to populate properly....absolutely horrible.

I started off my emulation journey (including MAME) with RetroPie on a Raspberry Pi 3 computer actually. While still extremely difficult to get setup 100% as I wanted it (as of version 4.2 when I stopped trying it's STILL buggy as hell), the initial setup actually pales in comparison to the complexity of the above – in a nutshell it's: burn the image to an SD card and boot it up, put in a USB stick then take it out a couple minutes later where it'll put directories for each system on the card, put ROMS in those individual folders on your PC then put the stick back into the RP3 to let it copy everything over automatically, then reboot – done... And that was still somehow 1000% easier than the above two options.

HyperSpin, which looks absolutely amazing, I gave up while on 'official' setup video #4 out of 10 or so.....like 16 FULL HOURS later (it requires SO much research at every stage to figure out what they were saying and finding the files and lists and such)...just too complicated. Supposedly if you pay the $50 or whatever membership/premium fee there's a pre-setup package you can download...but since I didn't know if I would even actually like it in the end I wasn't going to pay $50 to find-out.

So [/end rant] but I still haven't found an 'easy' way to do any of this, especially when you just want supposedly-simple/basic stuff like a little screenshot of each game for easy browsing. I'll probably get back to it at some point but I'm currently running GroovyMAME with MAME 0.200 for use on a CRT monitor (still haven't figured out how to make that run on the 4K flatscreen that's also hooked up to the same computer which would be closer to what you want to do). That probably took me several dozen hours to initially get setup (no exaggeration), but I will say with what I learned I can get a full (but super basic still) setup done in probably under an hour now (as long as I follow my notes, and those notes still make sense to me). Still using the stock and crappy MAME built-in text-only front end (game loader) FYI since I could never get another more graphically-pleasing front-end to work properly and scrub my roms, and grab artwork. ...and for the record, it's not like I'm a computer dummy. I've been using home computers since an IBM PS/2 in 1987 and used to build/program websites (with HTML/CSS, etc.) for a living back in the day so I actually consider myself a techie...and this is still super daunting to me. I feel your pain.

[Xyga]

^ Groovy: I'd upgrade to at least 0.206 or newer if I were you, several critical things have been fixed since then, like the specific ini's that had an overlapping settings bug (a mainline bug), and iirc things regarding 4K support were added (groovy specific). There's even a saving system for the sliders settings now, including frame_delay and those that appear only with 'cheats' on, like main and audio CPU% ^^ (groovy specific)

And if you get the latest there's also the autofire plugin (recently added to manline, thank Shepardus for that)

HLSL settings don't save though (still got to edit the raster.ini by hand or directly in specific ini's), but I think I've read somewhere that they do now in ARCADE64 and MAMEUI (?)
Actually I'm not on 0.211 yet as I've been skipping some updates, but I've read they were going to nuke HLSL in the near future, hope it's not the case already.


In general I'd say;

RA - the most work, unfortunately some of its features are not compatible with MAME. not counting MAME you get the lag reduction and nice shaders for FBA though.
Groovy - well it's like MAME but better in several areas like input lag, smoothness, accuracy etc and much more versatile than baseline as it can adapt to the hardware. it's actually quite easy for a basic use, but since it doesn't work and set up like other MAMEs, maybe 9/10 people get confused and lost immediately even for the essentials. infos can be outdated and scattered, not everyone uses it the same way, and you can see tumbleweeds on the forum for longs periods of time.
ARCADE64 - has the benefit of filtering the non-arcade stuff by default. it also includes some hacks though, for the neo-geo among others, which I don't like.
MAMEUI - is an attempt at reproducing ye olde windows UI but it's not really the same and has issues sometimes.

Windows 10: got to say I' still on W7 for most of my emu stuff, W10 has its quirks regarding compatibility with modes, lag etc. If someone's going to use any of those builds maybe there are additional thing to take care of...

HyperSpin and other sexy frontends - I don't even touch. Sure the current default UI in MAME kinda sucks, searching, sorting and filtering is a total pain and some settings either don't save or might be missing/hidden. but at least it's lightweight and faaassst.

[Galdelico]

I'm going to follow this as well. (...)

That made me chuckle a few times, but - seriously - I completely sympathize.

It looks like an environment where I don't feel comfortable to be in, at the moment. As Xyga (helpful and informative as always, huge thanks ^_-) noted and from what I've seen - by briefly trying things out as suggested - it all seems to come with limitations and quirks, which is something my OCD for neatly operating processes kinda clashes against.
UIs that are clunky to navigate through; settings that regularly save, others that just don't; ini files popping out everywhere; mapping your controller going smoothly with game A, yet turning into an utter chore with game B; everything running perfectly at first boot, but stuttering like my computer is falling apart, when I restart or change the roms...
I realize I barely scraped the surface, and I'm sure many of those issues can be turned around somehow, but the point is - to me personally, of course - it feels like a mess. I don't mean to belittle the work behind these programs (quite the opposite, and it must be very frustrating to deal with Win10, which literally updates things all the time), it just pans out like something that is not for me, especially since reverting to Win7 isn't really an option here, unfortunately.

[Xyga]

Oh I don't mean to say W10 is worse by default, I've just read some complaints about compatibility or lag in certain cases, probably fixable, though yeah possibly depends which version you run, maybe...
The advantage of W7 is that it's known quantity, but naturally only for a seperate dedicated PC, not a main/everyday desktop since it's going to get nuked soon.

I get you guys, this stuff's frustrating and nothing's really easy at all if you want optimal results, no plug-and-play emulation setup here.
Possibly the Pi 4 will have its own new improved drag-n-drop solutions soon, and actually open the road to overall better emulation quality since some technical features and performance that were impossible before might be now (still won't match a real dedicated modern pc setup, but for most of the retro stuff it'll cover that will be more than enough for tons of players, including many that were not convinced coz of the Pi 3's limitations)
I'll bet this will satisfy a greater-than-ever amount of users...and obsolete an increasing number of emulators in their legit standalone form.

PS: additionally RetroArch is coming to Steam soon, as-is to begin, but I guess they'll turn that 'port' into an increasingly user-friendly version. So that might be a solution in the future for those who don't want to bother with Pi stuff.

[vol.2]

I've been using Mame in Windows 10 and I haven't had any issues running things. I do remember that it was a pain in the ass to setup games to run properly. It was mostly the bios situation; in many cases (if not all?) you have to couple the system bios with the game for them to run, and the files have to be ordered in specific way as well. It took a bunch of googling, but I got it running and stuff "just works" now.

[DejahThoris]

Swapping over the sync has brought me to "Out of Range". Not good at all, but a slight improvement?

lol. I'm stumped.

Bought a $4 SCART cable for the hell of it. Also wired luma. Works just fine..

Not too pleased about my pricey coax cable right now.

[Dochartaigh]

Oh I don't mean to say W10 is worse by default, I've just read some complaints about compatibility or lag in certain cases, probably fixable, though yeah possibly depends which version you run, maybe...

I think Windows 10 is what kicked my ass with MAME/GroovyMAME. I mean, I'm not building a computer with an i7 7700 (which I think was the fastest-not-like-$500+ processor when I bought this computer) then NOT using it for other things too (other things which won't run in W7). So that + having a modern display (49" 4K flatscreen) running at the same time as analog 240p output to a CRT really, and I mean REALLY, was a painful process – I have posts in like a half dozen forums/groups asking for help.

About Windows 10 auto-updating and screwing things up probably cost me another dozen hours over the course of a year. Another 20-30 hours to get an AimTrak light gun to work (which ALL that time, just magically started working out of the blue...probably because of an update...haven't tried it in a couple months so who knows if it even still works now Also finally am able to hear sound out of the 4K TV's speakers, again, magically just started working one day (previously my PC defaulted to drivers which took the analog 3.5mm minijack as the default...and had to roll back the driver every time I wanted to use the 4K's speakers – which with Windows auto-update you can ONLY turn it off or on for EVERYTHING...and I wasn't going to turn it off because of viruses and such).

GroovyMAME's video drivers also have an issue with green-screening certain videos like youTube and other web content (want to say animated gifs? maybe HTML5 animations?), but that's also been pretty good lately.

...so yeah, I can go on and on, but painful to say the least. I have a couple small extra things (like 2x monitors) I wanted to do which I didn't think would have been a big deal but evidentially they were. Oh, one last surprise, I don't know the percentage but it's pretty high (probably because I was initially testing with games which won't run on my RP3): many, many, many games STILL won't run in MAME (some up with the red bar telling you emulation is messed-up still) - this is in 0.200 at least which is pretty new. I thought it would be able to run most of them.

[Xyga]

Oh yeah with MAME today you have to be very careful, everything must absolutely match, roms, bioses, devices, and of course build version.
It's more critical than ever.

Even so if you get a full set well yeah all the non-working games roms etc are included anyway (thankfully not the CHDs lol) that hasn't changed and it's a huge amount now.

Groovy, well, has so many different use cases that unfortunately the experience and issues will vary radically from a person to another.
I think only very few people have tried to do CRT + LCD on the same computer, and on top of that in W10!
Calamity is of course the most knowledgeable, but he can't do support for everyone all year by himself, that's impossible.
Plus there aren't many Groovy users bc overall people associate it to MAME with extra steps to deal with, so it remains niche.

Anyway I'm not pro-RA nor pro-Pi, but at some point you have to leave things be, if those give most people satisfaction so be it.
The emulation scene wasn't able to modernize and manage that tidal wave's impact, and well, what can we do? had I been a skilled genius dev I would have given it my all to help push for some very needed improvements, but heh. :p

[vol.2]

Swapping over the sync has brought me to "Out of Range". Not good at all, but a slight improvement?

lol. I'm stumped.

Bought a $4 SCART cable for the hell of it. Also wired luma. Works just fine..

Not too pleased about my pricey coax cable right now.

Well, that sucks, but glad to here you got it running. As to an explanation, it may be that the capacitors or resistors inside the cable are the reason. I believe that PSX and PS2 scart cables are different in that way, and that one of them is supposed to work for both (the PSX I think) but not the other way around. It's been awhile, so I could be mixing shit up, but that's the best I can figure. If you want to investigate more, you could open up the scart ends and compare the components or lack-there-of in each of them. Failing any difference, I would say your expensive scart cable may have a break or short somewhere.