Mame Linedoubling

[matrigs]

I was trying this out for several hours now, yet i still can't set mame to simply linedouble a game. I'm using Shmupmame btw.

I'm trying to make Shmupmame linedouble a game and output a 640x480 resolution, with unused lines filled with black. I'm trying to do this with several games having unorthodox resolutions like progear and ketsui, yet i end up always either having the screen filled completely or having the game zoomed in by some weird fraction.

Is this actually possible at all? If yes could anyone point me which options in mame have to be used to do so.

I'm trying to achieve a proper scanline alignment with the slg using an external monitor, in this case a vga naomi screen.

[Fudoh]

I remember from another thread on this, that it won't work with the CPS2 and PGM games with high horizontal resolutions like 384 pixels. Does it work with other games for you ? With CPS2 etc you might have to set a higher horizontal res, maybe 480p in 16:9 with 854x480.

[matrigs]

alright, that did the trick ! a higher resolution together with "switch resolutions to fit" does exactly that.

and even better, setting the resolution to 1024x480 it even works with ketsui !

the question remains if the naomi screen will cope with this ? it is only 640x480. sadly, i cannot check it out right now.

in case it doesn't fit, would the iscan hd in between do any good ?

[Fudoh]

A higher horizontal resolution should work on 31khz screens (1024x480 is still a 31khz timing). At some point the quality might go downhill though.I am wondering why even 854x480 isn't enough for Ketsui. I assumed that everything over 2x384 should work fine.

Depending on the graphics card you use you might be able to have the graphic downscale the resolution. This works (annoyingly) well with upscaling. Might involve some EDID trickery though.

I'm not sure if any of the usual video processors can process those non-VESA resolutions.

[matrigs]

ketsui and espgaluda are actually 224x448, that's why they won't work with 854x480.

[Fudoh]

Ok, I see. Didn't know that!

Let us know if you have any luck running them this way on an actual 31khz CRT.

[invzim]

You may find this informative: http://jvspac.kirurg.org/?page=mame

I haven't played with mame in a while, but I presume it hasn't changed all that much.

[matrigs]

You may find this informative: http://jvspac.kirurg.org/?page=mame

I haven't played with mame in a while, but I presume it hasn't changed all that much.

Thanks for that.

This pretty much confirms what i established before. By using the "Switchres" function (and not using stretch) it will double (tripple etc.) the resolution of the game according to the space availlable by the selected output resolution. The cool thing is that it does so independently for the vertical and horizontal resolution. So in case of Ketsui being 448x224, when using a 640x480 output it will actually be shown as 448x448. Sadly, no fractional zooms are possible.

Now one difference i found between Mame 0.99 and 1.40 (being the the ones used for Shmupmame) is in the use of the "Keep aspect ratio" function.
In Mame 0.99, when you have this switched on, launching Ketsui at 640x480 will show you the game at 448x224 with huge borders. Makes perfect sense to me. Now in Mame 1.40 it doesn't work that way. Ketsui will be shown 448x448 not bothering that the aspect ratio is completely wrong. It's no big deal, but still interesting.

So anyway as stated above, in case of Ketsui to make it show pixel doubled in Mame is to use an output resolution of 1024x480. The question remains, how will certain receivers cope with such a resolution. If at all.

[Fudoh]

If 448x448 works on a 640x480 signal, then I would use this on a 31khz CRT instead of 1024x480. Should get you the better PQ.

[matrigs]

Well, if the screen chassis allows for such a big amount of zoom to fit in, that's fine for me. But i'm afraid that even if, this might have some negative input in the geometry.

Actually, just a second ago i discovered those new "Slider options" in the newer Mame builds which allow for vertical and horizontal zoom. Sadly, they only allow for zooming out as zooming in makes the image hide under the borders instead of making these smaller

Well i have a lot of stuff prepared to throw at my Naomi next week.

[matrigs]

Yeah so, if anybody cares:

Using soft 15 khz, i created some custom modelines for my graphics card:

640x480x57hz for dodonpachi
896x448x59hz for ketsui
896x480x59hz also for ketsui, in case the above doesn't work

dodonpachi looks wonderful, perfectly linedoubled and thanks to the lowered refresh rates scrolls nearly perfect.

ketsui at 896x448 is also perfectly pixel doubled, but i cannot get rid of a black border about 2cm on the left side, even maxing out the physical geometry controls.
actually, 896x480 does the trick after i adjust the monitor. looks prett good then.

now i still have a problem with progear, which just didn't want to cooperate in any way.
at 896x448 the black borders on the side are so big i cannot stretch them with the geometry knobs enough.
i tried to create another modeline, but 800x480, and 768x480 made the screen go out of sync for some reason.
i couldn't find a modeline around this resolution so that it would pixel-double yet be possible to adjust it to fit the screen.

i also finally gave groovymame a go and i have to admit that it works really well. instead of configuring the resolution for every game in shmupmame it just dials in the nearest resolution. it really "just works".
only one thing that seems pretty fishy to me is that in dodonpachi the scrolling was perfect. when using the modeline i created it should, theoretically have some minor scrolling artefacts similar to shmupmame.

[cools]

Syncrefresh on, throttling off?

[matrigs]

Syncrefresh on, throttling off?

I have used pretty much stock settings in both Shmupmame and Groovymame:

waitvsync 0
keepaspect 1
frameskip 0
throttle 1
syncrefresh 0
refreshspeed 0
hwstretch 0

the only difference is that Groovymame is on D3D, Shmupmame on DDraw.

i know that i could have gotten rid of the occasional hiccup in shmupmame i mentioned with syncrefresh, but not doing so gave me a visual clue as to how much off i am with the refresh rate. using freqtest it estimated 57,66 something hz, but i still wanted to know the visible impact.

actually, one funny thing i just discovered: i launched groovymame right now with my lcd connected and the speed of the games is totally off. but not at a constant rate, but dynamically. the music sounds like you would nudge forward a vinyl record every few seconds.

[EDIT]:

on a sidenote: i tried "classic mame scanlines" in shmupmame which worked perfectly on an lcd, but now shows no scanlines at all. it just makes the picture a tad darker. i don't understand why.