GroovyMAME/UME for dummies

[joeblade]

Built this today just for groovymame , had a load of spare parts lying around



Specs :

Airen 11 RedComp Micro Case
XP 64bit
E6400
Asrock G41M-VS3 775
DDR3 - 4GB Ram
Micro 400w PSU
HD4350
Lite on DVD Drive
80GB Fujitsu Laptop 2.5" Drive

Should be good for the job i rekon , only want to play 80's to 90's type games on it really + some CPS1,CPS2 and MVS

Looks fine trev, perfect spec for the titles you mentioned!!

[trev1976]

Cheers joe , yeah im not looking to push this thing too far

just worried about getting all this groovymame set up , never done it before , am i in for a headache ? was going to start out on my CRT 31khz monitor first

[joeblade]

Cheers joe , yeah im not looking to push this thing too far

just worried about getting all this groovymame set up , never done it before , am i in for a headache ? was going to start out on my CRT 31khz monitor first

As cools has said, you'll be amazed by the 31khz picture you'll get once you've set it up, what size is your crt?
You may be in for a little stress but don't sweat it...follow mr cools guide and you should be fine.
Any probs just post em up and we'll try and sort!!

Good luck!

[trev1976]

Ok thanks , i have a 21" 31khz CRT computer monitor that i was going to get everything running on and then transfer it over to my 26" 15khz CRT in my Aero

Oh yeah, Do you know how early Cave games like DDP,Esprade play on GroovyMame

Thanks

[joeblade]

Oh yeah, Do you know how early Cave games like DDP,Esprade play on GroovyMame

Play....B.....E.....A......utifully!!

[joeblade]

Hooked up my i7 to my barco last night along with the slg 3000.

now i can run my HS setup through that too @ 640x480....

[trev1976]

Nice one , This really does sound to good to be true

[joeblade]

Nice one , This really does sound to good to be true

Tbh nothing gets close the real thing but honestly trev this comes pretty darn close. Loads of people have said that for years but generally when you actually see it running you can quite easily pick out the flaws. This is as good as it may ever get!!

[TechnoFreek]

Cools

Going to try the 31k only route with fake scanlines.so for 31k only on arcade monitor I edit the mame ini

For ddraw and not d3d

And effects as scanlines.png

That png is the one that comes with mame as standard not some other externally downloaded one?

[cools]

Nope, instructions in the first post - looks like you're referencing a non Groovy setup

[trev1976]

well i had a go at setting this up last night , messed around for about 3hrs and got no where really im pretty sure the crt driver wont install

I followed the instructions and it looks like the driver is installing correctly from the set up but when i run vmmaker it says no driver detected an if i run arcade osd it also says at the top , no crt driver found ? if i try to run the groovymame.exe it says i have a problem with switchres

its driving me mad now i tryed uninstalling the previous drivers a few times but it didnt work , maybe when i updated XP windows also updated my GPU and it is causing a conflict ? any ideas , oh how i love setting computers up

[pubjoe]

When first installing XP, did you download and install Ati/Amd gpu drivers or did you let windows auto setup?

[trev1976]

i let windows auto update

[joeblade]

i let windows auto update

Bad Idea mate!! Do not let windows auto update the gpu driver...you HAVE to install calamity's drivers or the gpu will not have the custom resolutions it needs.

I would also suggest signing up on the groovymame forum as calamity is regularly on their to help you if you have any major issues....I had some issues first time around and eventually with calamity's and cools help got it setup and running nicely!

Stick with it mate you'll get there!!

[trev1976]

ok cool , i had a feeling i would struggle , usually do with this sort of thing but always get there in the end just wish there wasnt so much **** about

[cools]

I don't know if this is solely down to the laptop display I'm testing on, but I've just tried these settings along with my normal hlsl settings:

Code: Select all

brightness                1.0
contrast                  1.0
gamma                     0.5

Halving the gamma has a dramatic effect on the colour quality, on all games - not just those 80s ones with an unusual range. With hlsl disabled I can drop the gamma even further to 0.4! On something like Choplifter it can go down to 0.25 or 0.3 to get the picture looking correct. There's one or two that look slightly too dark with it down at 0.5 (cninja needs it a bit higher). CV1000 stuff needs to be at 0.75

It makes me wonder (if it's not my display) whether the gamma in MAME is simply too high at default, and in reality every driver needs to have its gamma set independently...

[invzim]

Haven't really done any mame for a few years now.. What's the link between groovymame and Groovy Arcade - which I think is sort of a linux distro?

From what I can gather it has kernel direct mode setting, which wasn't available last time I played with it

[cools]

GM is just the executable, GA is a distro with all the patches needed to run it. The author creates the Windows version, there are other guys that handle incorporating it into GA

[trev1976]

finally got mine working , had to install xp32 for the drivers to install xp64 wouldnt have a bar of it also had to use the dvi port with a DVI-VGA adapter as straight VGA would not display , ive only messed around for 30mins with it but ive noticed quite a few games say im missing roms/chds , i have a full 0.148 set and the only groovymame exe i could find was 0.148u5 , is this the reason or does groovy only play certain games ? also if i type the game i want in it only displays certain types like (world) but not the other versions i take it its set to parent or something ?

[cools]

Read up on clrmame, its likely you have a full merged set whereas to get GUI access to the clones you need one that is split.