[• 5 v2 Instructions / FAQ]

• 5 v2 Instructions / FAQ
• 3.x Instructions / FAQ
• RaspJAMMA Mini Manual
• RaspJAMMA 4-P Manual
• Mac Partitioning Guide
• Dipswitch Guide
• RaspJAMMA PCB Layout
• How to Fit your Raspberry Pi
• GPIO Wiring Guide
• Compatible ROMS List

As the one person I'm currently discussing this issue with, would you rather:

1. Worst curl fixed up, most subtle curl possibly not perfected, fast release - prob next week (and likely ongoing improvements as I figure them out)
 OR
2. Worst curl fixed, subtle curl fixed, released when I get all the subtle curl dialed out (at least on my bench PVM), it takes as long as it takes.

Basicaly, I think I have all but the most subtle curl sorted (and some other slight improvements to res/refresh) and just have to do some 480i scripting fixes to be at (1), (2) has no ETA as it's results based (adjust numbers, try, repeat until perfect).  I'm currently leaning to (1) as the 480i improvements are prob worth it on their own and subtle bends over the top 3 lines arn't that game breaking.

What do you think?  I'm aware I've done a couple of updates recently, I don't want to make too many in too short a period to the point where it gets annoying for users.

Mate , quite honestly anything at all is much appreciated.

Option 1 sounds good to be honest

Thanks again !!!

I agree with you, 1 sounds best. I dont think we as users would mind maybe month/bi-monthly updates to the system. Perfection takes time.

Ok gents. Just an update and some results. Ive done the latest 2.7 update and can report the following outcome:



1. After update, testing the same games, without changing anything:
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Flycast:   
--------
MVC2 - curl issue remains
Virtua Striker 2 ver2000 - curl issue remains
Virtua Tennis - curl issue remains
Virtua Tennis 2- curl issue remains

Street fighter zero 3 upper - same - only very minor issues - curl at top on Naomi boot screen . On the main game (insert coin screen) no curl but has pixelated top row . Inside gameplay appears fine. This is the least impacted game


FinalBurn Neo:
--------------
SF2 yyc2 hack Sf2yyc2.zip  - curl fixed
SF3rd strike  - curl fixed


Mame 078:
---------
Killer Instinct kinst - curl remains


Mame 279: - Curl remains same on all below.
----------
Bomberman world bbmanw.zip
Dyna Gears dynagear.zip
Gun Force II gunforc2.zip
Thunderzone thndzone.zip
Street Fighter EX2Plus sfex2p.zip  minor
Frogger frogger.zip - minor
Galaga galaga.zip
Galaga fast shoot galagamf.zip
donkey kong dkong.zip
Ladybug ladybug.zip - minor
mspacman  mspacman.zip - minor
pacman / puckman pacman.zip puckman.zip - minor



2. I then tried going into the Service Menu, and chose that '480i' option
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Flycast:
--------
MVC2 - Curl remains
Virtua Striker 2 ver2000  - fixed the curl
Virtua Tennis  - fixed the curl
Virtua Tennis 2 - fixed the curl

Street fighter zero 3 upper - same - only very minor issues - curl at top on Naomi boot screen . On the main game (insert coin screen) no curl but has pixelated top row . Inside gameplay appears fine. This is the least impacted game


FinalBurn Neo: 
--------------
SF2 yyc2 hack Sf2yyc2.zip  - curl still fixed (whether 480 or not)
SF3rd strike   - curl still fixed (whether 480 or not)


Mame 078:
---------
Killer Instinct kinst - curl remains


Mame 279:
----------
Bomberman world bbmanw.zip  - curl remains
Dyna Gears dynagear.zip  - curl remains
Gun Force II gunforc2.zip  - curl remains
Thunderzone thndzone.zip - curl fixed
Street Fighter EX2Plus sfex2p.zip  - curl fixed
Frogger frogger.zip - curl fixed
Galaga galaga.zip - curl fixed
Galaga fast shoot galagamf.zip - curl fixed
donkey kong dkong.zip - curl fixed
Ladybug ladybug.zip -  - curl fixed
mspacman  mspacman.zip - curl fixed
pacman / puckman pacman.zip puckman.zip - curl fixed




Questions:
----------

- Is it recommended to leave the 480i option on permanently? Is there any downside to it, i.e. loss of performance? Im not really technical when it comes to these video modes/resolutions , not really sure on the difference. Im not sure if its my imagination, but does the 480 display have more of a bright / faster flicker refresh or something or another. I can tell the picture might be different, just not sure how or sure on the pros/cons or why someone mightn't have it on by default?
I haven't played any of the games properly yet to be honest

- Is there anything further I need to do / change / test ?
(or anything specific to MVC2 or a setting change - would love to get this spot on the most tbh)


Thanks again, great progress!
 

You can leave the 480i mode on, doesn'ty hurt performance any as far as I can tell (it shouldn't as electrically, and in number of pixels, 480i and 240p are about the same).  It was off by default for 2 reasons, the first was the res itself (now fixed), the second was not all arcade monitors really do a good job of interlacing (arcade monitors were generally about third tier quality wise compared to production monitors and good TVs).  The flicker you're noticing on 480i is the interlacing, it's alternating odd/even lines every frame to give the impression of twice the vertical resolution.

The flickering is the only con to 480i.  Depending on your brain and eyes, some people are more sensitive to it than others.  Depending on your monitor, some make it look better than others.

Pros to 480i include: easier to read game selection menu, less (or no) picture info has to be discarded for rotated games (eg. vert game on horizontal monitor), and games that ran 480i or 480p originally do not need to discard half of the vertical resolution to display the game (as they would if forced down to 240p). 

The vast majority of older games ran in 240p/256p/288p and are not affected by the 480i setting either way.  If it looks good on your monitor through your eyes I'd leave 480i enabled.  I nearly changed using 480i to the default in this release as it's so much better to use now...

MVC2 is in an array in the NAOMI launcher that forces it to run in 240p, if you remove it from that array it will run in 480i and not curl on your setup.  I've got most of the 2d NAOMI games in that array - on real NAOMI they'd run in 480i/480p, but most will 'look better' in 240p (on a low res monitor anyway, not counting the current curl issue).  see. use240p= in launchers/naomi.sh

You can leave the 480i mode on, doesn'ty hurt performance any as far as I can tell (it shouldn't as electrically, and in number of pixels, 480i and 240p are about the same).  It was off by default for 2 reasons, the first was the res itself (now fixed), the second was not all arcade monitors really do a good job of interlacing (arcade monitors were generally about third tier quality wise compared to production monitors and good TVs).  The flicker you're noticing on 480i is the interlacing, it's alternating odd/even lines every frame to give the impression of twice the vertical resolution.

The flickering is the only con to 480i.  Depending on your brain and eyes, some people are more sensitive to it than others.  Depending on your monitor, some make it look better than others.

Pros to 480i include: easier to read game selection menu, less (or no) picture info has to be discarded for rotated games (eg. vert game on horizontal monitor), and games that ran 480i or 480p originally do not need to discard half of the vertical resolution to display the game (as they would if forced down to 240p). 

The vast majority of older games ran in 240p/256p/288p and are not affected by the 480i setting either way.  If it looks good on your monitor through your eyes I'd leave 480i enabled.  I nearly changed using 480i to the default in this release as it's so much better to use now...

MVC2 is in an array in the NAOMI launcher that forces it to run in 240p, if you remove it from that array it will run in 480i and not curl on your setup.  I've got most of the 2d NAOMI games in that array - on real NAOMI they'd run in 480i/480p, but most will 'look better' in 240p (on a low res monitor anyway, not counting the current curl issue).  see. use240p= in launchers/naomi.sh

Thanks for all of that info, thats amazing

Some additional queries if thats ok;

Out of interest, what changed in the way of 240p from arpicade 3 to arpicade 5 i.e. how come say, arpicade 3 didnt experience curl in 240p on mame whereas version 5 does / how come the fixes can only get applied to run in 480i mode?

With "use240p= in launchers/naomi.sh" - are you saying I can edit that file to remove MVC2 from using 240p to remove the Curl? (im guessing thats not on the 'boot' partition area, but rather the linux based partition?)

thanks and apologies for my shortcomings tech wise!

The change from Pi3 to Pi5 that makes the difference is the video chip, it is a hardware difference - the res changing is completely different for the chips.  Software wise, Pi3 uses non standard ways of changing resolution (tvservice - which I think was a RPI specific tool), Pi5 uses different ways of changing res (standard Linux methods).  It's only some of the available modes that show the curl, definately not all 240p modes, most of the modes with the issue are the ones with refresh rates faster than 60hz. 

For Pi3 I made a massive spread sheet to figure out resolutions/refresh rates and spent a long time tweaking them.  For Pi5, none of the earlier work was applicable at all, res switching was rewritten entirely and all new modes had too be figured out.

It's not really a case of fixes were only done to 480i.  I did adjust (or replace) a few of the 240p/288p resolutions and saw at least some improvement on my bench PVM.  480i was the dramatic improvement though as previously it was heavily shifted to the right and badly curling, now it's perfect from what I can see.  I need to do more testing on other monitors, my PVM seems quite forgiving...

Good news, the launchers are in the boot partition.  On your PC they'l be in /launchers/ (in the boot partition) on the Pi it'l be /boot/firmware/launchers (it's the same folder mounted different ways).  Be careful editing the launchers scripts, mistakes will cause issues, if you back them up first though nothing much can go wrong.  The launchers folder also contains the resSwitching script, the mameinfo file and a bunch of other bits of scripted logic. 

Make sure if your editing ARpiCADE scripts/configs/text files in Windows that you do not use the built in Windows text editor(s), get Notepad++ - it's free and very good.  The built in Windows stuff will cause issues as they tend to change metadata that they shouldn't touch (which in turn will upset Linux).

Thanks for that. Ive edited it in notepad++ and curl is gone in MVC2!!!

going to play around and do some testing to see how they all play in 480i

Edit: i think picture looks amazing on mvc2 in 480i!!!



A new problem now

I dont know if this happened in the update, but all of my Naomi games now, go into test mode as soon as I press the UP on Joystick 1

I went into an 'input' menu for MVC2 and it replicates in there every time i press UP and shows UP and TEST being pressed

I pressed f1 on keyboard, went into Controls > Control port 1 >

It shows per the photo attached

L3 button Thumb 8 NA Key F2 = Test

If I set that to Nothing, the issue is fixed - but then it removes my ability to go into test menus and change game settings etc.

Not sure how to make just my 'test' button on my arcade cabinet the sole button that does TEST now (not sure what changed to make the UP arrow do it as well in all the naomi games)

Mame is much easier where you can manually just enter in a button for any given function, but the F1 menu on retroarch/naomi flycast of course doesnt. Not sure why it is linking 'UP' on player 1 and Test as being the same function or button

https://ibb.co/Wv8CzC3h

Sorry, I have no idea why that happened in Naomi games for you.  I can look into at my end but haven't noticed anything like that happening.

You'l want to set test to just 'f2', no joystick inputs at all (cab test button sends an 'f2').

EDIT: the problem is that 8, UP is input 8...
Further edit: in the old input driver input 8 was test and 9 was up, when I redid the inputs I may have fogotten to remove the 8 (or fixed it separately to the joystick directions and forgot to upload it for others... I have to dig into it and figure it out but prob my mistake.

Sorry, I have no idea why that happened in Naomi games for you.  I can look into at my end but haven't noticed anything like that happening.

You'l want to set test to just 'f2', no joystick inputs at all (cab test button sends an 'f2').

EDIT: the problem is that 8, UP is input 8...
Further edit: in the old input driver input 8 was test and 9 was up, when I redid the inputs I may have fogotten to remove the 8 (or fixed it separately to the joystick directions and forgot to upload it for others... I have to dig into it and figure it out but prob my mistake.

Ahh got ya. Yeah I cant remove that '8' from the left side

Ok keep me posted. I guess for now ill disable test as a temp workaround.

thanks

Edit: ive well and truly messed up all the controls now through the retroarch menus
I tried going into settings > controller port 1  and messed around in there , setting defaults and such. I think i made things worse. looks like it was a separate menu for the controller compared to the 'in game' controller settings. no idea what ive done to it now. lol

Wish they made it like mame.

Yeah, the way RA handles inputs is a confusing mess if you don't have a SNES/Playstation style controller.

This little update should fix it up for you:  https://mega.nz/file/kg1UGASD#JpYU19HRZ-wOf31HEdT1c8rPU-1udgJd4lkWFixvIhA
it's just the RA Flycast config files setup to install like an update.

EDIT: in future you're best to adjust inputs in the quick menu part of the RA menus.  Although, in this instance you were chasing an issue I caused (maybe) so it wouldn't likely have helped anyway.

Yeah, the way RA handles inputs is a confusing mess if you don't have a SNES/Playstation style controller.

This little update should fix it up for you:  https://mega.nz/file/kg1UGASD#JpYU19HRZ-wOf31HEdT1c8rPU-1udgJd4lkWFixvIhA
it's just the RA Flycast config files setup to install like an update.

EDIT: in future you're best to adjust inputs in the quick menu part of the RA menus.  Although, in this instance you were chasing an issue I caused (maybe) so it wouldn't likely have helped anyway.

Thanks man
To the rescue again!!

Just updated it . It has brought my controls back, but unfortunately still says auto8 key f2 test and the up arrow is doing test again.

Edit: if i dont go into quick menu, but rather main menu>settings>input >port 1 controls, it also has a second entry for auto 8 f2 i cant remove either.
So it appears to filter down. L3 button thumb is tying itself to auto8 as well in there

2nd edit: in quick menu controls, my first screenshot showed l3 and auto 8 for f2. Now l3 is missing there altogether,  just says auto8 f2 test

Also in player 2 quick menu controls there is no L3, just auto8 f2 test

Might be a different old file getting in the way but offhand I'm not sure right now.

Auto 8 suggests it's the autoconfig, try this update: https://mega.nz/file/At0XQSwa#g1tQdZHQNlhcnyoiZ4HrObvtlAm9Y40KciiCCB8iGv8

Might be a different old file getting in the way but offhand I'm not sure right now.

Auto 8 suggests it's the autoconfig, try this update: https://mega.nz/file/At0XQSwa#g1tQdZHQNlhcnyoiZ4HrObvtlAm9Y40KciiCCB8iGv8

That update fixes player 1 side now!!

Unfortunately found same problem exists on player 2 side

Player 2 side doing it with "up" as well , it acts as test button (and port 2 in f1 menus also shows that number 8/ f2 thing too for button L3)

So sorry man

Any way to please reflect all the edited changes in those files to do the same for p2 side?

(I.e. unlinking number 8 and l3 / f2 being one in the same)

another version:
https://mega.nz/file/lld3UBSQ#cQrDQsJe7t7TNrSmMpBaLL3Z4NVJ4dXYDfQptgIx1Pk