If you have ever dreamed of playing Arcade games on your CRT TV as if it were a retro console,
and that they look like this,
like this
and like this,
stay tuned, this video is for you!
Hi everybody, welcome to the "Retrocidad" Channel, I'm Mendion
and today, we are going to see how to play Arcade games in a consumer CRT TV
instead of using a PC monitor.
To achieve that, we are going to use a special version of MAME, called GroovyMAME.
And what is the special thing about GroovyMAME?
GroovyMAME was created to be used on CRT tubes.
That includes consumer CRT TV's like this one,
Broadcast monitors, like Sony's PVM's, and, also, arcade monitors.
The special thing about GroovyMAME is it generates resolutions and sync timings
on the fly, when executing the game.
The result of this is that every game runs in it's native resolution (or in a similar one)
and also in it's native sync frequency,
achieving that every game gets it's original aspect ratio and a super smooth scrolling.
GroovyMAME also takes advantage of special drivers we are going to install on the PC we are going to use
that output the generated image on a 15 Khz. frequency.
This 15 Khz. frequency is the same one that every retro console outputs
and also, it's same one on what the CRT tubes works.
Now, let's talk about what we need to build a GroovyMAME system.
Basically, we need 2 things:
On one hand, we need an ATI or AMD video card
because the drivers we are going to use on the GroovyMAME system
were designed for Radeon cards only.
I'm putting a link on the video's description to the official GroovyMAME site
so you can know exactly which video card models are compatible.
In my case, I will use a Radeon HD 4670 card.
The second thing we need is a special cable, that goes from the VGA output of the video card
to the RGB input of the CRT tube we are going to use.
It is worth mentioning that the CRT tube we will use must accept RGB as an input.
In my case that I'll be using a consumer CRT TV that doesn't have an RGB input,
what I'm doing is converting the RGB signal to component video
and then, that signal, goes to the component video input this TV has.
You can go and watch the video where I explain everything about my setup by clicking here
I'm putting, also, the link to a page that has several schematics on how to build this cable.
Let's do it!
We are going to see a complete tutorial on how to configure and prepare a system with GroovyMAME.
We start with a clean Windows install and without any driver installed.
In my case, I installed Windows 10.
I recommend to not install any update and, if possible, leave the Windows Update service disabled.
If we installed Windows 10, we have to disable the "Game Bar".
To do that, we press the "Windows" key + "G" on the keyboard.
We go to the bar configuration,
we uncheck "Show tips when I start a game"
and then, pressing this button, we are going to disable completely the "Game Bar"
changing to "off" where it says "Record game clips, screenshots" etc. etc.
Now, we are going to deactivate the "User Account Control".
We go to the "User Account Control" on the Control Panel,
and here, we slide down to deactivate it.
We confirm with "OK" and then "Yes" on the popup.
Let's open a Windows Explorer.
We go to the "View" menu and check "File name extensions"
We install "WinRAR", which we are going to need to unpack several files throughout all the installation.
Now, let's download a regular version of MAME.
In this case, I downloaded the 202 version because I have the roms for that version.
We run the downloaded .EXE
and extract it on C:\MAME
Ok, now we go to the MAME folder we just created,
and we rename "mame64.exe" to any other different name.
Now, we are going to download "GroovyMAME"
The GroovyMAME version must be exactly the same version as the regular MAME we downloaded before.
We open the downloaded .7z file,
go inside the folder that is shown,
select ALL that is shown here
and click "Extract to".
Here, we point to the folder where the regular MAME is, which is C:\MAME.
When it prompt us if we want to replace the file, we click "Yes to all".
Let's go back to the MAME folder.
We go to the file "mame64.exe, which now is the GroovyMAME executable
and we open it's properties.
We go to the "Compatibility" tab and we check "Run this program as an administrator"
We click "OK".
Now, let's open a command prompt.
We press on the keyboard, the "Windows" key + "R"
we type "cmd" and hit ENTER
We go to the MAME folder
and we run "mame64 -cc"
When going back to the MAME folder,
we can see that a new file was created, called "mame.ini".
Let's download the modified video card driver, called "CRT Emudriver"
Depending on which video card we have
we have to download different CRT Emudriver versions and by that, the installation process can vary slightly.
In this case, I'm going to show how to configure everything
for ATI video cards of the HD 4000 series or older.
We run the downloaded .EXE and unpack it on C:\
We go to the C: drive and we can see that a new folder was created called "CRT Emudriver"
let's rename it for something easier,
we are going to change it to "VMMAKER".
We go inside the "VMMAKER" folder and run "setup.exe"
We can see a compatible card was found. We click "Install driver".
Here, the program inform us it is going to enable the "Test Mode" of Windows 10
to be able to install driver. We accept by clicking "OK".
And here, it is telling us we have to reboot the system. We click "OK" again.
We ignore this error, it is always popping up on the last versions of CRT Emudriver.
We reboot the system.
After rebooting, we can see when entering Windows a notice saying that we are now on "Test Mode"
We run "setup.exe" again, which is located on the VMMAKER folder.
We click "Install driver" again.
We simply click "OK" to this new warning.
After that, the driver installation will begin.
The screen will flicker. We have to be patient and wait.
If everything went well, this message will pop up telling us the driver was successfully installed.
We exit the driver installer.
Now, let's run "vmmaker.exe".
This program is the one that will create and install every resolution GroovyMAME needs to run
We go to "Edit settings"
In "Monitor settings - Type" we can set which type of CRT tube we are going to use.
In this case, we are going to use a consumer CRT TV, so, we select "Generic".
On the "Video Card" tab, we do not change anything.
On the "User modes" tab, we click on "Browse"
and we select "user_modes - super.ini".
Lastly, on the "MAME" tab, we click on "Browse"
and select where the GroovyMAME executable is located, that is "mame64.exe" on C:\MAME.
Then, we check 3 things:
"Export monitor setting to GroovyMAME",
"Get video modes from MAME XML"
and "Generate XML from MAME executable".
We accept all this by clicking "OK".
Now, we are going to generate the resolutions. We click on "Generate modes"
This window will open.
This process can take some time, depending on the PC we have. We have to be patient and wait.
After a while, we will see it will begin to find modes.
The process ends when the list of the generated resolutions is shown.
If everything went well, VMMAKER should have created 120 resolutions.
We proceed to install it on our video driver by clicking on "Install modes".
After hitting "OK", the screen will flicker and there is a chance the PC will freeze for a while.
This is completely normal. We have to wait.
If we receive the "Success" message, everything ran perfectly.
It's time to shut down the PC and connect it to our CRT tube.
We turn on the PC WITHOUT turning on the CRT tube,
due to any signal the PC outputs outside of Windows
will be on a not supported frequency, and that may harm our tube
We will wait until Windows boots up and then yes, we turn on our CRT tube.
When doing it, we should already have signal.
When turning on the tube, we can see the mouse pointer is not there.
That is because the driver, when configuring everything for the first time, it creates two monitors,
and, at this moment, we are using Windows extended in two monitors.
The CRT tube we are using would be the monitor that is on the right side.
So, we move the mouse to the right and we will see our mouse pointer shows up on screen.
Now, we have to go to the display settings.
We do a right click on the desktop and open "Display Settings."
The display settings will open, but we are not going to see the window on our monitor.
That is because our monitor is not the main one.
The window have opened on the left monitor.
To move the window to our display, after opening "Display settings"
we press on the keyboard the "Windows" key + "SHIFT" + "→" (right arrow) at the same time.
We are going to see instantly the window will show up on our display.
We click "Identify" to make sure which display number is ours.
We select the number of our display.
We go down and check "Make this my main display".
Then, on "Multiple displays", we select "Show only on 2"
We click on "Keep changes".
And, lastly, we change the display resolution to a more standard one
of a 4:3 aspect ratio, like 640x480.
We click on "Keep changes" again.
And that's all!
Let's try now some games to see how they run on GroovyMAME.
Let's open GroovyMAME.
We search for a game we already have. For example, in this case, let's run "Wonder Boy".
And, when running it, this screen is shown, saying
the original game's resolution is 512x224 at 60.09 Hz.
GroovyMAME is going to run it on the most similar resolution it has available
In this case, it found a resolution of 512x240 at 60.09 Hz.
Almost the same.
Already into the game, we can see that everything is shown as it should be.
The aspect ratio is the correct one and the scrolling is super smooth.
Here we have another example, in this case, "Ghost 'n Goblins".
As we can see, the original game's resolution is 256x224 at 59.59 Hz.
and GroovyMAME found a resolution of 256x240 at 59.59 Hz.
Well! I hope after watching the tutorial you now want to build your own system with GroovyMAME.
As you can see, being able to have a MAME working on a CRT tube has a tremendous potential.
It can be used on arcade cabinets or in your own home with a consumer CRT TV and arcade like controllers,
and then, you can install a frontend like "HyperSpin", "Maximus Arcade", etc.
And that's all!
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See you later on another "Retrocidad" video.
Bye Bye!
