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[Tom M.]

MAME tries to run videogames at their original speeds.

MAME port on Xbox (MAMEX) is based on MAME32. Xbox can only produce NTSC or PAL signals (60 or 50 Hz).

NEO GEO videogames run exactly at 60.0 Hz. If we use NTSC or PAL-60 signal on Xbox then we match exactly the required refresh rate and a videogame runs perfect smooth with syncronized sound and video (no software synchronization is actually needed because the screen refresh is exactly the same of that required by MAME).

HOWEVER!!!

I dont understand why MAME cannot deal with the situation that we want synchronized behaviour also for games that have a different refreshment than the refresh of our screen.

If we want to run Moon Patrol (running at 57.00000 Hz) on PC - with video and sound synchronized and smooth - then we need to create a 57.00000 Hz refreshment on the screen... because otherwise we would not match the original refresh of the game, on PC it can be done by tweaking videocard/multisync monitor (Advance MAME is a good example of that this works great as it is capable of creating such a perfect video modes...)

But - on Xbox we cannot provide a 57.00000 Hz signal for Moon Patrol, we only have 60.0 Hz or 50.0 Hz signals....

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Why is there an option called "syncrefresh"? If we turn it ON - the sound will still go at different speed (57.00000 Hz instead of 60.0/50.0 of the screen and the rest of the emulation) and will result at choppy sound after a while... (and if we already had the exact refresh we woudnt need sync anymore)

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I dont understand why the sound also is not adapted to 60.0/50.0 Hz to match exactly the actual screen refresh/emulation speed.
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Instead, we get choppy sound and smooth video OR vice versa, if we dont have the original refresh on our screen - not an ideal situation I would say, and I am sure there IS a way to solve this...

I remember Kgen98 (Sega Genesis) can deal with NTSC 60 Hz games running on PAL 50 Hz and vice versa simply by modifiyng the sound speed.. why not MAME?



It would help a lot since many many arcades does not run at 60.00 Hz... and actually none of them uses PAL 50 Hz refresh. Again - try to run Moon Patrol - you will either see choppy scrolling (movements) or if you synchronize the refresh with 60 Hz, the sound will be out of synch (resulting in a sort of distortion from time to time).