How to make all MAME games run at 60hz?

I know that RetroArch has various options to achieve perfect sync with the screen but this isn’t happening with MAME. Many games will have somewhat erratic scrolling because of this.

Now, many games will be smooth because they do run at 60hz or close to it. Other games can be fixed in the MAME TAB slider options. For instance, if a game runs at 58hz, you can increase that value to 60 (though it doesn’t save). The issue is with games that have odd numbers for refresh rtes. Ghost n Goblins will always have erratic frame rate because it runs at 59.5hz. I can’t touch the odd number, i can only increase or decrease by 1hz so that’s 58.5 or 60.5.

Is there a way to make this game run at exact 60hz (and other games with similar issues)? Or any other way to make it’s scrolling sync properly with a 60hz screen?

With dynamic rate control enabled, it should force anything within the max timing skew range to 60 Hz. 59.5 should definitely be within that range unless you’ve changed it to 0.0 for some other reason.

Not the answer of your question, but maybe even so interesting.
Has anyone tried this tool to set a custom refresh rate for the monitor?

https://www.monitortests.com/forum/Thread-Custom-Resolution-Utility-CRU

Yes. I’ve been using it a lot before I got a high refresh rate VRR monitor. I was using the nvidia pixel clock patcher and then use CRU to add things like a 75Hz mode and 48Hz (for 24FPS movies) to my 60Hz monitor.

Not all monitors can do this though. Some vendors put locks in the firmware to prevent you from doing it.

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Is the dynamic rate control in the audio options menu?

It’s enabled and set to 0.005. If i increase it a lot it messes the sound. But Ghosts n Goblins still has erratic scrolling.

Maybe it’s the game’s fault? Like, it’s the intended behavior and it’s not smooth even on a real machine?

that 0.005 is the max audio delta, which is how much it can vary the pitch when it resamples the audio to keep the audio buffer from overflowing/emptying. Max timing skew is what determines at which point it will give up trying to sync.

Note that Ghosts’n Goblins has stutter in it. To tell if the framerate is really erratic, watch the scrolling map after you die. If that’s smooth, then there’s no issue. Normal gameplay is just stuttery in this game. It’s not caused by the framrate.

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Running the 240p test suite through it would probably be the most reliable way to evaluate the core via the scrolling tests.

Yes, but mostly with CRTs. E.g I used it for briefly testing 240p output of an Nvidia card.

For just changing refreshrate with standard resolutions on an LCD, I found the Nvidia control panel sufficient. My Dell goes down to at least 50 Hz, the specs sheet for this and a lot of other models usually suggest the limit should be 56 Hz. This is probably because of standard VGA timings. For most Arcade games this would be low enough (though it’s afaik still limited to integer values, so a CRT is still superior in that regard).

@RealNC

You are right. I noticed the map screen having smoother scrolling so i suspected maybe the game runs like that internally.

I have access to a Pandora’s box Jamma on a real CRT arcade monitor. I will check this game out there as well when i get the chance since that’s the closest you can get to the real thing

Yeah Ghosts n Goblins is just like that. Even on a PCB.

I should have mentioned that I use a g-sync monitor and I have configured everything properly. So the monitor runs at the original hardware refresh rate for me, and the game still stutters. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing to be done about it. It’s how it is.