Hi all,

Over the past several days, I've been trying to research more about laserdisc games in general, and specifically, what was required to make everything run up correctly/accurately in the case of DAPHNE. During this time, I've been lurnking here and searching the forums with several keywords to get some information on how to proceed with my own laserdisc setup here at home. Unfortunately, due to either using the wrong keywords (ie: Quality, VGA, J-PAC, NTSC, et cetera) or getting far too many results to search through, I still have some unanswered questions that will determine whether or not I attempt to get into this genre of video games. I apologize in advance if the questions I will pose have already been brought up elsewhere within this forum or the DAPHNE F.A.Q.:

• I have a JAMMA cabinet equipped with a NANAO Tri-Sync Arcade monitor (15/24/31khz) which can accept direct VGA input from a VGA source (ie: SEGA Naomi, NAMCO 246, etc.). With regards to true arcade video quality on a VGA monitor, is it better to use Daphne with the original LaserDisk/player, a captured/Inverse Telecine'd LD image or a captured/Inverse Telecine'd DVD image? I understand this can be a bit of a subjective question, and I know that ultimately playback should ideally be done on a normal TV, but I would like to know all the same.
  
• Since there are different OS versions of DAPHNE available, which OS is typically considered to be better at handlng this emulator? I assume this would be the *NIX versions, and while I have no issues with working with that OS since I deal with it at work, my forum searches haven't yielded anyone promoting either OS version over the other.
  
• While I am aware that the FAQ says any card that can supports YUV capabilities should be fine, which videocard from a development standpoint would be the most optimal card to use given the nature of the content; no expenses spared? By development standpoint, I mean the type of card that the developers of DAPHNE had in mind as producing the best results when emulating a laserdics game.
  
• If an image/mpeg is used for playback instead of an LD and player, what type of drive would be both the most economically sound as well as fast enough to handle constant seeking (ie: FCAL, SCSI, EIDE / 7K,10K,15K RPM) given the circumstances? Any manufacturer/model suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
  
• Since this system would be setup within a JAMMA cabinet, are there any issues with using an adapting device such as the J-PAC adapter with DAPHNE? Are there more compatible/higher quality alternative connection solutions I should look into other than J-PAC?

Ideally, I'd use this system/setup only for DAPHNE and only within my current cabinet (MAME and other emulators aren't needed since I already have a pretty extensive collection of PCBs), so any answers to these questions would be most welcome!

I prefer real discs and players, but I don't recommend this route for someone starting out. Discs are now rare and expensive, and the players are finicky. Plus, since you have a VGA monitor, that's another point for the mpeg route as you'd have to convert (and further degrade) the signal from the LDP otherwise.



the linux version is the native version, but the Windows version is the most used and therefore probably the most well tested.



Most (all?) of the developers (other then the mac guys) have GeForce cards, so they'd be the most well tested.



It really doesn't matter. They're all faster than an LDP. I would recommend one with enough space to hold all the mpegs you'll want, and maybe have a sizable chunk of ram so you can use the new feature that stores the entirety of the mpeg in ram. This is ideal for skipping/seeking. For this, I'd recommend 2GB at a minimum. Again, though, this is not required for daphne and is considered a high-end feature.



None that I know of. I use an IPAC (1st revision) in mine. I don't need the sync features of the JPac as I have a tv in my cab.

Chip,

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my questions, it really helps me out a lot here!



So MPEGS are the way to go then. With that being said, is it best to go from an LD source, provided I have the disk/player, or from "Digital Liesure" DVD source for the sake of this endeavor?



That's encouraging to know (I already have have a small stock of GeForce cards in spares). Any particular series favored more over the other? Again, this setup would assume high-end components if available and reasonable for the sake of DAPHNE.



The RAM route is new to me, and very fascinating. Do you have any suggestions on manufacturer/model for ram I should look at, as I'd like to go this route? Corsair comes to mind, but that's only because my company has a working contract with them...


Again, thanks for the thoughtful replies, and I look forward to your responses on these questions, too!

I learned a couple of things from this one.

I would like to comment that from a user standpoint a geforce card is NOT generally reccomended.

If you are making a dedicated daphne cab you might get away with it, but generally you'll want to run other emulators as well. Almost everyone in the byoac community is going to reccomend to you an ati card because they have better tv-out and they generally are better at supporting odd-ball arcade frequences when using the powerstrip program. Also if you want to go the easy route, arcadevga cards automatically support arcade resolutions and they also have ati chips. Any 9000 series ati or greater supports yuv.


Chip... about the new buffering method......

I know it's optional, but are you guys going to work on other ways to do buffering? Considering you are going to need over a gig for even the smallest of games, it seems like an option nobody is really going to be able to use or at least not for a few years until machines with more than a gig of memory are the norm.

I know vista has this thing they are working on where any solid storage device you plug into the computer (sd, flash, portable usb harddrives, ect) can be used as ram. Could it be done this way in daphne as well? I can't see a lot of people spending 100+ bucks on ram but I can see them paying a few bucks adding a usb flash drive to get their current "memory" specs high enough to get over the 1 gig hump.

While this is very good information to know, I should stress again here that I have no interest, now or future, to use other emulators in this setup as I already have an extensive collection of original JAMMA PCBs. Again, this is meant only for DAPHNE, since it's the only solution I know of for tapping into the laserdisc game genre due to the lack of available (and reliable) parts. With that being said, is it your contention then that ATI cards will yeild a better image for a VGA monitor compared to an Nvidia solution? If so, which specific card is favored most by those in this community specifically for DAPHNE (I'm not concerned with emaulting other standard resolution games)?

I would say the arcadevga is going to yield the best results simply because it is the only card, without tweaking and various software apps that can produce arcade frequencies and you are using an arcade monitor. Just because you have one that can support vga doesn't mean that you should use vga. Standard resolution is going to be as close as you can get to using a tv.

Don't quote me on this because I'm not an expert, but the tri-sync monitors generally interlace the picture when used in vga mode. With an avga you should be able to find a resolution that'll work with daphne in non-interlaced mode, which will be far less flickery.

If it's just for daphne, I'd still recommend an NVidia card. Historically, daphne has had issues with ATI drivers, including ArcadeVGA cards. If you want maximum compatibility now and in the future, I'd stick to NVidia. I just don't trust ATI's software team anymore.



get yourself a set of the digital leisure dvds, and wait for the upcoming daphne release. If you want to know why, listen to Matt_O's interview in this month's episode of Retrogaming Radio. He finally let the cat out of the bag on something big.




It really depends on your system, but usually faster ram is preferred. Read reviews before buying to make sure it's stable.

I seriously doubt it. The whole point is to have instant access to the video by pre-caching it. Any other sort of device would still have to be read, so at that point you might as well read it directly from a hard drive anyway.

Like you said, it's there now for power users, and is the ideal solution. As larger quantities of ram become standard, the feature will still be there so more and more users can take advantage of it.

Very good then, Nvidia it is. What are your thoughts on HowardC's comments regarding tri-sync monitors, such as the one I have, being better suited to taking advantage of standard resolution (15K) instead of high (31K)? My current Nanao monitor is capable of taking both standard and medium resolution frequencies via the JAMMA edge, and takes high resolution directly through a built in VGA receptacle (base of the cabinet). Do DAPHNE emulated laserdisc games display with more authenticity via standard resolution or high resolution (mpeg source notwithstanding)? As I mentioned earlier, I know that the best display would be a television set, but since I need to choose between either standard resolution or high resolution, I'd like to stick with the most accurate choice.



Will do (Digital Leisure DVDs). Should I then expect the quality to be less than desirable for the games Digital Leisure currently don't support/provide (Cliff Hanger, Cobra Command, etc.) then since I'll need to go to the LD source instead? I'll be sure to tune in to that broadcast!

I hate to disagree with chip, but I need to point out that for whatever reason, the daphne devs are admittedly fanboys for nvidia cards.

I've been following the developement of daphne for a long time, and the only ati specific issue of any significance I can remember is the fact that for a short time hardware acceleration didn't work on a few ati chipsets. Daphne was still very playable (full framerate) even on the slowest of systems, you just didn't have the help of the video card.

Also there is more than one arcadevga card. The original (which you should not buy as it's very old) was the only one that had issue and it was the issue I just mentioned.

There was a time in computing history that ati had bad drivers and nvidia had good ones. That role is reversed now. Just as an example last year nvidia's drivers had issues with several emulators/simulators and it took them almost 6 months to come out with new drivers that resolved the issues. The ati cards did fine during this period.

I know that doesn't apply to daphne in particular, but it does apply to games like ninja hayate and time gal, which currently you can only run via a playstation emulator.

If you were using a regular computer monitor I would agree with the nvidia reccomendation, but if you are running a tv or arcade monitor, ati is the only way to go, an arcadevga in your case.

http://www.ultimarc.com

This is true. I used to be a 3dfx fanboy then I switched over to nvidia when I got a tnt2 and then got a geforce3 and now on a geforce 6800 ultra.

But as far as Daphne goes, the YUV acceleration technology which is needed has been around for so long (at least since the riva TNT2) that pretty much any recent video card out there is going to be able to do the job. In short, as far as performance is concerned, it really doesn't matter whether you go with nvidia or ATI.

If ATI has better video quality for arcade settings (I have no idea), then so be it.

Thank you for taking the time to reply to this thread topic, Matt, I appreciate that. By the way, I listened to your interview last night concerning the changes you plan to make with respect to DAPHNE's user friendliness and accessibility. If you don't mind me asking, given my circumstances choosing between either 15Khz via JAMMA or 31Khz via VGA, which would you choose for the sake of visual authenticity, regardless of the videocard?

15 KHz is definitely preferred for authenticity. The interlaced display has slightly visible scanlines, causing a shimmering effect that is noticably absent when using 31+ KHz progressive displays.

That said, actually getting 15 KHz video can be something of a challenge. For standard VGA /31 KHz, pretty much any card will do what you want at this point. The real differences come out when you start dealing with TV outputs and non-standard video modes.

As for *nix versus Windows, if it's a dedicated Daphne setup, I'd go with GNU/Linux. You can make a fast-booting, rock-solid setup that won't pop up stupid messages, or stutter when trying to run some background task (like phoning home to see if MS deems it 'worthy' or not. Evil! )

It does take a fair amount of work to set it up in GNU/Linux, but if you're handy with Unix it shouldn't be too bad. I found it to be a very good learning experience -- you have to get in to some of the finer points of the boot process and module loading to strip it down and automate the whole startup sequence.

In my case, I have successfully used a crappy on-board ATI Rage II chip to get 15 KHz (using custom modelines for X), and TV-out from a GeForce 4MX. (I had to use an older driver to properly remove the overscan for a full 480i display.) I don't know about using the nVIdia with custom timings, though.

You do need to use X to get hardware accelerated YUV overlays, but for DL/SA this isn't really necessary if you have a fast CPU and a graphics card with a reasonably fast framebuffer. For other games with graphic overlays, though, it really helps keep things smooth.

I hope this helps, and good luck!

-Warren.
[/i]

Thanks for the tips. By X, do you mean the X-Windowing environment (at least as I know it in Solaris) within GNU? Also, since *NIX may be the way to go in my case, are there any special groups/users that need to be set up/created in advance or services (RPC) that need to be set/disabled in order for smooth operation, or any other init state issues that one may run into in this type of dedicated senario?

Which is why I reccomended the arcadevga. Mind you like yourself I've gotten 15khz out of practically anything, BUT like you said it can be difficult. With an avga you just pick a resolution you like and it's in 15khz, no settings or software to muck with, it's a mode supported by the video card and thus any os shows these resolutions and have them available.

If you don't want to do that no problem, but here is my point.

Newer ati radeon cards support lower clock rates, required for tweaking, some of the newer geforce don't. On the other hand if you want to use a really old card, reverse that. Like I said, ati and nvidida have swapped places recently.

With all of that being said, neither one of us are relaly qualified to answer you question. You want to go over to the monitor/video forum at byoac and ask them for suggestions, they can help you with tri-sync settings and all that. Just if someone tells you to run it in vga mode, promptly ignore them.

Right, I had already considered looking into your recommendation back when you originally brought it up in the beginning of this thread, I just wanted to make sure I had the full story on what to invest in for the sake of visual authenticity since, if it had turned out that 31KHZ/VGA with a de-interlaced mpeg looked more authentic than 15KHZ did, I wouldn't need to invest in the JPAC/AVGA combo. Of course now, since the concensus seems to be that 15KHz is the way to go for "visual authenticity" regardless of the monitor type, I now know that I can invest in a J-PAC/AVGA FB solution with no worries whatsoever. However, I still do look forward to any answers regarding my previous post concerning *NIX variables/settings. Don't get me wrong, as I said before I work with UNIX on a daily basis as an administrator (that's how I finance my JAMMA hobby) and I have no issues with figuring it out on my own, but if the footwork has already been done, there's no sense in recreating it. If there happens to be an ideal set of settings/things to look out for here on the site somewhere (any version of *NIX is fine), or at least any thing that may answer those questions I directed to Warren, that'd be great to read.

Yep, that's it. It's a bit harder to refer to now that the preferred package comes from X.org instead of the older X11.

HowardC is correct -- the ArcadeVGA is likely the best choice. I'm just cheap and like to use stuff already on hand. (I hate waiting for shipments, even though they usually come before I get to working on something anyway.)

The only thing I'm not 100% sure about is getting YUV acceleration. It's great that it works in Windows now, but I haven't heard for certain if it works in X. Maybe HowardC or someone on BOYAC would know for sure...

As for the preferred configuration for GNU/Linux, as usual, there isn't one. Every case is different -- distro, hardware, other apps, etc.

In general, for a dedicated cabinet, there's no need to use anything other than root for the user. Disable or remove as many daemons as you can -- cron, syslog (once you know things are working), etc.

I used Debian (Sarge), and was able to put the 'startx daphne' command in one of the init files, so it fires up as root without a login prompt. I'm not sure what you would use if you need a game selection menu -- perhaps AdvanceMenu.

I used a custom modeline to make the ATI Rage II output at 15 KHz, and used the TV out from the nVidia GF4MX. Getting the ATI working was actually a little easier; the overscan stuff for the nVidia TV out gave me a fair amount of trouble.

The only major thing I didn't accomplish that I would have liked to is to use a read-only partition. Ext3 and ReiserFS are pretty tolerant of random shutdowns, but I'd feel safer if it wasn't writing anything to disk at all. I suppose that shutting off syslog and various daemons avoids most of the disk writes. I added a -nolog option to Daphne for this reason as well. (A build from CVS should have it.)

I've been wanting to make a HOWTO that goes through the whole process, but it would take a long time, and probably go out of date pretty quickly. I guess there's no avoiding it -- using *NIX involves figuring stuff out on your own.

I'd love to see others' experiences with this type of setup as well.

Good luck,
-Warren.

Thank you Warren, your breakdown is pretty concise to get me started. Although, it is odd to hear about random crashes with ReiserFS. Did you try building with any other FS type (again, I'm only aware of the FS' that are availabe within Solaris/HPUX, than I am with other *NIX OS')? I think your presumption about background scheduling may be correct (an errant daemon like sched), if you don't mind me asking, what was running at the time of the crash, and did you capture any dumps for analysis (I think mdb/adb would be used for Linux, but again, I only work with Solaris, so I could be wrong)?

As for YUV, I completely forgot about that with regards to *NIX. But then, I would assume that the AVGA FB card that HowardC mentioned would be able to handle this natively like an Elite3D card (yes, a SUN videocard) can handle tile buffering. But then, that's speculation on my part. If for some reason I have issues getting YUV in a *NIX environment, I can always fall back to a stripped down Windows load as a last resort. Thanks again for all of the information, if things work out, I may actually end up writing that FAQ for you - time will tell.

Woohoo! My 200th post!



I didn't actually have any crashes. By 'random shutdowns' I just meant pulling the plug without doing a proper shutdown. (An arcade cabinet shouldn't need a hidden key for doing a "shutdown -h now" )

I used ext3 for both of these projects, and haven't had any problems with file system corruption. I haven't had any problems at all, really, which I why I went the Linux route to begin with.

I'd still feel better with a read-only partition -- no chance of damage to the files or file system at all. This would also load nicely on a flash drive without wearing it out over time.

If anyone has some pointers on making a read-only or LiveCD-style setup on a hard/flash drive, I'd love to hear about it.

-Warren.

True, but as you know, file thrashing is almost unavoidable in a *NIX environment without a proper shutdown. Why not try something like this (mind you, this is how I would do it in Solaris, I'm not sure if all of the commands/nomenclature is the same for Linux):

1. Write a simple script up that was set with the Shutdown -h NOW command based on constantly waiting for a specific keypress through the I/O (In this case, maybe two or three keys defined in your I-PAC harness), you can handle this through a simple loop/if statement if you'd like.
   
   
2. Next, you could then either load this script as anS script of some sort and let init handle it, or you could have it running in the background as a constant cronjob set by root. Either way, the system would always be silently waiting for the right key combination via your arcade controls to do a safe shutdown.

It isn't perfect, and you'd most likely want to implement some error checking in the script to be safe, but you definitely wouldn't need to worry about breaking out of DAPHNE to properly shutdown your system.

Well I think what warren is getting at is all an arcade cabinet should have on it is an on/off switch and you shouldn't have to worry about power outtages and un-plugging the unit ruining the setup. Remember even after the computer shuts down, you still have to turn off the marquee, monitor , ect.

Now there is a product called smartstrip that should help, but I can't vouch for it's usefulness in linux. Even with it though, you are going to have the cabinet shutdown with the press of the computer's power button. I think you can do that in linux, but don't quote me on that.

True, but to expect that level of functionality in such an event where power is abrubtly taken away is something that one can't truly hope for when there is an actively cycling file system in play. Regardless of what OS is used, the fact that an OS has to be used to run an arcade game is already an obstacle to user-friendliness. Even your SmartStrip suggestion (assuming it's compatible with linux) would be defeated if power were unexpectedly removed, wouldn't it? My suggetion was meant to be a convenient workaround to make it easier than having to manually go into the OS (exiting out of DAPHNE) and manuallly initiate a shutdown, since unlike Windows, *nix based file systems need to be brought down nicely to avoid things such as orphaned inode files and the like. In my case if I were to apply the suggestion, when I'm done playing Daphne, it would be a set of pressed arcade buttons, and then a flip of the cab's main switch, which in my case already powers the speakers, marque and internal lighting (Japanese candy cabinet).

Incidentally, I happened upon a pre-built, ready to use Linux based "Arcade OS" called Lincade just a few minutes ago that may prove to be useful. Has anyone seen or used this application before?

Ext3 and ReiserFS both use journalling (similar to Windows NTFS), which makes them a lot more tolerant of improper shutdown. I agree, though, that this is far from ideal. I really hope to make a read-only setup at some point.

To make shutdown simpler, you can use a script that starts X/Daphne, which will close and power down as soon as you hit ESC in Daphne. This way there's no daemons or other stuff to worry about.



There are several pre-built setups for running emulators, which work great for MAME, console emus, etc. The problem with these for Daphne is that they don't use X, since those emulators don't need hardware acceleration.

If your machine is fast enough, running without hwaccel with one of these distros would be the easiest way to get things going. However, if Daphne is the only thing you want to run on it, then a custom setup with X is the way to go.

-Warren.

Yes, that's right, I only realized this a few minutes after posting that comment and reading more about what the developer of the OS had in mind with this software. So, it looks like it'll be GNU for me (Sarge). Of course, with one question answered, another one presents itself. If I use a set of custom modelines like the ones listed at the EasyMameCab website with the latest version of X11 , would a specialized videocard like the ArcadeVGA (which I found out is YUV acceleration capable within Daphne) still be necessary? What sort of modeline settings are you using for your video card (ATI Rage II), Warren?

I used a variation of the modeline I found here:
http://www.darkfire.net/mirror/sparhawk.sbc.edu/mame/software_video_config.html

In case that page goes away, the one he listed is:



He's using SVGALib, but the same modeline works in X. (I think I may have had to play with the sync settings a bit to get it to work on my crusty old G07 monitor.)



The big advantage of using the ArcadeVGA is that it is safe to use on a fixed-frequency 15 KHz monitor. With a normal card, all of the boot process is done at 31 KHz until the software with the custom resolution launches. At best, you get a scrambled screen while it's booting. At worst, the unexpected sync rate could in theory damage the monitor. (In my case it was just going in to 'free run' mode, and not trying to sync to 31 KHz.)

Since you have a Tri-Sync monitor, it will start up in VGA mode just fine. The ArcadeVGA isn't all that important in that case. It would make getting 15 KHz modes much easier in Windows, but I think a custom modeline will get you where you need to go with a normal card. It's cheap to give it a try.

Nice to have some *nix talk here! It doesn't come up all that often...

-Warren.

LOL, I'm glad I could accomodate! From what I've been reading here and at other arcade/MAME related forums, *NIX is the way to go for finely tuned performance. In fact, I have some more Linux related questions now that this new path has been opened if you are willing to read further . While doing my research for this project, I came across a set of custom modelines that Linux users can safely use with their ArcadeVGA card for better operation of XMame, I assume the results will transition well to Daphne too (see list below in case the link dies). Is it safe to assume then, with or without an ArcadeVGA card, that forcing the interlace switch in the modeline as you have it is only necessary if the monitor doesn't natively do this (like a standard computer monitor), or should it be done regardless?


Which leads me into my next question, a little outside the scope of the original thread but still pertinent. Would you (or any other Linux user here) happen to know which Micro-ATX motherboards are compatibile with Linux (Debian, specifically), or maybe know of a website that may list such information? I believe I have just about everything I need to get started except for a suitable motherboard that will be small enough for my cabinet (not much room for a standard ATX solution). I usually wouldn't ask this kind of question since I've been working with PC hardware for quite a while, but I've never used it in a *NIX solution; I've generally dealt with or owned SUN and SGI proprietary hardware up until now.

Ideally, I wanted to go with micro-ITX, but that woudn't have been possible due to the restrictions on board realestate (there usually aren't any PCI/AGP slots), so I was about to get a micro-ATX right when I started seeing a few sites that mentioned distro compatibility problems with certain motherboards/manufacturers with regards to Linux in general. If you happen to know of any off hand, that'd be great.

You can use the interlace option for a variety of modes. It effectively doubles the vertical resolution at half the refresh rate. (You get twittering lines instead of the whole screen flickering.) For example, the original IBM XGA card did 1024x768 at 87Hz interlaced (43.5 Hz effective). For practical purposes, though, there's no need for this anymore -- monitors can now handle much higher refresh rates than they used to, and LCDs would need to deinterlace it, which they don't generally do. Interlace is really only appropriate for duplicating the old 15 KHz interlaced standard.

It's the timing values that set it to 15 KHz, and these can only be used with monitors that support this frequency, which, as you know, most computer monitors do not. Most standard arcade/console games didn't use interlace, so you'd use 640x480 or 640x400 non-interlaced. Laserdiscs used full interlaced NTSC, so in Daphne's case, interlaced is the way to go.

I suppose the most authentic display possible would need a capture from a less-than-perfect laserdisc, using a capture card that resembles as closely as possible the decoding artifacts of the original NTSC->RGB decoder board in the game -- dot crawl, rainbows, etc. I haven't tried to do this yet, but someday, someday...


I was following this a while back in the Home Theater PC forums, and you are correct that some uATX boards have problems with Linux, mostly with the video. The VIA EPIA is a great little board, but I'm pretty sure people have had trouble getting the right video timings for HTPC use, and enabling the TV out. It has some hardware mpeg and acceleration features that AFAIK can't be used at all.

A friend of mine has an EPIA board he wants to set up in the shell of an original NES console, so I will have a chance to play with it soon.

As for what to use today, I'm not entirely sure. If I find out anything interesting, I'll be sure to post about it. As HowardC says, the BOYAC forums are where most of the action is for this kind of stuff.

-Warren.

Very good. In that case I'll leave the switch as is then since, according to the X documentation, it should cycle to the most appropriate modeline.



No worries, As you posted your reply, I was just about to edit my last post to show the results of my research concerning that question. A true, albeit sparingly updated, Hardware Compatibility list for Linux can be found at the Linux Questions website. Based on the DEBIAN OS (running the latest kernel), these micro-ATX boards will operate out-of-the-box with the latest kernel build (2.6.14 ?):

• ASRock K7S41GX Socket A (Socket 462)
• VIA EPIA 5000
• Proprietary Biostar K8NBP (You can only get this as part of their iDEQ 210P SFF baerbones kit)

While I'd love to use that EPIA, as far as I know, the ITX standard still doesn't allow for anything more than maybe a notebook sized AGP port. Additionally, the onboard video chipset for that model does not support YUV from what I saw in the specs either, which is obviously not desirable. I guess I'll be going with the ASRock in this case. Once all the parts are assemebled, I've decided that I'll do a Walkthrough/FAQ for those that would like to have a linux taste of Daphne, provided that all goes well for me, of course . I know I would've liked to have had something like that if I were still only familiar with Windows and it's applications, especially if the emulation results were worth the added effort of transitioning to a different OS.

I know that the NTSC laserdiscs are interlaced, but I personally would never use interlacing in any projects I'm working on if I can help it, because I think it looks awful

Hmmm, does that ideology extend to your upcoming revision of Daphne ? By the way, either I've been looking in the wrong spot on the forums/website, but is there a PayPal donation link for this project? I ask because, as your RetroGaming Radio interviewer quiped, if this all works out well for me in the end with this personal cab project, I have no quams with passing my savings on to the developers . And yes, I completely understand that any donation made would be for work already performed/completed, and in no way meant to be a contribution based on future endeavors.