Issues loading roms with MaLa/Groovy

[boardjunkie]

Ok....I thought I'd screw around with this a bit. I got it working just fine on the machine I'm in front of with little effort, but theres issues with the machine in the cab. I formatted an extra drive to try this with so I wouldn't lose my existing configuration. OS is TinyXP.

All paths are set to where they should be. Snaps come up, game list comes up. But when I try to load a rom, I get a fairly quick dos window, and right back to the list. Seems like its not finding roms, but paths are set correct in both MALA and Groovym. Game list was refreshed....I dunno why this is happening....

[boardjunkie]

And if it makes a difference, I used the .143 32 "b" version.....

[Calamity]

That can be due to two different things:

- The rom path in mame.ini is not right.
- Your romset is outdated so although the rom path is right the required rom fles are missing.

[boardjunkie]

ok, its fixed. Apparently it was picky about where the folders were located. I stuck them all in the same folder as the .exe and it finds the files now.

Now, I'm trying to get all the ducks in a row before I install the CRT emudriver software, but in case I have to add/fix anything down the road, is there a way to disable the low res/scan rate mode to make changes? I would manually disable soft 15k to do this with the older non-GM installation so I could get at everything.

[Calamity]

Now, I'm trying to get all the ducks in a row before I install the CRT emudriver software, but in case I have to add/fix anything down the road, is there a way to disable the low res/scan rate mode to make changes? I would manually disable soft 15k to do this with the older non-GM installation so I could get at everything.

Well with CRT_Emudriver what happens is that most 31 Khz and higher native resolutions are still available. So in case you want to use a pc monitor for some reason you just set your desktop at say, 800x600 and you're done. On the other hand, 640x480@60 is always predefined as 15KHz interlaced by default, so selecting this mode will bring you back to an arcade monitor friendly output.

Another possibility is using a dual setup with a 31 KHz pc monitor and a 15 KHz arcade monitor connected at the same time. I do this all the time BTW. Of course it's your responsibility to use the right mode for each monitor.

[boardjunkie]

Ok, cool.

Now.....where is the setup for coin switches at? All I can get is the MALA joystick menu, which is working fine except for the "shift" function. I was using shift/button x to exit the game and even with this set it won't exit, but the keybd exit works.

[boardjunkie]

Oops....forgot abot the tab menu. Quit game still won't work tho...

[boardjunkie]

Ok, quit game is fixed....it was labeled all goofy in the tab menu.

Now....I installed the ATI driver package and have *no* idea how to use it. It came up as normal on the LCD I was using for testing/config. Made shortcuts to VMmaker and arcade OSD. VMmaker tells me "no mame exe found". I assumed this was like soft 15k and would be in arcade monitor land after it restarted....nope. What needs to be done to make this work as intended?

[boardjunkie]

And....the version I installed was a "multisync" variation. Is there a different one I should be using for std res only? My monitor is *not* multisync.

[Calamity]

The multisync version is fine.

You'll have 15-kHz available right after restart. But you need to select a 15-Khz resolution for the desktop! If you're using a LCD you probably have your desktop set to something like 1024x768 or whatever that's still a normal PC resolution. You NEED to select 640x480@60 and the output will become 15 kHz.

VMMaker can be used later to further adjust your monitor specs, etc.

[boardjunkie]

Ok....that helped. Its up and runnin' now. Any tips for V games that come up thin looking (dimension wise)? Pacman was the first game I pulled up to check for differences in appearance/detail and it looks better than my previous soft15 setup, but looks a bit "smashed in" from the sides.

[Calamity]

Ok....that helped. Its up and runnin' now. Any tips for V games that come up thin looking (dimension wise)? Pacman was the first game I pulled up to check for differences in appearance/detail and it looks better than my previous soft15 setup, but looks a bit "smashed in" from the sides.

Well that's probably because you got used to the other proportions. The ArcadeVGA and Soft-15Khz use 352x288 modes for vertical games but that doesn't actually provide 3:4 aspect ratio on a 4:3 monitor, it's slightly wider, but somehow we've got used to it.

Anyway you can specify different ratios for vertical games by means of the monitor_aspect option. You need to use the same value in vmmaker.ini and mame.ini. Basically it works like this:

4:3 -> default, what you have now
3:3 -> square, vertical games will look as tall as wide
3:4 -> full screen, vertical games will stretch to cover the screen

Now the nice thing is find an intermediate point between 3:3 and 4:3, like 7:6.

[boardjunkie]

I tried the modeline trick, but apparently did it wrong 'cause it didn't work. But before I go any further, does it cause the vert games to be displayed interlaced? If so I'm not going to go this route....the flicker drives me nuts.

[boardjunkie]

What I just tried was setting it to flip to vertical orientation. I was thinking of doing this anyway because V games are more important to me than H. So they V games look as they should....and now the H games come up full screen and interlaced. I think the modeline I replaced is causing this. So I guess I need to replace that with the default and see how that goes.

This is *so* geeky . A little over my head...quite a learning curve for an old school arcade repair tech.....

[Calamity]

Hi boardjunkie,

Definitely the right thing to do if you love vertical games is to rotate your monitor. If you use the option "-monitor_orientation rotate" in mame.ini it will show both horizontal and vertical games at full screen, as it expects you to physically rotate the monitor for each case.

Interlaced modes will be used for vertical games on an horizontal monitor, whenever the number of lines is higher than the value set as ActiveLinesLimit in the monitor_specs line. Usually this is set to 288 lines, so anything above that (for instance 320x224 vertical) will necessarily be interlaced unless you rotate the monitor. Games between the range of 256-288 lines will be possible to show as progressive but at the cost of lowering their refresh rate.

The monitor_aspect option does work, both for progressive and interlaced cases, so give it a try, bear in mind you need to recalculate the mode list for it to work.