booting directly into a mame game?

[jspicher]

Howdy guys,

I have a question for a project l'm working on, and hopefully one of you can help me out.
How would l boot my computer straight into mame and directly into a game?

I don't want to land in a front end, say l wanted to create a dedicated missile command cabinet that booted straight into missile command when powered on and nothing else. I'm not quite sure what the best/fastest way to go about this is.

Obviously l could create a *.bat file and put it on my start up folder, but l'm looking for something a little quicker and more transparent.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
 

[BadMouth]

read the section on the wiki about hiding windows, especially the part about running an exe as a service.

[jspicher]

Thanks, but the only reference l can find to the word "service" has to do with running apps in the background.
http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Hiding_Windows#Launching_Programs.2FUtilities_in_the_background

[NOP]

i'd think the best bet you're going to find is a DOS version of MAME (not windows command line), like a very early version.  Have the machine boot to a USB stick formatted with DOS and you can load MAME and the ROM straight off the USB stick.  Sound support may be dodgy (PCI soundblaster compatible card maybe?)   Otherwise I don't really see a way, since you're dependent on an operating system to get MAME up and running and it'll take awhile to get that loaded.  DOS is at least fast and tiny.

[flashiv]

NOTE: I have only done this with XP, I don't know if the program will work at all or even partially with Vista/7.

You can also run MAME as your shell (Windows) and boot into MAME w/ Missile Command that way.  It definitely makes it much harder to trouble shoot or add games though.  I do it this way myself with my front end, but still set my background to black, hide taskbar etc.  I don't remember the program I use, since it's been a while since I last messed with it.  I will try to look this week after I get back in town.  The program will also let you change your startup screen.

[Howard_Casto]

I wanted to see what the peanut gallery said on this one before I responded. 

Here's the thing, other than going the DOS route, windows still has to load, and it takes windows a while to load even if you have mame load as a shell (all running a exe as the shell does is load it instaead of explorer.exe, which is the last thing windows loads anyway). 

So there's really no speed benefit or anything to replacing the windows shell.... I honestly don't know why people do it.  If anything it has a couple of drawbacks....  namely some of the things a program or front end might want to call from windows (like desktop resolution, ect) might fail without explorer loaded... causing errors. 


So yeah, just stick it in your startup folder.  The real questions you should be asking are "How do I speed up the windows boot process?"  and "How do I hide windows?"  There are tutorials for both on this site. 

I would reccomend dos, but MC's emulation has been improved as of mame .146, so you need windows to get the best possible version.

[flashiv]

I wanted to see what the peanut gallery said on this one before I responded. 

Here's the thing, other than going the DOS route, windows still has to load, and it takes windows a while to load even if you have mame load as a shell (all running a exe as the shell does is load it instaead of explorer.exe, which is the last thing windows loads anyway). 

So there's really no speed benefit or anything to replacing the windows shell.... I honestly don't know why people do it.  If anything it has a couple of drawbacks....  namely some of the things a program or front end might want to call from windows (like desktop resolution, ect) might fail without explorer loaded... causing errors. 


So yeah, just stick it in your startup folder.  The real questions you should be asking are "How do I speed up the windows boot process?"  and "How do I hide windows?"  There are tutorials for both on this site. 

I would reccomend dos, but MC's emulation has been improved as of mame .146, so you need windows to get the best possible version.

I agree with you on the speed issue, but I have not had any programs fail, since it is just the GUI anyhow and Windows is still really loading.  And since he just wants to play Missile Command (for now  ) it would be like an arcade machine.  Quick up and quick down.  Yes it would almost be as fast using the startup folder.

Using Instant Sheller (I knew I'd remember the program) you can hide everything and change your boot logo in XP.  The below article states the Vista and 7's boot screen can not be changed which is wrong (but the article is from 2010).  You can also hide the shutdown screen, but I have mine changed instead using a different method (which I don't remember, it's been a looong time).  Personally I got in there and did all the changes by hand first and then used Instant Sheller once I knew how to do it manually, but I'm an IT guy and like such torture. 

Here is the link to Instant Sheller if you want to look.

http://www.gameex.com/Community/InstantShellerandshellingguide.aspx

[IG-88]

So yeah, just stick it in your startup folder.  The real questions you should be asking are "How do I speed up the windows boot process?"  and "How do I hide windows?"  There are tutorials for both on this site. 

Another response from a peanut    I don't think the OP is/was asking that at all. What I think he is asking is how do you get your machine to launch straight into Missile Command from a power on button push. I would like to know that as well. I have a couple projects on the back burner that I would like to make dedicated "single game" machines.

[HaRuMaN]

run a batch file on startup?

[IG-88]

...Obviously l could create a *.bat file and put it on my start up folder, but l'm looking for something a little quicker and more transparent.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
 

Don't think he wants to use a batch file either...

[Howard_Casto]

So yeah, just stick it in your startup folder.  The real questions you should be asking are "How do I speed up the windows boot process?"  and "How do I hide windows?"  There are tutorials for both on this site. 

Another response from a peanut    I don't think the OP is/was asking that at all. What I think he is asking is how do you get your machine to launch straight into Missile Command from a power on button push. I would like to know that as well. I have a couple projects on the back burner that I would like to make dedicated "single game" machines.

Myabe you don't know what the startup folder is, but it runs any program shortcut inside on startup. 

If you mean skip windows and everything, well mame needs an OS to run, so that isn't possible at all. 

Well he might want to know how to do that, but it isn't possible...

You can't draw blood from a stone. 

[IG-88]

Umm... I do know what a startup folder is.  How is putting the mame executable in the startup folder going to get the game rom running? He never asked about shelling or skipping the O/S or fast booting or any of that.

@jspicher  Without using a .bat file I do not think it's possible. Maybe with a command line version of mame but if you are going to go to that much trouble getting that crap to work,  use a .bat file.

[Howard_Casto]

Umm... I do know what a startup folder is.  How is putting the mame executable in the startup folder going to get the game rom running? He never asked about shelling or skipping the O/S or fast booting or any of that.

@jspicher  Without using a .bat file I do not think it's possible. Maybe with a command line version of mame but if you are going to go to that much trouble getting that crap to work,  use a .bat file.

Maybe you should check the attitude and actually read all of our responses.  Nobody said anything about putting the mame exe in there... you put a shortcut to a batch file (or the actual batch file) in there.  If you are suggesting that using command line mame is difficult then no offense intended but you must be new to this (only the noobs use the guied version of mame) and probably aren't very qualified to give a response. 

[dudenohair]

Howdy guys,

I have a question for a project l'm working on, and hopefully one of you can help me out.
How would l boot my computer straight into mame and directly into a game?

I don't want to land in a front end, say l wanted to create a dedicated missile command cabinet that booted straight into missile command when powered on and nothing else. I'm not quite sure what the best/fastest way to go about this is.

Obviously l could create a *.bat file and put it on my start up folder, but l'm looking for something a little quicker and more transparent.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

ok, i'm old, but i think this is possible.  suppose you use mame in ms-dos as others suggest.  in the old-fashioned config.sys file, you can specify boot up into a custom shell by using the shell directive.  this used to be very common before windows 3.1.  so you would call dos command line mame in the config.sys file with the options to load missile command.   but you would probably would not ever be able to go back to the regular dos shell unless you used a boot disk.
sorry for no capitalization...can only use 1 arm today.