Problem with Mame 148 and Geforce 6200 PCI

[LeedsFan]

As per the title I am trying to run Mame 148 (compiled with new Williams drivers and Robotron bugfixed ROM) to work with a cheapo PC I just got with a Geforce 6200 PCI card.

I want this card because it supports pixel shader 3.0 for HLSL support in Mame.

Now I have already had this Mame version with ROM etc. running with the onboard graphics. It all works fine except of course the onboard GPU doesn't support pixel shader 3.0.

So I installed the 6200 with the latest driver and the PC works fine, no problem. But when I go to start Mame the PC reboots. I've never seen this problem before. I have HLSL still switched off in the Mame.ini so it should just work as it does with the onboard graphics.

I don't understand it. 

[BadMouth]

IIRC, there was an issue with a certain Nvidia driver that caused the PC to crash.
It is fixed by rolling back to a previous version.

If you do an internet search for Nvidia driver mame crash, I'm sure you'll find some more info.

[LeedsFan]

OK thanks for that info!  I just did a Google search and it seems that Nvidia drivers up to 258.xxx will work fine. But anything after that will crash. Seems pretty inept on Nvidia's part if it crashes Mame! So much for the "use latest drivers" ideology.

Now I haven't had time to test this yet, but I will be back to post the results. Just need to get the 258 driver and reinstall.

[LeedsFan]

OK I can confirm that Nvidia driver 258.96 does work... well... sort of.

I originally had 307.83 installed (the latest driver available for the 6200 card) and that just crashed Mame every time. However, although 258.96 does get Mame to run, it is very poor. Now this may be down to my system or settings, I dunno. I'm a bit new to HLSL and I really wanted to utilise it for my Robotron project.

The PC isn't too bad really.... Pentium 4, 2.8 GHz, 256 MB RAM. With the 6200 installed and HLSL switched OFF it runs like silk @ 100% speed. But with HLSL switched ON it runs like ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---! And none of the keys work on the keyboard while it's running. I can't F11 for the framerate... I can't press "5" for credits... I can't ESC or even CTRL/ALT/DEL to exit Mame. I have to hard reset. Not good!

So it looks like I'll have to just not use HLSL and stick with the old scanlines.... unless someone here knows something elementary I'm doing wrong.

At least I have the latest Mame 148 with the updated Williams drivers and the bug fixed Blue Robotron ROM.  So progress on the software front has been made.

[ark_ader]

With the time you have wasted, my next solution would be to toss out the system and get a cheap Zoostorm or ITX.

[Haze]

the HLSL is very demanding (you'd be surprised by the amount of stuff going on) so no, that card is unlikely to cut it by some margin.

[BadMouth]

resource free scanline option: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,129344.0.html

[happyfunball]

did you recompile for the robotron fix yourself or is that in the latest build of mame? u3?

[LeedsFan]

did you recompile for the robotron fix yourself or is that in the latest build of mame? u3?

I compiled my own and followed the instructions from this webpage:
http://www.robotron2084guidebook.com/technical/gameplatforms/mame/install/

Now I'm not sure if the Williams drivers are actually implemented in the very latest Mame u3 release. They may even be unique and not put in Mame. I really don't know. All I know is I want the "shot in corner" bug to be fixed as it's actually game breaking. PacMan and Donkey Kong have a similar bugs but it's known EXACTLY what causes it and when it will happen. Whereas the "shot in corner" can be seemingly random and happen on any wave. So I wanted it fixed.

That scanline generator looks cool.... but having read the linked page it seems "International shipping will be discontinued on May 1st"...... and what's today's date?