Mala screen rotation for 2 sided cocktail MAME cabinet

[mlardner]

Hi,

I have an old 2-sided cabinet I built years ago that I had to replace the computer in and I'm using Mala for the first time.  I used to use Pivot Pro because it is a vertical
cabinet and I used to play vertical and horizontal games on it.  The only problem was the game selection menu was sideways, but I didn't mind.  How can I configure this
with Mala to get the mame menu and all games in the vertical view?  Any answers or links to previously answered similar problems are much appreciated.  Also, is there a way to configure all cocktail compatible games' dip switches to 'cocktail' instead of 'upright' or they need to be done one at a time?  Thanks, Mike

[BadMouth]

EDIT: I see now that Pivot Pro is software rotation.  Sorry, I thought you were physically rotating.

Software rotation isn't necessary for MAME.  It can handle rotating the game on it's own.
I'd recommend not using it and just using the rotation in MAME.
Your Mala layout will never need to change that way.

Are you running emulators other than MAME that you need it for?


Original reply:




Check "Rotate Mala with MAME after quitting game if needed"

You'll need to be using a layout that has both a horizontal and vertical version set up.
A single Mala layout file contains both a horizontal and vertical version, but most of the ones available for download only have one configured.

With the Mala layout editor program that comes with Mala, there is an option in the dropdown menu for vertical or horizontal.
This doesn't change the type of layout.  It changes whether you are working on the horizontal or vertical version of your layout.
Both are contained in the same file, but don't have to look alike.

I ended up making mine identical for my rotating monitor.  The horizontal one has black bars on the left and right.  The vertical one has them top and bottom.  To the user, it looks like a square and doesn't appear to change. 

If you haven't made your own layout already, here is the wiki on it:
http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Mala_Layout#How_to_create_your_own_custom_Layout

Mike Boss did a Fix-It-Felix layout that is set up for both directions if you wanted something already configured to play around with:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,131257.0.html
(attached to reply #3)

I don't know about your second question.  I haven't had a cocktail cab.

[NOP]

for a cocktail cab, you need to set the dipswitches individually for each game.  there are probably some utilities for do that, but i would do it by hand anyway.
it's not as bad as it sounds. 
1) there aren't THAT many cocktail games, especially if you remove the clones.
2) you will want to check each game out anyway- some of them don't work correctly for player 2 for whatever bugs haunt that release of mame.
3) it takes about 3 seconds per game via the tab menu to change the dipswitch.  then make sure you reset the game so the new switch setting takes place.

grab a beer and a friend and go through your list, play 30 seconds from each game for each player, remove games that don't work.
You'll be done in an evening and you'll have a better idea of what your cab is capable of doing game-wise. 

[mlardner]

Thank you for your replies.  Because I have a 2 sided cocktail cabinet, player 1 and player 2 are opposite each other and both view a vertical screen.  That works fine for vertical games and with my vertical layout.  However, when I want to play a horizontal game, I would like to configure Mala to rotate the screen and force the horizontal game to be scaled down and displayed in the vertical orientation.  When I exit the game, I would like it to return to the vertical layout.   Can Mala be configured to do this??  Thanks again.

[BadMouth]

Thank you for your replies.  Because I have a 2 sided cocktail cabinet, player 1 and player 2 are opposite each other and both view a vertical screen.  That works fine for vertical games and with my vertical layout.  However, when I want to play a horizontal game, I would like to configure Mala to rotate the screen and force the horizontal game to be scaled down and displayed in the vertical orientation.  When I exit the game, I would like it to return to the vertical layout.   Can Mala be configured to do this??  Thanks again.

MAME does that.
Mala doesn't need to do anything. 

Try this:
Don't rotate your desktop and launch a horizontal game in MAME.
Go into the MAME menu (TAB) and go to video options.
Set the rotation there.

There is no need to rotate Windows.

[mlardner]

I am running mame 0.84, i'm not sure how to set the rotation for horizontal games in this version.  what you described is not working for me in this version of mame.   is there a way to edit the mame.ini file to achieve what i'm looking to do?  Thanks again.

[BadMouth]

I am running mame 0.84, i'm not sure how to set the rotation for horizontal games in this version.  what you described is not working for me in this version of mame.   is there a way to edit the mame.ini file to achieve what i'm looking to do?  Thanks again.

Sorry, no idea if it works in version .84
The video engine was rewritten in v.107, so I imagine a lot of things are different in versions prior to that.