mame64 driving me nuts

[dkersten]

I edited this from the original since I can't find where to delete a thread.

Here is the situation: 
mame .153 build (custom with the hiscore added and nag screens removed)
clean windows 7 64bit
GeForce 730 graphics card
older computer, Core2Duo 4gb ram, wiped clean before windows install.
directx9.0c runtime installed

I can currently launch mameui64 and it works perfectly..  Performance is perfect, perfect control response, artwork layouts work perfect, and I can turn on HLSL and it works perfect.

I found where when I launched through a command prompt that the VIDEO --> AUTO setting was showing as invalid, possibly because that setting is a .154 thing?  Not sure.. I forced it to d3d and now things are working OK when I launch from the command line.

Thing is, if I enable HLSL it just goes to a blank screen when I launch that way.

I was under the mistaken impression that mameui64 still used my mame64.exe build, but it appears not.  However, it still uses the mame.ini file..

So I am trying to figure out why I can't launch the game with HLSL.  I am thinking maybe it has to do with my build of mame and having an ini from a different build.. ? 

Mala edits the wrong mame.ini file, and you have to have a mame64.ini file in the root directory for mame as well to keep from getting a mala error, and the options for editing the mame.ini file in mala are for older versions of mame too, a lot of it is changed or deprecated..

All in all I am frustrated, I guess I will set up and try a new build with .154 or something, see if that works. 

[lamprey]

I've never seen AUTO as an option for the VIDEO setting. The only settings I know of are: gdi, ddraw, d3d and none. Unless that is new or you mean the SCREEN or VIEW option?

[dkersten]

When I first loaded mame64 on the last machine and ran mame64 -cc, the ini it generated had auto in the video setting.  I left this and even with the current build I am using it worked fine on the last machine.  I mirrored my files for the next build, and copied them over to this one.

But in troubleshooting the last machine, I reverted back to .153 and did my own compile.  So perhaps it is an option in .154? 

Anyway, no big deal, I now have it set to d3d and it is working on this machine.  But I still can't get HLSL to work with this build, only with mameui64.  I don't really care too much about HLSL, but the overlays for games like space invaders don't work without it.  So I want to get it working. 

[lamprey]

If you can run with video set to D3D, the I believe you have you have DirectX 9 or better installed. But, you might want to double check you have DX 9.0c installed to see if that helps. If that is not the issue, make sure you are using the HLSL from the right version (files in the HLSL folder). It changed in an older version (0148 or 0149?). But, if you compiled it yourself, then you are probably using the correct HLSL files.

[dkersten]

I believe the files that are in my mame directory are all from .154, and my build is based on .153, so perhaps that is the problem.. I am going to do a .154 build to see if it fixes the problems. 

[Haze]

the sound / video option did change a bit for 0.154, yes.

MAMEUI64 is a standalone program (unsupported by mamedev) it does not use mame64.exe

try using a fresh copy of 0.154 in a new folder rather than trying to use old .ini files, also use an official version because I've noticed a lot of sites STILL fail to distribute the extra files (like the hlsl folder needed for hlsl to work)

[dkersten]

Yeah that was what I figured out after my original post, what threw me off was two things:
1) mameui64 uses the same ini and supporting files as mame64
2) mame64 -cc creates an ini file in the root directory, and Mala looks for it there (and requires a mame64.ini file to even run without errors), but both mame64 and mameui64 use the ini in the INI folder, not the one in root.

I also found that altering the mame.ini file in the root folder will still affect things, even though the one in the INI folder is the one you need to change to make things work.  Really confusing and I am not sure why it creates one in the root folder AND in the INI folder and looks at both. 

But in the end, I compiled a new mame based on .154 and dropped it in place and now everything works fine.  I got the artwork folder working right (wouldn't before regardless of what I set the directory to in the ini file), got d3d working again, and got the HLSL working properly and dialed in.  AND I found that making changes ONLY to the ini in the INI folder is best all the way around.  I will no longer mess with the Mala config settings for mame as it alters the wrong ini file.

FYI, it looks like .154 changed the HLSL settings a bit.  I definitely was using the supporting files for .154 because my prescale.fx file has the filter changes that were made in .154.  So either the different .ini settings for HLSL were causing the problem, or the .154 supporting files were the cause.