LCD panel exclusively showing marquees

[DietCoke]

I've got a 7 or 10" (I forget) LCD panel that can be used as a touchscreen or just as a display.  I was thinking about using it as the marquee in my cabinet - so if you played Ms. Pac-Man, that marquee would show up.  Change to Zaxxon, the marquee changes to Zaxxon.  Are there any apps out there that can do this if I built that in?

[PL1]

I've got a 7 or 10" (I forget) LCD panel that can be used as a touchscreen or just as a display.  I was thinking about using it as the marquee in my cabinet - so if you played Ms. Pac-Man, that marquee would show up.  Change to Zaxxon, the marquee changes to Zaxxon.  Are there any apps out there that can do this if I built that in?

Check out the Marvel Vs. Capcom: Revolution version 2.0 and Blip threads.

Marquee Magician and MAME Hooker are possible software options.

Several sources for fairly-high res marquees:

*  MAMELayPlus has a number of them here.

*  Arcade Artwork has some here -- not as many, but higher res than MAMELayPlus.

Scott

[DietCoke]

Thank you for your help, Scott!

[lamprey]

You can do that with MAME using the artwork (lay file) system and multiple displays/screens.

I believe that Howard_Casto has also written something that can help with this too. I haven't used it myself, but I think it's his MameHooker app.

[markc74]

I'm currently using artwork files on the blip cabinet. They work well but there's a couple of limitations:

You have to create layout files for every game you want to use ( can be automated with a batch file but still needs to be done)

Only works in mame so no good for supermodel etc.

I can upload the batch file / default layout of you want it though.

[Generic Eric]

I'm currently using artwork files on the blip cabinet. They work well but there's a couple of limitations:

You have to create layout files for every game you want to use ( can be automated with a batch file but still needs to be done)

Only works in mame so no good for supermodel etc.

I can upload the batch file / default layout of you want it though.

That would be dreamy

Is the external maquee a function of an extended desktop? Or is it done in the frontend? 

[markc74]

My marquee monitor is setup as the 2nd display in extended desktop.

In order to set it up using mame's built-in artwork there's a few things you need to do. I'll try and make them as clear as possible but ask away if something isn't clear:

1. Download marquees - As mentioned mamelayplus etc is a good place to go.  It's important that the marquees are named the same as the roms (they should be)

2. All the marquees should be unzipped, ideally in png format and in 1 folder. If not, not a problem but you might have to do some adjusting of the batch file below

3. Download the 2 attached files and remove the ".txt" from the end of the filenames. You should be left with create.bat and default.lay

4. Copy/move these files into the same directory as your downloaded marquees.

5. Open the default.lay file in your text editor of choice. You will probably need to make some adjustments so replace the text horizontal_resolution and vertical_resolution with the specs of your marquee monitor, i.e.

Code: [Select]

<bounds left="0" top="0" right="1024" bottom="768" />
(This is scalable so you could put 4/3 or 16/9 and it would still work but I set mine as pixels to make things easier)

6. OK - now you're ready to rock. Save the default.lay file, and run the create.bat file.  A DOS window will open and it will start copying a load of files.  What it's actually doing is looping through every png image in that directory, creating a folder in the same name as the image, copying that image into the new folder with the name 'marquee.png' and then copying the default layout file into folder as well.

You will now have a load of folders in the name of your marquees. There could be hundreds depending on how many marquees you had in the folder.

7. Copy/move ALL those folders into your mame/artwork folder.

8. Open up your mame.ini file from the mame folder and change the following 2 lines (they're not together so you'll have to find them):

numscreens                2
view1                     Marquee


That should be it. Next time you run a game in mame it should display the marquee in the second monitor.

Let me know if this doesn't work as I'm typing a lot of this from memory as my cabinet is inaccessible at the moment but I'm pretty sure that was everything covered.

[vettetek]

Hey guys -
Sorry to dig up an old thread, but I am starting a Multi monitor build myself and am having trouble getting the monitors correct.
Can someone post their WORKING multi monitor/dynamic marquee Mame.ini and a default.lay (taken from any rom - I dont care) files? Id like to see how they are structured in an already working setup.
Thanks!!

[stigzler]

Just for Mame of for other emulators as well?