Anyway to select a size in between 4:3 and full screen in MAME?

[delt31]

I want to make the screen size not 4:3 but not full screen (but in between) similar to how you can on some XBLA games.  Anyway to do this in MAME even if it's in an ini file?

[DarthMarino]

Just hit Tab and go to the slider controls.  Horizontal stretch should do the trick.

[adder]

using a mame layout file is another way to do it, I could look around for my old mame setup files if that's something you are interested in

[delt31]

using a mame layout file is another way to do it, I could look around for my old mame setup files if that's something you are interested in

Horizontal stretch is exactly the option.  Now - if there is a way to set this option via an ini file, let me know.  Didn't see it as an option to configure in the mame ini but i did notice it's in the cfg folder for each applicable game where I changed it.  Would like to have a general change file so it applies it everywhere...

[dmckean]

You could put it in the mame.ini file but you probably want to create horzontal.ini and vertical.ini files and put it there. You'll probably want different settings for horizontal and vertical games.

[delt31]

not familiar with the horizontal.ini.  How does that work? 

How do you add it to the mame.ini?  Tried adding horiz stretch and it didn't work.

[DarthMarino]

It saves it per game in the CFG file.
Sample:

        <video>
            <screen index="0" hstretch="1.018000" />
        </video>

I don't believe there is a way to do a master CFG file though.

[delt31]

Thanks I noticed the same.  Was hoping to have a general setting so I don't need to change it for each game...

[vwalbridge]

so I don't need to change it for each game...

You might want to look into retroarch then. I know that you can squeeze and stretch the screen in any direction til your heart's content in retroarch. In fact, you can even move a 4:3 screen left or right on the screen itselft if that makes sense.

You change it once and it covers all the games. In other words, the screen settings stick with whatever emulator you have set them for.

[delt31]

thanks but I think this can be done with mame.  Maybe through this horizont.ini.  I tried this morning but not dice. If someone knows how to create the horizontal.ini so it applies horizontal stretch of .0932 to all my games it would be appreciated.

[nexusmtz]

how to create the horizontal.ini so it applies horizontal stretch of .0932 to all my games

Are you sure you only want to stretch the width of the game screen? (Horizontal stretch does the game screen, but not the overlays or other artwork.) I think that feature was meant to allow you to tweak the fit of the game screen behind the bezel and overlay the same way that the arcade monitor's controls would have allowed.

If you want everything to change width together, just lie about your monitor's aspect; e.g. aspect 160:88 (MAME wants integers, so that would be the same as 16:8.8 instead of 16:9.) You'll have to figure out how large you need those numbers in order to provide enough granularity to hit the exact size you want.

As with most configuration parameters, you can try out different numbers using -aspect on the command line, then add the desired ratio to your ini file.

[delt31]

def - only want to change horizontal. Vertical is fine.

How exactly do I just change horizontal so it's applied to all of my games?

[nexusmtz]

There's already an entry for aspect in mame.ini. It's normally set to auto.

You can play around with the aspect by setting it on the command line; e.g. mame64 robotron -aspect 16:9 That would look the same as -aspect auto on a 1920x1080 LCD monitor.

If you run mame64 robotron -aspect 16:8, MAME still sees the same 1920x1080 resolution, but since you're telling MAME that your screen is physically wider than the pixels would indicate; i.e. twice as wide as it is tall, instead of 1.77777 times as wide; MAME compensates by creating the picture narrower than it normally would.

Applying the same logic, using aspect 16:10 would look wider than aspect 16:9 on the same monitor.

Once you find the right aspect, you just enter it in your mame.ini. That will set it for all games. For those few games that actually are widescreen, you can create game specific ini files to override to aspect auto.

Keep in mind that aspect affects everything in the artwork system. You haven't shown a screenshot or mockup of what you're trying to do, so I can't tell if the aspect feature would work for your situation. If you're just trying to cover a bit more of your widescreen monitor with the game screen so there isn't as much black on the sides, this will do it. Try it and let us know.