Can screen effects be disabled automatically for vector games?

[DaveC1964]

I have a screen effect (test1) that simulates scanlines in raster games.  When I load vector games that effect still shows up as scanlines and ruins it.  How do I set it to automatically shut off the effect when a vector game is loaded or is that not possible?  I included what that section looks like in a picture.  Note the vector.ini shows effect as none but it still shows it anyway.  Any ideas?

[PL1]

How do I set it to automatically shut off the effect when a vector game is loaded or is that not possible?

Have you tried putting TEST1 in raster.ini instead of mame.ini?


Scott

[DaveC1964]

How do I set it to automatically shut off the effect when a vector game is loaded or is that not possible?

Have you tried putting TEST1 in raster.ini instead of mame.ini?


Scott

Yes, it doesn't recognize the raster.ini, it just ignores it.  It will use what is in MAME.ini no matter what the game is.  I am using MAME .117 maybe the feature hasn't been implemented yet?  I don't want to use a newer version because the PC is low power and I want to avoid the whole ROM nightmare.

[PL1]

It will use what is in MAME.ini no matter what the game is.  I am using MAME .117 maybe the feature hasn't been implemented yet?

Here are two approaches to consider:

1. Have two copies of MAME -- one in C:\mame\ for the raster games and the other in C:\mame1\ for the vector games.
- Your C:\mame\ copy should already be set.
- Copy everything from C:\mame\ to C:\mame1\ .
- In C:\mame1\, update the paths, edit mame.ini, and keep only the vector game ROMs.

2. Use a .bat file to copy the desired version of mame.ini from either mame_raster.ini or mame_vector.ini before you launch the game.
- You can run a generic raster.bat or vector.bat before launching mame or you can make game specific .bat files.

  vector.bat

Code: [Select]

cd c:\mame
copy C:\mame\mame_vector.ini C:\mame\mame.ini

  raster.bat

Code: [Select]

cd c:\mame
copy C:\mame\mame_raster.ini C:\mame\mame.ini

  asteroid.bat

Code: [Select]

cd c:\mame
copy C:\mame\mame_vector.ini C:\mame\mame.ini
mame asteroid

  dkong.bat

Code: [Select]

cd c:\mame
copy C:\mame\mame_raster.ini C:\mame\mame.ini
mame dkong


Scott

[DaveC1964]

It will use what is in MAME.ini no matter what the game is.  I am using MAME .117 maybe the feature hasn't been implemented yet?

Here are two approaches to consider:

1. Have two copies of MAME -- one in C:\mame\ for the raster games and the other in C:\mame1\ for the vector games.
- Your C:\mame\ copy should already be set.
- Copy everything from C:\mame\ to C:\mame1\ .
- In C:\mame1\, update the paths, edit mame.ini, and keep only the vector game ROMs.

2. Use a .bat file to copy the desired version of mame.ini from either mame_raster.ini or mame_vector.ini before you launch the game.
- You can run a generic raster.bat or vector.bat before launching mame or you can make game specific .bat files.

It is an arcade cab with limited controls (no keyboard/mouse).  I am also using the Mala front end.  I did set up two Mala setups on the same system with a link, one that loads the front end with only vector games, the other with raster ones.  It works with one big problem, it is a MAME cab again so no way to click the link I want without attaching a mouse.  It just isn't practical.

Does this mean that MAME really does not support using vector.ini or raster.ini files?  I thought I may have been doing something wrong somewhere.  That seems like a big oversight with MAME.

[Zebidee]

Does this mean that MAME really does not support using vector.ini or raster.ini files?  I thought I may have been doing something wrong somewhere.  That seems like a big oversight with MAME.

Given that you are using 0.117, that is like criticising Isaac Newton for not including relativity in his equations for planetary movements when writing the Principia Mathematica.

[PL1]

Does this mean that MAME really does not support using vector.ini or raster.ini files?

MAME v0.117 was released in July 2007.   
- More recent versions do support these .ini files, but I'm not sure when that support was added.

It will use what is in MAME.ini no matter what the game is.  I am using MAME .117 maybe the feature hasn't been implemented yet?

Here are two approaches to consider:

1. Have two copies of MAME -- one in C:\mame\ for the raster games and the other in C:\mame1\ for the vector games.
- Your C:\mame\ copy should already be set.
- Copy everything from C:\mame\ to C:\mame1\ .
- In C:\mame1\, update the paths, edit mame.ini, and keep only the vector game ROMs.

2. Use a .bat file to copy the desired version of mame.ini from either mame_raster.ini or mame_vector.ini before you launch the game.
- You can run a generic raster.bat or vector.bat before launching mame or you can make game specific .bat files.

It is an arcade cab with limited controls (no keyboard/mouse).  I am also using the Mala front end.  I did set up two Mala setups on the same system with a link, one that loads the front end with only vector games, the other with raster ones.  It works with one big problem, it is a MAME cab again so no way to click the link I want without attaching a mouse.  It just isn't practical.

Nobody said anything about using a keyboard/mouse for normal game selection.

With option 1, configure your front end to treat the two copies of MAME as different emulator programs.

With option 2, configure your front end to launch the .bat files.

You could also do a mashup where you run the raster games normally from C:\mame\ and run the relatively few vector games with simple .bat files that point to C:\mame1\ .
- With this mashup approach, there's no need to do the mame.ini file copy in the .bat file.

How do you do these things in MALA?   
- I'll leave the detailed how-to to someone who knows their way around MALA.


Scott

[DaveC1964]

I tried option 1 and added the second MAME as a "different" emulator.  I set the rompaths to the vector games in the front end.   It does scan and add the vector games to the list but when I try to run it quickly throws an error in a CLI window about ROMs not found.  So it finds them when scanning, but not loading.  I don't understand how to do it in Mala either obviously.

Is there a simple frontend that easily allows different versions of MAME to be called up?  I just use Mala because it loads fast without a lot of overhead and I don't need all of that resource intensive animations and other fluff. 

 If there is another lightweight option out there that is easy to set up what would that be?

[PL1]

I tried option 1 and added the second MAME as a "different" emulator.  I set the rompaths to the vector games in the front end.   It does scan and add the vector games to the list but when I try to run it quickly throws an error in a CLI window about ROMs not found.  So it finds them when scanning, but not loading.

Sounds like MALA knows where the vector ROMs are, but second MAME does not.

1. Did you set the paths in the mame.ini file in your second MAME folder?
- Paths should point to folders under the second MAME folder, not under the first MAME folder.

2. Are all of the vector game/bios/driver ROMs in the \roms\ folder under the second MAME folder?

3. Do you get the same "ROMs missing" error message when you run the second copy of MAME from command line?
- If so, which game are you trying to run and which ROM or file does it say is missing?


Scott

[DaveC1964]

I currently have to directories that are basically a copy of each other with the entire setup except for the ROMs. 

If I run the MAME in the vector directory from the Mala that is in there it works fine.

 If I run the Mame (through Mala) in the raster directory which has the second MAME as a "different" emulator the raster games work, the vector games even though showing can't find the ROM files. 

So yes if I run the MAME in their own directories everything works.  If I try to cross over to the other directory to run that mame as a different emu it fails to load ROMs.  It must be the way Mala is setup with the "different emu" that for some reason isn't loading the ROM files even though it finds them in the scan.  I checked ROM paths for each and they are correct.

[PL1]

Try applying the info in this post (reply #111) to the procedure in the first post of that thread.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,68419.msg855317.html#msg855317

Here's a shorter thread that might be useful.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,81059.0.html


Scott

[DaveC1964]

Try applying the info in this post (reply #111) to the procedure in the first post of that thread.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,68419.msg855317.html#msg855317

Here's a shorter thread that might be useful.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,81059.0.html


Scott

Yeah I saw that.  They are long threads with a lot of batch file, XML editing and other stuff that I have no clue about.  I wish I knew something about DOS commands and editing but I don't.    Oh well, was hoping for something more straight forward.

[abispac]

This is what i did to solve a similar problem:
You can use romlister to reate a list of the vector games, then, save that list as a bat file, the bat file can be set to create anything you want, i use it to create a bunch of ini files of those games only. then opened each file and added the (in your case) vector settings i needed, left mame ini alone and i had all (in my case) vertical games with settings i needed nunning only on the games i needed.