Screen and Picture Questions

[GadgetBoy]

Greetings:

I have been lurking here for a while and have found the board very informative.  I do, however, have two questions:

1.  I orignally had an ATI Rage card in the PC that I am planning on using for my MAME cabinet.  The picture orientation was fine.  However, I recently removed that to install an ATI All In Wonder card so that I would have TV Out.  Now when I start MAMEWAH, the picture is off-center (lower left hand side of the screen).  Please note that the main menu of MAMEWAH is positioned perfectly, it's just when I select a game that the screen orientation adjusts.

2.  When playing certain games, the picture appears to be a negative of the game.  When I press the "P" button, the game freezes and the colors look exactly like the game.  After hitting the "P" again, the game reverts back to the negative appearance.

Any help???

Thanks in advance,
Jim

[Minwah]

1) Are you using a PC monitor (I think so) ?  Most PC screens save size/position settings for each res.  You probably need to adjust your screen for each res. that you use (MAME is probably running at a different res to MAMEWAH, also note that MAME probably picks several different resolutions for the various games).

2) Make sure you have 'switchbpp 1' in your MAME ini file.  IMO it sounds like a video driver problem tho...

[GadgetBoy]

Yes, I am currently using a PC monitor.  I hope to have the new TV within a week, I just want to make sure everything is running smoothly, along with the fact that I have not yet decided to go 20" or 27" (there are some space restrictions).  Please note that there were no orientation issues with the ATI Rage card, it only began with the installation of the All In Wonder.  Are there issues with the All In Wonder cards?

I will check my .ini file for the 'switchbpp 1' that you spoke about and post the results.

Thanks for the help.

[Tiger-Heli]

Yes, I am currently using a PC monitor.  I hope to have the new TV within a week, I just want to make sure everything is running smoothly, along with the fact that I have not yet decided to go 20" or 27" (there are some space restrictions).  Please note that there were no orientation issues with the ATI Rage card, it only began with the installation of the All In Wonder.  Are there issues with the All In Wonder cards?

I will check my .ini file for the 'switchbpp 1' that you spoke about and post the results.

Thanks for the help.

Some other tips for PC monitor users - I run MAME at a fixed resolution

Resolution 800x600 in my .ini file, hardware stretch on, Keepaspect on.  I also use multires http://www.entechtaiwan.com/files/multires.exe to tell windows that I want all my 800x600 applications to run at 85 Hz.

The result - All my MAME games run at 800x600@85 Hz, full screen at the expense of (maybe) some speed and a little less authentic graphics.  But I like it. . .

P.S.  When I was looking this up for you, I found that the new version of Multires supports scripting to change resolutions, which I have wanted for some time, so this was a win-win situation for me too.