Win XP for MAME cab?

[viewpoint2k]

Can Windows XP display at 640x480 (I thought I heard 800x600 is lowest res with XP)?  If not, has this caused problems for those with MAME cabs?  Any way to deal with this?  Thanks!

[Minwah]

I think when I installed XP, 800x600 was the lowest res I could set the desktop.  BUT I think this is dependant on the video card driver.  Since then I CAN get 640x480.

Lower resolutions can still be used, eg auto switched by MAME.

It shouldn't be a problem - do you need to run your desktop at 640x480?

[Lilwolf]

Is this really a problem with XP?

I would hate that... why?  My EYGO monitor will only handle 640x480.  Makes XP impossible for my cabinet!

And I was thinking of upgrading

[toilet]

There is a finagle to get 640x480 for desktop resolution in Windows XP.

Display Properties -> Settings -> Advanced -> Adapter -> List All Modes.

I'm pretty sure if you select 640x480 there it will keep it.

[SNAAAKE]

Can Windows XP display at 640x480 (I thought I heard 800x600 is lowest res with XP)?  If not, has this caused problems for those with MAME cabs?  Any way to deal with this?  Thanks!

it can..gotta use power strip or similer app.

isnt this thread supposed to be on "software forum".

[Malenko]

or you can do the easy thing and just enable VGA mode on the boot menu like I did wen I hooked up my EYGO

[Minwah]

toilet is right, do 'List all Modes'.

640x480 appears for me anyway since I installed a new video driver - you should be OK

[Tiger-Heli]

Is this really a problem with XP?

I would hate that... why?  My EYGO monitor will only handle 640x480.  Makes XP impossible for my cabinet!

And I was thinking of upgrading

Just wanted to point out to LilWolf and all that the biggest drawback IMHO to XP in MAME is NO dual trackball support.  There simply is no way to make it work with this OS!!!!

[u_rebelscum]

Can Windows XP display at 640x480 (I thought I heard 800x600 is lowest res with XP)?  If not, has this caused problems for those with MAME cabs?  Any way to deal with this?  Thanks!

You can run XP at 640x480.  It's just that microsoft is designing it for 1024x768 and bigger screens now.  (It think the last windows designed for 640x480 was 3.1)  This doesn't mean it won't work, just that you wouldn't be able to fit much onto the screen with the default font size, icon size, ect.  That's why it's not recommended for 640x480.  Since you won't be windowing, but maming instead, no problem. (except maybe fitting your front end on the screen.)

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah you lshould have no problems  jsut use the list all modes as the others suggested.  Powerstrip isn't necessary.  Also you can run windows "for windows" ok at 640 x 480 if you turn the font size to small fonts in the advanced settings of your display properties.  I think both ati and nvidia support the use of small and large font sizes for their cards.  

[Minwah]

Just thought I'd mention my recent experience with upgrading(?) from '98 to XP:

Had a problem for a while of PC restarting itself, XP reported a possible h/ware driver fault > flashed BIOS cured this.

Positive:
Since then, I have realised that my FE runs A LOT faster & smoother under XP.  My FE (WIP version) created a delay when refreshing games list and quitting, due to clearing large arrays > this delay has vanished with XP.  Also, my FE would crash occasionally when quickly moving through the games list (it's trying to display images faster than the PC can actually read them) > XP seems to manage this better, and so far I haven't had a problem.

Negative:
Triple buffering in MAME sometimes causes the MAME 'Window' (usually invisible in fullscreen) to flicker.  This is a known bug in MAME so hopefully it will be fixed in the future.  I never experienced this problem in '98.

Some games don't run as quick in XP as '98.  Namely a lot of Taito games - Bubble Bobble 2/3 & SI'95 Lunar Lunies spring to mind.  These games drop to 30fps at times - they ran at constant 60fps under '98.

I don't have 2 trackballs so dual trackball support is not a problem for me at the moment.  In summary I'd say XP runs nice generally, but I'm a bit pi$$ed that the above games have slowed up so much - looks like a >1.4Ghz CPU will be needed when I get round to building my cab.  (Maybe this speed issue is down to a problem in my setup, but I do not think so).

Hope this is of some interest to people thinking of moving to XP