How to shutdown

[cdbrown]

This may be a very lame question   but how do those of you that use windows exit out of mame and shutdown.  Have you wired a windows button or something like that or do you just turn off the power to the cab?

I guess the same question applies to starting the computer and running the frontends.  I was thinking about having a couple of different emulators so how can I get them to run using the control panel (4 joysticks, no trackball)?

Thanks in advance
Craig

[aramis]

Several front-ends can be configured to automatically shut down Windows for you when you exit them. For example, EmuWizard and Raging Dragon can do this, and I'm sure there are others. I do a shift+P1 start on mine (I use an IPAC) as an ESC to exit the front-end and shut down nicely.

Some people don't do it this way, and simply power off the cab. They then have their BIOS configured to re-power up automatically when power is turned back on. No need to actually hit the power button.

As far as starting, you can simply put a shortcut to the front-end .exe into your startup folder.

The front-ends I mentioned above (EmuWizard and Raging Dragon) also support multiple emulators. I currently am using Windows Mame (NOT Mame32) and the Daphne emulator for laserdisc games.

Note: You didn't mention what version of Mame you are using...keep in mind there are 2 windows versions, a Windows Mame (mame.exe) and Mame32. Mame32 has it's own GUI for ease of use, but is not intended to be used with other front-ends. Windows Mame is command-line based and is easy to set up with a seperate front-end.

[Zipper]

I use MAME32 in my cab, and have an i-pac shifted key which shuts down the computer.

Get the free copy of 'hot keyboard' to assign any key as a 'shut-down' key. Search for it on google. You can shut down at any time - even whilst playing - it's very fast.

As for starting the cabinet up....
I have MAME32 in the start-up folder (so it's ok once the machine is running, but I have to put my hand inside the coin door to press the power switch to a laptop inside. Not the most ideal solution, but it will do for now.

[Zipper]

I will be looking to use a more dedicated front end in the next couple of days though....
Probably Raging Dragon or Arcade FX. Especially as Hot Keyboard isn't Freeware.

[gajaman]

I use an i-pac and have configured two of the buttons to be ALT and F4 when in shift mode. All I have to do is hold the shift button then the ALT and F4 (player one buttons 4 & 5) and Arcade FX or anything else shuts straight down.

I also use it to exit windows again then use shift and joystick one left to enter the quit windows command - easy.

[planetjay]

This may be a very lame question

[MuscleSprout]

Does arcadeOS have this shut down feature?  Would powering off the somputer not cause scan disk to check every time it's powered back on, or can you turn that off?  Just wondering....

[johnpurs]

Does arcadeOS have this shut down feature?

[Ghoul]

The best method for starting up a cab is using a motherboard that can be set up to power on at the press of a keyboard key (ie one of your pushbuttons).

This is what I plan on doing and lots of mobos support it, but it probably won't work for you  :-/

For shutting down I always imagined going through windows and just leaving the monitor running in that standby mode it goes into when your comp shuts down.

[ampapa]

I run in a pure DOS mode mode but the idea is the same for windows by running a batch file you can shutdown the system...

e.g. The batch file starts ArcadeOS as the PC boots or from DOS, while ArcadeOS is running everthing is hunky dory! When you exit ArcadeOS the remaining part of the batch file resumes and shuts the PC down...

"If you are using Windows and want to shut the sytem down use the file rundll32.exe similar to the following (c:\windows\rundll32.exe user,exitwindows)."

If you use the above in a batch file it will shut the computer down.

Here's a link to the full conversation on the ArcadeOS forum...http://www.mameworld.net/cgi-bin/wwwthreads/showpost.pl?Board=mameworldarcadepcjamma&Number=1436&page=&view=&mode=threaded&sb=#Post1436


Here is a link to my site if you interested...
www.webajm.com/ajmconsulting

[cdbrown]

I will be looking to use a more dedicated front end in the next couple of days though....
Probably Raging Dragon or Arcade FX. Especially as Hot Keyboard isn't Freeware.

Have now downloaded Raging Dragon and noticed it has the shutdown function in the dragon.ini file .  Now just have to learn how to use it properly.
-cdbrown

[Howard_Casto]

"If you are using Windows and want to shut the sytem down use the file rundll32.exe similar to the following (c:\windows\rundll32.exe user,exitwindows)."

I wish this still worked or else I wouldn't have had to write all this goofy code for rd....  In an NT-based environment this old trick won't work as they're are various security procedures to kill.  If I ever find a non-code based solution for nt/2000/xp I'll post it though.  It's like 4 case statments and 12-20 calls of windows proceses to do it now.

[Skeleton]

I've given this topic a lot of consideration and I've come up with a pretty good solution for my MAGMA project. What I wanted was a one button power-on / power-off that shut windows down in a nice way at any time, whether you are in the frontend or in the middle of a game. You could just hook a button up to the PC power button. This turns it on and you can configure it to shut down this way too, but it is not an unconditional shutdown. If you are in the middle of a game an ugly popup window will appear telling you that you must exit the game before shutting down.
  I solved this problem with a momentary pushbutton and a DPDT 12V Relay. The pushbutton is wired across both common terminals of the relay. The NC contacts are wired across the power button of the PC. The NO contacts are wired to a KE72 input. The Relay coil is wired to 12V from the PC power supply. When the system is off the pushbutton is essentially connected to the PC power button. This allows you to turn it on. As soon as power comes on the relay activates and the pushbutton is then connected across the KE72 input. In windows I created a shortcut that has a Hotkey combination like Ctrl-Alt-K (be careful that there is no way you can activate whatever hotkey combo you choose while playing MAME). This shortcut points to an unconditional shutdown program (you can find this on the web). The KE72 input is programmed to send this Hotkey combination when the pushbutton is pressed. This allows the same pushbutton to power off the machine in a nice controlled, windows-friendly way even if you are in the middle of playing a game.
  For people that have IPAC's this solution doesn't work since it can't send a macro to activate the shortcut. Since my next machine will likely have an IPAC I am working on a different solution. I'm thinking about hooking the NO contacts of the relay to something like the RingIndicator line on a serial port and creating a VB program that performs an unconditional shutdown on a RingIndicator event running in the background. I still have to work on this though.
  This can power up the whole cabinet. You just need to switch the AC power to your powerstrip that powers the rest of the cabinet with a 12V Relay that is powered by the 12V from the PC power supply. Just make sure it can handle 120VAC at enough current (I would estimate that 10A would be a minimum rating).
  I still need to update my website with this info so I don't have to keep re-typing it every time someone asks this question. Hope this helps someone.