Software Support > PowerMAME
PowerMAME - feature or foolishness?
Tiger-Heli:
--- Quote from: AllisterFiend on February 17, 2006, 09:13:02 am ---This is the feature I like the most, but instead of having it just do Johnny5, could it be set up in a way to let the user define what program he would like to be called up.
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This option would at the very least have to have the path to Johnny 5 specified, so I think it would be easy to set it up so that it just needed a path to an .exe an the parameters to pass to it (fixed or variable (for instance romname, drivername, etc).
--- Quote ---For instance, I have a cabinet that only has about 60 games on it. I also have about 60 .jpg files with what controls do what for each game (they are named the same as the roms files). I would like to be able to pause my game and have it call a simple graphic viewer that displays in 1024x768 the .jpg of the controls.
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Basically, that's what BuddaMAME's feature that Farmboy mentioned does now, but I could see advantages (both in display and in ease of setting the options in MAME) for a universal option to call Irfanview or a graphics viewer.
--- Quote ---Also, maybe have something that is definable by the user to let them choose whether or not when mame is paused if it instantly goes to the program they define or if they want to press a different key after mame is paused and then have it go to the program the want. After pressing that key again, it would go back to mame in it's paused state and you would have to press 'P' to have the game continue. For example on my cabinet when you press 'p' to pause the game and then if I want I can press another key I named 'View Controls' and then it displays a .jpg which has what controls do what on the game you are playing. I then press the 'View Controls' button again and you are brought back to the paused mame game, then I press 'p' again and the game continues where you left off.
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Another possible way to set this up would be to have the first press of the P key pause MAME normally, the second press display the image, the third press cancel the display, and the fourth press resume the game. (The drawback would be you would have to cycle through launching and closing the image viewer if you were just taking a quick pause to talk to someone.) Then again, it's possble the code could be set up so that if you set Pause and View Controls to the same value it would work this way. . .
AllisterFiend:
--- Quote from: Tiger-Heli on February 17, 2006, 10:11:51 am ---Basically, that's what BuddaMAME's feature that Farmboy mentioned does now, but I could see advantages (both in display and in ease of setting the options in MAME) for a universal option to call Irfanview or a graphics viewer.
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I'm not that familiar with BuddaMAME's feature (I will have to look into it).
My biggest concern is that when it displays the .jpg/.png of the controls you can have a fixed resolution, like in my case, 1024x768, as all my pictures are in that resolution. I remember reading a while back that if things were done through mame you were stuck in the resolution of the game mame was playing (224x256).
It does not even matter to me what viewer is used as long as it can display .jpg/.png images at a resolution of ones choosing in full screen view.
Allister Fiend
Tiger-Heli:
--- Quote from: AllisterFiend on February 17, 2006, 11:10:08 am ---My biggest concern is that when it displays the .jpg/.png of the controls you can have a fixed resolution, like in my case, 1024x768, as all my pictures are in that resolution. I remember reading a while back that if things were done through mame you were stuck in the resolution of the game mame was playing (224x256).
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BuddaMAME has you stuck basically at the resolution of the game MAME was playing (not quite accurate, but that's the idea). However, if we are modifying MAME we might be able to have it switch to a specified or the desktop resolution when paused, although apparently BuddaBing couldn't figure out how to, so maybe not. . .
Kremmit:
Maybe Pause should just trigger a batch file. Users could run any apps they might want, and go back to the game whenever they exit the batch file.
Users could even create custom "Pause Menus" to run inside the batch file. "Johnny 5" "History.Dat" "High Scores" "Tips & Tricks" etc.
There's really no limit to this approach- Want to call up a .jpg of the Pac-Man pattern you're trying to learn during game play? Allow the default "pause.bat" to be superseded by "Pac-Man_pause.bat", and have links to the patterns in "Pac-Man_pause.bat".
Another upside to this approach, is that other, non-PowerMAME coders can work on pause menus, freeing up MikeQ's time, and allowing people who can't code C, but can write a batch file, to contribute.
Tiger-Heli:
I think you need a separate key to trigger the batch file, and/or two presses of pause, but otherwise this could work - See AllisterFiend's comments above regarding extended paused problems.
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