Anyone Tried Pivot Pro

[Teebor]

I jsut stumbled across some software that is specially designed to rotate monitor displays through 90 and 180 degree's

I was wondering if it anyone had used it with MAME for those games that are run on rotated monitors.

When this package rotates the screen it completely fills the screen to the max res the monitor can handle so you get full use of the screen just at a different angle , that is instead of using the method I have seen that still leaves borders at the edge of the screen

[Minwah]

I was wondering if it anyone had used it with MAME for those games that are run on rotated monitors.

There is usually no point as MAME has built-in rotation.  Also, software rotation has a performance hit.

That said, for people without hardware rotation it can be handy (for example to run my FE vertically, since it doesn't have native rotation).

[NoOne=NBA=]

I haven't tried the new "software-only" version of it, but I've used the older version with a Portrait monitor.
Most of the vertical games are older anyway, so I didn't see a noticable hit on performance while using it.
If you had something that needed the extra horsepower, I could see the software conversion causing issues though.

MAME will stretch to fit as well, if you tell it to.

[patrickl]

I tried an older version a few years ago (it came with my monitor). I found it pretty slow. I now use the built-in rotation option of my video card drivers. Works quite well. Can be switched back and forth with a shortkey.

It's more for rotation the front end or Windows than the game itself. It doesn't work for modern games, but in Mame I haven't had a problem to leave it on.

[Tiger-Heli]

I've heard it mentioned before.

Pivot Pro looks like it is $39.99 with a 30-day trial (at least if you use it honestly).

I have tried http://www.entechtaiwan.net/util/irotate.shtm which is free and will allow you to rotate the screen using hotkeys or commandlines calls from batch files (if your graphics drivers support it - most newer Nvidia and ATI cards).  I would try it first and then try PP if iRotate won't do all you want.

And as others have said, not really needed for MAME, but useful for Windows and frontends.

[Teebor]

I have to admit that I didnt check MAME as I had not used it properly for many years, then I have just got back into the whole BYOAC thing

I got the software free, it was in a Plasma screen box from samsung so its full version. 

I will check that mame rotation thing and see how it goes.  Thanks

[Tiger-Heli]

I got the software free, it was in a Plasma screen box from samsung so its full version. 

Well, at least you're not out any money then.  You might still find iRotate works better for what you want.  (I don't gain anything either way, just recommend trying all your options).

I will check that mame rotation thing and see how it goes.  Thanks

If you are using command-line mame, look at the following mame.ini file settings:

ror   1
rol   1

(Rotates ALL games right or left - for a portrait oriented monitor).

autoror  1
autorol   1

(Rotates only Vertical games right or left, for a cocktail arcade or rotating monitor).

hwstretch  1 (stretches games to fill screen)
keepaspect 1 (stretches in one direction only (with letterboxing))

[southpaw13]

I think the biggest problem with arcade monitors is that they are limited somewhat to 640x480.  So video card rotation is not possible at such a low resolution.  It's hard to find a front end that will rotate on it's own.  I think only AdvanceMenu and AtomicFE can do this.  So the question is, can Pivot Pro rotate at lower resolutions?

Southpaw

[Tiger-Heli]

I think the biggest problem with arcade monitors is that they are limited somewhat to 640x480.  So video card rotation is not possible at such a low resolution.  It's hard to find a front end that will rotate on it's own.  I think only AdvanceMenu and AtomicFE can do this.  So the question is, can Pivot Pro rotate at lower resolutions?

iRotate definitely can.  Just switched my desktop to 640x480 using MultiRes and rotated it left with iRotate.  Worked fine.

HTH.

[Tiger-Heli]

Here's a pic (interesting that PrintScreen rotated it right-side up):

[Tiger-Heli]

Here's what it looked like to me:

[Tiger-Heli]

A few more details in this thread - take the Pivot Pro comments with a grain of salt, though:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=45609.0

[southpaw13]

Cool!  I thought that I-rotate only made it easier for the user to access the functions for the video card....

I will give it a try....

Any performance hit?

[Tiger-Heli]

Cool!  I thought that I-rotate only made it easier for the user to access the functions for the video card....

You are thinking of PowerStrip.

Any performance hit?

Don't know - the file is only 100K and uses the native functions of the video drivers, so I wouldn't expect it to hurt performance much - but I don't have a vertical monitor, so I just played with it b/c it looked cool.

But if it does hurt performance that gives you justification to buy a faster PC for the cab. 

[southpaw13]

WOW, I took a huge performance hit.  I am running my CPU around 2700 and now Tron runs slow....

I tried it without I-rotate and everything is fine.

Too bad, I really wanted to use MameWah....

It's probably my video card.  Since Mame isn't hardware based, I get pretty cheap video cards.  If I want to use I-rotate, I just I will need to buy a beefy one....

Any suggestions?

[Tiger-Heli]

WOW, I took a huge performance hit.  I am running my CPU around 2700 and now Tron runs slow....

Hmmmn, it didn't sound like it should do that. Doesn't make too much sense either.

It's probably my video card.  Since Mame isn't hardware based, I get pretty cheap video cards.  If I want to use I-rotate, I just I will need to buy a beefy one....
Any suggestions?

What video card are you using?  More importantly - what video driver are you using?  I think the latest Nvidia drivers work on anything from a TNT on up. And I know that ATI drivers work from a Radeon on up.

I would try updating the drivers before I chucked the card, as I think they may have optimized this with newer versions of the driver software.

Personally, I use a 64M Radeon 9200 (9250??, I forget) and it seems to work fine, but I didn't do anything heavy with irotate.

[southpaw13]

Yes, I am all updated on a Geforce2.  Still very slow with I-rotate...

[Tiger-Heli]

Yes, I am all updated on a Geforce2.  Still very slow with I-rotate...

Hmmmn, bummer!