access applications outside of mame (while mame is running)

[jspicher]

Hi folks! I posted this question over on the MA forum and it was suggested to me that l should post over here to see if anyone could help me out. I have a mame cabinet running maximus arcade, and l've been thinking about adding a small LCD Monitor into my cabinet to control my WMP or winamp music. I'm looking into one of these:
http://tinyurl.com/d9lxdc or http://tinyurl.com/dlk2fu

I've done a few concept tests and it seems to work great when l'm within the maximus arcade front end, however as soon as l launch a game l'm unable to use my mouse on the 2ndary monitor to change/select music unless l exit out of the game first. I'm wondering if you guys have any ideas on what l could do to circumvent this.

Thanks for any suggestions or help!

[jspicher]

I just found this setting "sleep when possible" under the misc settings of mameui, would this do the trick; anyone think?

Thanks again,

[lilshawn]

i would plain out just put a second unit in there for just media.

just a thought

[deweyhewson]

Maximus Arcade runs in a window, although it doesn't appear like it because the Windows taskbar gets hidden and there is no window border. This is why you can move your mouse between monitors. However, MAME is running in full screen and the problem you're experiencing will happen when you run any software (which means primarily games) in full screen.

What you'd need to do is have MAME run in a maximized window which would let you control other software. However, this is not really a good solution, in my opinion, because your MAME window will have the typical Windows border around it, negating any illusion of authenticity on your cabinet, and doesn't look that great anyway. Also, if you're running at arcade resolutions (either with an ArcadeVGA or Soft15hz) then running in a window will not let you take advantage of that.

Basically, there's really no way to do what you're wanting without substantial tradeoffs on either side.

[jspicher]

Hi lilshawn, Thanks for the out of the box idea... lol a little overkill but that would definetly work none-the-less lol.

deweyhewson > Makes perfectly good sense do you think using winamps "always on top" would make a difference in this situation?

The reason l'm asking instead of just testing it out is because dragging my mame away from the wall and hooking up a 2nd monitor is quite a production.

Thanks again guys!