What OS/MAME Setup to go with

[savj14]

Here is my situation.

I have an ATI Video Card(Non ArcadeVGA), 19" Arcade Monitor, Hacked a VGA Cable, Added Custom Resolutions via PowerStrip. and Windows XP Pro.

Now what I have been doing is booting my PC to Windows with my PC monitor. Open PowerStrip and Select 640x480 Interlaced running at 16KHz. Unplug my PC Monitor and Plug in and Power on my Arcade Monitor. The Picture is pretty blurry as expected. I have been using MAME32 Plus! and most of the games run at Native Resolutions and I have done alot of tweaking with Resolutions and it has been a pain. But I have some games that fill the screen nicely and look perfect.

In Theory if I can get all/most games to fill the screen and look nice, I'd like to keep this setup except for a few changes.

Is there a Windows Front End that will run at 16KHz?? I would Like to use my MAME32 Settings but be able to choose a game without the Strain of  running MAME32 at 640x480 Interlaced. It makes it hard to switch between games.

I have thought about using DOS and Advancemame, but I can't seem to configure my Arcade Monitor and get everything setup. That seems to be the best way to go, but for right now it doesn't seem to be much of an option.

My ultimate goal would be as follows:

-- Use JPAC to protect the Monitor and be able to boot my PC with the Arcade Monitor plugged in.

-- Run Windows XP

-- Autoload a Front End supported using 16KHz(Or Run with a Shortcut on the Desktop)

-- Use the MAME32 Setting I have for Screen Resolutions,etc. for each game
    Or if the FrontEnd can customize each game that would work.

Any suggestions???

[ahofle]

Have you tried using regular MAME and a front end like Mala or Mamewah?  Those frontends look much better at low resolutions than MAME32.  And I believe all your game-specific settings from MAME32 are stored in ini files for each game anyway, which MAME should pick up.

[savj14]

To be honest I have been too busy playing with resolutions so I haven't tried anything really.

If I were to use either Front End you suggested and Use command line MAME, how would I go about setting up and saving custom setting for each game. And than telling the Front End to load the game with that setting??

[ahofle]

You can set up the resolutions and whatever other game-specific settings in MAME32 if you like.  Since vanilla MAME will automatically pick up these settings via the 'ini' files generated by MAME32, you won't have to configure your frontend at all.  Just 'mame <gamename>'.  The rest will come from the ini file.  That's the theory anyway.  Give it a try and see if it works for you.