Redoing the mame cabinet with Mala - Need some advice....

[vettetekk]

Hello all! I hate acting like a noob, but its been like 3 years since I built my MAME cabinet and went through arcadeos, and MameWah and finally got it set up and running - almost flawlessly from then on. But with the latest upgrades to MAME, and the frontends, I decided to clean house, install a newer - bigger harddrive, and install everything fresh. This time with MALA, as I like some of the features - including videos.
So today, I had off work, and spent most of it gettng it all set up. Lots of little options and details to work through, even though the onscreen options were there, I found myself editing .ini, .cfg, and .mll files to get everthing to play nice.
So here I am at 9:00 on a Friday night, and I can play most everything, but not vector games.
So MY requested items for help are:
make vector games look better - they used to on my old setup
figure out how to get windows desktop pan to work again - I need it for the resoulution (640x288)
figure out WHY I cant get rid of those damn disclaimer screens - Editing the ini didnt work
I think that will do  it actually.
The system Im inquiring about is a xp1900 setup with a arcadevga card (7000 series), 34" arcade monitor  - which only is readable at 640x288 - hence the arcade vga card, and an ipac. Oh, and xp sp2
Ive been all over looking for answers, including a search on here - just when I found a topic that looked promising, it got sidetracked before I got my answer.
And finally, Im not above reloading it all and trying another fron end. I like MALA a bit more than the others, but if someone could talk me into gameex or Atomic - id be more than happy to listen! Just keep in mind - its STRICKLY A MAME MACHINE there will be no jukebox, kareoke, movies, xbox or whathaveyou on it, so the extra "bling" isnt necessary, I just want a good looking front end that works clean. Im 92% of the way there now.
Thanks
V~

[loadman]

So MY requested items for help are:
1) make vector games look better - they used to on my old setup
2) figure out how to get windows desktop pan to work again - I need it for the resoulution (640x288)
3) figure out WHY I cant get rid of those damn disclaimer screens - Editing the ini didnt work

OK I don't see these as FE issues...

1) This is mame not the FE. Play with mame.ini settings . Hardware stretching etc You may want to make seperate post with vector in the subject line

2) Not sure what that is sorry? More info please

3) Yeah on the latest versions of won;t let you skip some screens (Unless you get a modded version) . Do you really need the latest version of mame? What version romset have you got?

Yeah I just use mame with mala and all is cool with me

[lingpanda]

And finally, Im not above reloading it all and trying another fron end. I like MALA a bit more than the others, but if someone could talk me into gameex or Atomic - id be more than happy to listen! Just keep in mind - its STRICKLY A MAME MACHINE there will be no jukebox, kareoke, movies, xbox or whathaveyou on it, so the extra "bling" isnt necessary, I just want a good looking front end that works clean. Im 92% of the way there now.
Thanks
V~

At 92% done I might try and stick it out with Mala first.  Most of the problems you are having are mame issues.  Your 2nd issue I have no clue what exactly you need.  Pan? Display to 2nd monitor? GameEx does have a built in option to bypass disclaimer screens.

[shock_]

I think you mean your windows resolution is something like 800x600 but your display is output to 640x288, so what you get is like looking through binoculars, and when the mouse hits the side of the screen Windows knows to drag and pan to show you what you're missing outside the frame.

This is how I achieve that with my normal PC LCD screen (not that I really want to, but hey) - YMMV: What it could do on a CRT is a frightening thought.  For XP, Control Panel > Display > Settings > Advanced > Monitor > Uncheck "Hide modes this monitor cannot display".  Then click ok to get back to the Settings tab, and you should be able to pick some stupid resolutions much higher than what it actually being output to your display. If you blow up your screen trying this, pretend I never said anything.

[vettetekk]

Thanks for the replies. I tried to uncheck the modes, but that changes the Hz and I can change that with the quickrez for my arcadevga.  I had it set to have the "desktop" size set at 800x600 and the quickrez was set at 640x288 and it worked great. I just cant for the life of me remember where to go for it. It was with sp1 xp though, and Ive upgraded since then.
As for the disclaimers, anyone know where to get the "modded mame" to get around those? I guess I could revert back, what would that be to? like .106? I was runninglike version .78 I think, so yes, Ive been away from it a while!
finally, anyone know any "trick" methods of setting up vector games in the ini? Ive tried hardware stretch,  messed with the resolutions, and its either too big, or REAL pixelated , but it fits. I'm running ddraw instaid of dx3 - the raster games like it better for filling up the monitor
thanks
V~

[FrizzleFried]

You will have to go back to around .106 to avoid the disclaimer...or you can compile your own.  Mr. Do has a good compiling instruction  page over at mameworld.com.

[shock_]

Recommend compiling your own...  there's one line you can add to mame.c (well, two lines but one is a comment), to remove the disclaimers for things like "this doesn't work" which aren't removable via mame.ini. This post from headkaze is what you want to do. Mr Do's instructions are really good for the compiling side of things.

[vettetekk]

Thanks for the replie. I started to follow the compiling instructions as outlined, and when I came to the line I was supposed to add, it was already there in the mame.c file!?
Im not sure now what to do with it - has it already been done? - its the sae build that im running already.
Thanks.
V~

[headkaze]

Read it again, the line has to go before ui_display_startup_screens(). It will be there already but after line. So when you paste it before that line it should appear before and after ui_display_startup_screens().