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Stupid Newbie Mala questions
loadman:
--- Quote ---5 -I'm going to put a controller-displayer on MaLa eventually, too, to show which of my bajillion buttons on my control panel are used each time I launch a game (I got a SlikStick Quad but removed a bunch of buttons & the 4-way stick from the top row, added 4 more 8-way sticks for Smash TV, added a fighter stick for Tron/etc, added an analog stick for Star Wars/etc, added a 2nd spinner...it's crowded...). I've downloaded Johnny 5 & was planning on setting that up after I get a layout figured out & all my Daphne games set up. Any recommendations or guidance before I commence with the stupid newbie questions on *that* topic?
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I am not much use to you on this one. I have a simple two sided cab with three joysticks and three buttons per player. I get by with a 2 x 20 char LCD display to inform players what the buttons do (via MaLa Hardware) so I don't use a controls viewer
Anyway..... In your case
There are many good ones that work with MaLa:
http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Utilities
Just try 'em ;D
jasonbar:
Howdy Loadman et al-
I played a bit with some downloaded layouts & am getting my custom layout together--the MaLa layout editor seems pretty slick & easy to use. I've got a couple of general questions on what affects performance when navigating game lists.
6 - I'd like to cram as much as possible onto the layout (snap, marquee, cabinet, control panel) as my 800x600 Betson monitor will allow. I also find that scrolling through the MAME titles (via up & down arrows) is a bit slow & when I hold down control to scroll page-by-page, it sometimes won't even update/display the scrolling list until I let go. Does displaying too much "stuff" on the layout slow down & hamper browsing?
7 - I've got 6505 games in my MAME list--I expect to trim this down to about half that when I ditch non-working games, clones, bootlegs, old revs, etc. Will that improve the performance of browsing the list?
8 - I notice that hitting the Alt key brings up the history text on top of the layout. Is there a way to do the same for flyers? That is, hit a key & a flyer image will come up in full-screen over the layout (since many flyers have small text & need to be viewed large to be legible, because trying to fit them into a corner of my layout on my 800x600 monitor won't really give them enough space to read them), or perhaps a way to hitt the Alt key to bring up the flyer & the history text side-by-side?
Thanks again,
-Jason
loadman:
--- Quote from: jasonbar on March 26, 2007, 12:31:45 pm ---6 - I'd like to cram as much as possible onto the layout (snap, marquee, cabinet, control panel) as my 800x600 Betson monitor will allow. I also find that scrolling through the MAME titles (via up & down arrows) is a bit slow & when I hold down control to scroll page-by-page, it sometimes won't even update/display the scrolling list until I let go. Does displaying too much "stuff" on the layout slow down & hamper browsing?
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Yep the more you put on will effect scrolling performance especially if you want all the Snap/cab pics to update as you scroll on the fly.
The fastest scroll settings for me are
1) options-gui-options *exceptions (if you can live without it updating the snap turn it off here)
2) options-controler-keyboard-options (set key repeat to say... 50)
3) options-controler-options (set scrolling acceleration to 5)
--- Quote ---7 - I've got 6505 games in my MAME list--I expect to trim this down to about half that when I ditch non-working games, clones, bootlegs, old revs, etc. Will that improve the performance of browsing the list?
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Not really
--- Quote ---8 - I notice that hitting the Alt key brings up the history text on top of the layout. Is there a way to do the same for flyers? That is, hit a key & a flyer image will come up in full-screen over the layout (since many flyers have small text & need to be viewed large to be legible, because trying to fit them into a corner of my layout on my 800x600 monitor won't really give them enough space to read them), or perhaps a way to hitt the Alt key to bring up the flyer & the history text side-by-side?
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See Pic.. The latest version of MaLa has lots of custom options for this kind of thing. It's not of intrerst to me personally so I have not played with it yet
jasonbar:
Thanks again, Loadman.
I've got the looong task ahead of me of sorting through my 6505 games now. I'm only up to Alien Syndrome... :[ Weeding out copies, bootlegs, Japanese, non-working,e tc.
6 - The key repeat values you suggested didn't work great--my scrolling/browsing is still clunky. After I get my layout nailed down & everything, I'll fine-tune those numbers till it scrolls nicely.
8 - Thanks--I found that same option after I posted. It seems that I can have the Alt key display any 1 of several items (history, etc.), but not more than 1. That's ok. I guess my cabinet will be flyerless. No biggie.
9 - New question for planning ahead. From reading the info on Johnny5 (http://www.mameworld.net/tigerheli/johnny/), I'm interested in using Method 3 (http://www.mameworld.net/tigerheli/johnny/prior.htm) so users can see the controls at the launch of each game on my big obnoxious control panel. The page says that this method will work with "any frontend that can support sending a rom name to a batch file rather than an executable". Does Mala fall under this category? If so, is there some more specific info on setting this up in MaLa?
Thanks!
-Jason
loadman:
6) ??? OK Have a play later
9) Yet J5 and CPViewer work great. They take a bit to set-up intitally but are kewl.
The MaLa bit is easy. Use the tab in the attached pic