Stupid Newbie Mala questions

[jasonbar]

Standard disclaimer: I'm a mechanical engineer--software confuses me... :]

1 - I have both MAME32 & Mala installed on my machine, both looking at the same ROMS directory.  I'm in the process of getting Mala set up to run MAME & Daphne.  Mala says that I have 2250 MAME games (I'm still on the default layout...).  MAME32 says that I have 6507 games.  Why the huge discrepancy?  Indeed, Mala seems to be missing lots of games that MAME32 shows in the list.  Indeed, comparing the list of the first several games shown in both lists shows that Mala lists some games that MAME32 doesn't list either...?
  1st 10 games in Mala: '99: The Last War, '99: The Last War (alternate), '99: The Last War (Kyuogo), 10-Yard Fight (Japan), 10-Yard Fight (World), 1941 - Counter Attack (Japan), 1941 - Counter Attack (World), 1942 (PlayChoice-10), 1942 (set 1), 1942 (set 2)
  1st 10 games in MAME32: '88 Games, Hyper Sports Specia..., Konami '88, (Medal) Yumefuda [Bet], 005, 10-Yard Fight (World), 10-Yard Fight (Japan), VS 10-Yard Fight (Japan), 10-Yard Fight (World), 1000 Miglia: Great 1000...

These discrepanices populate all the way to the bottom.  Mala ends with Zwackery, while MAME32 has Zzyzzyxx at the end (after Zwackery).


2 - I have a folder of a bajillion flyers.  MAME32 lets me display the flyer or cabinet pic (or other items in the pane on the right side of the screen).  Mala doesn't seem to provide for this.  On the Pictures and Videos tab of MAME Config, I see where to point it to Snap/Title, Marquee, & Control Panel, but not flyer or cabinet pic.  Can this be set up?


Thank you very much.  More stupid questions are sure to follow--I'll apologize in advance.  :]

-Jason

[jasonbar]

1 more follow-up question:

3 - I believe that I read about a way to keep from seeing the command line window from popping up briefly when selecting a game to play.  I can't find the right option on the GUI tab.

Thanks,
-Jason

[loadman]

1) For a start I would not use mame32 via a FE.  It can work fine but not worth the risk after seeing many bad post here over the years.  You Windows command line mame with a FE.  But in any case this is usually causef by a bad mame.xml file that mala uses to generat a list. If you continue to have issues let us know what version of command line mame you want to use and we can post you a good mame.xml I guess

2) Only 3 variable pictures.
A) Snap/Title,
B) Marquee
C) Control Panel,
I could be wrong but I would think you can use any of these to be flyer of Cab picture.

3) The command line pops up by default when you first set-up mala so you can see any potential MAME errors.  When you are happy with your mame set-up you can hide it
Look Here:
http://mala.arcadezentrum.com/help.html#faq13

[shock_]

1) Might be barking up the wrong tree, but check you don't have "masters only" or "working" or something ticked in the MAME setup tab of MaLa.  That can filter a list in ways you don't want, perhaps.

2) Loadman is correct - shove any old folder into those and you can have flyers there, as long as the filenames match the rom names. 

In addition, layouts can make use of up to four additional rom-related fields, for things like flyers - if you don't want to spend the 'named' ones.  Create a box in the layout for "definable 1" (or 2,3 or 4).  Then in MaLa, point your "definable 1" folder at the flyers.  No wonder you didn't see that with the default layout loaded.

:-)

[loadman]

Good Point 

with the 'definables' you can have another 4 sets of pics that switch depending on what game is selected..

[jasonbar]

Thank you very much, Loadman & Shock_.

1 - Sorry, I was unclear.  I do have the mame.exe command line program & MAME32.exe, as well as Mala.  Mala is launching MAME games through the mame.exe command line version of MAME, not MAME32.  I'm running the following versions:
  Mala: 1.0.1.320
  MAME: .113
  MAME32: .113
  mame.xml: says - <mame build="0.113 (Mar 5 2007)">

In Mala's MAME Config/Basics tab, I don't have the "Only games with rom", "Only working games", & "Only masters" boxes checked, so I think it shouldn't be weeding any games out of the list.

2 - Thanks.  Once I get into making my own layout, hopefully this week, I'll see if I can figure out how to use cabinet & flyer pics, in addition to the other standard pics (Marquee, snap, & control panel).

3 - Thanks, found it & that did the trick.


New question #4:

4 - (sort of a MAME question more than Mala, I suppose...).  When I launch a MAME game, I get the "type OK" screen if it's the 1st time I've launched a game, then I get a splash screen of text w/ info on title, CPU, sound, & resolution.  Is there a way to keep these screens (or at least the 2nd one) from popping up when I launch a game?


Thank you very much,
-Jason

[loadman]

1) Ok I just downloaded MAME: .113. MaLa shows me 6505 games in the list (I don't have all these games as you would guess but I did not check the 'games with rom' filter)
Anyway the point is something is wrong with your set-up. Most likely it is the mame.xml file, you may have been generated from mame32 in error.
Two possible solutions are
A) Recreate your mame.xml file and  then refresh your game list
- Delete your mame.xml file
- Open MaLa
- You will get an error saying the XML file is missing.
- AFTER A FEW SECONDS the config window will open. In Mameconfig-basics Hit the 'Create' button in the middle-right of this window.
- After a few seconds this will be done so click ok
- After a few seconds the old game list will be shown so right click and select 'Refresh main list'
- After a few mins your complete game list should be shown   
B) I e-mail you my mame.xml file (3 Gig meg compressed) and then refresh your game list

2) 

3)  NOTE: I would leave the DOS box showing until you are happy wthat mame is working OK with the roms you have

4) Have a look mame.ini  . Try setting the folowing to 1 not 0 :  (use notepad to edit)
# CONFIGURATION OPTIONS
skip_gameinfo           1

[SGT]

B) I e-mail you my mame.xml file (3 Gig compressed) and then refresh your game list

Wow, that's some XML file you have there.  Mine is only around 27 meg uncompressed.

-SGT

[loadman]

B) I e-mail you my mame.xml file (3 Gig compressed) and then refresh your game list

Wow, that's some XML file you have there.  Mine is only around 27 meg uncompressed.

-SGT

Typo 

[jasonbar]

Thanks yet again, Loadman.  I owe you a beer.

1 - Removing & rebuilding the mame.xml file in MaLa seems to have worked.  The default layout shows that I have 6505 games, whereas MAME32 says I have 6507.  Close enough--I'm not going to sweat the 2-game difference.  :]

4 - Thanks--that did it!

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?


Thanks again,
-Jason

[loadman]

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?

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 

[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]

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?

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)

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?

Not really

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?

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

[jasonbar]

Thanks yet again!

[jasonbar]

OK, I'm getting into making my MaLa layout & notice a little weirdness with the game list that I wanted to inquire about.

I've got my game list going down the left side of the screen, & I'm using the Round option in the Layout screen (with a value of -45) to curve the game list, as I plan on using a spinner to go browse through the game list, putting a slight curve in makes it obvious which spinner direction will make the list scroll up vs. down.

MaLa is truncating the name of the Selected Game in the list much more than it needs to--you can compare the outline of the field vs. where it truncates & see that there's a huge difference.  Is this because I'm using the Round option, and is there a way around this?

Thanks,
-Jason

[Dmod]

I don't know the answer to your question, but it looks to me like it's giving all game text lines the same width before truncation.  The fact that it's shifted to the left doesn't appear to result in a wider text width.

You can try widening the entire gamelist box.  The fact that you're using a smaller font on the other games should help to prevent them from extending too far ot the right.

[jasonbar]

Yah, as you say, it appears to draw the centerline of my curve, place all the names along that line, & determine a constant width of name that can fit on *each* of the lines regardless of which vertical position it's in.  That is, the truncation of a long name doesn't change as I scroll it through all the possible positions on that list.

I've already extended the name list box far to the right such that it's underneath the other field and above my "Infernolab" title (which is in the .png background image), and it looks funky when the game names are overlapping the "Infernolab" title--I'm trying to avoid that.

I think I just need to do some more futzing & get it how I like it--in my final MaLa gamelist, I'm using shorter names (none of the "set" or "rev" or country/continent labels in the names), so that helps, but there are always the obnoxious games like "Escape From the Planet of the Robot Monsters" that go & ruin it for everybody!  :]

-J

[Dmod]

Just one other thought...

I think the MaLa layout editor gives you some control over the order in which layers are drawn. 

You might be able to find a way to have the InfernoLab logo be in a box on the top layer that is redrawn each time the game scrolls.

If that works, it will give a neat effect where the game list is scrolling behind the logo instead of overwriting it.

[jasonbar]

Yeah, that's something that I was thinking of trying next--right now, that Infernolab logo is part of the background .png, but I think I can make it a custom-defined graphic that is indeed over the gamelist--I'll try that.

Thanks,
-J

[jasonbar]

I've got another question about a game not showing up in my MaLa "all games" list (using 115 ROMs & MAME), although it does show up in MAME32 (115u2) & it does appear in the mame.xml file that MaLa's looking at (that I just rebuilt).

Cliff Hanger - Edward Randy is the offending game.  This is *not* the laser disc game but a jumpy/punchy game, Data East, 1990, which is actually kinda fun.

MAWS says it wasn't changed since .109u1, so I don't think it's an issue of using 115 vs. 115u2.

Any help on getting this to show up in my MaLa list appreciated!

Thanks,
-Jason

[jasonbar]

Fastest reply to self ever!  :]

I simply used the MaLa GameList editor & copied some non-working game from "All games (MAME)" to my truncated list for my cabinet, then renamed the name accordingly & entered edrandy in the "Rom" field.

Easy workaround, but it's still strange behavior on MaLa's part to not put that game in its list of all MAME games.

Thanks, Jason!
-Jason

[jasonbar]

Next question:

I've got my MaLa layout to show just screen grab & marquee when scrolling through games, to speed up the scrolling speed.

I've set up the information window to show everything else (history, controls, control panel, title screen, cabinet picture).  The images for title screen & cabinet picture are all low-res & look awful, stretched to the full size of the information window (roughly 500x500 on my 800x600 screen), but most of the control panel pics are high-res & look great.

Is there a way to control the size of that window or the size of the images inside it?  The "Lo-Rez Window Size" in the info window in MaLa Layout doesn't seem to do anything...


Thanks,
-Jason

[Green Giant]

Just an FYI:

You don't want to use the entire 6000+ long list.  Check out romlister.  It can sort through your roms and create categorized lists for you.  I have many lists with nothing over 200 games.  Some you can make are basketball, track & field, driving 1st person, and many more.  It can then output in mala compatible format. 

Once you have a bunch of lists, use the mala tree to organize them.  No switching from list to list.  You can navigate a tree structure to any game you want.

[jasonbar]

GG-

Thanks--I just learned of MaLa tree yesterday & can't find much info on it, in the wiki or elsewhere.  Using ROMlister looks to be a bit over my head, as far as set-up goes.

Right now, I'm plowing through all 6520 ROMs & ditching the clones, bootlegs, non-working, working-too-slow-on-my-PC, mahjong, adult, etc.  I'm also often not choosing to use the designated "parent" ROM & am instead using a "clone" ROM, because I prefer the US versions or maybe based on my memory of a game having a certain name (I prefer Life Force over Salamander, Alcon over Slap Fight, Majestic 12 over Super Space Invaders, etc...based on my own arcade experience).

Yes, it's tedious.  I'm about halfway through & have about 1200 titles, so I figure I'll have about 2500 in my list when I'm done.

I'll use a spinner to navigate the list, & I'll have fast-scroll & next-letter functionality mapped to buttons, so I hope that navigation won't be too cumbersome.  I think I'd fret & obsess over this even more unhealthily if I went 1 step further & tried to categorize all the games & put them in a tree...  :]


Thanks,
-J

[shock_]

I've set up the information window to show everything else (history, controls, control panel, title screen, cabinet picture).  The images for title screen & cabinet picture are all low-res & look awful, stretched to the full size of the information window (roughly 500x500 on my 800x600 screen), but most of the control panel pics are high-res & look great.

Is there a way to control the size of that window or the size of the images inside it? 

In MaLa itself, right-click » Options » GUI » Info Window » Info Window size: change down to 50% or lower. You may want to go back to your layout and drop the font sizes to suit, but the images won't have to scale as much.

Also - Get Mr Do's cabinet photos and overwrite those other ones, backing up as necessary first of course.  They're generally higher resolution cabinet shots and should look fine for you at 400x300 (50% of 800x600).  Mr Do doesn't have as many as the other set but they'll still make heaps of games better. (hence my suggestion to overwrite, so you get the biggest best set)

[jasonbar]

Argh, thanks for pointing out the obvious, Shock!  (no really, I'm not being sarcastic--thanks--it was right under my nose...duh on me).  I have to do lots of scrolling to read the text in the history page of the info window, but no biggie.


I just finished downloading & installing Mr. Do's cabinet pics.  They look very nice.  I had a hair under 1GB left on my MAME hard drive on my PC, so I ditched all those BeatMania CHDs & cleared up a few GB first.  :]



I've got 2 semi-related follow-up questions:

1 - In my MAME (and Daphne) layout, I show control panel, screen shot, & marquee as I'm scrolling thru the game list.  I have the info window pull up the other goodies (cabinet, title screen, controls, history, flyer, etc.).  But, for the GUI/Info Window/Other Emus Pages, I can't add definable extra items beyond controls, snap, & marquee.  :[  I have a set of cabinet pictures that I'd like to display in the info window as well, but I don't see a way to do this...

2 - In my layout, I have a text field that shows Manufacturer :: Year by using the text string "~g_manufacturer  ::  ~g_year" (minus the quotes) in the Text 1 field.  This works great in MAME but comes up blank when scrolling thru my Daphne games (except for the  ::  text).  Can this be set up to display w/ my Daphne games?

That's it for tonight--I'm pooped!

Thanks,
-Jason

[shock_]

Yeah thought you had probably been in that location, since you've set up the rest of the info window stuff.  It's easy to miss because it's outside a big tabbed fieldset that dominates the rest of the window, and the dropdown selector is miles away from its label.  Sorry - I do interface design for a living so things start lighting up in my head when I see this stuff

Re 1: the "other emu" info pages meagre selection - I'd not noticed that yet since I haven't got all mine set up but you're right; I think we're out of luck there.  Pity that there aren't definables for non-MAME emus. You probably know you can point the "marquee" slot against your cabinet pics folder, but I'm guessing you actually want snap, marquee, cpanel AND other stuff so sacrificing one isn't much chop.

Re 2: the information on manufacturer and year is drawn from mame's XML - viz:

<game name="galaga" sourcefile="galaga.c">
      <description>Galaga (Namco rev. B)</description>
      <year>1981</year>
      <manufacturer>Namco</manufacturer>
      ...
   </game>

Since no such XML exists for Daphne, I think you (we) are out of luck there, too.  You could, again, "spend" one of your image folders, and manually render out a bunch of PNGs with nothing but text of manufacturer and year, made up to look identical to the way MaLa renders text - and run it as a snap/marquee/cpanel in the same location in the layout.  You'd probably want two versions of your layout though - one with and one without that image in place, and use MaLa's auto-swap-layout-depending-on-emulator feature.  That would save you from having layout conflicts with other emulators. 

It's a truly dodgy hack, to be sure.  And not something you're going to want to do for a few hundred Visual Pinball tables or anything else you might plan on running.  MaLa's certainly a MAME-centric app, at least at version1 release candidate 9.  But I still love it like a naughty puppy anyway.

[loadman]

But I still love it like a naughty puppy anyway.

 

[jasonbar]

Thanks for your input, Shock.  Looks as if I'll have to live with these 2 minor quirks on my 20 Daphne games, along with the rest of the naughty puppies out there...

 

-Jaon

[jasonbar]

Howdy-

More Stupid Newbie MaLA questions.  Hopefully less stupid, as SGT, URebelScum, & Loadman have slowly been injecting BYOAC intelligence into me...

My system: Dell P4 1500MHz, 1.5GHz, 512MB RAM.  MaLa launches MAMEPP115 & Daphne.  I also have a laptop w/ MAME32 82 on it.

I have problems w/ these games running on MAMEPP 115:

1 dommy.  Launches & spits right back to MaLa.  Works fine on MAME32 115u2 & 82.  MAWS says no change since 37b16 & roms chnged last on v 53)

2 eggs (and scrambled egg).  Launches & spits right back to MaLa.  Works fine on MAME32 115u2 & 82.  For both games, MAWS says no change since 36b1, ROMS last changed v 53)

3 J-League Soccer V-Shoot.  In MAME115, can't start game--credits work, player start buttons don't.  Works fine on MAME32 115u2, no sound on MAME32 82.  MAWS says sound broken @ 114u1, roms changed last 099u09.

4 Missile Command <discussed previously by me: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=68959.msg703353#msg703353 > Graphics are crazy in MAME115 but fine in MAME32 115u2.  MAWS says no change since 115u1, ROMS changes last 092.

5 Phoenix <discussed previously by me: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=74590.msg772042#msg772042 >.  Runs slow, sounds are choppy.  I'm told to use MAME older than 95u3 to run it.  MAME32 82 works great.  MAWS says last changed 112u7, ROMS last changed 110u5) roms changed

6 Turbo.  Runs slow on MAME115 & MAME32 115u2.  Runs fine on MAME32 82, but the keen control panel graphics on the left are half-baked.  MAWS says no change since 109u2, roms changed last 108u3.


So, here's how I'd like to solve these few problem children.  Because 1-4 work great on MAME32 115u2, whichis already installed & set up & all there, I'm tempted to just have MaLa point to MAME32 instead of MAMEPP for launching those 4 games.  I know I've read in multiple places taht MAME32 isn't meant to receive a command line launch & is not "stable", but if I run these games a few times & they behave, then is there any concern?

Since Phoenix runs well on my MAME32 82, I suppose I might as well get command line MAME 82 to fix Phoenix.  But I'd also like to have the rev that I choose also fix Turbo, just so I don't get too crowded w/ having lots of extra MAMEs each assigned to just 1 game...So, if Turbo & Phoenix are both good on 82, I can try to squeeze up to 95u3 (where Phoenix sounds changed & mess it up for me) & hope that Turbo got spiffed up & not broken in the meanwhile.


Make sense?

Thanks,
-J