Trouble launching games in Mala

[Hildy_42]

Tried setting up Mala last night and was able to get it to create a game list.  But as soon as I hit 1 to start a game a dos box comes up and then disappears and nothing happens.  I did some searching and found this thread:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=58629.0

Seems he had the same problem I am having.  I don't really understand what he meant by:

"What I had to do was go to Mame Config -> Mame Executiable/Config -> Folder -> Roms and also set  the path there.  I don't know the difference between those two settings."

Is there something in Mame that I have to set up as well?  I am using Command Line version of Mame version 110.
I am assuming I have to set the ROM path in Mame as well and wasn't sure how to do that.

Thanks for any help.  Sorry for such a noob question but I usually use Mame32 and wanted to do something different on this cabinet.

[shock_]

Under "Mame Config" Tab, "Basics" subtab, make sure your ROM path is set properly.  Mine is in a completely different place to MAME's executable so don't worry about that.

Also under "Mame Config" Tab, "Additional", make sure you have Command Line set to %rom%

Incidentally, on that same tab, choose "hidden" to avoid seeing that dos box appear - once you've got it all working, of course

If it still doesn't work, make sure MAME is working properly first outside of MaLa.

• Open a command prompt (Start button > Run > "cmd" and hit enter)
• type cd \mame\ (or wherever you have MAME installed) and hit enter
• type mame galaga (or some ROM you have available in the default roms directory) and hit enter

If you get another error that doesn't make sense to you, tell us about it here.  The fact that you're doing this in an already-opened command prompt window means it won't disappear and it'll give you a chance to read it.

If your ROMs are saved in some other location, change that last step to mame "c:\my-roms\directory\galaga.zip"

[loadman]

Mak sure MAME is working properly first outside of MaLa.

• Open a command prompt (Start button > Run > "cmd" and hit enter)
• type cd \mame\ (or wherever you have MAME installed) and hit enter
• type mame galaga (or some ROM you have available in the default roms directory) and hit enter

Ditto that! 

[Hildy_42]

Okay I tried running Mame by itself and here is the error I am getting.

Proposed video mode not supported on device \\.\Display1
Unable to initialize Direct3D
osd_init failed

The computer I am using is not connected to the internet so I had a CD with DirectX 9.0 on it that I tried installing.  It worked on the last computer but it didn't seem to fix this problem.  The last time I was using Mame version .95, would that make a difference?

[Hildy_42]

Well it isn't a Mala problem so that means I at least installed it correctly.  I ran dxdiag and it says DirectX 9.0c is installed and running fine on the computer.  Do the newer versions of Mame need something more than DirectX 9.0?  Any help is greatly appreciated.  Again thanks to Shock for helping me narrow it down to not being a Mala issue.

[SGT]

Mame does not run well with onboard video.  Do you have a video card or is the video built into the motherboard?

[Hildy_42]

I have a video card.  I am at work and don't remember off the top of my head what type it is. 

[shock_]

delete, or rename your mame.ini file so that MAME can't find it.

then run mame -createconfig

that should create you a clean mame.ini file.  Then try running a game again.

maybe try running a game without d3d switched off: mame.exe galaga -video gdi  If that works, then you will want to pore through your (fresh) mame.ini file and make sure you're not specifying video stuff your card doesn't support, like running in 4000x3000 resolution or something crazy.

Have a read of the mame/docs/windows.txt file, which has heaps of info about video modes and suchlike.

[Hildy_42]

Shock, thanks for all your help.  I changed the d3d to gdi in the mame.ini file and the games loaded.  They ran very slow though.  So I changed a couple of other things in the ini file and got the games to run but they were still very choppy.  I think my problem is that the computer I have is not beefy enough to run version 110.  I had a cd with mame32 version .98 on it and tried running the games that way.  They actually worked using that.  So I think I will try and go with an older version of mame and see if the computer can handle that.   Might also try Mame32 110 just to see if it works as well.  Again thanks for all your help.

[Dmod]

I'm running a 933 MHz PIII.  The latest MAME version  that runs reasonably well on it is v102.

[Hildy_42]

I think that is the problem.  Mame32 version .98 runs fine.  So I am hoping to install command line mame version .98 and that will fix my problem.  Again thanks to everyone who helped me out.