And let the MaLa Walkthrough begin.. Emu's, Layouts and you need to hold my hand

[mrclean]

OK to start out the next few days are gonna be a transfer from mamewah to MaLa in mamewah I had every emu working correctly So hopefully MaLa can launch these the same way..


Already read the wiki, and still having problems with certain MaLa features / setup
* to some are probably going to seem easy..

Just a tip of the iceberg.. i'll have other questions... / issues im sure its a big process from converting mamewah to mala so to speak

1.) to start off my screen resolution is 1280x1024, I was looking for the BLUE layout that gamecreature made but in that resolution, or even the Alien one..  for whatever reason I can't get videos to apear within that circle, they apear as squares, and that looks awful. and most of the time the artwork doesnt transfer from the layout maker into MaLa it self. Realistically If any one can provide me with 1280x1024 stuff it be fantastic!, I loved the ":retro one.. but the resolution is too small but its soo cool that it has the scrolling space invaders dudes and its very clean, maybe someone can vector / enlarge for me ;-)

2.)While scrolling through the game list with the movie previews added its extremely slow... not only is it slow to scroll throughout the game list.. but also the movies don't seem to load half as fast as mamewah did? 2-3sec per clip not a huge concern.. but the scrolling is very slugish with needs to be fixed

3.)For what ever reason sometimes my windows taskbar on the desktop/ with the windows start button appears when i scroll it dissapears, & unless I use my mouse and click on MaLa it won't let me launch a game or scroll through the list.

4.) I was able to easily launch M.A.M.E. / NES/ SNES... However when i tried to do the same with sega,sms,etc the screen launched some but my emulator shrunk and i saw the windows desk top (i remember when i set up mamewah i just was able to copy all the .ini files which made set up very easy on jcrouse's web site / cpviewer)

5.) N64 won't launch not sure what settings I need to use for that (i remember i had to use a wrapper for mamewah)

6.) while launching a game I notice an extra DOS box now , never had that before on mamewah not sure what it says its only up for about half a second, is their a way to hide that ? minor annoyance.. but i didnt have that in mamewah.. might be because im using U360's and its pulling the proper MAP not sure could be the ultimarc pluggin in MaLa 

7.) I now clicked "hide dos box on mame launch" as a MaLa option.. but now even worse is windows taskbar/start button apears when i exit a game from mame and relaunches to MaLa game list

oh yeah i forgot.. how do i un-start mamewah from launching its in my reg files i forgot!

[mrclean]

oops i really it's late.. going to sleep didn't mean to reply to my own post speak to everyone tomorrow
oh yeah Happy chrismahannakwanzika to every one on the BYOAC forum!

[loadman]

   O my. Sorry many questions at once. Buffer Overload. 

Ahh I'm at work so I might have answers for some of the top of my head. 

1.) to start off my screen resolution is 1280x1024, I was looking for the BLUE layout that gamecreature made but in that resolution, or even the Alien one..  for whatever reason I can't get videos to apear within that circle, they apear as squares, and that looks awful. and most of the time the artwork doesnt transfer from the layout maker into MaLa it self. Realistically If any one can provide me with 1280x1024 stuff it be fantastic!, I loved the ":retro one.. but the resolution is too small but its soo cool that it has the scrolling space invaders dudes and its very clean, maybe someone can vector / enlarge for me ;-)

MaLa Vids need to be on top sorry. No Circle for you :-(

2.)While scrolling through the game list with the movie previews added its extremely slow... not only is it slow to scroll throughout the game list.. but also the movies don't seem to load half as fast as mamewah did? 2-3sec per clip not a huge concern.. but the scrolling is very slugish with needs to be fixed

Try options-GUI-options (pictures and video) Try settings here including video delay to speed scrolling
Also try options-GUI-options (display delay) Try text as the only exception
Also try options-Controller keyboard (key polling & Scrolling acceleration (keep under 10))

6.) while launching a game I notice an extra DOS box now , never had that before on mamewah not sure what it says its only up for about half a second, is their a way to hide that ? minor annoyance.. but i didnt have that in mamewah.. might be because im using U360's and its pulling the proper MAP not sure could be the ultimarc pluggin in MaLa 

Options-mameconfig-basics (window state- hidden)

7.) I now clicked "hide dos box on mame launch" as a MaLa option.. but now even worse is windows taskbar/start button apears when i exit a game from mame and relaunches to MaLa game list

Sounds like this is related to problem 3

oh yeah i forgot.. how do i un-start mamewah from launching its in my reg files i forgot!

[/quote]

Probably the shell using regedit

[shock_]

windows taskbar/start button apears

Options » GUI » Display » "Show Windows Taskbar"

but that might not fix all your problems.  Search this forum for "MaLa" and "focus" - some have had problems with this (me included)

[mrclean]

Options » GUI » Display » "Show Windows Taskbar"

that seems to work for SNES as of now.. good stuff dude!

[mrclean]

In mamewah I miss two features that I had.. one is I had a specific button I would hit on my panel to change audio tracks, and another one I had was a random game button.. it would randomly jump to a totally different area of my gamelist can i do this with MaLa ?

[Franco]

Hello fellow 1280x1024'er!!

Organic Jerk was kind enough to modify his awesome Pixel Assault layout for me. The details are here if you want it...

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=72576.msg760514#msg760514

[loadman]

In mamewah I miss two features that I had.. one is I had a specific button I would hit on my panel to change audio tracks, and another one I had was a random game button.. it would randomly jump to a totally different area of my gamelist can i do this with MaLa ?

You can allocate a button to select a random game with the added option of launching it 

See Pics

[shock_]

Realistically If any one can provide me with 1280x1024 stuff it be fantastic!

Since they're Gamecreature's layouts, it's his call.  I'm not sure he's been around these parts for some time though. Gamecreature's profile....

I think 1280x1024 will be a more-and-more requested layout resolution I think, as 17" and 19" LCDs become more common in cabs.  I've generally been doing my layouts in 12x10 but for ones for release, I've tried to do in 1280x960 for the 4:3 people, which is still most.

[mrclean]

now for whatever reason if i add Video previews to the MaLa FE It won't let me launch my games this softwware is very "touchy" i can scroll, i cant even change emulators its almost like restricting me when video previews are enabled but i want that on all my front end pages

[mrclean]

You can allocate a button to select a random game with the added option of launching it 

See Pics

I figured out how to do it using two buttons, but i cant seem to figure out how to do it with one button ?

[loadman]

now for whatever reason if i add Video previews to the MaLa FE It won't let me launch my games this softwware is very "touchy" i can scroll, i cant even change emulators its almost like restricting me when video previews are enabled but i want that on all my front end pages

I would leave sorting uot Video issues until last.  There are many posts about it. Usaully resolved using the xvid codec and un-installing others

[loadman]

I figured out how to do it using two buttons, but i cant seem to figure out how to do it with one button ?

Did you not look at the second picture?

[mrclean]

well its working now.. i didn't want the game to automatically launch.. i just wanted it to hop to a random point in the list.. but its working now.. the reason it wasnt was because I had "shift" and "shift" set as the keys, so now If I just hit my button which i want to scroll which ironically is the shift key it does.. is their a way i can do the same thing with my mp3's, a quick button push to jump to a different song?

*oh yeah and update now im using pixelasaults 1280x1024 it looks great I dont have any issues with it unless I load a video preview other wise its so far so good

[shock_]

now for whatever reason if i add Video previews to the MaLa FE It won't let me launch my games this softwware is very "touchy" i can scroll, i cant even change emulators its almost like restricting me when video previews are enabled but i want that on all my front end pages

That's maybe a DivX software thing stealing your computer from you.  Check when you are running a video if you get a DivX icon in the system tray area.  You'll need to re-enable the taskbar to see that, of course.  Right click the icon and untick all the preferences from the Toolbar tab.

Better yet, uninstall DivX and let Xvid handle DivX decoding when required, as Loadman suggested.  He knows his MaLa, that feller.

[loadman]

is their a way i can do the same thing with my mp3's, a quick button push to jump to a different song?

Yes, You need to explore the MaLa config tabs to find all the 'goodies'

[shock_]

and I think you need to explore the MaLa wiki and UncleT's guide document (find a link in the Wiki)  

[mrclean]

and I think you need to explore the MaLa wiki and UncleT's guide document (find a link in the Wiki)

yeah ive been sifting through it.. well i got N64 Games to launch how do i get rid of / or hide that dos box pj64 same thing happens in magic engine for turbo grafx

*also side note does any one know what pixelasault used for that layout as the font withe the squares for the text its pretty sweet

[mrclean]

For some weird reason i think its a windows related issue.. I'm currently running ultimarc u360's on my cab which is my reason for switching front ends.. because MaLa automatically Maps them... How ever when I plug in a game conroller i.e. N64 Adaptoid, it seems to over ride my U360's while playing mame. So i'll be able to use my buttons on my panel, but controll with the analog n64 stick which isn't what I want.. Is their any way I can leave the N64 Adaptoid plugged in along with other USB game devices without it interfering with my U360's ?

[headkaze]

For some weird reason i think its a windows related issue.. I'm currently running ultimarc u360's on my cab which is my reason for switching front ends.. because MaLa automatically Maps them... How ever when I plug in a game conroller i.e. N64 Adaptoid, it seems to over ride my U360's while playing mame. So i'll be able to use my buttons on my panel, but controll with the analog n64 stick which isn't what I want.. Is their any way I can leave the N64 Adaptoid plugged in along with other USB game devices without it interfering with my U360's ?

Maybe try it in a different USB port?

[mrclean]

Maybe try it in a different USB port?

tried that .. I aparently can't leave it plugged in for whatever reason, if i launch an N64 Game with the n64 adaptoid plugged in no problems the N64 Adaptoid works, then if i go back to MaLa,  to try to launch a mame game I need to controll it with the N64 adaptoid, unless I physically unplug it then my U360's will work.. I really wanted to just leave everything plugged in

[mrclean]

Now MaLa randomly crashes while scrolling through games list, and when it goes back to my desktop i cant see the windows task bar / start button..

*Also not sure if this is Mame or MaLa related.. but I was in the game "chiller" shooting up some weird things when all the sudden it crashed, and brought me back to the MaLa game list

[loadman]

Now MaLa randomly crashes while scrolling through games list,

Are you sure it's random??? Or does it only happen when it get's to certain games in the list??

Please check.

Ypou will probably find that a snapshop or vid is in a bogus format that MaLa is getting upset about. I had 3 once.

So to fix delete or move the assoicated snap /vid that mala crashed on and see if you can progress beyond that game next time you load mala

[mrclean]

Is their a .log file that I can create so I can see which video(s) are making it crash ?

[gatordad]

I am experiencing the same thing when I have a usb game pad plugged in it renders one of my u360's useless.

I would also like to know how to get true full screen and eliminate the dos box (pj64) around the picture if it's possible.
 
Did you find a fix for either one?

[mrclean]

Nope still..I didnt figure out a fix yet for the game controllers yet.. I was soo frustrated that i havn't really played much console emulation rather been focusing on MAME, .. MaLa still crashes with certain video previews.. waiting for circo to finish the set, then i'll see if i do a fresh install hopefully I won't have that problem.

[Arcade Freak]

hi guys,

i just installed mala yesterday occording to uncleT's manual and it work great. now i want to tweak it...if possible.

1. when a game starts is there way to remove the screen that ask you to type ok or move the jouystick left then right or right then left...(not sure any more)..and the second screen (i just don't remember what it ask for)so basically have the game start right away

2. the i choose the blue layout from mala...but i would like to have a picture from each game appear on the left in the round circle representating the game...eg for pacman have the yellow pacman show up...as my young dauther can't read yet...but she can play

let's start with these and find out how far we get
cheers,

p.s. i also have a problem with speed of the games which they used to play find with mame32...so its not the system but  i was told that i need to tweak mame.ini...is there any thoughts on this?