MALA / MAME picture ratio question

[BUCKETHEAD]

Is there something i can adjust in MALA to get the Game length and width bigger?

I'm running a vertical setup.

Because in MAME, I have the picture exactly the way i want.

But when i run MALA with MAME the game picture is smaller?

TRON is the game im having the problem with. (Mostly the length)

Any help would be most appreciated !   

[Banditt]

Are you talking about the screenshot? I believe it will scale to match either the width or the height with the maximum of the box that holds it. Open the layout in Mala Layout Editor and just make the Snap box bigger

[NOP]

if there's a difference in mame when running a game from a command prompt vs. launching it through mala, you should look at your command line options that you're passing in.  It may be a difference between say, directDraw and d3d.  Otherwise, mame *should* launch the exact same way, read the same .ini file for the game display, and look the same.

[loadman]

......Unless he's using mame32.

Not recomended

[TheShanMan]

Why is using mameui not recommended? I use it without any issues that I've noticed.

[loadman]

Why is using mameui not recommended? I use it without any issues that I've noticed.

Beacuse it's not 100% the same as mame (some versions of mame32 are better than others) . Sometimes you can have issues, many posts have been on just that with various FE's hence I don't recommend using it with a FE.

If it's working for you then that's great 

[TheShanMan]

It's not 100% the same in that it has extra FE code, but the mame code is identical.

[SGT]

It's not 100% the same in that it has extra FE code, but the mame code is identical.

This is not correct.  For example, they do not always have the same command line options.  Here is but one example of a recent build:

http://groups.msn.com/MameUI/general.msnw?action=get_message&mview=0&ID_Message=351&LastModified=4675675316997985387

I understand that it causes you no problems, but there are differences from time to time.   Past versions have had many differences.  Future versions MAY have many differences.  As long as there is a chance for differences as builds are released, it doesn't make any sense to tell people that BOTH the CL version and and the UI versions are recommended.   The reason ALL FE authors don't recommend mame32 is not because of some imagined difference, but because of the tons of support problems they've had over the years when users tried to use mame32 instead of CL.  Even if there are not many differences today, many people still use old versions of mame32 where there are several differences.

I don't understand why there's a constant argument about this because its not like there's no reason to not use both.  Use MameUI in the same Mame folder if you want to for configuration reasons, but set Mala to use the commandline version.  The code is not 100% aside from the built in FE.   

[TheShanMan]

I wasn't really intending it to be an argument. And what I meant is that in terms of actual game play it's the same code. The mameui source doesn't even include the mame source - it's just the UI part, and you have to download the mame source separately. There may be command line options or whatever that don't make sense with mameui, so yes, there may be some differences. I'm just talking about firing up games in a simple way like "mameui32 dkong" vs. "mame dkong". Loadman said "unless he's using mame32" as though that's expected to cause problems. Yes, it's a variable to be considered when there is a problem, but (at least nowadays) there is no reason to think you can't call mameui from a FE and expect it to work.

I'm not saying mala should *recommend* mameui, but to imply that using mameui is problematic and explicitly recommend against it is going overboard IMO. In other words, rather than making it sound like mameui is the cause of the problem right off the bat, say "does the same thing happen using command line mame?"

Again, I really wasn't trying to pick a fight. I just didn't understand why loadman's language was so strong and innocently wondered why. That's all.

[SGT]

I didn't mean to come across like you were trying to pick a fight.  There was a big argument a few weeks ago on why mame should be the recommended version for FEs.  For me, differences in command line parameters is the big reason why mameui isn't recommended.  Command line parameters can cause the OP's problem.

[TheShanMan]

I'm sure part of it is just MaLa ignorance on my part. I don't use MaLa at all to configure mame because I assume mameui does at least as good of a job at that than MaLa (if not better) since there's a new release of mameui for every release of mame, so I just trust it more. I do all my game configuration in mameui, and just let MaLa launch it as "mameui32 <romname>" so command line parameters are irrelevant in my case.

[loadman]

I'm sure part of it is just MaLa ignorance on my part. I don't use MaLa at all to configure mame because I assume mameui does at least as good of a job at that than MaLa (if not better) since there's a new release of mameui for every release of mame, so I just trust it more. I do all my game configuration in mameui, and just let MaLa launch it as "mameui32 <romname>" so command line parameters are irrelevant in my case.

Cool...  Anyway the MaLa->MAME configuration is a bit behind the mame versions. So some options may be missing or not applicable. But it is way better than nothing. You can do 95% of it with the nice gui then manualy edit mame.ini for the rest if you need to.

[TheShanMan]

No doubt loadman. If I hadn't been a mameui user prior to trying mala I'm sure I would have let mala configure game options and been happy with the job it did. But you stick with what you're comfortable with, you know?