vertical monitor...few questions

[severdhed]

well guys, i am starting on my vertical classics cabinet,(4 way stick, trackball, spinner, and 3 buttons) as soon as i get any serious progress, i'll post pics.  I have just about everything i need to get this going, except the monitor.  I am getting the PC set up right now, using a test control panel layout.  once the PC is in place, i'll build the new panel.  i currently have it hooked up to my other mame cabinet with a horizontal monitor layout.  i was playing around and I can get MALA to rotate for a vertical monitor, and it will automatically rotate mame to go along with it.   is that how most of you do yours?  what about the windows side of things when you need to do admin stuff to it?  or do you guys use software/custom drivers that will allow the windows desktop to rotate also? 

the pc i am using is an HP that i got for free.  it is a P4 1.5ghz, 512mb of ram, and a Riva TNT 2 video card. (yeah, i know). It isn't the greatest pc, but i figure for vertical classics in mame, it will be fine.   i has an AGP slot, so i can look around in my boxes of parts to see if i can find something a little better. (i have a 64mb geforce 2 card up there, but i don't know if that is any better).  i dont have any rotation options in the display properties, but i am using the MS driver right now.  i'm going to look to see if i can find the driver from NVidia to see if it allows rotation.    that gets me to my next point.  if i rotate the windows desktop, what happens to MALA and MAME?  will they rotate automatically or do i still have to set them to rotate as well? 

[TheShanMan]

No, if the video driver rotates windows, then you don't have to worry about mala or mame.

[ark_ader]

Other than ArcadeOS, is there a screen rotation utility for plain old DOS?

[TOK]

MAME has the rotation ability built into it, as do most front ends (I'm using MaLa). I don't worry about Windows itself being properly oriented since the machine boots right to the front end. Once its set up, there isn't really enough to do to worry about it. I just look at it sideways for the couple minutes a year I spend to change things.

Don't you feel you are limiting your game list with a 4 way stick? There are so many great shooters that will run on that machine if you use an older version of MAME. I built my my machine for shooters and it plays Donkey Kong and Pac Man as a bonus, so I might be looking at this situation from the opposite side of the game spectrum. 

I didn't see a need for a vert cab when I built my first MAME machine. It ended up being one of the best things I did. It gets a LOT of play.