Mame Screensaver

[severdhed]

hey guys...this may already be common knowledge..but i searched the forums briefly and didnt see it mentioned.  i was looking around at mame stuff the other day, and ran across this:

http://tomspeirs.com/mamescreensaver/

it is a windows screensaver that runs mame.  basically you install it, tell it where your mame executable is, where your roms are located and a few misc other things...and when your screensaver kicks in, it will launch mame and play a random game for a set amount of time (that you configure)  then it goes to another random game and so on.  the best part is that at any time, you can interrupt it and start playing that game simply by inserting a coin.  if you press any other buttons, it will just go back to your front end or whatever else you had up on the screen..but when you insert a coin, you can then continue to play the game like normal. 

this is a great way to discover new games..plus it is better than just playing a slideshow of snaps.  I have discovered quite a few fun games that i had never heard of before.

i found this software to be a must have for my mame cabinet, and i figured you guys may appreciate it too.

enjoy.

[Ginsu Victim]

What MAME version # is it?

Nevermind. I see how it works. I'd actually messed with it in the past, and had considered putting it back on my cab.

[Flake]

Maximus Arcade has an option to run attract mode after so many minutes of inactivity.  Once you hit escape on your cab, it goes back to the menu and that particular game that was in attract mode when you hit escape is the game "highlighted" in the menu.  If you wanted to play that game then all you do is hit select.  Just an FYI.  Dont most FE's have an "attract" mode?

[severdhed]

i couldn't find an option like that in MaLa...but perhaps it is there and i just didnt' see it before

[Ginsu Victim]

Mamewah does it, but it doesn't change games after a certain time (to my knowledge), so this is handy.

[kronic24601]

Ok, no one has posted here in awhile but hey, thought I'd ask. Does anyone know how to get this working in Hyperspin? Hyperspin does have an attract mode, but all it does is "spin" the wheel randomly. The screensaver won't kick-in when Hyperspin is running for some reason.

[DJ_Izumi]

Heh, this makes me think that Windows need's an Attract Mode.

"Press Start" flashing on the screen while it demonstrations impressive action of Notepad, Solitare, the command prompt and MS Paint?

[Louis Tully]

.

[severdhed]

mine doesn't do that...after the 5 minute time out, it launches and runs a random game for several minutes, then it shows a white screen with the mame logo, and the name of the next random game, then plays that game for serveral minutes..it just keeps doing that utnil i press a button or move trackball.

i'd maybe try removing and reinstalling it

[IG-88]

Is there a command option for this that won't allow .chd games to try and load? I don't have them in my mame setup so when it tries to launch them it just errors out. 

[bkenobi]

If the rom doesn't work, it will kick out of the screen saver AFAIK.

[IG-88]

It just hangs in mine with an error saying it can't find the rom. 

[BamBam]

If it launches Mame games randomly, how does it deal with the nag screens that appear before the game launches?

[IG-88]

The version of Mame I'm using has the option of turning off those nag screens.