The NEW Build Your Own Arcade Controls
Front End Support => MaLa Frontend => Topic started by: Brian B on May 17, 2011, 05:14:14 pm
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I just did my first clean install of MAME and Mala. I am using the newest version of MAME and the newest of Mala. When I try to launch a ROM I see the DOS screen come up and then the computer reboots. Every time.
After the restart I get the message "The system has recovered from a serious error."
Is this something simple that I'm doing wrong, or....? Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Brian
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Does mame work fine without MALA?
What OS are you using?
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Windows XP. Just clicking on the MAME file causes the computer to go to a DOS window and then reboot!
??????
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Are you overclocking your CPU and/or memory?
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Not intentionally. Is there a way to check in the BIOS? What should I be looking for? The computer seems stable otherwise...
Thanks!
B.
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If you don't know, then you're probably not overclocking.
Though, you might want to stress-test your PC to see if there's something wrong.
The easiest way I know is running the Prime95 software. You can download it from this page...
http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft/default.php (http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft/default.php)
It's free software. When you run it the first time, you get a popup with two options "Join GIMPS" and "Just Stress Testing". Choose "Just Stress Testing". Then run the "blend" test. If there's a problem with your computer, it should fail within a few minutes. When I'm testing a new system, I usually let it run for several hours.
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You could check it with another version of mame! Remember that each version has its own set mame roms.
Greetings
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If you don't know, then you're probably not overclocking.
Though, you might want to stress-test your PC to see if there's something wrong.
The easiest way I know is running the Prime95 software. You can download it from this page...
http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft/default.php (http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft/default.php)
It's free software. When you run it the first time, you get a popup with two options "Join GIMPS" and "Just Stress Testing". Choose "Just Stress Testing". Then run the "blend" test. If there's a problem with your computer, it should fail within a few minutes. When I'm testing a new system, I usually let it run for several hours.
I ran this test for over an hour and no problems.
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I tried the last two versions of MAME. How far back should I go? Which version would most likely work? I am not even trying to run ROMs at this point. I just installed the MAME executable and clicked on it. This caused a reboot.
Am I missing something simple?
B.
You could check it with another version of mame! Remember that each version has its own set mame roms.
Greetings
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The problem isn't MAME. It shouldn't spontaneously reboot, regardless of which version you use.
It's probably one of the following...
1) hardware instability caused by overclocking, poor CPU cooling, bad memory, weak power supply, etc...
2) flaky driver - video and/or sound are usually the culprits.
For #1, I recommend that you run Prime95 and test your system stability, which you've done.
For #2, disable the automatic restart in XP so that you can see the error message, then let us know what it says...
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/tipstricks/ht/disautorestart.htm (http://pcsupport.about.com/od/tipstricks/ht/disautorestart.htm)
You might want to make sure you have the latest available drivers for your hardware. It might not hurt to update your motherboard chipset drivers too.
Do you have the latest DirectX installed?...
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=2da43d38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3&displaylang=en (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=2da43d38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3&displaylang=en)
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DirectX is current.
I believe the problem lies with the display driver. With the error screen coming up it displays nv4_disp.dll.
I have a GeForce 7800 GS card and was using the most current non-beta release...270.61 (I think).
I went back to v258 from 2010 and the system seems to be working.
Thanks for all the help!
B.
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I believe the problem lies with the display driver. With the error screen coming up it displays nv4_disp.dll.
I have a GeForce 7800 GS card and was using the most current non-beta release...270.61 (I think).
I went back to v258 from 2010 and the system seems to be working.
That's a serious bug if it was getting hung up with MAME.
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Hi,
I was having the same problem, and found this thread.
I'd like the report that using the v258 drivers fixed it for me as well. I'm using Hyperspin, so it's definitely an issue with the latest Nvidia drivers (270.61) and MAME.
Thanks for the fix!
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Can someone who is experiencing (has experienced) this problem help nail down the exact version of MAME in which this began?
It appears that it might be specific to OS version, graphics card version, and video driver version, so it's very difficult to debug.
If we can nail down exactly what MAME change (possibly down to the 'u' update) started this, maybe we can find a fix that will allow people to use the latest Nvidia drivers again.
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I had the exact same problem. I bought my mom a new computer for Mothers Day. I took her old P4 for my Arcade project. I did a fresh install of of XP Pro and the latest Driver for the Gforce 6200 card and of course every time I tried to run a game, the computer would completely crash and reboot. Taking Brian B's advice I also rolled back the driver to the 258. Solved my problem as well. Since this computer is going to be dedicated to my arcade cabinet, it is not a big issue for me to be running old drivers and I am only going to be running MAME and a couple of different emulators.
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Throw another log on this fire and thank you so much for this thread. Setting an older computer up for MAME cab, 7800 GT video card with most recent driver, set up MALA/MAME, start game and computer reboots. Rolled back to a 2007 driver and no problem. Unbelievable but worked. Thanks again.
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I bought a 7800 GS off of eBay to upgrade the 440MX card that was in my MAME machine and also ran into the blue screen issue. I was running version 307 of the drivers and tried the downgrade as well. It fixed my problem as well. Now to off to use the card for what I bought it for in the first place: to play with the HLSL settings.
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I've seen several places suggest that 258.96 is probably one of the last versions that didn't have the crash bug...
GeForce/ION Driver Release 256
Version: 258.96 WHQL
Release Date: 2010.07.19
Operating System: Windows XP
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp-258.96-whql-driver.html (http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp-258.96-whql-driver.html)