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Main => Software Forum => Topic started by: jindod on July 08, 2009, 12:56:05 pm

Title: How can i make the screen smaller?
Post by: jindod on July 08, 2009, 12:56:05 pm

what i mean is how can i make the actually size of the picture displayed smaller?
With old monitors you could resize with knobs etc so that the picture didn't take up all of the screen., but is there a tool or anything that can do it on an lcd screen.
i ask because i have a 15 inch monitor placed vertically inside a mame cocktail cabinet and it's a bit hard to see whats going on in the corners of the screen, id like to be able to resize a full screendos mame window from within windows just a little smaller so you can see the edges.
i am running windows xp.
otherwise i think i need a slightly smaller monitor, which seems like an expense for something so simple.
hope someone understands and can help.

 :hissy:

Title: Re: How can i make the screen smaller?
Post by: headkaze on July 08, 2009, 01:23:48 pm

Some LCD's have an "auto position" button, some allow you to move the screen around like an analog monitor (although usually by using digital buttons). Do you have any buttons on the monitor?

Another option is to use the control panel software for the video card. From that you should be able to move the screen around but I would try looking for buttons on the monitor first.

Title: Re: How can i make the screen smaller?
Post by: jindod on July 09, 2009, 02:52:22 am

Hi,

Thanks for the reply, no there are no controls on the monitor, the video card is one built into the motherboard and there are no properties for it, apart from the standard ones to set the resolution and colour depth.

i just thought there may be some kind of tool to resize your screen available over the net...

any help at all is appreciated, i'm just impressed you didn't all suggest changing the resolution, like they did on yahoo answers. :)

thanks

Jim

Title: Re: How can i make the screen smaller?
Post by: u_rebelscum on July 09, 2009, 02:05:31 pm

If you're talking about mame's game screen, you can make a lay file (http://maws.mameworld.info/maws/mame_lay.html) with the boarders you want, and set mame to use the layout.

Not sure the best way to do this for you case, though.  You might try in the lay generator page, put any game name, put any file, set "bezel size" to your LCD's resolution, set "bezel window" to slightly smaller than your monitor res, set "Screen Aspect ratio" to 3:4 (this is for the game's aspect ratio, NOT your monitor's aspect ratio), and set the boarder % to whatever you want.  Pre recalculate to see a preview.  Generate and copy paste to to a file.

I'm not fluent in the lay files, so you might want to look at mameDev wiki's artwork (http://mamedev.org/devwiki/index.php/Layouts_and_Rendering_for_MAME_Artwork_System) and lay file (http://mamedev.org/devwiki/index.php/LAY_File_Basics_-_Part_I) pages for more info.

OTOH, if you also want to change the size outside of mame...  :dunno