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Author Topic: Tron Legacy - Update 05/03/2016 - Mala Woes  (Read 107821 times)

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Aceldamor

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Re: Tron Legacy - Update 3/2/2015 - Marquee Feedback
« Reply #440 on: March 15, 2016, 11:53:34 pm »
Vigo, i like where you're going with that, but it just reminds me of the marquee on top of an Atari 720.





I hear Yot's heavy breathing from here....word is he's upped the price from an arm to a leg (and possibly one of his nads) to get his hands on one of these.
Fuzzy Wuzzy was a woman!

yotsuya

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Re: Tron Legacy - Update 3/15/2016 - Marquee Done
« Reply #441 on: March 16, 2016, 01:33:11 am »
Vigo, i like where you're going with that, but it just reminds me of the marquee on top of an Atari 720.





I hear Yot's heavy breathing from here....word is he's upped the price from an arm to a leg (and possibly one of his nads) to get his hands on one of these.
I already have spread my seed, so testicles are kinda redundant now...
***Build what you dig, bro. Build what you dig.***

Vigo

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Re: Tron Legacy - Update 3/15/2016 - Marquee Done
« Reply #442 on: March 17, 2016, 01:35:00 pm »
Thanks guys.  Feels nice to finally be in the homestretch.

Nice!! I love how you upped the look on that marquee. Great improvement. Can't wait to see the final product.  :cheers:

wp34

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Re: Tron Legacy - Update 3/15/2016 - Marquee Done
« Reply #443 on: March 17, 2016, 07:20:55 pm »
Thanks guys.  Feels nice to finally be in the homestretch.

Nice!! I love how you upped the look on that marquee. Great improvement. Can't wait to see the final product.  :cheers:

Thanks Vigo.  One of the ideas you threw my way inspired the final version.   :cheers:

wp34

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Re: Tron Legacy - Update 3/2/2015 - Marquee Feedback
« Reply #444 on: March 22, 2016, 09:29:21 pm »
Success!  Sort of.

As part of getting the 2nd monitor to work I was also configuring a faster XP machine to swap out.  I had both Hyperspin and AttractMode working with a newer version of MAME.  Once I installed the GroovyMame video drivers I started having trouble with AttractMode.  Hyperspin started acting up as well but I don't think that is related to the GM.  So long story short after a couple of days fighting this and other software issues I decided to punt and use my original PC.  Mala was working on it just fine and all I needed to do was get the 2nd monitor working. 

I'm using CPWizard to display the controls on the 2nd monitor.  For the most part it is working very well but I'm now having focus issues with Mala and MAME which I was not having previously.  These only seem to occur on bootup. 



In the meantime I also cleaned up some wiring in the cabinet and wired the coin doors to take tokens.  At this point I'm debating turning the $.25 button into a pause button so it is more authentic.   ;D






yotsuya

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Re: Tron Legacy - Update 3/15/2016 - Marquee Done
« Reply #445 on: March 22, 2016, 09:55:30 pm »
Looking good. Get it done!
***Build what you dig, bro. Build what you dig.***

wp34

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Re: Tron Legacy - Update 3/15/2016 - Marquee Done
« Reply #446 on: March 22, 2016, 09:59:44 pm »
Looking good. Get it done!

Thanks!  Getting really close. 

yotsuya

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Re: Tron Legacy - Update 3/15/2016 - Marquee Done
« Reply #447 on: March 22, 2016, 10:03:26 pm »
Looking good. Get it done!

Thanks!  Getting really close.

Good. Start saving those pennies for ZapCon '17, too!
***Build what you dig, bro. Build what you dig.***

wp34

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Re: Tron Legacy - Update 3/15/2016 - Marquee Done
« Reply #448 on: March 22, 2016, 10:10:48 pm »
I'm going to be in Denver that Sunday for a conference.  Actually looked into flying in to Phoenix on Friday but my daughter has her senior prom on that Saturday and I want to be around since it is the last one.  Maybe next year.

Looking good. Get it done!

Thanks!  Getting really close.

Good. Start saving those pennies for ZapCon '17, too!

yotsuya

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Re: Tron Legacy - Update 3/15/2016 - Marquee Done
« Reply #449 on: March 22, 2016, 10:12:20 pm »
I'm going to be in Denver that Sunday for a conference.  Actually looked into flying in to Phoenix on Friday but my daughter has her senior prom on that Saturday and I want to be around since it is the last one.  Maybe next year.

Looking good. Get it done!

Thanks!  Getting really close.

Good. Start saving those pennies for ZapCon '17, too!
Damn. You were the last one on my personal "bros I would love to hang out with in real life" list.

Let's count on it for '17.
***Build what you dig, bro. Build what you dig.***

wp34

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Re: Tron Legacy - Update 3/15/2016 - Marquee Done
« Reply #450 on: March 22, 2016, 10:19:03 pm »
I wish it would have worked out.  It looks like you have a nice time planned out.   :cheers: 

thagerty

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Re: Tron Legacy - Update 3/15/2016 - Marquee Done
« Reply #451 on: April 10, 2016, 10:49:10 pm »
Beautiful build.

Question about CP Wizard....   

I have a pinball and arcade combination cabinet that I play both pinball and MAME on. I have 4 "screens" (my 3rd screen is split in two via a bezel), with the top portion displaying MAME logo, and the bottom portion is not really used, so I just have a Pinball X logo there. Picture and video demo to illustrate:






I use Pinball X as my front-end which can display whatever I want for pictures or video on the backglass and DMD screens before and after MAME is launched.

Is it easy to get CP Wizard to either:

-display a control panel pic / instructions when a specific MAME game is launched to automatically display to any other screen and at any size you want? (windowed or full screen?)

or

-automatically create pictures of control panel / instructions for each game to be displayed by Pinball X while browsing / playing games.

Any info is helpful...
« Last Edit: April 10, 2016, 10:51:39 pm by thagerty »

wp34

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Re: Tron Legacy - Update 3/15/2016 - Marquee Done
« Reply #452 on: April 11, 2016, 12:04:20 pm »
Is it easy to get CP Wizard to either:

-display a control panel pic / instructions when a specific MAME game is launched to automatically display to any other screen and at any size you want? (windowed or full screen?)

or

-automatically create pictures of control panel / instructions for each game to be displayed by Pinball X while browsing / playing games.

Any info is helpful...

I'm not an expert on CPWizard so you may want to post your questions in the Software Forum.  CPWizard will display a Control Panel and/or various information including instructions to the secondary monitor of your choice.  CPWizard talks to MAME and only displays the information after you launch a game.  As far as I know it will does not interact with the FE so you cannot display information while browsing your games.

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Re: Tron Legacy - Update 3/15/2016 - Marquee Done
« Reply #453 on: April 11, 2016, 11:24:02 pm »
You can try CPWIZBIZ

https://cpwizbiz.codeplex.com/

I haven't tried it yet but will be soon it might be what your looking for

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Re: Tron Legacy - Update 3/15/2016 - Marquee Done
« Reply #454 on: April 18, 2016, 10:44:55 pm »
Thanks for the help guys.... exactly what I needed to know.

CP Wizard allows you to do a batch creation of custom Control Panel pictures for each MAME game automatically (and per type of control, etc) and have them named to match the game rom. This works perfect for my setup as the pictures of the control panels for each game will display on my middle screen and continue to display after the game is launched....   no need for CP Wizard to run at all in the background this way (I don't need its other functions)... Perfect!

Wish I discovered that you can also create marquee pictures automatically this way with CP Wizard as well instead of my awkward method which was manually done. It took days to create 2700 marquee backglass pictures that way!  :(

wp34

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Re: Tron Legacy - Update 3/15/2016 - Marquee Done
« Reply #455 on: May 03, 2016, 11:09:07 pm »
I'm still fighting Mala.  My problem appears to be a little different than others I've seen reported although Mala and "focus" seem to go together like peanut butter and chocolate. 

If I set Mala to start on bootup the first game I play will not gain focus.  You can see Mala in the background and the Mame dos command window in foreground.  If I alt-tab to the Mame window and exit my game everything functions as normal from there on.  This problem only appears to pop-up if I have Mala start on bootup.

Has anybody else run into this?


dmckean

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Re: Tron Legacy - Update 3/15/2016 - Marquee Done
« Reply #456 on: May 03, 2016, 11:23:34 pm »
I'm still fighting Mala.  My problem appears to be a little different than others I've seen reported although Mala and "focus" seem to go together like peanut butter and chocolate. 

If I set Mala to start on bootup the first game I play will not gain focus.  You can see Mala in the background and the Mame dos command window in foreground.  If I alt-tab to the Mame window and exit my game everything functions as normal from there on.  This problem only appears to pop-up if I have Mala start on bootup.

Has anybody else run into this?

I know I have seen that too, but it's been long enough now that I don't remember a specific fix. Since MaLa is fairly quick to setup, my strategy for troubleshooting issues was just to make a new instance of MaLa and set it up again making a few changes at a time until it eventually broke so I would know which setting was giving me problems.

wp34

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Re: Tron Legacy - Update 05/03/2016 - Mala Woes
« Reply #457 on: May 03, 2016, 11:29:09 pm »
What's odd is that it was working fine literally for years if I just started it manually.  Once I tried to have it launch on bootup I started having problems.

I guess I could try a fresh install with no modifications and see if the problem occurs on bootup.

dmckean

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Re: Tron Legacy - Update 05/03/2016 - Mala Woes
« Reply #458 on: May 03, 2016, 11:32:32 pm »
I find MaLa really finicky. Nothing else is both simple and has all the features I want though.

wp34

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Re: Tron Legacy - Update 05/03/2016 - Mala Woes
« Reply #459 on: May 04, 2016, 09:16:37 am »
I find MaLa really finicky. Nothing else is both simple and has all the features I want though.

I feel the same way and you are dead on about it being finicky.

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Re: Tron Legacy - Update 05/03/2016 - Mala Woes
« Reply #460 on: May 08, 2016, 10:43:55 pm »
What program are you using to boot it with or are you just shelling MALA itself.

You might look into some autohotkey scripts that pause the boot until all the background loading of everything else is done and then have it load MALA, there's scripts that will tell it to focus back to MALA.

Try instantsheller as well, i use that on all of my rigs, and when something doesnt act right i create a AHK script the executes the front end and then boot that through instantsheller.


wp34

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Re: Tron Legacy - Update 05/03/2016 - Mala Woes
« Reply #461 on: May 08, 2016, 10:53:18 pm »
What program are you using to boot it with or are you just shelling MALA itself.

You might look into some autohotkey scripts that pause the boot until all the background loading of everything else is done and then have it load MALA, there's scripts that will tell it to focus back to MALA.

Try instantsheller as well, i use that on all of my rigs, and when something doesnt act right i create a AHK script the executes the front end and then boot that through instantsheller.

I tried a 3rd party app (can't recall the name right now) that allowed me to delay each program that runs on startup.   I've tried letting Mala start itself as well as put it in the startup folder.  All gave me the same problem.

Right now I'm fiddling with GameEX.  If I hit a dead-end with it I'll give instantsheller a shot.  Thanks!

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Re: Tron Legacy - Update 3/15/2016 - Marquee Done
« Reply #462 on: May 09, 2016, 12:52:30 pm »
I'm still fighting Mala.  My problem appears to be a little different than others I've seen reported although Mala and "focus" seem to go together like peanut butter and chocolate. 

If I set Mala to start on bootup the first game I play will not gain focus.  You can see Mala in the background and the Mame dos command window in foreground.  If I alt-tab to the Mame window and exit my game everything functions as normal from there on.  This problem only appears to pop-up if I have Mala start on bootup.

Has anybody else run into this?

 Under the MAME Basics tab try changing the DOS window state to "minimized".


wp34

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Re: Tron Legacy - Update 3/15/2016 - Marquee Done
« Reply #463 on: May 09, 2016, 03:39:16 pm »
I did try that option but it didn't help.  I also tried the "focuslogger" plug-in but that caused Mala to crash.  Thanks Vidiot.

I'm still fighting Mala.  My problem appears to be a little different than others I've seen reported although Mala and "focus" seem to go together like peanut butter and chocolate. 

If I set Mala to start on bootup the first game I play will not gain focus.  You can see Mala in the background and the Mame dos command window in foreground.  If I alt-tab to the Mame window and exit my game everything functions as normal from there on.  This problem only appears to pop-up if I have Mala start on bootup.

Has anybody else run into this?

 Under the MAME Basics tab try changing the DOS window state to "minimized".