AdvanceMenu and video mode switching issue

[Ummon]

I'm using AdvanceMenu on my candy, it has I think a Nanao standard res 29" monitor. When loading a game, it goes to the desktop for a moment, then loads the game; and the reverse when exiting a game. Of course, the transition is supposed to be smooth and continuous, and on other monitors it is. What do I need to do to make it so here?

(Eventually, I suppose I'll try out instant sheller, though I don't know if this will effect any difference?)

[tikbalang]

the trick is hide all desktop icons and use a plain black background. another option is to use your own logo as wallpaper. make sure the task bar is set to "autohide".

in dos, i use:

display_restoreatgame NO

this keeps the game snapshot on the screen until the emulator has been fully loaded.

[Ummon]

I'll give that last bit a try. I've thought of the first part, but am mostly concerned about a clean switch, only partly for visual reasons.

[tikbalang]

you can also explore this:

device_video_fastchange NO

[Ummon]

Mm, thanks. I think I had tried the restoreatgame before, so maybe the latter'll work.

[Ummon]

Yeah, none of that worked. Don't know.

[tikbalang]

can you explain further? a video would help. there was a recent post at the advmenu forums about a similar problem. the guy seems to be a non-english speaker and just used online translation.

how bad is it? is there on-screen garbage while transitioning from menu to game (and back)? from what i understand, advmenu holds/releases the screen depending on this setting:

display_restoreatgame NO|YES

if NO, advmenu keeps control of the screen and displays the preview type according to:

ui_game none | snap | flyers | cabinets | titles

the emulator will be the one to reset for its own use. i'm sure advmame is capable of doing it for itself.

now, in between the front-end and the game, there is an unavoidable delay due to loading and decompressing large zipfiles. is this the "switch" you are referring to? it can be hidden with a game snapshot as outlined above. this is very noticeable when running advanceCD from cd.

in windows, you can try lowering the desktop size, display_size, and display_overlay, to somewhere close to what resolution the games use (or its multiple, neogeo on 640x480 for me).

good luck.

[Ummon]

Hmmmm. Well, I started from scratch and let Advmenu create a new rc. I first ran baseline mame and the change was seamless. restoratgame and exit were both 'yes', fastchange was 'no'. Okay. Then I ran Advancemame and the change was seamless. I wondered if maybe display_restore in the advmame rc was a factor; it was set at 'no'. So I renamed the rc and had Advancemame create a new rc. Here display_restore was set at 'yes'. Change was still seamless. I don't ---smurfin--- know.

I must explain, or remind and then add, that this is on my multisync and originally the change was seamless on it; was not on analog monitors; and recently hasn't been on the multisync and even my PC monitor. So now it is. I'll have to try this out again on the analog monitors and see. Sheesh.

One thing to note, something that's ---smurfin--- WEIRD, is that if you're using Advancemame with Advmenu, and you have 'snap' set as the default preview and Advmenu....and let's say you have a different file called 'snaps' that Advancemame uses to take snaps for posterity, the latter will OVER-RIDE the directory for preview in Advmenu. Anyways.....

[Ummon]

No on that last - in that, it seems to be the existence of the 'snaps' folder, regardless of Advancemame directory saying 'snap'. Get rid of that 'snaps' folder, and Advmenu displays 'snap' files. I guess I won't really care on other machines because I'm not going to be taking snaps, probly. Anyways.....I'll get back to you on the topic point.....

[Ummon]

So, I tried the above that I mentioned with the CGA monitor in my candy, and it didn't work. Still went back and forth to the desktop. I dunno. Not a big deal, because I'll just set a desirable image for wallpaper.