Mamewah + Capcom games = squished

[Impostor]

I've been racking my brains on this problem and I am out of ideas.  Hopefully one of you guys can shed some light.  Here's the situation:

Emu: Mame32 (not the gui)
FE: Mamewah .954b
ArcadeVGA + Jpac + Ipac4

When I first installed Mamewah, Capcom games ran at full screen 640x480 w/ hw-stretch.

Then I ran ArcadeVGARes utility to create custom .ini files for each games.  After that Capcom games ran at some weird horizontally squished resolution, I think 324x288.  Ok, I thought the new .ini files would cause this.  So I deleted the entire .ini directory.  Shutdown and start up Mamewah again.  Same problem.  Capcom games still squished.  hwstretch option in mame.ini file is TRUE.

To see if it's front end or mame related, I went to msdos cmdline window and ran mame.  No problem here.  Capcom games come up full screen.  Then I tried using my old FE, the Cocktail FE.  No problem there either.  Capcom games at full screen.

Switch back to using Mamewah, and Capcom games are squished again.  It's like Mamewah starts up mame but it doesn't read in the mame.ini or it continues to read in the custom .ini's even though they all have been deleted.

Anyone have any ideas?

Impostor

[Minwah]

Firstly, are you using MAME32 or Windows commandline MAME? - you kinda contradicted yourself by saying 'Mame32 (not the gui)'.

Now, the 'weird horizontally squished resolution', (384x224) is the original correct resolution for Capcom CPS games - that is the whole point of the ArcadeVGA, to use the original resolution of the arcade games.  It was squashed in the arcade, only some operators chose to stretch the screen vertically using the arcade monitors controls.

So it seems pointless to me to run any game at 640x480 hstretch using the ArcadeVGA, except for the vertical games with >288 lines, which will not otherwise fit on the screen....

As for your problem, I can tell you that unless you have set any 'Default Options' in MAMEWAH, MAMEWAH will NOT launch games differently from running MAME at a commandline - that is simply what MAMEWAH does.

Maybe you have MAME's 'switchres' setting set to '0'?
What setting do you have for 'resolution'?

[Impostor]

Hi Minwah,

I'm using Windows commandline Mame.  In mame.ini, I have switchres TRUE, resolution 640x480.  In MameWah, there are no default options.

I didn't know that the orig resolution of Capcom games are at 384x224.  What's odd is that I can delete the entire ini directory, but Capcom games still comes up at the 384x224 resolution when invoked thru MameWah.  I noticed that in the dosbox that pops up before the game runs, it's reporting that mame.ini is N/A.  I verified that the mame.ini is in the same dir as mame.exe.  However, if I move the mame.ini into the ini directory, then it finds the mame.ini but the game still comes up at 384x224.

When I just run mame gamename on windows cmdline, they come up at 640x480.  Really odd problem.

Btw, excellent FE Minwah!

Impostor

[Minwah]

Hi Minwah,

I'm using Windows commandline Mame.  In mame.ini, I have switchres TRUE, resolution 640x480.  In MameWah, there are no default options.

I didn't know that the orig resolution of Capcom games are at 384x224.  What's odd is that I can delete the entire ini directory, but Capcom games still comes up at the 384x224 resolution when invoked thru MameWah.  I noticed that in the dosbox that pops up before the game runs, it's reporting that mame.ini is N/A.  I verified that the mame.ini is in the same dir as mame.exe.  However, if I move the mame.ini into the ini directory, then it finds the mame.ini but the game still comes up at 384x224.

When I just run mame gamename on windows cmdline, they come up at 640x480.  Really odd problem.

Btw, excellent FE Minwah!

Impostor

Very odd.  All I can suggest is delete your INI folder and MAME.INI, and try 'mame -cc'-ing a new one and start again.

I still can't think of why it should react differently via MAMEWAH from the commandline - it really does just do the same.

 

[Howard_Casto]

They are supposed to be "squished"  it's a bug in mame that when you use hwstretch the aspct ratio for some games screw up.  I even force a custom aspect to mame just to get that letterbox efffect on the capcom titles.  

In other words leave them alone, they are supposed to look like that.  

[Minwah]

They are supposed to be "squished"  it's a bug in mame that when you use hwstretch the aspct ratio for some games screw up.  I even force a custom aspect to mame just to get that letterbox efffect on the capcom titles.  

In other words leave them alone, they are supposed to look like that.  

I think Impostor is now confused by why his game would launch at 640x480 from a commandline, but 384x224 from MAMEWAH.  I'm not sure  

[Impostor]

I tried what Minwah suggested by deleting the mame.ini file.  Sure enough, this resolved the 384x244 res of Capcom games when invoked from MameWah.

I'll do a diff between the old mame.ini and the newly generated one and then flip set each settings one by one to see which one would have caused this.

Still can't figure out why mame execution on cmdline would be different than Mamewah executing mame.

Update: Here's what I found out.  Using the newly generated mame.ini file.  If I set the 'resolution' to 640x480 then Mamewah will execute mame w/ Capcom games in the 384x244 res.  If I set 'resolution' to auto, then Capcom games will run at full screen mode.  

But the kicker is that running mame w/ Capcom games on cmdline and 'resolution' set to 640x480, Capcom games actually come up at 640x480.  If 'resolution' is set to auto, then Capcom games comes up at some random resolution.

So it comes back to how is Mamewah executing the mame.exe?  The other thing I noticed is that when invoking Mamewah, it seems to be starting another XP shell or something.  For example, sitting on XP desktop, I have several notepads and WinExplorer open.  I rearranged the windows around.  Then start up Mamewah.  When I exit Mamewah, all the windows that I had rearranged has been reset back to their original position on my desktop, like I hadn't moved them at all.  

I know I have a lot of questions.  I do like Mamewah and I'm trying to work thru some issues on my installation.  I know that Minwah put a lot of work into this product and it's completely free.  So I'd totally understand if Minwah says "take it or leave it."

Impostor

[Minwah]

Still can't figure out why mame execution on cmdline would be different than Mamewah executing mame.

Me either, let us know if you figure it out...

[Impostor]

Updated:

[Minwah]

This is definately not a MAMEWAH problem:  MAMEWAH launches MAME in exactly the same way as a comandline (open 'debug.log' in MW's folder to see for yourself).

Just to be sure, I did a similar check to you, here is what happened:

1) With 'resolution 640x480' in MAME.INI:

a) Commandline ran 'MAME sf2' - res changed to 640x480

b) MAMEWAH launched SF2 - res changed to 640x480

2) With 'resolution auto' in MAME.INI:

a) Commandline ran 'MAME sf2' - res changed to 800x600

b) MAMEWAH launched SF2 - res changed to 800x600


There must be something else causing the problem...but I really can't think what.  All I can suggest is double check your MAMEWAH setup for MAME...

As for your Windows moving position, I think this may be due to the resolution switching, MAMEWAH does not launch anything other than the emulator itself.

[rampy]

just a random thought that has happened to me a couple of times.

I have various orphaned versions of mame on my PC...

Mamewah might be pointing to one version of mame and you are invoking from the commandline / deleting/changing the ini files in a another...

*shrug*

just a thought

Rampy

[Impostor]

Thanks guys for looking into this.  I will uninstall MameWah and mame.  And then re-install everything.

Impostor

[Minwah]

just a random thought that has happened to me a couple of times.

I have various orphaned versions of mame on my PC...

Mamewah might be pointing to one version of mame and you are invoking from the commandline / deleting/changing the ini files in a another...

*shrug*

just a thought

Rampy

That's true.  I was assuming the correct MAME was being referenced but it's something to check...

[Impostor]

Tonite, I searched for duplicates of mame or its .ini files.  No duplicates.  

I was just messing around and change my desktop video color setting from 32-bit to 16-bit.  And suddenly all the Capcom games are displaying at the 640x480 resolution whether its from Mamewah or from cmdline.  I flipped back to 32-bit to see if the problem resurface, but it did not.  I can't get the problem to occur any more.  

Maybe the ArcadeVGA card got stuck in some weird display mode or something.  And flipping it to 16-bit color mode fixed it somehow....  I really don't know.

So thank you rampy, Howard_Casto, and especially Minwah for your ideas on debugging my problem!

Impostor

[Minwah]

Tonite, I searched for duplicates of mame or its .ini files.  No duplicates.  

I was just messing around and change my desktop video color setting from 32-bit to 16-bit.  And suddenly all the Capcom games are displaying at the 640x480 resolution whether its from Mamewah or from cmdline.  I flipped back to 32-bit to see if the problem resurface, but it did not.  I can't get the problem to occur any more.  

Maybe the ArcadeVGA card got stuck in some weird display mode or something.  And flipping it to 16-bit color mode fixed it somehow....  I really don't know.

So thank you rampy, Howard_Casto, and especially Minwah for your ideas on debugging my problem!

Impostor

Very strange...glad you got it working tho

[Impostor]

I'm very impressed with your MameWah FE, Minwah!  Excellent job!

Impostor

[Minwah]

I'm very impressed with your MameWah FE, Minwah!  Excellent job!

Impostor

Thank you, I do try

[StephenH]

Try running at 400x300 and adjusting the controls on your monitor.