Running XP with a wide screen

[eds1275]

What I want to do is this:

Run windows xp
on a 26" widescreen with a widescreen desktop resolution
Run Mala and Mame not widescreen and not stretched - well, mala could be widescreen if possible but I don't think it is supported

Is this possible?

The reason being that my machine is going to double as a second tv for the house, and I was going to have the Blue-Ray drive right inside the coin door as well as running Netflix. My machine is going into the lounge of my recording studio that also doubles as a guest bedroom.

[nitz]

Yep, it's possible, just set the aspect ratio in mame.ini to 16:9 (that should be what your tv is) and the games will be pillarboxed so you have the correct aspect ratio.

As for mala, the way I did this was by making a layout at the resolution of my display, but I only use the area of the screen that's in the 4:3 "box" if that makes sense. I just filled in the rest with black which gives you a pillarboxed image.