daphne

[btoddkelley]

Are there any daphne experts here at byoac?? I really need to talk to one! I can make a mame machine sing but i can't get daphne to do anything but give me "can't initialize laserdisc" when i attaempt to do a seek test. I own the disc's to about 9 laser games but i did not make the mpeg files for my self, i downloaded them from mame fans. I would be happy to trade some arcade parts if someone could help me get this thing up and running!!
BTW i was afraid to post at the daphne page, they don't seem as nice over there!!!!
Thanks Todd

[Keith O]

Do you have the Virtual LDP selected as your lasdisc type?

[btoddkelley]

yes i have virual LD selected. I believe it is a problem with how the mpegs are set up. there are about 35 files for each game. I need to be able to tell the framefile where it needs to look but i am not sure how.
Thanks
Todd

[Keith O]

It sounds like the mpegs are compressed into smaller files. Do the files end with extensions like .rar or .r01? If so, they need to be uncompressed using WinRAR first.

[btoddkelley]

Ok, i am officially an idiot. I have now uncompressed the mpegs for each game. They become 1 large movie file. now when i attempt a seek test daphne starts (screen goes blank) then returns to the desk top. no errors are recorded in the log. any ideas? oh and thanks for the help before!!!
Todd

[Keith O]

A couple more possibilities:

First, make sure you have a frame file for each game you have. The framefile is basically a text file that gives the location of the mpeg/ogg files and then it tells daphne what frame to start the mpeg at (which will vary depending on the mpeg capture). This is what my frame file looks like for dragon's lair:

z:\oldSparky\daphne\mpegs\
18 lair.m2v

You need to reference the framefile within the Daphne Loader under the config settings.

Also, be sure you unzip the roms. Unlike Mame, Daphne cannot read zipped roms.

Hope this helps!

P.S. What OS are you using? Daphne is problematic with OS's other than win2k or linux.

[btoddkelley]

using 98. i transfered it to my mame machine (1.8 gig athalon) b/c my desk comp is an older amd and i got the laser disk error after finally figuring out the mpeg stuff. now on my mame cab i get "msvbvm60.dll" not found
any idea?
Thanks
Todd

[Keith O]

Search the Daphne discussion archives for "msvbvm60.dll" and you'll find a discussion on how to fix the problem. I wasn't able to get a direct url, so you'll have to do the search.

[Jakobud]

Don't be afraid to post to the Daphne board man.  They are a little pissed over there, but they know their stuff.  You own discs for 9 lazer games?  Which ones?  If I were you I would maybe take the time to make your own MPEGS from your own disks.  Because then you can follow the directions from Daphne website step by step and know that the MPEGS should work correctly, instead of trusting MPEGS you downloaded.

By the way, I am about to do the MPEG/Daphne thing on my Win98 cabinet.  KEITH: Does Daphne really have problems on anything but Win2k and linux?  WIn98 is no good??

jakobud

[Keith O]

Jakobud,

My current setup is win2k so I can't say for sure how Daphne plays under win98 but this is what I pulled from the FAQ.

Q: MPEG playback in DAPHNE is very jerky. I've read your 'improving performance' document and done everything except upgraded my Win9x install. What could the problem possibly be?

A: The problem is your Win9x install. Win 95/98/ME have lousy threading support which is what causes the jerkiness.

However, I can vouch for win2k. On both my machines (Athlon 800 and Pentium 4 1. the game played flawlessly. The gamplay and quality of video are amazing.



btoddkelley,

If in fact you do have the laserdiscs, Jakobud is correct is suggesting you rip them yourself. This way you would have total control over the quality. I've seen some mpeg rips from laserdisc that are pretty poor in quality.

If you don't have the equipment to rip them, I'd be glad to help out. I can go directly from laserdisc (s-video) through a firewire setup to the pc and the results are fantastic.

[RacerX]

By the way, I am about to do the MPEG/Daphne thing on my Win98 cabinet.

[Dr. Jay]

I'm running win98SE and I've got no problems either.  

What does your Daphnelog.txt say the problem is??  
I'm not sure what you have or haven't done, so here's a run-through.
1. you already said you uncompressed the mpegs
2. Do you have frame-files for each game?  If not, you need them.
3. Does the directory in your framefile point to the location of you mpeg?
4. For each individual game in the Daphne Loader, you said you selected vldp.  Did you browse and put in the path to your framefile on that same page?
5. Did you unzip the roms into the originol folders, and did you get the right rom for each game?  (but that would tell you there is a rom problem)
6. If the screen goes black for a minute, or even two, let it continue.  Some of the laserdisc games take a moment to load.

BTW, I would have been nice to you a the Daphne board, but I don't even look there anymore unless I'm trying to fix a problem.  Some of them do have a disproportionate god complex and seem to think that this silly hobby places them in some lofty madona-like pedistal.  Those individuals need to be slapped (no names), but others are really cool and will help you out. Their biggest gripe is if people immediately post a question before searching to see if it's already been asked and answered.  

hope this helps -Dr. J

[Keith O]

That's good news for win98 users! I must say that of all the boards I've visited, this is by far the friendliest and most helpful (even to noobs).

[Howard_Casto]

That's because I have a bad habit of flaming the a$$holes and they seldom return.  Therefore we only have good, helpful people here.  

Remember guys play nice, or you have to listen to me.  

[btoddkelley]

I would have to say this is the best site on the net for arcade help. The daphne group seem very well...... tense to put it mildly. It a hobby for crying out loud!!!!
Todd

[Jakobud]

Hey RacerX!  How are you playing Dragons Lair II with Daphne?  It's not supported with it yet...did you write you own driver for it?

Jakobud

[RacerX]

Hey RacerX!

[gnateye]

does daphne support macs?

[StephenH]

It might be better to buy the DVD-ROM from Digital Leisure (DO NOT GET DVD-Video, it will not work).   Then, use the DVD2Daph utility to create a framefile and convert the audio to Ogg Vorbis.    

This is proven to work with daphne.

[Frostillicus]

One more thing to think about is: are you going to use a real scoreboard with daphne? apparently they only run under 98 and linux  I found this out after I took a few evenings wiring up a homebrew one, only to find my xp machine doesn't allow direct control of the parallel port. d'oh!

So it's either 'goodbye scoreboard', or 'hello 98/linux' for my dedicated  cabinet(yet to be built).

If you actually own the discs, why wouldn't you just rip them yourself? Daphne has some good step by step instructions with mpegs.  

[Chazz]

Is Daphne Windows only?  I cannot run Windows on my monitor, so is there anyway I can use this program with my system?

[Howard_Casto]

Daphne is windows or linux only.  It wouldn't matter anyway as dos media playback sucks and you wouldn't get decent performance in dos anyway.