last plea for marquee monitor assistance

[sshaw10]

I've tried everything to get a marquee image on my second monitor.  mamehooker worked then stopped, tried starting all over and couldn't get it going.  I came across this post about lay files and artwork and followed the instructions here exactly: https://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=146100.0.  (tried these pages also but both didn't work: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=118741.0 and http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=182698)

I have 2 monitors, main is 1366x768 (number 1 in both windows and driver), second marquee is 2560x1080 (number 2 in windows and driver).  Below is the lay file.  I have qbert_bezel.png, qbert.lay (also tried default.lay) and qbert_marquee.png in mame\artwork\qbert, also tried them zipped, tried copying marquee to marquees folder.  I run mame as follows: mame qbert -numscreens 2 -view0 Upright -view1 Marquee.  What's crazy is I get different results running the exact same command. Most time the marquee monitor has slanted lines (which I think means it can't find the file) and the main monitor is black.  Then 1 in 4 times qbert runs fine on the main monitor and marquee is same diagonal lines.  In cmd window I get "Unable to load component bitmap 'qbert_marquee.png' and then a bunch of error messages, access violation, stack crawl, stuff I don't understand.  I'm on Windows 7, running mame144.  If I just cmd "mame qbert" the game starts fine with the marquee showing.  The marquee png is 2560x1080, exact same size as marquee monitor.  Since it says it can't find it I've tried copying it everywhere and I have checked the spelling so many times my head hurts.

I don't care if I have to create lay files for every game.  I just can't figure out why it doesn't show the image and what's more crazy why it acts two ways running the same start command.  Hopefully someone can help, I'm out of ideas.  If you need any more info please let me know. Thanks if you made it this far!


<!-- qbert.lay -->

<mamelayout version="2">
   <element name="bezel">
      <image file="qbert_bezel.png" />
   </element>
   <element name="marquee">
      <image file="qbert_marquee.png" />
   </element>
   <view name="Upright_Artwork">
      <screen index="0">
         <bounds x="836" y="278" width="2250" height="3000" />
      </screen>
      <bezel element="bezel">
         <bounds x="0" y="0" width="4000" height="3524" />
      </bezel>
   </view>
   <view name="Marquee">
      <marquee element="marquee">
         <bounds x="0" y="0" width="2560" height="1080" />
      </marquee>
   </view>
</mamelayout>

[gamepimp]

Have you tried Marquee Magician yet? For most setups it works pretty well and is fairly easy to setup.

http://www.gameex.info/forums/topic/6911-app-marquee-magician-21/

[langlem]

What frontend are you running?  I had a hell of a time setting up second display.  I stumbled upon Hyperspin Helper and it was up and running in an hour.   Here is a link and also check out the Hyperspin forum for additional help.

https://hyperspinhelper.wordpress.com

I will try to offer help as well...

[nexusmtz]

What's crazy is I get different results running the exact same command. [...] If you need any more info please let me know.

If you want to solve your problem, take it a step at a time. Stop when something doesn't work right and fix that before going on.

cd to your mame directory
edit mame.ini and turn on all artwork options
rename artwork\qbert.zip qbertzip.sav (would fail if you already removed it, of course)
rename artwork\qbert qbertsav
mame qbert -v -bench 1

Make note of the Video: Monitor entries. (\\.\DISPLAYx)
Example:
Video: Monitor 0013051B = "\\.\DISPLAY8" (primary)
Video: Monitor 000304F9 = "\\.\DISPLAY1"

Start qbert specifically on your primary monitor: (as seen above, mine is 8 )
mame qbert -v -numscreens 1 -screen0 \\.\DISPLAY8

Press your On-screen Menu key (usually TAB) and select Video Options
Confirm that all of the default views work properly
Confirm that all artwork element types are enabled, and the view option is set to full
Set the selection back to Standard
Exit from the game (usually ESC)

Start qbert on both monitors:
mame qbert -v -numscreens 2 -screen0 \\.\DISPLAY8 -screen1 \\.\DISPLAY1
Use the Video Options to confirm that you can select different views on each monitor
Exit from the game
Delete cfg\qbert.cfg

Start qbert on both monitors with different views
mame qbert -v -numscreens 2 -screen0 \\.\DISPLAY8 -screen1 \\.\DISPLAY1 -view0 Standard -view1 Cocktail
Exit from the game

If you can get this far, the problem is going to be with your artwork.

rename artwork\qbertsav qbert
mame qbert -v -numscreens 2 -screen0 \\.\DISPLAY8 -screen1 \\.\DISPLAY1 -view0 Standard -view1 Cocktail

That should still work, even if your layout file is messed up.
Bring up the Video Options for Screen #0.
If you have choices for Upright and Marquee, then at the very least, MAME was able to make some sense of your layout file.
Try the different views on Screen #0
If anything doesn't work, exit the game and check the CMD window for messages.

If everything consistently works, zip the content of artwork\qbert to artwork\qbert.zip and remove the qbert directory.

If you get errors or unexpected results, reply with a copy of the mame output, along with the output from these commands:
findstr /i artpath mame.ini
dir artwork\qbert
type artwork\qbert\qbert.lay

As others have said or will say, there are helper programs that can do marquees with less work, but if you want to use the built-in features, that's how you'd troubleshoot.
Good Luck

edit: Add cfg file deletion because cmd line options won't override cfg file view settings.