Pausing MAME and screensaver

[GamingGreg]

I'm using Windows XP home on my machine in my MAME cabinet.  Since I'm also using an old arcade monitor (with a ArcadeVGA card), I'm concerned about "burn-in" issues.  

So I setup a screen saver to kick off in about 5 minutes of
inactivity, and most of the time that works.  However I've noticed that if a game is "paused" and then left there, the screen saver never starts.  It'll show the paused still picture indefinately, which could lead to "burn-in" on such an old monitor.

Any ideas on how to make this work when "paused"?

[Howard_Casto]

It won't.... even if it did as mame is directx enabled now, it'd ruin your game and you'd have to restart mame anyway.  Solution:  Don't pause games, you couldn't in the arcade so don't now.  

[XtraSmiley]

It won't.... even if it did as mame is directx enabled now, it'd ruin your game and you'd have to restart mame anyway.  Solution:  Don't pause games, you couldn't in the arcade so don't now.  

Dude, that's not a good solution!  Sometimes you gotta take a piss or something.  How about this, pause the game, then hit your windows key on your keyboard, boom, back to desktop where your ss can kick in, then when you get back, click your MAME taskbar and you're back in buisiness.

[GamingGreg]

I structured my cabinet so that I have a pushbutton to turn the PC on/off, and another toggle switch which can turn the monitor, marquee, and coin door lights on/off.  So I have a solution that works for me, as I can turn just the monitor off, but not the PC.  

However, it's not me that I'm trying to find a solution for; it's for my kids.  You can tell them that they need to turn off the monitor, if they've paused a game and need to leave for a while, but they always forget (they're kids after all).  The cabinet has been left on with a game paused for several hours on a few occasions (for whatever reason), and that's probably not good for that old monitor.  

Anyway that's my delemia, and I don't know if there's any good solution to that (short of disabling the pause button), but I thought I'd ask.

[Howard_Casto]

It won't.... even if it did as mame is directx enabled now, it'd ruin your game and you'd have to restart mame anyway.  Solution:  Don't pause games, you couldn't in the arcade so don't now.  

Dude, that's not a good solution!  Sometimes you gotta take a piss or something.  How about this, pause the game, then hit your windows key on your keyboard, boom, back to desktop where your ss can kick in, then when you get back, click your MAME taskbar and you're back in buisiness.

That won't work.... sicne .74 whenever mame's window is minimized it gets corrupted and you have to restart mame to restore it.  I explained this above if you would read.

[GamingGreg]

It won't.... even if it did as mame is directx enabled now, it'd ruin your game and you'd have to restart mame anyway.  Solution:  Don't pause games, you couldn't in the arcade so don't now.  

Dude, that's not a good solution!  Sometimes you gotta take a piss or something.  How about this, pause the game, then hit your windows key on your keyboard, boom, back to desktop where your ss can kick in, then when you get back, click your MAME taskbar and you're back in buisiness.

That won't work.... sicne .74 whenever mame's window is minimized it gets corrupted and you have to restart mame to restore it.  I explained this above if you would read.

I was unaware of this MAME bug, and I personally haven't seen it.  I've minimized MAME on a number of occasions without any noticeable problems.  Perhaps there are some other needed conditions that aren't applicable on my machine.   (BTW, I just tried this on Windows XP using MAME .78 and running 1942, and it worked again)

Anyway when you said "ruin your game", I thought you meant that it might cause you some "slip-ups" due to the few seconds need to pause and un-pause your game (if in the middle of some really heavy action).

[XtraSmiley]

It won't.... even if it did as mame is directx enabled now, it'd ruin your game and you'd have to restart mame anyway.  Solution:  Don't pause games, you couldn't in the arcade so don't now.  

Dude, that's not a good solution!  Sometimes you gotta take a piss or something.  How about this, pause the game, then hit your windows key on your keyboard, boom, back to desktop where your ss can kick in, then when you get back, click your MAME taskbar and you're back in buisiness.

That won't work.... sicne .74 whenever mame's window is minimized it gets corrupted and you have to restart mame to restore it.  I explained this above if you would read.

Sorry man, I just tested it on Windows XP with MAME .78 and it works great.  Sadly, now that Gaming Greg has explained why he needs the SS, it still won't work for him b/c his kids can just as easily forget to minimiz MAME.  Greg let me think about it for a bit and see if I can think of something.  X

[Howard_Casto]

It is a known bug, and it happens often, just not on all systems.  Your mileage will vary.  Btw, the app has to actually lose focus,  minimizing and maximizing won't cause the glitch.  

Btw I'm not being mean, I'm just stating the obvious.  Personally I don't think pause, saves, or cheats have any real place in mame.  Having to keep playing, no matter what is part of the fun.  Mind you I've used them on occasion, but I definately wouldn't miss them.