AdvMAME / AdvMENU Question - Parent / Clone Roms

[General Zod]

I'm configuring AdvMAME and AdvMenu to play a certain set of classic games. I'm looking to do this in my setup ...

Change the either the Menu / or MAME portion of my setup to show PACMAN on the AdvMENU screen rather than showing PUCKMAN?

Also, has anyone ever worked with the .mng files, and have you had good success in doing so?

In addition, is it possible to add the marquees and screenshot on the main selection screen? Does AdvMENU automatically size them?


Sorry for the barrage of questions, but I figured it would just be wise to ask them in the same topic instead of having like 20 different posts.  

Thanks in advance for your help.

Mike

[Brad Lee]

Well, as far as showing certain games, you could
A- Show parents and clones, and just have the games you want(pacman et al) in your roms directory
B-  Use the game type settings(Im using an older version that writes an info line directly into the advmenu.rc, I geuss newer versions use an xml file), SHow parents and clone,s but show only the type you select
C- Show parents/no clones, but map one of the buttons on your CP to "play clone" so you have easy access to the real pacman if you want

I use C, the only types I use are for majong, so I can not show those. In order to consider pacman the parent and puckman the clone, I think youd have to hack mame itself, so that the gamelist it generates has the info you want. Ive got no information on the ease or difficulty of doing this

What display mode are you using? (tile_small, list, mixed etc) One of the modes does use different artworks, its liek a text list on one side, and the other 1/2 is the marquee, screen, CP and cabinet/flyer
I use tile_normal I think, its like 5x6 snapshots with just a line across the top and bottom for status & info. I find this the easiest for large numbers of games, since yo ucan scan the screen and see 30 games, if you dont see what you want, move the joy stick for the next page of 30
Ive got the menu showing Title screens, the preview(what it shows when launching a game set as the Flyer, and the slideshow screensaver is showing the screen shots, so even in a normal mode I get to see more than just screenshots

[maraxle]

Edit the PACMAN entry in the XML file so that it isn't listed as a clone.  Load the XML file into your favorite text editor, search for game name = "pacman", and delete cloneof = "puckman".  As for showing the marquees, there is a menu mode specifically for that.  Hit tab a few times and it should pop up (assuming you have the marquee directory specified).

[wpcmame]

1. Create a advmenu group called "Common", "Popular" etc.
- in the advmenu.rc file add the entry: group "common"
2. Move all games you want to see into that group
- From the GUI: Select the game/clone you want to have in the "Common" group and press the "setgroup" key (sorry, don't remember the key). Note that if you move a parent, the clones will move as well so you need to move the clones back to the default group. The group a game belongs to is displayed in the top right corner.
- In the advmenu.rc file: game "advmame/pacman" "Common" "" 0 ""
3. Make the "Common" group default at startup.

[General Zod]

I will need to try all those ideas and see if I can put together this configuration.

I'm using EasyCab71, only because I've been using .73 for a while and have been quite happy with that, and there wasnt that big of change from 71 to 73.

The version of AdvanceMenu in that setup is 2.2.9, if that helps.

I can see the marquees if I toggle the different modes, but I thought I seen a configuration somewhere that offered both the title and marquee in the same little square.

Even when toggling through the menu and choosing the game to play, during the RunGame screen, is it possible to change that shot to show the marquee instead of snap?

Overall I've been able to get AdvMAME and AdvMENU setup the way I want and I've even looked at other rc files to compare notes. My only guess is that I'm either doing something wrong with the editing, or it simply can't be done.  

[maraxle]

run_preview
Select the preview type to display when a game is run. The message is displayed only if the option `video_restore' is set to `no'.

run_preview none | snap | flyers | cabinets | titles
Options:  
none  Don't display any preview.  
snap,
flyers,
cabinets,
titles  

Display the specified preview. (default snap).  

For whatever reason, the run_preview setting doesn't seem to support marquees directly.  However, if you copy your marquees to say the cabinets directory, it will display them.

[General Zod]

run_preview
Select the preview type to display when a game is run. The message is displayed only if the option `video_restore' is set to `no'.

run_preview none | snap | flyers | cabinets | titles
Options:  
none  Don't display any preview.  
snap,
flyers,
cabinets,
titles  

Display the specified preview. (default snap).  

For whatever reason, the run_preview setting doesn't seem to support marquees directly.  However, if you copy your marquees to say the cabinets directory, it will display them.

My friend .... YOU are a genius !! I'm serious. I should have thought of such a thing, and it never even crossed my mind.  

Thank you !!