How is this EVEN POSSIBLE ?!?!- ANSWERED!

[MameMaster!]

THANK YOU TO Everyone who attempted to figure this out. A couple of you actually hit it on the head (as did Kelsey at Oscar).

Ok...answer one. Why am I using so much PC power for mame?....answer....I got the PC for $300. bucks at CompUSA during a 4 hour sale. The regular price was $500.00.

Answer Two...the main one.
....turns out....screen rotation IS supported by the Intel Video Extreme Card; but it's not documented anywhere in my PC manual (nor did I see it on line at Intel).

Somehow, it accidently got switched on (a blessing in a cocktail cabinet let me tell you) but I'm still not sure what set it off.....and why it was oriented correctly. It easily could have rotated opposite from where I sit when I play.

The only way to find the rotation menu of options is to wade through about 8 menu screens/advanced tabs starting at the "Screen saver" adjustment screens at the Control Panel. If anyone has a need for the rotation feature I can tell you the specifics if you're interested....just PM me.

Lastly...I know. I shouldn't have deleted the C++ message before I wrote it down.....I still don't know why that appeared; but it's possible what ever set off the rotation feature caused that error message.

....thankfully I my cocktail machine for a few hours last night and all appears well.

Whoo Hoo!.......

Thanks for all of your help!

MameMaster!




Ok....this is going to be a long post...and it's really for the true programmers/software guru's out there....this is a total conundrum that I have no valid answer for.

Quick Version-
(FYI--This is running on my dedicated Cocktail Cab)
I'm running Mame32 ver. 78 on a Compaq Celeron (2.4 ghz); 126 DDR RAM (more on that in a moment); 40 gig hard drive. I'm running about 900 roms (only vertical games) using the rotation feature (clockwise).

Everything has been working virtually perfectly until last night.

I loaded a game I've never tried before: Sega's Wrestle War (I believe that's the title)....the game started, played perfectly for about 1 minute then the screen flicked and went black. It came back on but the game crashed. I exited the game and then....

WHAM!!!

MY NORMAL WINDOW OPERATING SYSTEM IS NOW PERFECTLY FORMATTED IN A VERTICAL DIRECTION!!!!!

I tried rebooting and restarting (at least 3 times); but it stayed vertical....and all of the games continued to play perfectly.

Don't get me wrong...I'M THRILLED at this odd turn of events....but I'm wondering if I have to worry about an eventual system crash? (I can always reinstall the operating system, but I would love to keep it this way).

WHAT CHANGED--
OK, here are some more specifics that may be relevant. The only thing that I changed yesterday was that I added 512 DDR Ram (so that I now have 640). The system flies now and I'm extremely happy with the new performance.

Other than that I've change nothing.

OTHER ODDITIES-
I once posted here that I was having trouble running Centipede, Millipede, Burger Time and QBert vertically. For some reason they all ran horizontally despite the "rotate clockwise" configuration that I'm using in Mame32.

Recently (about a month ago) all of a sudden Centipede, Millipede and Burger Time all worked perfectly in a vertical format....but QBert still does not WTF???

Phew.....any suggestions??? Anyone have any clue what changed???

ONE LAST IMPORTANT ITEM-
This morning I booted up the PC to see if after being turned off for the night (and the electricity cut off...as I unplugged it) to see if this still worked.

It did...BUT, I got an error message that said something along the lines of.....

"C++ Error.........running windows in an unusual way. Click here to report this error".

I unfortunately didn't read the whole message as I got nervous and clicked the box to make it go away. I restarted 2 more times with no additional problems and it's still in the vertical format.

I have pics of this

[MameMaster!]

http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=mametesters&page=0&view=expanded&sb=5&o=&PHPSESSID=e1cc40741b61729a5161452d69090a2d

FYI- I was able to post this with a photo to them Mame.net forum with a photo.

MameMaster!  

[SirPeale]

What kind of video card do you have?

[MameMaster!]

I'm not sure. It's a Compaq Presario. I'll check my documentation. But I haven't made any hardware upgrades other than the DDR Ram.

MameMaster!  

[MameMaster!]

I'm not sure. It's a Compaq Presario. I'll check my documentation. But I haven't made any hardware upgrades other than the DDR Ram.

MameMaster!  

This appears to be the video card (I checked on Compaq.com):
Integrated Intel(R) Extreme (32MB shared)

[MameMaster!]

Have I truly stumpped everyone on this???

 

MameMaster!  

[screaming]

It doesn't sound like you have a problem It sounds more like you're curious how something like that could happen.. right?

  I'd say something got a little mixed up with your video card drivers.  When you have a video card that uses shared memory, adding system memory affects this.. Especially if the RAM is faulty.

Which model Presario do you have?  I want to look up the specs on it.

    I don't think having your resolution and screen orientation like that would hurt the stability of Windows in the future, but other things like faulty RAM, faulty video card drivers, etc might.  If you're willing to risk losing your vertical layout by trying to troubleshoot this 'problem', then I'd say try swapping out the RAM with good high quality sticks, upgrade/downgrade your video card driver, and play with the AGP settings in your BIOS (if you have them) to try and make it boot up without error and have your vertical layout.

*shrug*

/Steve

[MameMaster!]

...actually you've hit it on the head.

I'm happy this happened...but I'm courious as to why...and if this can be replicated as I imagine this would be desirable for others running a vertical cab.

The only thing that changed was the new RAM installed by CompUSA yesterday.

I'm using a Compaq Presario 6000 Model. The link below is to a virtually identical PC to the one I own...except I just had them add the Ram. They added, 512 DDR Ram/2100. Also mine is 2.4 ghz not 2.7 as they're now advertising.

Here's the link to the Presario:
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_store/computer_series_detail.do?tab_switch=true&tab=specs

[shmokes]

I unfortunately didn't read the whole message as I got nervous and clicked the box to make it go away.

I can't help much, but I just had to comment that this is nearly the funniest thing I have ever read.

[Smack]

I caught your post on the Mametesters board, if you haven't seen it yet...

Check your video adapter properties (go to the advanced settings under video properties)look for some sort of shortcuts to rotate the desktop. I know that the onboard Intel video on the computers at my place of work do that.

I get called all the time to fix it.

The tab for rotation will list the shortcut stuff so you can see what one you hit, once you get it oriented back, disable the shortcut.

It may be something like ctrl-alt-up/down/left/right at least thats how the ones at work do it.

You probably hit some keyboard shortcut while you were playing that other game.

Word.

[jjhlk]

For some reason that was really hard to read. But I'll explain how some things can happen sometimes. If it applies here, good, otherwise I don't know what's going on because I'm almost answering this blind.

Basically, your MAME software sets a windows or video card setting (read: system wide, not mame specific) to achieve the effect in game that you want. So when this system wide setting is set and MAME crashes before it turns it off, you keep the setting. Similar things happen in Half-Life if you crash it and it used odd settings. The mouse sensitivity would stick around or the resolution would stay low.

[Sasquatch!]

I unfortunately didn't read the whole message as I got nervous and clicked the box to make it go away.

I can't help much, but I just had to comment that this is nearly the funniest thing I have ever read.

IT'S NOT FUNNY WHEN IT HAPPENS TO YOU EVERY DAMN DAY.  I always get random users at my company calling me, and the conversation is always like this:

User: "Help!  I got this error message!"

Me: "Okay, what does the error message say?"

User: "I don't know, I just clicked OK to make it go away!"

Me: ...

[paigeoliver]

Ok, this is totally unrelated, but why are you wasting

a computer that fast

and

640 MB of ram

on a vertical cabinet.

I have a vertical cabinet with all the vertical roms, it plays every last one of them full speed with some juice to spare (no exceptions, even the Psiko games), and it ONLY has an Athlon 650 with 128 of ram.

[MameMaster!]

I unfortunately didn't read the whole message as I got nervous and clicked the box to make it go away.

I can't help much, but I just had to comment that this is nearly the funniest thing I have ever read.

.....yes yes....I too am embarrassed that I wrote that...!!....Keep in mind I'm an advertising executive...I only bought my first PC in Oct. 01. I've always worked on Macs...and they play nicer!  

[ErikRuud]

Sasquatch,

It sounds like you and I have the same users!  

My favorite was the guy that had four different error messages popping up during reboot.  He says, "Yeah, those come up every day, I just click "OK" and the machine comes up".  This guy is a DBA!

[shmokes]

Advertising exectutive, eh?  My wife is a talented Graphic Design student who will be graduating in a year.  Got any hookups?  

We're going to need some.  I'll graduate about a year later and then it's on to law school.  Currently I'm mainly paying for us to go to school, but once she's done she's got to start trying to put me through school.

[jjhlk]

Ok, this is totally unrelated, but why are you wasting

a computer that fast

and

640 MB of ram

on a vertical cabinet.

I have a vertical cabinet with all the vertical roms, it plays every last one of them full speed with some juice to spare (no exceptions, even the Psiko games), and it ONLY has an Athlon 650 with 128 of ram.

He should put it on a network and let it fold proteins in the background!

[Thenasty]

Currently I'm mainly paying for us to go to school, but once she's done she's got to start trying to put me through school.

Hehe, this is how my GF left when she was done. DOH!  

[MameMaster!]

Advertising exectutive, eh?  My wife is a talented Graphic Design student who will be graduating in a year.  Got any hookups?  

We're going to need some.  I'll graduate about a year later and then it's on to law school.  Currently I'm mainly paying for us to go to school, but once she's done she's got to start trying to put me through school.

....interesting...I'm presently putting my wife through law school right now....and believe you me... don't think the thought of her leaving me after she makes the big bucks hasn't crossed my mind!.....at least I'll ALWAYS have Mame!.

Re- your girlfriend...what state are you in?

[shmokes]

I'm in Utah, but dislike it.  The state is actually gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous.  We have five national parks in our state and about ten more state parks and national monuments that would probably be national parks in any other state.  Utah truly has some of the most unique, spectacular landscapes in the world.  

But, for other reasons I am very excited to finish my undergrad degree and move away.  We want to go to NYC and live there for at least a year while we're still young, but, in the short term at least, where we move will probably be dictated by what grad/law schools I am accepted by.

Hey...keep those receipts for your wife's law school  
Once she starts making the big money you'll be entitled to alimony if you put her through school.  

[MameMaster!]

....that's funny...I warned my wife that I'm keeping the receipts. The law's on my side if she leaves!....whoo hoo pay off!

Any way, we have over 40 offices....I'll PM you the web address. We list any available jobs there....so you never know.

Good luck to you two!