mamewah, daphne and mame

[btoddkelley]

I know I may be dreaming here, but is there any way to mix the daphne games in with the mame games on one layout? I have one of the layouts that looks like a cab (shows screens, marquee ect) and I would like to be able to have the daphne games in the same list.  I have another layout for daphne but they are both arcade games. This way you could have a layout for arcade, then a different one for each home system. Any thoughts?


Thanks
Todd

[Minwah]

Not currently possible in MAMEWAH

[Spaced Invader]

It would be cool though if you could have a favorites menu that wasn't emulator specific...do any of the currently popular FE's do this. I think I recall someone saying DK could?

[visciouslymamed]

It would be cool though if you could have a favorites menu that wasn't emulator specific...do any of the currently popular FE's do this. I think I recall someone saying DK could?

DK and 3darcade can do this.

[ErikRuud]

You can mix emulators in GameLauncher if you use batch files instead of launching the emulator directly.

GL does not have a favorites function. But you could manually create a favorites list.
 

[screaming]

I know I may be dreaming here, but is there any way to mix the daphne games in with the mame games on one layout? I have one of the layouts that looks like a cab (shows screens, marquee ect) and I would like to be able to have the daphne games in the same list.  I have another layout for daphne but they are both arcade games. This way you could have a layout for arcade, then a different one for each home system. Any thoughts?

  I have somehow cludged this to work on my Windows XP machine. Right now I have all my Daphne games in the same list as the MAME games, and it seems to run everything just fine so far. I'm sure there are problems, so if you find any please let me know!

Using Microsoft Agent and Windows XP's Speech synthesis functionality, I'm also working on getting it to say the name of the game before it runs it (like a computer voice that says "Starting Burger Time. Have fun!"). Once I have that working decent enough I will post it as well.

    For your information, here is what I did:

1) Configured Emulator 1 to be MAME games and got all my games showing up just how I want them.

2) Configured Emulator 2 to be Daphne games and got all my games showing up just how I want them.

3) Opened files\emu2-0.lst in notepad and prepended 'Daphne_' before the romname (every 14th line).  Here's a sample of what it looks like once it's done:

Code: [Select]

Daphne_INTERSTELLAR
Interstellar











Daphne_SDQ
Super Don Quix-ote











Daphne_SDQSHORT
Super Don Quix-ote (short scenes)











Daphne_TQ
Thayer's Quest













then I copied everything in this file and appended it directly to files\emu1-0.lst.

4) Configured, in files\emu1.cfg:

Code: [Select]

Emulator Executable = D:\fes\mamewah\emus\arcade.bat
Send ROM Path = False
Send ROM Extension = False
Use Long Filenames = False
Show DOS Box = 0
Default Options = mame daphne

5) In a directory I created, emus\, I created a simple dos batch file and named it arcade.bat:

Code: [Select]

arcade.js %1

6) Also in emus\, I created a JScript file and named it arcade.js:

Code: [Select]

var wsh = new ActiveXObject("WScript.Shell");
var runDaphne = 0;

romName = WScript.Arguments(0);
if (romName.substr(0, 7) == 'Daphne_') {
  romName = romName.substr(7);
  runDaphne = 1;
}
if (runDaphne) {
  wsh.Run("daphne.bat " + romName, 0);
} else {
  wsh.Run("mame.bat " + romName, 0);
}
WScript.Quit();

7) In the same emus\ directory, there are daphne.bat and mame.bat:

Code: [Select]

cd D:\emus\daphne-0.99.6\
daphne.exe %1 vldp -fullscreen -framefile mpeg2\%1.txt -x 800 -y 600
and

Code: [Select]

cd d:\emus\noname-0.81u3.09
nonamexp.exe %1
respectively.

8) To get your artwork (screenshots, etc) to show up, 'daphne_' needs to be prepended to the filename (to match the romname) and then put into the same directory as the respective MAME artwork.

9) Save everything, exit everything and load up MAMEWAH. Go to your MAME (Arcade, now) list and you should have your Daphne games intermingled with your MAME games!

  Try running both and make sure they work.  If not, make sure your paths are right in all the batch files. Make sure, especially, that you can run arcade.js <romname> from the command line and have it work.

  There seems to be a slight delay from when I click to start a game to when it actually plays that makes it seem like it's not doing anything for a second or two. I'm working on this problem now, and will post a solution when I find it.

If you have any questions, post them here.

/Steve

[ErikRuud]

Kymaera also supports mixing emulators within a list.  It even knows to look in the correct directories for the snapshots.

[Minwah]

Kymaera also supports mixing emulators within a list.  It even knows to look in the correct directories for the snapshots.

Yep

MAMEWAH doesn't actually support this atm, so screaming's workaround is very ingenious!

[Radical]

AdvanceMENU can put them altogether also.  It's what I use anyway.   Mamewah no go on Linux, eh?

[jelwell]

Is this reported as working in 1.52? I'd really like to incorporate Dragon's Lair I & II, Space Ace and Super Don Quix-ote into my MAME emulator list. Seems kind of pointless to have them off on their own when they're *all* just Arcade games.

I did try, but I had a no go. MAMEWAH barfed something immense; screwed up the layout, overrun buffers, etc. I'm wondering if I've done things wrong, or if this simply doesn't work anymore.
Joseph Elwell.

[screaming]

Is this reported as working in 1.52? I'd really like to incorporate Dragon's Lair I & II, Space Ace and Super Don Quix-ote into my MAME emulator list. Seems kind of pointless to have them off on their own when they're *all* just Arcade games.

I did try, but I had a no go. MAMEWAH barfed something immense; screwed up the layout, overrun buffers, etc. I'm wondering if I've done things wrong, or if this simply doesn't work anymore.
Joseph Elwell.

  The file names are different, but the logic should still work.  I haven't verified it yet in my MAMEWAH 1.52 installation, but I should get to it by this weekend.

  It sounds like you have more issues than this though, if your MAMEWAH layouts are getting all screwed up and you're getting buffer underruns.

  I will post my results.

-Steve

[papaschtroumpf]

I'm doing something similar to Screaming's method, albeit not for Daphne but for "mixed emulator" pinball games.
Basically the trick is to add an "indirection layer" between mamewah and calling the real emulator.

Screaming uses javascript, I use perl, but the idea is the sme: process the ROM name to figure out how to really launch it.
Since Daphne has so few roms, you could simple write a series of "if" statements in the batch file without resorting to an addition js/Perl script, which might reduce the delay Screaming is tlaking about (I don't have one but I don;t know if it's because I used Perl, or because I have a fast machine in my cab).

something like:

if %1=="Daphne_romname.zip" daphne.bat %1


Edit: I kindof like the idea of having the computer speak the name of the rom being launched (well, the name of the game, not the 8 letter rom name). What kind of problems are you running into? I would guess the text-to-speech engine is mispronouncing some of the names? (e.g. "1941" becomes "One Thousand Nine Hundred and Fourty One", or worse "One Nine Four One"

Unreal Tournament 2004 (PC game) which I play regularly uses test-to-speech to "read" the texxt chat in-game and doesn't always do a good job a reading it , although most of the time it works.