FE that supports PHYSICALLY rotating the monitor..

[Hoopstar]

As my plans for my cabinet come together (and the realisation that AVGA will not allow me to play Galaga properly on a Horizontal monitor) I am investigating the possibility of using a rotating monitor like Carlos did..

I know he wrote his own FE but this is out of my skill level, so my question is...

Does any front end support monitor rotation??  Pretty much the program needs to indicate (say via the parallel port or maybe even the un-used scroll lock led) to an external circuit (something I can handle easily) if the current ROM is vertical or horizontal.

[Howard_Casto]

It's a tad more complicated than that.......

here's what you do.  

Make an interface to control your rotation.  Then make a small command line app to rotate it... (monitor.exe -ror or whatever)  

Then you might get some of the developers to add support for it.  Otherwise you are on yoru own as we can't possibly know how to interface hardware we don't have.  

[PacManFan]

Howards' right, Create (or get someone to create) a small command line application that rotates your monitor by signaling on your paralell port. Then it is a simple matter of calling the application when launching a game.

Kymaera would be able to do this easily.

-PacManFan

[Howard_Casto]

And just on a final note... in xp this will be difficult.

Parallel communication is wrangled by xp immediately upon bootup.  This isn't a big deal, there are ocx's and dlls to override it.  The major problem though is that all bits are "on" until your custom app gets ahold of the ports and wrangles them away from xp.  

I'm having similar issues working on the universal light driver for mame.  (Don't even ask it might not ever be finished.)  

[Howard_Casto]

Update:

I found something that might work for both of us......

http://www.eidusa.com/Interface_Boards_USB_6_IO.htm

It is a little pricey, but it's pre-made, usb, and well documented.  The 6 pins can be used for input and output, so you should be able to rig something up easily.  

[Minwah]

Update:

I found something that might work for both of us......

http://www.eidusa.com/Interface_Boards_USB_6_IO.htm

It is a little pricey, but it's pre-made, usb, and well documented.  The 6 pins can be used for input and output, so you should be able to rig something up easily.  

Pretty neat...I suppose that could also be used to power on monitors, similar to the old parallel port method.

[rchadd]

i would like similar feature in FE for use on cocktail cab that has movable control panels on both end and on 3rd side!

[AlanS17]

And just on a final note... in xp this will be difficult.

Parallel communication is wrangled by xp immediately upon bootup.  This isn't a big deal, there are ocx's and dlls to override it.  The major problem though is that all bits are "on" until your custom app gets ahold of the ports and wrangles them away from xp.  

I'm having similar issues working on the universal light driver for mame.  (Don't even ask it might not ever be finished.)  

What is this universal light driver you speak of?

[Generic Eric]

And just on a final note... in xp this will be difficult.

Parallel communication is wrangled by xp immediately upon bootup.  This isn't a big deal, there are ocx's and dlls to override it.  The major problem though is that all bits are "on" until your custom app gets ahold of the ports and wrangles them away from xp.  

I'm having similar issues working on the universal light driver for mame.  (Don't even ask it might not ever be finished.)  

What is this universal light driver you speak of?

I suspect/hope its something like L.A.M.E. dunno, but here is to hoping.  

[Lilwolf]

btw, the my almost ready for release emulator was suppost to support this.  Well.

but..

Rotation is slower then I remember.  So it will support it, but I don't think many will use it.  I was a little disappointed at javas rotation speed.  I will look at increasing the speed.  I am doing it as easy as possible.  

Anyway, it will be useable if I remove one feature... but thats the main idea around the frontend.  But more of that in then next few weeks.

[Howard_Casto]

btw, the my almost ready for release emulator was suppost to support this.  Well.

but..

Rotation is slower then I remember.  So it will support it, but I don't think many will use it.  I was a little disappointed at javas rotation speed.  I will look at increasing the speed.  I am doing it as easy as possible.  

Anyway, it will be useable if I remove one feature... but thats the main idea around the frontend.  But more of that in then next few weeks.

I think you are confused on the topic lilwolf.  We are talking about rotating the physical monitor, not the video output.  

[Lilwolf]

No, I understood...

my (soonish to be released) frontend was designed so it would work on a cocktail table where you could take control from any of 3 sides.... and it would rotate, and update the controls used to select and launch a game.

This would be useful for a rotating monitor.  So  when you rotate the monitor, it would then adjust the skin to one that is proper for the angle viewing, (it would also update the controls, but that wouldn't be necessary here).  And then it would also allow you to change your defaults for mame (to have them run at the proper rotation).

So you could rotate the monitor, have a button switch automatically pressed when it moves  to vertical (for instance).  It would then change the skin to a vertical one, and use mames defaults needed to run all games at vertical.  It also has sets the base sort / filters to the games you want for that controlpanel/orientation.

Its all working (those features anyway) but when rotating its drawing about 1/4 speed.  And noticeable.  And thats on a decent system (2ghz).  I was hoping that the automatic rotation in java would have been more efficient (since it could be using hardware for rotation).  I'm hoping to test it with jdk1.5 soon and see if that takes care of the speed problems.

[Howard_Casto]

How would that be useful?   If you are going to rotate within the fe then you are in for an unenjoyable experience as you have to wait upwards of 40 seconds for the monitor to rotate even with the fastest of motors.   Imho the "proper" way to do it would be to check if the game is vertical prior to launch and if it is run exes in the following sequence:

rotateVert.exe (app that rotates the monitor)
mame.exe
wait until finished
rotateHor.exe (rotates the monitor back)  
wait until finished
and then display the fe again

This way the software never comes into the equation, and it shouldn't as you are using a very expensive and complicted hardware solution to the exact same problem. Also it means that dumb goobers don't have access to rotating the monitor  (No physical button)   so they can't burn out your motors.  And the fe takes care of rotation automagically so you don't get the same dumb goober asking "U'm why is the pretty picture all sideways?"  

If you are going to rotate the fe screen than that kinda defeats the purpose of physically rotating the monitor at least imho.  

[Lilwolf]

This is how I saw it.

Rotate the monitor.
Frontend now shows up in vertical mode.
Frontend only shows the vertical games.

rotate monitor again
frontend now shows in horizontal
frontend only shows horizontal games.

I think I could even have it rotate at the speed of the turning if it took 45 seconds.  So it would show up new perfect while the monitor is in the middle of rotating.  But that would require some minor changes... And only happen if someone asks.

[JoyMonkey]

How about this;

Install two frontends; one vertical and one horizontal.
PC boots into the last frontend that was used, showing all games (vertical and horizontal).

Lets say it starts with the horizontal frontend:
When you select a game, instead of launching Mame, it could launch a little "CheckerApp" that checks the games orientation, if the game is vertical it rotates the monitor, then launches Mame.

When you exit a vertical game, the vertical front end would be displayed, showing vertical and horizontal games.

Does this make any sense?

[SirPoonga]

JoyMonkey, why not even make it simpler and have a frontend that can rotate

[JoyMonkey]

JoyMonkey, why not even make it simpler and have a frontend that can rotate

I just figured it would be easier to write a tiny little app that checks orientation, rotates the monitor and launches Mame. Then it could be used with allmost any existing frontend.

[)p(]

I added on request a while back an option that when the fe becomes active again after returning from a game it checks if it was a vertical or horizontal game and rotates the fe accordingly. This way the fe is always rotated correctly.

peter