I have a brilliant idea.... too bad i'm too dumb to pull it off.

[Jakobud]

Is it possible with an FE to start mame, let it load up the roms in the background, while you display a 'help' graphic on the screen, and when mame is all loaded up and ready to go, it just sits and waits until you press the button to get rid of the help screen and then it proceeds into mame?

[fogman]

Since Mame doesn't use dual monitors, wouldn't it be easy (I say easy since I'm not a programmer) to send a picture to a second display, since most of the newer cards handle two monitors?  That way, the control panel graphic would show up on the second display (or small LCD) and stay up while you played your game.  Since this would be handled by the front end, Mame wouldn't be affected and there would be no additional resources used.

[Howard_Casto]

Man you guys don't read do ya...  It's already discussed in this very thread!  

[Lilwolf]

btw, I don't change resolutions on my cab...

did you test work?  (but just annoyed you?)  because it would work great for me

How about forcing the other app to the same resolution (if you know) in mame?

I thought there was a problem displaying graphics or different colors because you don't know what colors are available other then white.  Is this still true?

because if you always know that all colors are avaible, I would guess you can load a png file pretty easy (since the library to create it is already there)

So generate a full screen png file before launching each game (if it doesn't already exist)... Then have it pull it up.

But if you go that far.  it would be nice to load a snap shoot, cabinet or flyer in game... I can't think of a reason, but once you can get one working... adding another is easy.

[Silver]

Pulling up a picture to overlay would be great - but as an alternative seeing as mame already overlays text (when you press tab) as part of its in-game menus, couldn't it easily display an ascii 'graphic' on the control layout for the game?
 Obviously it will not look as good as a colour pic scan of the original cp cover (which is where I think some of these ideas are heading - or at least using the original gfx off them) but in terms of coding its probably the simplist - all you would need would be a hot key (liketab) to jump to the text....

...and er,... the ascii graphics too. Hmmm. Just thinking out loud....

[Tiger-Heli]

But the next problem is that we all have different setups on our control panels, so how is this going to work? We need some type of "CP Layout Designer" where we can move buttons around and add sticks,etc.  to show where our controls are layed out. Then once we design our CP we can attach button #'s and player #'s  to them and then it would be CP specific. So when we go to launch a game, it brings up our "custom" CP and the program "knows" what button 1-6 is according to our layout, and can assign the required buttons for any game accordingly.

This is Johnny5!  I don't want to put words in Howard's mouth, but I believe in the future it will be more like this.  If I remember the goal was so you can take a pic of your control panel and have the labels show up on that.

It is like this NOW!!! You take a pic of your control panel, crop to size, adjust Johnny5 to position the labels properly and if there's an entry in controls.ini, it will tell you what button does what in MAME.  And if you use MameWah or DK, it will display this before MAME starts (maybe other frontends, too).

Of course it only works for me in Win2K, which I don't use for MAME, but that's another long story.

And I think Howard's idea is cool, but I'd rather see the rest of the bugs worked out of Johnny5 and get it runnning first.

[Howard_Casto]

Pulling up a picture to overlay would be great - but as an alternative seeing as mame already overlays text (when you press tab) as part of its in-game menus, couldn't it easily display an ascii 'graphic' on the control layout for the game?
 Obviously it will not look as good as a colour pic scan of the original cp cover (which is where I think some of these ideas are heading - or at least using the original gfx off them) but in terms of coding its probably the simplist - all you would need would be a hot key (liketab) to jump to the text....

...and er,... the ascii graphics too. Hmmm. Just thinking out loud....

Again, this has already been brought up in this very thread!!!

Do you guys not have enough attention span to read a whole thread or what?

[fogman]

Relax Howard...we're reading the whole thread.  Maybe some are just trying to get into the conversation or are trying to say something that we think is similar to another thread but slightly different.  Maybe we don't understand the other posts completely or you don't understand ours.  I have never considered myself a good writer.

Besides, are you trying to prevent too many useless posts by posting something as useless as saying "this is already covered?"  You don't own the thread, just 'cause you started it.

Just relax and we'll all get through this just fine!

[hulkster]

Relax Howard...we're reading the whole thread.  Maybe some are just trying to get into the conversation or are trying to say something that we think is similar to another thread but slightly different.  Maybe we don't understand the other posts completely or you don't understand ours.  I have never considered myself a good writer.

Besides, are you trying to prevent too many useless posts by posting something as useless as saying "this is already covered?"  You don't own the thread, just 'cause you started it.

Just relax and we'll all get through this just fine!

ha!  very well said.  

im very interested in the progress of this whole thing even though i cant contribute    but keep it up!

[SirPoonga]

Hehe, HC, checkout this somewhat related response on the EL board.
http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=61332&page=0&view=expanded&sb=5&o=&vc=1


Now, if you did have a pic off all the games to get them to show up in mame you'd have to do something simular the artwork now, but possibly add in some of your own stuff to get it to work.  You know how you have to deine artwork in mame?  relating it all to the unit square.  That way no matter what resolution you are playing the game at the artwork shows up in the right proportions.  You have to do that with this too.

[Tiger-Heli]

That way no matter what resolution you are playing the game at the artwork shows up in the right proportions.  You have to do that with this too.

I started the related reply in the EL post.  Not sure what you mean about proportions.  Here's the key ideas:

It would be cool if there were a script or option in Johnny5.exe which would perhaps ask for a resolution and then run through either the controls.ini file or the mame -listinfo and generate a screenshot for every mame game.   This could be used in any frontend that displays snapshots without having to write-in support for Johnny5.

The EL example uses a screenshot taken at 1024x768, but with the Lanczos filter activated, you can slide the image window separator over and the image scales nicely.

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah that's what I'm going towards anyway, because some fes are simply too old and busted to ever support the viewer.  That's why I suggested the artwork system in mame in the first place.  Getting a viable image from j5 is easy.  Actually doing something useful with it is hard.