MAMEWAH config questions

[Breaker]

Hi all,

I've been tinkering with my first MAMEWAH installation (v1.51) for a couple of weeks now and have a pretty good handle on things, but I have a few questions for which I can't track down answers:

1) I'm using a D9200 and AVGA and I noticed on the MAMEWAH FAQ that a resolution of 368x240 or 640x288 is recommended, but I've found that using these resolutions introduced a fair amount of flicker. However, after installing the Ultimarc patch for the D9200, and setting the MAMEWAH resolution to 640X480, things looked great...was I doing something wrong initially? Would I be advise to try 368X240 or 640X288 again?

2) It was recommended to me that I turn on 'triple buffering' in MAME to alleviate screen tearing but I noticed that, when turned on, the sound on many games became very poor - turning off triple buffering resolved the problem so this switch was definitely the cause. My question is, can MAMEWAH AND/OR MAME be configured to turn on triple bufffering only for certain games - without having to set every other game to turn it off?  

Thanks for any help!

[Minwah]

1) I'm using a D9200 and AVGA and I noticed on the MAMEWAH FAQ that a resolution of 368x240 or 640x288 is recommended, but I've found that using these resolutions introduced a fair amount of flicker. However, after installing the Ultimarc patch for the D9200, and setting the MAMEWAH resolution to 640X480, things looked great...was I doing something wrong initially? Would I be advise to try 368X240 or 640X288 again?

Not sure why you got flicker...usually it happens when the monitor is displaying an interlaced picture (but that shouldn't be the case with the D9200).  Try the low-resolutions again...

2) It was recommended to me that I turn on 'triple buffering' in MAME to alleviate screen tearing but I noticed that, when turned on, the sound on many games became very poor - turning off triple buffering resolved the problem so this switch was definitely the cause. My question is, can MAMEWAH AND/OR MAME be configured to turn on triple bufffering only for certain games - without having to set every other game to turn it off?  

Use game-specific mame ini files, eg puckman.ini:

triplebuffer 1

Save this in \mame\ini and point to that in mame.ini.

[Breaker]

Thanks Minwah!

I tried the 368X240 & 640X288 resolutions again; 368X240 was OK but rather large (not alot of info. on screen), 640X280 did flicker...hummm. Not a real issue mind you because I like the 640X480 very much.

The solution for the triple buffering was embarssingly easy....thanks again.


If I might indulge your patience once more...I have a question regarding lists. I've done a great deal of reading here about creating custom lists, and I'd like to create a 'Favourites' list of my own. I noticed in the '\files' folder that there is a file named 'mame.fav' which, when I opened it up in notepad,  appears to have many of the games I'd like to have in my favourites list already in it. My problem is that I'm not sure of a few things:

1) is the catver.ini file necesary to create custom lists?
2) how do I go about creating a custom list?
3) I noticed that in every case of the above you need to 'refresh' the main list...how does one go about doing this?

I hope there isn't an FAQ I've missed on the topic...

Thanks!
 

[Minwah]

I tried the 368X240 & 640X288 resolutions again; 368X240 was OK but rather large (not alot of info. on screen)

Um, it is low-res!

1) is the catver.ini file necesary to create custom lists?

No.

2) how do I go about creating a custom list?

Read \mamewah\docs\readme1st.txt ....and you'll want to select the list and hit Games List Options > Generate Filtered List...  OR setting the list_type in \mamewah\ini\emuname-x.ini to most_played or longest_played will automatically create a 'favorites' list.

3) I noticed that in every case of the above you need to 'refresh' the main list...how does one go about doing this?

You only need to do this once, unless you update MAME versions or catver.ini versions.  To do it hit Games List Options > Generate List.

[Breaker]

Thanks Minwah...much appreciated!

[subcriminal]

I just found this thread looking for a solution to tripple buffering causing sound problems. It seems that the game specific ini is the only way. I am a bit of a PacLand freak and it is an absolute pain for tearing. WaitVsync just causes the game to pause while it waits for the sync, triple buffering fixes the problem 100% but when playing pacman or donkey kong I get sound buffer overflows which can be seen by running mame from cmd and using verbose output.
It only seems to be the vertical games where the triple buffering causes sound buffer overflows. Weird.
Sorry if I've bumped this old thread back up but there must be other people who've had this problem.
Is there any way of generating multiple game specific ini's like you do with the res tool? I'd like tripple buffering for horizontal games but don't need it for vertical games.

[liquid8]

I am not sure about using AVGA, but supposedly the new beta (1.62b10 is current) supports game specific ini files.

[subcriminal]

What I'd real like is to know if there is a magical tool for lazy MAME users running full sets. I'd like to generate an ini for each horizontal game with the triplebuffer 1 switch and triplebuffer 0 for all vertical games It's just MAME specific not hardware related.

edit:spelling

[Minwah]

What I'd real like is to know if there is a magical tool for lazy MAME users running full sets. I'd like to generate an ini for each horizontal game with the triplebuffer 1 switch and triplebuffer 0 for all vertical games It's just MAME specific not hardware related.

You can try my Resolution Tool - this allows you to do things like this...

[subcriminal]

I see what you mean now! So where you double click a game in the list to view the ini file details I need to add the -notb switch and apply it to 'all games of this orientation'. That right?

Doh. That didn't work. mame doesn't recognise the -tb switch in the pacland.ini and uses it's mame.ini.
I have two filtered lists in mamewah, could the mame-1.ini be modified to run mame.exe -tb and mame-2.ini be modified to run mame.exe -notb? I cant understand the readme with mamewah that tells you about the emulator command line format.

[Minwah]

Doh. That didn't work. mame doesn't recognise the -tb switch in the pacland.ini and uses it's mame.ini.

Have you setup your inipath in mame.ini?  Or has MAME removed the -tb switch?  Maybe try the longhand version, -triplebuffer...

I have two filtered lists in mamewah, could the mame-1.ini be modified to run mame.exe -tb and mame-2.ini be modified to run mame.exe -notb? I cant understand the readme with mamewah that tells you about the emulator command line format.

Yes, just change the commandline_format in the list-specific ini file(s).  However, the first method above would be preferred...I would try to figure out why it's not working.

[subcriminal]

Thanks Minwah! I didn't realise you could add switches through the resolution tool, it just got even cooler!
I added 'triplebuffer 0' underneath the 'resolution 288x240' for PacLand and it now runs with triple buffering on. I might set mame to triplebuffer and just set the groups of games that need it off with the restool. Thanks again!