Does "in-game hotkey rotate" exist?

[spystyle]

Hello from Maine,

As the title implies I am looking for an "in-game hotkey rotate" solution. Does one exist?

Thank you,
Craig

[edge]

I know of a few front ends that allow you to rotate the orientation of the screen on the fly.. Horizontal to vertical... Vertical to horizontal.

- Mala
- AtomicFE
- 3dArcade

I am sure there are others.

[Thenasty]

advmenu does 90,180,270 w/a push

[spystyle]

advmenu does 90,180,270 w/a push  of a button...

Yes, I tried that one and it appears to be "the menu rotates" but I am looking for a solution to rotate the game after it's already loaded

Thank you,
Craig

[Thenasty]

you mean rotate when its Player 2 turn ? AKA COCKTAIl MODE ? or just flip it manually  90,180,270 ?

[spystyle]

Well it's for my buddy who has a 4-sided cocktail cabinet, he would like to fire up a game then press a button to rotate the screen without having to leave the game.

So yeah, that would be cool, when it's player 2's turn press the button until it is facing him.

Thank you,
Craig

[Thenasty]

AdvMAME do it, just like ADvMenu.

[spystyle]

OK I've installed AdvanceMAME and Advancemenu but I can't figure out how to get it to rotate "in game" - care to tell me?

Thank you,
Craig

[Thenasty]

I'll give a tiny version of the DOC's....here it goes...


 F8  Decrease the frame skip value. 
 F9  Increase the frame skip value. 
 F10  Speed throttle. 
 F11  Display the frame per second. 
 F12  Save a snapshot. 
 P  Pause. 
 PAD *  Turbo mode until pressed. 
 PAD /  Cocktail mode (flip the screen vertically). 
 PAD  - Mark the current time as the startup time of the game. 
 CTRL + ENTER  Start the sound and video recording. 
 ENTER  Stop the sound and video recording. 
 ,  Previous video mode. 
 .  Next video mode. 
 TILDE  Volume Menu. 

[Tiger-Heli]

Well it's for my buddy who has a 4-sided cocktail cabinet, he would like to fire up a game then press a button to rotate the screen without having to leave the game.

So yeah, that would be cool, when it's player 2's turn press the button until it is facing him.

Thank you,
Craig

I don't know anything about Advance MAME.

If you just want the game to be vertical for vertical games, horizontal for horizontal, just set -rol=1 or -ror=1 in mame.ini (or maybe it's -autorol, etc, something like that).

If you want cocktail game to flip for player 2, just go into the dip-switches and enable cocktail mode (assuming it has one and assuming it will flip (it's broken on a lot of games).

If it's not a cocktail games, most of the newer Nvidia or ATI drivers have hotkeys to rotate the screen, but you would have to set them so they could be activated from the CP, but wouldn't conflict with MAME.

Even then I don't know if MAME would pass the info to the graphics driver when it was active, so you might have to pause MAME, Alt-Tab to the desktop or front-end, rotate the screen, and Alt-Tab back to MAME.

BTW, any game that is 2P alternating and does not have a cocktail mode, will require you to map the P1 and P2 Controls to Player 1, so either player will be able to mess up the other player's turn.

HTH.

[spystyle]

I wonder what would be required to alter a version of MAME so it could rotate 4-ways via a hotkey? My buddy is a real computer engeneer so I would imagine if we got a clue he or one of his buddies could write it...

Again, we would like a version of MAME that while in a game a particular keypress would rotate the screen 90

[Thenasty]

I wonder what would be required to alter a version of MAME so it could rotate 4-ways via a hotkey? My buddy is a real computer engeneer so I would imagine if we got a clue he or one of his buddies could write it...

Again, we would like a version of MAME that while in a game a particular keypress would rotate the screen 90

[Com[Plex]]

Hey guys, remember me? I'm the guy with the giganto Mame 31 inch cocktail cab.

and the reason I want a "rotate button" is because I have a whole slew of games on here and setting up the prefs for specific rotations before loading the each and every game is very tedious.

I like to select a game from random and just play.

but you cant just do that if say, you select a 2 player head to head game by RANDOM, and your 2 player side is on the other side of the cabinet.
 if you look at the pictures of my cab you will see that I have 4 functional sides of the thing.
http://www.angrymods.com/Mame

side one is the 4 player side for games like TMNT and xmen.

[Thenasty]

of course it could be, you just need to run BATCH with the right parameteres for each game...

ei:

for trackball VERTICAL

MAME whatevergame -ror     or  -rol  (depends where the controls is)

for horizontal, its with FLIPX, FLIPY (I know it could be done).

MAME whatevergame  -flipx flipy something along this lines.

[Com[Plex]]

oh yeah, for those interested in the thread regarding my cabinet, click here
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=45609.0

I got a mamey award for it even!

http://www.mameworld.net/massive/Awards/Cocktail/cocktail.html

[Com[Plex]]

of course it could be, you just need to run BATCH with the right parameteres for each game...

ei:

for trackball VERTICAL

MAME whatevergame -ror

[Thenasty]

if using a BATCH filr to run games, no need for this BUTTON you speak of. I think I might have lost you somehere.

Here is a sample of a BATCH filr to run game. I gonna make 4 game samples one of each corner of your screen.

For 4 player games setup at regular monitor facing you know. Cause thats where the controls are and its HORIZONTAL.

[Tiger-Heli]

You don't need a batch file for that, but TheNasty has the right idea.

This is for regular MAME but might work for MAME 32.

Set up an ini folder under MAME - i.e. C:\mame\ini\

Point to it in your mame.ini file.
i.e.
inipath

[headkaze]

I think what he's asking is for the ability to rotate during the game. I guess this depends on the video card your using. For ATI cards you can use the hotkey manager to assign a hotkey to rotate the monitor. I think "ATI Tray Tools" does the same thing, although from what I'm reading on Google, Catalyst can do this.

Not sure about NVidia having shortcuts for rotate.

You could also try IRotate or Pivot Pro.

[Thenasty]

I think what he's asking is for the ability to rotate during the game. I guess this depends on the video card your using. For ATI cards you can use the hotkey manager to assign a hotkey to rotate the monitor. I think "ATI Tray Tools" does the same thing, although from what I'm reading on Google, Catalyst can do this.

Not sure about NVidia having shortcuts for rotate.

You could also try IRotate or Pivot Pro.

if your refering to COmplex, I think I/we get the picture what he needed. He's setup is almost like mine in a way.

[Thenasty]

Tiger, I have to use BATCH cause ADvmame mame don't use INI files. It uses the RC file and that won't LOAD/UNLOAD my MOUSE DRIVERS.
Mouse only gets loaded when needed in my setup. Also in the works is an AUTOMATIC sswitching the Horizontal/Vertical monitor instead of it being manually flipping a switch even tho it only take a fraction of a second to do.
I do have -ror the RC file for all VErtical games thats why its not in my BATCH file. Also I have a DIFFERENT HELP IMAGES for different games thats shows up on the screen when the HELP button is press. I have posted those before and I don't think I have it in my WWW page yet.


Here is a pic of a HELP....

[Tiger-Heli]

I think what he's asking is for the ability to rotate during the game. I guess this depends on the video card your using.

That's what I thought and posted about originally, but it doesn't sound that way to me now.

[Tiger-Heli]

Tiger, I have to use BATCH cause ADvmame mame don't use INI files. It uses the RC file and that won't LOAD/UNLOAD my MOUSE DRIVERS.

Okay, but Com[Plex] isn't using AdvMAME, he's using MAME32.

[spystyle]

I think what he's asking is for the ability to rotate during the game. I guess this depends on the video card your using. For ATI cards you can use the hotkey manager to assign a hotkey to rotate the monitor. I think "ATI Tray Tools" does the same thing, although from what I'm reading on Google, Catalyst can do this.

Not sure about NVidia having shortcuts for rotate.

You could also try IRotate or Pivot Pro.

I have tested Pivot Pro, when rotating in-game the game would not maximize or keep aspect ratio.

[Com[Plex]]

no no no, you dont understand.
I dont

[headkaze]

The only solution I can see is to write a program to do it. This program would work in the following way:

It launches mame32 and hooks the messaging system of mame32.exe capturing keydown events, and based on some keystroke (a) closes mame32 (b) writes the orientation preference in the game's ini file and (c) re-launches the game again.

[Com[Plex]]

The only solution I can see is to write a program to do it. This program would work in the following way:

It launches mame32 and hooks the messaging system of mame32.exe capturing keydown events, and based on some keystroke (a) closes mame32 (b) writes the orientation preference in the game's ini file and (c) re-launches the game again.

exactly!
well almost.
I dont want it to close mame32 since it takes a long time to boot.  plus, I dont want it to completely bail out of the game itself either. since when you pickj a game by random, you might not even know what it is called, let alone be able to find it again when you have over 5000 to choose from.   I want it to be no more than a flicker of the screen.

keep in mind, this will prove the most useful for people who actually play the Random game.

[spystyle]

Is it possible to write a version of MAME that simply rotates in game via a keyboard key? Would that be very hard?

I bet people with cocktail cabinets would like it

[headkaze]

Of course, just compile your own version of Mame32 using MinGW - GCC and add code in there to respond to a keypress and call the rotate screen code that is normally executed upon startup.

[Tiger-Heli]

Are you running Windows XP (2K/NT).

If so, there is a lot of stuff you could do with AutoHotKey, but it won't work in MAME under Win98/Dos/ME, etc.

What kind of Vid card do you have?

[Com[Plex]]

Of course, just compile your own version of Mame32 using MinGW - GCC and add code in there to respond to a keypress and call the rotate screen code that is normally executed upon startup.

this is probably what I will have to do right here.

anyone who is suggesting using drivers rotate support has never used the video card drivers rotate feature before in mame.

it has fatal flaws. as spystyle said, mame doesnt like to [play nice with a "driver rotated" screen. it failed to maximize properly, sometimes it completely ignores the setting of the video, sometimes it crashes completely.
and you certainly cannot rotate correctly within the game.

[Com[Plex]]

so.. uh. where can I find the source for mame32?

nevermind, I found it.

I would like to know if there is anyone else who would bennefit from having this feature!

[spystyle]

Everyone with a coktail cab I suppose!

Hey I should build one of those... (gears in head begin to turn)

:)
Craig

[Tiger-Heli]

anyone who is suggesting using drivers rotate support has never used the video card drivers rotate feature before in mame.

it has fatal flaws. as spystyle said, mame doesnt like to [play nice with a "driver rotated" screen. it failed to maximize properly, sometimes it completely ignores the setting of the video, sometimes it crashes completely.
and you certainly cannot rotate correctly within the game.

[Com[Plex]]

anyone who is suggesting using drivers rotate support has never used the video card drivers rotate feature before in mame.

it has fatal flaws. as spystyle said, mame doesnt like to [play nice with a "driver rotated" screen. it failed to maximize properly, sometimes it completely ignores the setting of the video, sometimes it crashes completely.
and you certainly cannot rotate correctly within the game.

[Tiger-Heli]

before we start a flame war,

Not trying to start a flame war.

[Com[Plex]]

Not to be a jerk, but if you're running an XP2000 system and can't afford $30 for a Radeon 7000 card, I wonder about your priorities.

[Tiger-Heli]

Hi Com[Plex],

The Trident is a decent card (especially for AdvMAME, so I'm told), but likely I-Rotate won't work with it.

I wrote the below text before I could check out your cab online and it looks like I guessed wrong on some of the orientation.