Vertical cab nightmares :(

[nullb0y]

So, ive been fixing the vertical cabinet,
I upgraded the ram and video card
But the ati radeon 9200 se doesnt seem to want to rotate the monitor with software
I can use gameex but the nagging about registered version is anoying and looks bad, plus i dont have $$ to register lol
I just plan on using mame on this cabinet
I am using a minipac
What front ends are out there that will rotate the screen?
Im loosing my mind trying to get mamewah to rotate the screen
any help would be great
thanks
null

Computer specs:
Intel pentium 3 1ghz
133mhz ram (1x512 + 2x128)
Ati pci 9200 se dual monitor card
Windows xp
mini-pac
trackball and buttons

I want a nice clean FE that i can put skins on

[youki]

AtomicFE and Mala  will work.

Mamewah too i think.

[Space Fractal]

MultiFE support vertical resoulutions too.

Mamewah can only rotate if Windows desktop is set to vertical mode too and created a speciel skin. But it DOES work, since I have seen vertical skins too.

[Goz]

The Catylist drivers for the ATI card should have the option to rotate the display. It really should be as simple as right clicking the diamond icon by the clock and rotating. If it doesn't work then you likely have a driver issue.

[nullb0y]

The Catylist drivers for the ATI card should have the option to rotate the display. It really should be as simple as right clicking the diamond icon by the clock and rotating. If it doesn't work then you likely have a driver issue.

thats what ive been doing, i installed the proper drivers and such, but it doesnt work, so i gave up
atomic fe looks nice, im going to try that one out for now
it rotates properly too ^_^

[nullb0y]

okay, atomic fe keeps freezing up on me or going to just a black screen when i load it....
Next

[youki]

It is just because you didn't install the video codec.

In Atomic folder there is a file codec_tscc.Exe , run it once.  Then it will work.

[nullb0y]

Yeah, it was that and i got the softrotate working by reinstaling the drivers a 3rd time
after i rotated the screen with ati i needed it on horizontal 600x800 mode
So its working now and there are no video problems
But how do i filter to only vertical games?
I dont even need the horizontal ones on there but going 1x1 is going to take some time

also, how do i remove the nag screens with your front end?

[youki]

With Atomic and Mame , you don't need to rotate with Ati.

You can simply rotate Atomic by choosing  Orientation "Vertical ->" or "Vertical <-" on the general tab of Atomic manager.

Then on the "folder" tab, at the end of the field "default emulator" , add  -rol  or -ror  . For instance to have something like :

c:\mame\mame.exe -ror

Then all your game should be rotated when you run them.

If you want filter vertical game  (despite the fact that with -rol you can play also horizontal game rotated).

You simple solution is to put only vertical game in your folder.

But you can also create gamelist that contains only vertical game.

To do that game list, you can use External tool like Romlister (i think there is thread somewhere here about it).

Or use build in gamelist creator in AtomicManager.

To know how it work , i strongly suggest you do step by step  the "simple tutorial" i created, you can find it on Documentation page of my website.

After that you should have good base to understand and use Atomic. and create your config as you want.

Don't forget to install the last patch of atomic , if you didn't already do.

I have a official support forum in english here :   http://spaceinvaders.7.forumer.com/

[nullb0y]

Well, i used a few outdated movers to remove the horizontal games and i removed quiz and dupes etc....
but the movers i used were .90 and .115 and my set is .126 lol
i keep finding games i dont want

[NOP]

wow, I've suggested romlister 3 times today... I'm on a self promotion frenzy!

http://www.waste.org/~winkles/ROMLister

Use this tool.  The idea is not to have ALL the mame roms on your machine and weed them out by hand, instead, find the roms that will play on your machine (with your given set of controls/monitor orientation) and the ones you're interested in playing (filter out the quiz and mahjongers) and bring only those games into your mame folder.  Life is much nicer that way.

-jeff!

[loadman]

RomLister is Super Kewl   

[southpaw13]

I still use Sort Info because I can make a batch file that will actually move the unwanted roms to a different folder.  Will romlister do the same?

Thanks...

[NOP]

yes, we'll, the inverse of that. 
You can use romlister to make a batch file to move the roms you *want* to another folder. 

[southpaw13]

Awesome....time to update....

[nullb0y]

thats pretty cool ill give rom lister a try

So, Current issue: atomic fe and mame are making sound lagg
I tried a defrag
Im not maxing out the cpu video card or ram
Any ideas?

[NOP]

Probably a directdraw/d3d issue and perhaps syncing to scanlines option that need some adjustment.

there was a nice thread about stuttering audio somewhere here.  I had it really bad on my machine (couldn't even play galaga) but all it was turned out to be some video option.  MAME now syncs the audio with the video for better accuracy in emulation.

This is from one of my mame.ini files, which I believe works fine (I'm not actually on my machine-this is from a backup)

Code: [Select]

#
# VIDEO OPTIONS
#
video                   ddraw
numscreens                1
window                  1
maximize                1
keepaspect              1
prescale                  1
effect                  none
pause_brightness        0.65
waitvsync               0
syncrefresh             0

I have an arcadeVGA pumping to an actual arcade monitor though-your experience may be different.

I can post my entire ini file if you want it.

[nullb0y]

Thanks, i will give that a try and let you guys know how it works out

[nullb0y]

i don't have a mame.ini.....
also it is now using 100% of my processor (swapped in a slightly slower p3 1ghz>933mhz)

[NOP]

run mame -createconfig to have it make one.

These options can also be set on a per game basis, by looking in the ini folder and then it's <gamename>.ini

[nullb0y]

i think the games to blame are just to much for a 933mhz proc
Im going to try swapping the 1ghz back in and see if she boots

[NOP]

yeah, that could certainly be the deal. 
As I mentioned, I couldn't even run galaga without stuttering, and pretty much any pentium class CPU should be able to pull that off, so it was absolutely something else that was wonky.  Try any of the classics-they should work without sound skipping, even on that class of CPU.

[nullb0y]

the galaga 88' or w/e has skipping audio....
Thats pretty sad
But ill try what you said... mabey tomorow

[gonzo90017]

Just try an older version of mame.

[nullb0y]

ive also gotta gothrough my games list
some of this stuff is showing up in atomic fe that shouldnt be there
(horizontals and roms i dont have)

Okay, i tried changing the video options
That didnt do anything it almost seems worse

I might just try putting a cheap yet newer and faster pc in there
Newegg had a sempron 3000+ for like $45

[nullb0y]

Just try an older version of mame.

how old? lol
my rom set is .126

[nullb0y]

Okay, got a blue screen of death.....
wow.....
definately going to upgrade the computer

okay i turned down my audio sampleing to 12000 from 48000
there isnt as much lagg but the games that were the problem  now just crash... no problems with other games lol

[M.Lanza]

I could run most games fine using mame .102 on a celeron 1.2ghz based pc
with a 4400 audio sampling rate and no frameskip.

Your 1ghz pentium 3 should be enough to run most vertical games.

[nullb0y]

so will the .126 set work with an old mame set?

[M.Lanza]

You can use clrmamepro to convert your romset.

[gonzo90017]

Most roms should work. There will be some that don't. You could try FastMame 0.98. It's an optimized version of mame.

[nullb0y]

Well, i managed to get mame to do several BSOD
Looks like shes overheating at times
i might try an old set or fast mame
(i only need vert roms and not all of them)

part of the problem appears to be the video card/drivers....
mabey it doesnt like flipping and mame....
or mabey its because it just loosely sits there
the heatsink is warm to the touch
Ill probably throw a fan in there

[nullb0y]

I worked out the crashing issues

So, now onto the other things

Atomic FE quits out of game and FE some times when using player 1 and 2 start to exit a game
Gotta get that fixed

Sound still skips in some games
I will probably live with that

[youki]

Atomic FE quits out of game and FE some times when using player 1 and 2 start to exit a game
Gotta get that fixed

I think it is because you press to long your keys.  or you have some kind of ghost key.

To workaround that, you can simply , assign a different key to exit AtomicFe (with AtomicKey.exe).

Or you can set a password on exit in AtomicFe (with AtomicManager).

[nullb0y]

good point
Its a minipac so no ghost key
but you have to hold 1 for a second then tap 2
and half the time im staring at windows lol

[gonzo90017]

Did you try an older version of mame for your skipping problem?

[nullb0y]

It turns out that im having a processor problem
I run my boot disc processor test and almost immediately it crashes
Some games run fine - ms pacman
But i load anything else or too many games and it crashes
The audio slow down is specific to 1 or 2 games now but those are pulling on the cpu way to much and i get video lagg so its expected

I need to replace the processor/motherboard
I just dont have the $$ for anything decent right now

[youki]

Did you overclocked your processor?

Try to reduce the cpu clock , it should possible somewhere in your bios.

Just to see if the problem occurs less often or not.

[nullb0y]

IT says the clock on the FSB is 133mhz (forced by ram?)

[Ummon]

.....it means it's SLOW. Skip back to mame .68 at least - or upgrade your computer.