Mamewah & Multiple Versions of Mame

[moonchilddave]

Running Mamewah 165 and have both MAME 083 and 131 installed.  I have set up certain game specific ini files in my Mamewah directory to have them use the older version of MAME for some games that give me choppy sound in the current version or run slowly.  This seems to be working great for the most part, however I am having a slight issue with one specific rom. 

I have it set to load Galaga 88 in MAME 083, and I can see by looking at the Mamewah log file that it is doing exactly that.  The problem is that the game still has choppy sound and isn't running at 100% 60/60fps all the time - sometimes dropping as low as 70% at points.  However, and this is what confuses me... when I take the exact command line and copy it from the Mamewah log file and execute it directly in command prompt - the game locks on at 100% 60/60 almost the entire time.  I am using the correct rom that is compatible with 083, so I'm stuck.  Is Mamewah itself running in the background causing the slowdown?  That seems to be the only real difference.

From my Mamewah log:

6/22/2009 5:00:58 PM Current drive/directory selected: c:\mame083
6/22/2009 5:00:58 PM Commandline run: c:\mame083\mame.exe "c:\mame\roms\galaga88.zip" {flags=201}

My system is a Dell Dimension 4300
(P4 @ 1.6G and 1G RAM / Nvidia Geforce 2 MX/MX 400)

[Minwah]

What resolution are you using for Galaga '88? I would bet you are using 'resolution auto', and Mame is picking a different mode when you run from a commandline to when you run from Mamewah - this can make a big difference to Mame's performance.

Find out what mode Mame is using from a commandline (mame galaga88 -verbose), and then make a (Mame) game specific ini file for it (c:\mame083\ini\galaga88.ini). Specify the resolution to use in this file (eg resolution 640x480) - this will be used regardless of how Mame is launched.

[moonchilddave]

You were correct about me having resolution set to "auto", however - specifying the resolution in the galaga88.ini file made no difference that I could tell.  Got me to thinking... When I start up Mamewah, I have it kick off Ambience as well.  So I commented out the ambience startup and gave it a shot... full speed.  So apparently the bottleneck was Ambience - damn!!!

So, could anyone point me to a good site that that tells you how to strip down Windows?  I'm not sure if it's lack of memory or lack of processing power that's the bottleneck - but I figure stripping down windows might help.  I'm running XP Home (SP3).

Mamewah is running 800x600 @ 32 bit (same as the desktop) - which is what Mame was picking to run the game at as well when running from the command line.

[gonzo90017]

I would start by lowering your resolution from 32bit to 16bit.

[moonchilddave]

Oddly enough, when I lowered my screen resolution to 16 bit it got choppy again - also when I ran it from the command line with -verbose in 16 bit, MAME said that 800x600 @ 32 bit was the optimum... and it seems to be right.

[Minwah]

You were correct about me having resolution set to "auto", however - specifying the resolution in the galaga88.ini file made no difference that I could tell.  Got me to thinking... When I start up Mamewah, I have it kick off Ambience as well.  So I commented out the ambience startup and gave it a shot... full speed.  So apparently the bottleneck was Ambience - damn!!!

What is Ambience?

[Minwah]

Oddly enough, when I lowered my screen resolution to 16 bit it got choppy again - also when I ran it from the command line with -verbose in 16 bit, MAME said that 800x600 @ 32 bit was the optimum... and it seems to be right.

I would probably try 640x480 -hwstretch. Most games run well with that setup.

[zorrobandito]

I would probably try 640x480 -hwstretch. Most games run well with that setup.

I heartily concur, this resolution / FX combo seems to allow MAME to choose the best format for both the original rom and the current hardware (PC & monitor). I've switched games to native resolutions and I can barely tell the difference!

[moonchilddave]

What is Ambience?

Ambience is basically a small MP3 player that runs in the system tray (written by ShanMan)... Pretty cool little utility.  I kick it off with a bat file if that makes a difference:

startup_app_commandlines     c:\ambience\startambience.bat
exit_app_commandlines          c:\ambience\stopambience.bat

I'm running it from a bat file as this allows me to delay it's startup by 20 seconds so it allows my startup video to finish playing before it kicks in... and the other bat file kills it off when I quit Mamewah.  It works for me - unless there is an easier way to have it delayed start and then quit with Mamewah.

I'll give 640x40 and hwstretech a shot and see how that works out.  Should I just specify that in my mame.ini or switch my desktop, mamewah, and mame to all run 640x480?  BTW, I'm running this all on a 21" Dell UltraScan P1110 monitor (Sony Trinitron).

[moonchilddave]

Also, I know you've probably heard it a thousand times... but I just have to say... Minwah - awesome front end my friend!!!  Runs great and I love how much you can tweak it to your own liking.  The game specific ini files are a godsend, as I can now run Dragon's Lair and Space Ace with all my other games transparently without having to switch to a Daphne screen!!!

[Minwah]

Ambience is basically a small MP3 player that runs in the system tray (written by ShanMan)... Pretty cool little utility.  I kick it off with a bat file if that makes a difference:

startup_app_commandlines     c:\ambience\startambience.bat
exit_app_commandlines          c:\ambience\stopambience.bat

OK yes, sorry I had heard of it but forgot what it was called. Well this makes sense then as MP3's take some CPU to play, so if this is running in the background it will slow Mame down.

I'll give 640x40 and hwstretech a shot and see how that works out.  Should I just specify that in my mame.ini or switch my desktop, mamewah, and mame to all run 640x480?  BTW, I'm running this all on a 21" Dell UltraScan P1110 monitor (Sony Trinitron).

Just in your (Mame) mame.ini should be enough for testing this out. I'd recommend set everything to 640x480 if you decide you like it...

[Minwah]

Also, I know you've probably heard it a thousand times... but I just have to say... Minwah - awesome front end my friend!!!  Runs great and I love how much you can tweak it to your own liking.  The game specific ini files are a godsend, as I can now run Dragon's Lair and Space Ace with all my other games transparently without having to switch to a Daphne screen!!!

Thank you, it's nice to hear it's still appreciated nearly 8 years down the line (doesn't time fly...)

[moonchilddave]

I didn't see any real noticable difference between 640x480 and 800x600 in terms of performance (and I had been running -hwstretch all along).  I may try dropping back to an even earlier version of MAME for the few games I have issues with and see if that will help and still allow me to keep ambience running in the background.

Of course these issues may go away completely when I finally have everything set up and take the machine off the network (as I'm running Symantec Endpoint Protection on it right now).  Eventually the fix may be a faster/better motherboard/CPU, but this thing seems to work fine for like 95% of things I want on it.