Any ideas (part 2) ...

[SteveMAME]

Hiya,

I've noticed that quite a few vertical games are unplayable via GameEx - either the screen rolls, or the top/bottom halves of the screen are swapped over. However, when I tried loading the same games directly via MAME32, they were fine.

Has anyone else had this problem - do I have a setting wrong ... ?

(I'm using an ArcadeVGA, J-Pac, and 15hz arcade monitor).

Thanks :-)

Steve

[Brian Hoffman]

Hiya,

I've noticed that quite a few vertical games are unplayable via GameEx - either the screen rolls, or the top/bottom halves of the screen are swapped over. However, when I tried loading the same games directly via MAME32, they were fine.

Has anyone else had this problem - do I have a setting wrong ... ?

(I'm using an ArcadeVGA, J-Pac, and 15hz arcade monitor).

Thanks :-)

Steve

I've never used that setup exactly however it sounds like a screen resoulution issue.. Have you tried tweaking the setting in the ARCADEVGA portion config in Gameex?

[SteveMAME]

I've never used that setup exactly however it sounds like a screen resoulution issue.. Have you tried tweaking the setting in the ARCADEVGA portion config in Gameex?

Hiya Brian,

Thanks very much for your suggestion - much appreciated :-)

I had tried messing around with the ArcadeVGA settings in the GameEx configuration menu, but no luck. HOWEVER, I stumbled across the following, which might help a bit ...

Until today, I found that if I set my ArcadeVGA to 640x480 resolution, the screen was fine, but at 800x600 it would 'roll'. Obviously, you can stop the roll by adjusting the V-Hold dial at the back of the arcade monitor, but I ASSUMED that if I changed it to stop the 800x600 resolution rolling, then the 640x480 would then start rolling. Yet, interestingly, when I adjusted the dial, I found a position where both different resolutions are now fine (despite the two resolutions presumably being different frequencies - because one had previously rolled while the other was stable). Hence, I'm now wondering whether if I now go into some of the games that had rolled, they might now be ok.

However, this still doesn't solve the problem of some games being unplayable due to the top-bottom halves being swapped. ALSO, since yesterday, I've found that some of the games that had previously been playing at full-screen, now only play in a small part of the screen in the middle - this only seems to affect a minority of games, but it's very annoying because it affects my favourite one!!! I definitely did NOT change any settings between yesterday and the day before, so I've no idea why some games (but not all) have now started playing on only a fraction of the screen. Very confusing, and frustrating!

Cheers :-)

Steve

[Brian Hoffman]

Hiya Brian,

Thanks very much for your suggestion - much appreciated :-)

I had tried messing around with the ArcadeVGA settings in the GameEx configuration menu, but no luck. HOWEVER, I stumbled across the following, which might help a bit ...

Until today, I found that if I set my ArcadeVGA to 640x480 resolution, the screen was fine, but at 800x600 it would 'roll'. Obviously, you can stop the roll by adjusting the V-Hold dial at the back of the arcade monitor, but I ASSUMED that if I changed it to stop the 800x600 resolution rolling, then the 640x480 would then start rolling. Yet, interestingly, when I adjusted the dial, I found a position where both different resolutions are now fine (despite the two resolutions presumably being different frequencies - because one had previously rolled while the other was stable). Hence, I'm now wondering whether if I now go into some of the games that had rolled, they might now be ok.

However, this still doesn't solve the problem of some games being unplayable due to the top-bottom halves being swapped. ALSO, since yesterday, I've found that some of the games that had previously been playing at full-screen, now only play in a small part of the screen in the middle - this only seems to affect a minority of games, but it's very annoying because it affects my favourite one!!! I definitely did NOT change any settings between yesterday and the day before, so I've no idea why some games (but not all) have now started playing on only a fraction of the screen. Very confusing, and frustrating!

Cheers :-)

Steve

It sound like you got good idea on how to fix the issue at hand. I know mame has alot of diffrent command line option for aspect ratio and resolution.

Using the program

-----------------

mame [name of the game to run] [options]

For example:

mame robby -nosound

...will run Robby Roto without sound

Configuration options

---------------------

-createconfig / -cc

Creates the default MAME.INI file. All the following configuration

options can be permanently changed by editing this configuration file.

-showconfig / -sc

Displays the current configuration settings. If you route this to a

file, you can use it as an INI file. For example, the command:

mame -showconfig >mame.ini

is equivalent to -createconfig.

-showusage / -su

Displays a summary of all the command line options. For options that

are not mentioned here, the short summary given by "mame -showusage" is

usually sufficient.

-[no]readconfig / -[no]rc

Enables or disables the reading of the config files. When enabled

(which is the default), MAME reads the following config files in order:

- MAME.INI

- $MY_MAME.INI (i.e. if MAME was renamed MAME060.EXE, MAME

parses MAME060.INI here)

- MAMED.INI (if this is a debug build, i.e. MAMED.EXE)

- VECTOR.INI (for vector games only)

- DRIVER.INI (based on the source filename of the driver)

- PARENT.INI (for clones only, may be called recursively)

- GAMENAME.INI

The settings in the later ini's override those in the earlier ini's.

So, for example, if you wanted to disable hardware stretch in the

vector games, you can create a VECTOR.INI with the "hwstretch 0" line

in it, and it will override whatever hwstretch value you have in your

MAME.INI.

-[no]verbose / -[no]v

Displays some diagnostic information at startup. IMPORTANT: when

reporting bugs, please run with mame -verbose and include the resulting

information. It can be very helpful in tracking down problems. The

default is off (-noverbose)

Windows path and directory options

----------------------------------

IMPORTANT: Please use the path, directory and file options ONLY in MAME.INI.

Otherwise, the outcome may be unpredictable and not consistent across releases.

-rompath / -rp

You can give a path (list of directories seperated by semicolons) of

directories to be searched for roms. The default is ROMS (that is, a

directory "roms" in the current directory).

-samplepath / -sp

You can give a path (list of directories seperated by semicolons) of

directories to be searched for samples. The default is SAMPLES (that

is, a directory "samples" in the current directory).

-inipath

You can give a path (list of directories seperated by semicolons) of

directories to be searched for INI-files. The default is .;ini (that

is, search in the current directory first, and then in the directory

"ini" in the current directory).

-cfg_directory

After running a game, MAME stores some user changeable settings into

cfg_directory/gamename.cfg. Additionally, on the first start of MAME a

cfg_directory/default.cfg is created. The default is CFG.

-nvram_directory

The original hardware of some games use non-volative ram chips to save

their configuration. The contents of these are saved into this

directory. The default is NVRAM.

-memcard_directory

The original hardware of some games supports so-called memory cards.

The contents of these are stored here. The default is MEMCARD.

-input_directory

Input recordings created by "-record" will be saved here and loaded by

"-playback". The default is INP.

-hiscore_directory

If there exists a file HISCORE.DAT in the MAME directory, highscores

may also be saved for games that do not have the original hardware to

support this. The quality of this feature depends on the accuracy of

the externally available file HISCORE.DAT. The default is HI.

-state_directory

MAME supports state saving for some games. These states will be saved

here. The default is STATE.

-artwork_directory

Some games used extra artwork not created by electical circuits. MAME

supports such artwork in PNG image format, located in this directory.

The default is ARTWORK.

-snapshot_directory

Screenshots will go here. The default is SNAP.

-diff_directory

Directory for hard drive image difference files. The default is DIFF.

-ctrlr_directory

This directory holds controller-specific input port mapping .ini files.

The default is CTRLR.

-cheat_file

The default is CHEAT.DAT. Modifying the default may not work at the

moment.

Windows video options

---------------------

-[no]autoframeskip / -[no]afs

Automatically determines the frameskip level while you're playing the

game, adjusting it constantly in a frantic attempt to keep the game

running at full speed. Turning this on overrides the value you have set

for -frameskip above. The default is ON (-autoframeskip).

-frameskip / -fs

Specifies the frameskip value. This is the number of frames out of

every 12 to drop when running. For example, if you say -frameskip 2,

then MAME will display 10 out of every 12 frames. By skipping those

frames, you may be able to get full speed in a game that requires more

horsepower than your computer has. The default value is -frameskip 0,

which skips no frames.

-[no]waitvsync

Waits for the refresh period on your computer's monitor to finish

before starting to draw video to your screen. If this option is off,

MAME will just draw to the screen at any old time, even in the middle

of a refresh cycle. This can cause "tearing" artifacts, where the top

portion of the screen is out of sync with the bottom portion. Tearing

is not noticeable on all games, and some people hate it more than

others. However, if you turn this option on, you will waste more of

your CPU cycles waiting for the proper time to draw, so you will see a

performance hit. The default is OFF (-nowaitvsync). This option

requires -ddraw.

-[no]triplebuffer / -[no]tb

Enables or disables "triple buffering". Normally, MAME just draws

directly to the screen, without any fancy buffering. But with this

option enabled, MAME creates three buffers to draw to, and cycles

between them in order. It attempts to keep things flowing such that one

buffer is currently displayed, the second buffer is waiting to be

displayed, and the third buffer is being drawn to. Unfortunately, due

to some DirectDraw issues, this doesn't always work out as well as it

should. This is still being investigated. The default is OFF

(-notriplebuffer). This option required -ddraw and -nowindow.

-[no]window

Run MAME in either a window or full screen. The default is OFF

(-nowindow).

-[no]ddraw / -[no]dd

This is really just for testing. It disables the use of DirectDraw,

which removes a lot of the features of the video system (-triplebuffer,

-waitvsync, -resolution, -refresh, -switchres, -switchbpp, -resolution,

-hwstretch all won't work). It will generally run really slowly. If

anyone has a legitimate use for this option, we'd be curious to know.

The default is ON (-ddraw).

-[no]direct3d / -[no]d3d

Use Direct3D to display the image. This does not render 3D games using

3D hardware, it just uses 3D hardware to display the image, and apply

effects to it. -triplebuffer, -waitvsync, -resolution, -refresh,

-switchres, -switchbpp, -resolution all work with this option. This

option overrides -ddraw and implies -hwstretch. The default is OFF

(-nodirect3d).

-[no]hwstretch / -[no]hws

MAME uses the hardware stretching abilities of modern graphic cards to

scale the game image to the requested resolution. Depending on the

quality of your graphic card and its drivers, this may be a fractional,

antialiased scaling (nice) or an integer, blocky scaling (not so nice).

In any case, you can disable this stretching altogether and let MAME do

the scaling in software, which is probably slower, though. The default

is ON (-hwstretch). Note: Vector games may actually look better with

"-nohws".

-cleanstretch [option] / -cs [option]

Stretch the image to integer ratios only. This may leave a black border

around the image in fullscreen mode. The options are:

none disable. This will cause artifacts when using

scanlines.

auto let the blitter decide. The d3d module will select

the best option.

full always stretch to integer ratios both horizontally

and vertically.

horizontal always stretch to integer ratios horizontally.

vertical always stretch to integer ratios vertically.

The default is AUTO (-cleanstretch auto). This option requires -ddraw

or -direct3d.

-resolution wxh[xd] / -r wxh[xd]

Specifies an exact resolution to run in. In full screen mode, MAME will

try to use the specific resolution you request. The width (w) and

height (h) are required; the color depth (d) is optional. If omitted or

set to 0, MAME will determine the mode auomatically. For example,

-resolution 640x480 will force 640x480 resolution, but MAME is free to

choose the color depth. Similarly, -resolution 0x0x32 will force 32-bit

color depth, but allows MAME to choose the resolution. The string

"auto" is also supported, and is equivalent to 0x0x0. In window mode,

this resolution is used as a maximum size for the window. The default

is auto (-resolution auto). This option requires -ddraw for full screen

resolution switching.

-refresh

Specifies a particular refresh rate to set your monitor to. If the

refresh rate is not found, or if this parameter is 0, the default

DirectDraw refresh rate is used. The default is -refresh 0. This option

requires -ddraw and -nowindow.

-[no]scanlines / -[no]sl

Enables the classic MAME "scanlines" effect. The default is OFF

(-noscanlines). This option requires -nohwstretch.

-[no]switchres

Enables resolution switching. This option is required for the

-resolution option to switch resolutions in full screen mode. On many

modern video cards with hardware stretching support, there is little

performance penalty at higher resolutions, so it is nice to be able to

get rid of the monitor resync time when you run in full screen mode.

This is also useful on LCD displays with a fixed resolution. The

default is ON (-switchres). This option requires -ddraw.

-[no]switchbpp

Enables color depth switching. This option is required for the

-resolution option to switch color depths in full screen mode. This

option is useful if you normally run at 16, 24, or 32 bit color depth

on your desktop, and want to keep that color depth when you run MAME.

The default is ON (-switchbpp). This option requires -ddraw.

-[no]maximize / -[no]max

Controls initial window size in windowed mode. If it is set on, the

window will initially stretch to the maximum supported size when you

start MAME. If it is turned off, the window will start out at the

smallest supported size. The default is ON (-maximize). This option

requires -window.

-[no]keepaspect / -[no]ka

Enables aspect ratio enforcement. When this option is on, the game's

proper aspect ratio (generally 4:3 or 3:4) is enforced, so you get the

game looking like it should. When running in a window with this option

on, you can only resize the window to the proper aspect ratio, unless

you are holding down the CONTROL key. By turning the option off, the

aspect ratio is allowed to float. In full screen mode, this means that

all games will stretch to the full screen size (even vertical games).

In window mode, it means that you can freely resize the window without

any constraints. The default is ON (-keepaspect).

-[no]matchrefresh

Enables refresh rate matching. When enabled, MAME will try to find the

closest refresh rate match that is greater than the game's refresh

rate. For example, if the game runs at 57fps, and you have 60, 70, 75Hz

refresh rates, MAME will choose 60Hz. If the game runs at 61fps, then

it will choose 70Hz. This is intended mainly for those who have tweaked

their video card's settings to provide carefully matched refresh rate

options. The default is OFF (-nomatchrefresh). This option requires

-ddraw and -nowindow.

-[no]syncrefresh

Enables speed throttling only to the refresh of your monitor. This

means that the game's actual refresh rate is ignored; however, the

sound code still attempts to keep up with the game's original refresh

rate, so you may encounter sound problems. Again, this is intended

mainly for those who have tweaked their video card's settings to

provide carefully matched refresh rate options. The default is OFF

(-nosyncrefresh). This option requires -ddraw.

-[no]throttle

Configures the default thottling setting. When throttling is on, MAME

attempts to keep the game running at the game's intended speed. When

throttling is off, MAME runs the game as fast as it can. The default is

ON (-throttle).

-full_screen_brightness / -fsb

Some video cards adjust the brightness/gamma when they switch into full

screen mode. To counteract this, you can specify the

-full_screen_brightness value, which is a number between 0.1 and 2. 0.1

means 1/10th as bright as the default, and 2 means twice as bright.

Note that the hardware support for this option is not present on all

video cards. If you set a non-zero value, you may get a warning if MAME

was unable to set the brightness on your card. The default is 0, which

means that MAME will not attempt to adjust the brightness on your video

card at all. This option requires -ddraw and -nowindow.

-frames_to_run / -ftr

This option can be used for benchmarking. It tells MAME to stop

execution after a fixed number of frames. By combining this with a

fixed set of other command line options, you can set up a consistent

environment for benchmarking MAME performance.

-effect

Apply various blitting effects to emulate the look of Arcade monitors.

Using these modes comes at the cost of reduced emulation speed, which

is inherent to these modes. The current implementation is already as

fast as possible, using self-modifying assembly code. For some of

these, MMX is required. Possible values:

none no effect (this is the default)

sharp no effect, but gives a sharper image

scan25 25% scanlines

scan50 50% scanlines

scan75 75% scanlines

scan75v 75% scanlines (vertical)

rgb3 a certain "monitor mask"

rgb4 another one

rgb4v another one (vertical)

rgb6 another one

rgb16 another one

rgbtiny another one. Choose the one you like best.

-screen_aspect

Give a screen aspect ration in the form X:Y where X is the horizontal

and Y the vertical part. Examples are 4:3 for most resolution settings

on computer monitors, 5:4 for the 1280x1024 resolution or 3:4 for

turnable LCD's in the turned position. The default is 4:3.

Windows video options (Direct3D)

--------------------------------

-zoom [z] / -z [z]

Try to get a resolution that enlarges the emulated game z times. The

default is -zoom 2. MAME determines the resolution automatically. This

option only works with -direct3d.

-[no]d3dtexmanage

Let Direct3D handle conversion of the image to a texture (required to

display it with Direct3D). This is more compatible, but can be

(significantly) slower on some hardware. The default is ON

(-d3dtexmanage). Using -nod3dtexmanage can eliminate a loss of

performance that may occur with some graphics cards when using

-direct3d. This option requires -direct3d.

-d3dfilter [f] / -flt [f]

Select the type of filtering to apply to the image when stretching. 0

is point filtering, 1 is bi-linear filtering, 2 is bi-cubic filtering

(flat kernel), 3 is bi-cubic filtering gaussian kernel), 4 is

anisotropic filtering. Note that very few graphics cards support

bi-cubic filtering, and that older graphics cards may not support

anisotropic filtering. The default is bi-linear filtering (-d3dfilter

1). This option requires -direct3d.

-d3dfeedback

Select the feedback effect intensity in percentages. 0 is disable,

higher values feed back the previous frame to the current one at the

specified intensity. The default is DISABLE (-d3dfeedback 0). This

option requires -direct3d.

-d3dscan

Select the scanline effect intensity in percentages. 0 is black lines

between scanlines, 100 is disable scanline effect. The default is

DISABLE (-d3dscan 100). This option requires -direct3d.

-[no]d3deffectrotate

Apply rotatation so that any effects are rotated along with the game

image. The default is ON. This option requires -direct3d.

-d3dprescale [option]

Pre-scale up the image with point filtering before fitting the image to

the screen. This gives an only slightly fuzzy image even at high

display resolutions. The options are:

none disable.

auto adaptively apply a moderate pre-scale effect,

depending on other efects used.

full adaptively apply an agressive pre-scale effect.

n (where 2 <= n <= 4) pre-scale the image n times.

The default is AUTO (-d3dprescale auto). This option requires

-direct3d.

-d3deffect [preset]

Select an effect preset. Valid presets are:

none no effect (this is the default)

sharp no effect, but gives a sharper image

scan25 25% scanlines

scan50 50% scanlines

scan75 75% scanlines

scan75v 75% scanlines (vertical)

rgbmicro a certain "monitor mask"

rgbtiny another one

rgb3 another one

rgb4 another one

rgb4v another one (vertical)

rgb6 another one

rgb16 another one

rgbminmask another one

dotmedmask another one

rgbmedmask another one

dotmedbright another one (extra bright)

rgbmaxbright another one (extra bright)

aperturegrille another one. Choose the one you like best.

auto adaptively selects a special preset based on

zoom level.

The default is none (-d3deffect none). This option requires -direct3d.

-d3dcustom [custom preset]

Supply a custom preset. The format is <-d3dcustom

1,0,0x0100,0xC0,0,0,0,0x22,-1,8x8_mame_rgbtiny.rgb>. The meaning

of the mumbers is:

1 RGB effects mode: 0 is off, 1 is multiply mode, 2

is add and multiply mode.

2,3,4,5 pattern preprocessing; use mask, white level, black

level, desaturation, respectively.

6 image attenuation

7 feedback (0 is don't use)

8 prescale. bit 4: prescale horizontally, bit 0:

prescale vertically.

9 maximum scanline intensity.

10 pattern filename, including path.

The filename must start with XxY, where X and Y are the dimensions of

the pattern in pixels. Each pixel is represented by 4 bytes, red,

green, blue, and mask, respectively. mask is an on/off value, where 0

is off. This option requires -direct3d.

-d3dexpert [settings]

Undocumented settings intended mostly for developers. This option

requires -direct3d.

Windows misc options

--------------------

-[no]sleep

Since MAME is running in a multitasking environment, it should be nice

to its fellow processes. Therefore, if MAME does not need all

processing power to emulate a game, it gives back already granted

processor time to the operating system. This may not work in every

case, so it can be disabled and MAME turned once again into a CPU hog.

The default is ON (-sleep).

-[no]rdtsc

Prefer RDTSC over QueryPerformanceCounter for timing. The default is

OFF (-nordtsc). -rdtsc sometimes causes problems on laptops, and

-nordtsc may cause problems on desktop computers. If MAME does not

operate smoothly (and you are sure you have enough CPU power for

the emulation), try toggling this.

-[no]high_priority

Increases the thread priority so MAME runs better. The default is OFF

(-nohigh_priority).

Windows sound options

---------------------

-audio_latency

This controls the amount of latency built into the audio streaming. By

default MAME tries to keep the DirectSound audio buffer between 1/5 and

2/5 full. On some systems, this is pushing it too close to the edge,

and you get poor sound sometimes. The latency parameter controls the

lower threshold. The default is 1 (meaning lower=1/5 and upper=2/5).

Set it to 2 (-audio_latency 2) to keep the sound buffer between 2/5 and

3/5 full. If you crank it up to 4, you can definitely notice the lag.

-wavwrite

Writes the final mixer output to the given in .WAV format.

Input device options

--------------------

-[no]mouse

Controls whether or not MAME looks for a mouse controller to use. When

this is enabled, you will not be able to use your mouse in Windows

while playing a game. If you want to get control of your computer back,

you will need to pause the game, or quit. The default is OFF

(-nomouse).

-[no]joystick / -[no]joy

Controls whether or not MAME looks for joystick/gamepad controllers.

When this is enabled, MAME will ask DirectInput about which controllers

are connected. The default is OFF (-nojoystick).

-[no]lightgun/ -[no]gun

Controls whether or not MAME treats mouse inputs as lightgun inputs.

Note that most lightguns map to the mouse, so using -lightgun and

-mouse together may produce strange results. The default is OFF

(-nolightgun).

-[no]dual_lightgun / -[no]dual

Controls whether or not MAME attempts to track two lightguns connected

at the same time. This option requires -lightgun. The default is OFF

(-nodual_lightgun).

-[no]offscreen_reload / -[no]reload

Controls whether or not MAME treats a second button input from a

lightgun as a reload signal. In this case, MAME will report the gun's

position as (0,0) with the trigger held, which is equivalent to an

offscreen reload. The default is OFF (-nooffscreen_reload).

-[no]steadykey / -[no]steady

Some games require two or more buttons to be pressed at exactly the

same time to make special moves. Due to limitations in the PC keyboard

hardware, it can be difficult or even impossible to accomplish that

using the standard keyboard handling. This option selects a different

handling that makes it easier to register simultaneous button presses,

but has the disadvantage of making controls less responsive. The

default is OFF (-nosteadykey)

-[no]keyboard_leds / -[no]leds

Since MAME uses an input device (keyboard) for output, this sort of

belongs here. Using this option enables/disables simulation of the game

LEDs by the keyboard LEDs. This works fine, but can lead to problems

after exiting MAME (i.e. CAPS LOCK remains ON), so you can disable it

here. The default is ON (-keyboard_leds).

-led_mode

For Windows NT and later systems, determines how LEDs on the keyboard

are controlled. In PS/2 mode, MAME uses the low-level keyboard driver

directly to control the LEDs. In USB mode, MAME attempts to post fake

keypresses on the Caps Lock, Scroll Lock, and Num Lock keys in order to

induce the LEDs to change. If you have a PS/2 keyboard, PS/2 mode is the

more reliable approach. Default is PS/2.

-a2d_deadzone / -a2d

If you play with an analog joystick, but the game requires digital

input, MAME needs to convert the signals. Here you can give the ratio

of movement along an axis that accounts for a digital signal. This

option expects a float in the range of 0.0 to 1.0. The default is 0.3.

Note: the current handling is not precise, as it does also implicitely

set the size of the arc which is interpreted as diagonal movement. This

is a known problem but it requires some major rework of the input

handling code to fix it.

-ctrlr

Enables support for special controllers. Configuration files are

provided for:

hotrod HotRod

hotrodse HotRod SE

slikstik SlikStik

xarcade X-Arcade

-paddle_device / -paddle

-adstick_device / -adstick

-pedal_device / -pedal

-dial_device / -dial

-trackball_device / -trackball

-lightgun_device

Each of these options controls autoenabling the mouse, joystick, or

lightgun depending on the presence of a particular class of analog

control for a particular game. For example, if you specify the option

-paddle mouse, then any game that has a paddle control will automatically

enable mouse controls just as if you had explicitly specified -mouse.

Note that these controls override the values of -[no]mouse, -[no]joystick,

etc.

-digital [a[a...]][,j[a...]][,...]>

Controls which joystick axes are considered digital. If MAME knows that

a given joystick axis is digital, it can make much better decisions about

how to treat that axis. If you are using a digital gamepad with MAME,

you will want to use this option. There are a number of ways to do this:

-digital all means that all axes of all connected joysticks will be

treated as digital.

-digital none means that all axes of all connected joysticks will be

treated as analog (this is the default behavior).

-digital j2 will treat all axes of joystick #2 as digital; axes on all

other joysticks will be treated as analog.

-digital j1a0a1 will treat axis 0 and 1 on joystick #1 as digital; all

other axes will be treated as analog.

-digital j1a0a1,j2a5 will treat axis 0 and 1 on joystick #1 as digital,

as well as axis 5 on joystick #2; all other axes will be treated

as analog.

Make use of the information provided by -verbose to determine which

joysticks and axes you should be configuring this way.

MAME core video options

-----------------------

-[no]norotate

-[no]ror

-[no]rol

-[no]autoror

-[no]autorol

-[no]flipx

-[no]flipy

These are the standard MAME rotation options. They are all OFF by

default.

-gamma

This controls the global gamma correction in the game. It is the same

gamma that is applied when you bring up the on-screen-display within

MAME. The default is 1.0.

-brightness / -bright

This controls the global brightness correction in the game. It is the

same brightness that is applied when you bring up the on-screen-display

within MAME. The default is 1.0.

-pause_brightness

This controls the brightness level when MAME is paused. The default

value is 0.65.

MAME core vector options

------------------------

-[no]antialias / -[no]aa

Antialiasing for vector games. The default is ON (-antialias).

-[no]translucency / -[no]tl

Enables or disables vector translucency. Colors of crossing vector

beams will be merged. The default is ON (-translucency).

-beam

Sets the width in pixels of the vectors. This option expects a float in

the range of 1.00 through 16.00 as argument. The default is 1 (1 pixel

wide).

-flicker

Makes the vectors flicker. This option requires a float argument in the

range of 0.00 - 100.00 (0=none, 100=maximum). The default is 0.

-intensity

Sets the intensity correction for the beam. Higher values give a

brighter beam. This option expects a float in the range of 0.5 through

3.0 as argument. The default is 1.5.

MAME core sound options

-----------------------

-samplerate / -sr

Sets the audio sample rate. Smaller values (e.g. 11025) cause lower

audio quality but faster emulation speed. Higher values (e.g. 44100)

cause higher audio quality but slower emulation speed. The default is

44100.

-[no]samples

Use samples if available. The default is ON (-samples).

-[no]sound

Enable or disable sound altogether. The default is ON (-sound).

-volume / -vol

Sets the startup volume. It can later be changed with the On Screen

Display (see Keys section). The volume is an attenuation in dB: e.g.,

"-volume -12" will start with -12dB attenuation. The default is 0.

MAME core misc options

----------------------

-[no]artwork / -[no]art

Enable or disable usage of additional artwork (backdrops, overlays,

etc.). The default is ON (-artwork).

-[no]use_backdrops / -[no]backdrop

Enables/disables the display of backdrops. The default is ON

(-use_backdrops).

-[no]use_overlays / -[no]overlay

Enables/disables the display of overlays. The default is ON

(-use_overlays).

-[no]use_bezels / -[no]bezel

Enables/disables the display of bezels. The default is ON

(-use_bezels).

-[no]artwork_crop / -[no]artcrop

This will crop the artwork to the game screen area only. The default is

OFF (-noartwork_crop).

-artwork_resolution / -artres

Scale the game by this factor to accommodate for higher resolution

artwork. The default is 0 (auto).

-[no]cheat / -[no]c

Cheats, like the speedup in Pac Man or the level-skip in many other

games, are disabled by default. Use this switch to turn them on. The

default is OFF (-nocheat).

-[no]debug

Activates the integrated debugger. During emulation, press the tilde

key (~) to activate the debugger. This is available only if the program

is compiled with MAME_DEBUG defined. The default is OFF (-nodebug).

-playback / -pb

Expects a filename as parameter. Play back all game inputs from from

file INP/filename.inp. The gamename is contained in this file,

therefore a gamename needs not be given on the commandline.

-record / -rec

Expects a filename as parameter. All game inputs are written to the

file INP/filename.inp.

-[no]log

Creates a log of illegal memory accesses in ERROR.LOG. The default is

OFF (-nolog).

-[no]oslog

Outputs error.log data to the Windows debugger instead of to a file.

Default is OFF (-nooslog).

-[no]skip_disclaimer

Forces MAME to skip displaying the disclaimer screen. The default is

OFF (-noskip_disclaimer).

-[no]skip_gameinfo

Forces MAME to skip displaying the game info screen. The default is OFF

(-noskip_gameinfo).

-bios

Expects a BIOS name as the parameter. -listxml will list the possible

BIOS names for a game/system.

-state

Starts MAME and loads a saved state immediately from the specified slot.

Other MAME frontend options

----------------------------

Note: By default, all the '-list' commands below write info to the screen. If

you wish to write the info to a textfile instead, add this to the end of your

command:

> filename

...where 'filename' is the textfile's path and name (e.g., c:\mame\list.txt).

-help / -?

Displays current MAME version and copyright notice

-listxml / -lx

List comprehensive details for all of the supported games. The output

is quite long, so better redirect this into a file. The output is in

XML format.

-listfull / -ll

Displays a list of game directory names + descriptions.

-listsource / -ls

Displays the source file (in the drivers directory) containing the

driver for the specified game. Useful for finding which driver a game

runs on in order to fix bugs.

-listclones / -lc

Lists clones of the specified game. When no game is specified, this

generates a list of all MAME-supported clones.

-listcrc

List CRC32 checksums of rom files

-listroms

Displays ROMs required by the specified game.

-listsamples

Displays samples required by the specified game.

-verifyroms

Checks specified game(s) for missing and invalid ROMs. Adding "*"

checks all available games.

-verifysamples

Check selected game for missing samples. Adding "*" checks all

available samples.

-romident

Attempts to identify ROM files, if they are known to MAME, in the

specified .zip file. Can be used to try and identify ROM sets taken

from unknown boards.

-isknown

Very terse romident.

Keys

----

Tab Toggles the configuration menu

Tilde Toggles the On Screen Display. Use the up and down arrow keys to

select the parameter (global volume, mixing level, gamma

correction etc.), left and right to arrow keys to modify it.

P Pauses the game

Shift+P While paused, advances to next frame

F1 Toggle crosshairs for games that use them

F2 Service Mode

F3 Resets the game

F4 Shows the game palette, decoded GFX, and any tilemaps

Cursor left/right changes between palette, GFX and tilemaps

Cursor up/down cycle through valid palettes

Page up/down scroll through the palette and GFX

Page up/down, D, G scroll the tilemap display

Ctrl & Shift are modifiers to change movement speed.

F4 or Esc returns to the emulation.

Note: Not all games have decoded graphics and/or tilemaps.

F6 Toggle cheat mode (if started with "-cheat")

F7 Load a 'Save State'. You will be requested to press a key to

determine which Save State you wish to load. Note that the 'Save

State' feature is for developing drivers and not intended for

users. It is incomplete and works only on a number of drivers. Use

at own risk.

Shift+F7 Create a 'Save State'. Requires an additional keypress to identify

the state.

F8 Decrease frame skip on the fly

F9 Increase frame skip on the fly

F10 Toggles speed throttling

F11 Toggles speed display

Shift+F11 Toggles profiler display (debug builds only)

F12 Saves a screen snapshot. The default target directory is SNAP.

ESC Exits emulator

GOOD LUCK

Brian Hoffman

[SteveMAME]

Wow - thanks a million Brian - that's really helpful ... !!!

I didn't have a clue about changing the Mame configuration file (or even creating one), and the guide you've provided me with looks extremely useful - will definitely go through it in more detail - thanks very much :-)

I still think it's very strange that some games (e.g. Mars Matrix) play fine (i.e. full screen) when directly loaded through Mame32, but only use part of the screen (approx 1/4 of surface area) when played through GameEx. Before I try changing the Mame32 configuration, I'm going to mess around a bit more with the GameEx configuration, because the nature of th problem suggests it's more likely to be caused by the latter rather than the former. I found a post on this forum from a while ago where someone with an ArcadeVGA card said that they got better results when they turned the GameEx UseArcadeVGA setting OFF (!), which sounds weird, but I'm going to give it a try as soon as I get back home.

Anyway, thanks again for all your help - really appreciated

Steve

[Will]

I don't use GameEx (trying to get it working actually), but MAME32 "rolls" my screen sometimes as well. Since I changed it to use a specific resolution, refresh, and color depth no matter the game, and stretch the game to match, I have not had this problem. Choose a video settings set that you know works, and try that.

Will

[SteveMAME]

I don't use GameEx (trying to get it working actually), but MAME32 "rolls" my screen sometimes as well. Since I changed it to use a specific resolution, refresh, and color depth no matter the game, and stretch the game to match, I have not had this problem. Choose a video settings set that you know works, and try that.

Will

Cheers for the suggestion Will :-)

Everything sorted itself out today - although I'm using an ArcadeVGA, I switched the "UseArcadeVGA" option to NO, and now everything is fine - weird but true!

Glad you sorted your rolling problem out. Don't know whether you saw my earlier post, but I was having problems with some games being fine but others rolling. Turned out that the vertical hold dial on my arcade monitor seems to relate to a RANGE of frequencies. This might be technical bull, but the analogy I imagine is (all figures made up for illustration sake) that some games are 50hz, others are 60hz, and my monitor dial previously related to the range 60hz-70hz and hence some games were fine and others rolled. Yet, when I adjusted the dial, it changed to cover the range 50hz-60hz and so now all games are fine. (Whereas, previously I thought the dial would only relate to one single frequency, so I initially was reluctant to try adjusting it because I thought that by changing it to correct the rolling games would automatically make it incorrect for the good games).

Also, I found that telling GameEx NOT to change resolution sorted out problems with GameEx rolling.

Cheers :-)

Steve