Re: Crash course in AdvanceMAME, please!

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: You're off to a good start. I haven't time to write much but here's a quickie... : Drop the old beta 3 build & get the latest one. 37b9 right now. It has a newer mv which is easier to configure modes. : OK, now what you REALLY want to do is create custom VBE modes. Trust me! Using mv: : -highlight a vbe mode, say for example 320x240. : -hit f6 to grab that mode and make a copy of it : -scroll to the new grabbed mode and enter : -experiment now with the various functions : Try to make a 240x256 vertical mode: : -use Q & A with SHIFT to change the dot resolution : -use arrows & E, D to properly center the mode : -use arrows and SHIFT to properly size it : -use x to try applying doublescan : -use other controls etc. : Try to learn what each control does. Your goal is to create the mode visually and get the required scan rate - let's say 60Hz for example. : Results and behavior can differ depending upon your hardware so keep trying. : Once you get the mode you like hit ENTER. Now hit spacebar to activate it. Then hit TAB give the mode a name, like V_240x256_60 for example. Now hit escape and Y to save the new mode. : That mode should now work in AdvMAME. :) You can then go make as many new modes as you like. I LITERALLY have over 70 modes, with EVERY game perfectly full screen, correct aspect ratio and scan rates. And I NEVER, and I mean NEVER, need to adjust my monitor size controls because every mode is centered & sized! And we've only used a small part of AdvMAME's features. :) : -P- : : I figured some of this out as I wrote it, but I still have questions. : : As my previous post mentions, I have been using MAME to map games with the same resolution to a given video mode. This has worked well and I have close to 1400 games which should display near full screen with this method. : : However, I still have some games which are not full screen and I have no more monitor modes available. I have read that advanceMAME will allow all games to display full screen. I have read all the docs, and am getting closer, but still don't know what I'm doing. I am running AdvanceMAME 37B3 on a Pentium 200MMX with a Diamond Stealth S220 video card and a KDS-VS7e 17-inch multisync monitor. I usually don't use SciTech Display Doctor, although I can. (My video card is NOT VESA 3.0 compatible). : : I was trying to set up 1942. I normally run this (in DOS PMAME) at -400x300 (which displays at 800x600 @ 75Hz on my monitor. The game has an arcade resolution of 224x256 (Vertical) at 60 Hz. : : In advanceMAME, my MAME.CFG file has the following options under video: : : hclock = 30 – 70 : : vclock = 50 – 150 : : modeline0 = bios_vbe_linear_320x200x16 vbe(410e) : : When I play the game in AdvanceMAME, the [ and ] keys scroll through the following results: : : bios_vbelinear -320x200x16 -224x256 -224x200 : : bios_vbelinear -320x200x16 -224x256 -210x200 : : bios_vbelinear -320x200x16 -224x240 -224x200 : : bios_vbelinear -320x200x16 -224x200 -224x200 : : bios_vbelinear -320x200x16 -160x200 -320x200 : : bios_vbelinear -320x200x16 -160x120 -320x200 : : bios_vbelinear -320x200x16 -160x256 -320x200 : : These same modes are visible on the video config tab, but the last numbers of the mode are cut off. The first pair of numbers correspond to resolution, what are the last pair of numbers? None of the modes are optimized on the screen. I don't remember how I got that mode added into the Mame.cfg file. Also, I can select fractional resize on the video config tab, but nothing ever allows me to add resize values. I guess this is done from the command line??? : : When I run MV.exe, the same modes are displayed as I was previously able to get to work with DOS MAME. Pressing space selects and deselects a mode, however, multiple modes may be selected at the same time. Pressing F10 or enter at any point sometimes does and sometimes does not change the MAME.cfg file. : : In MV.exe, selecting a VGA mode and pressing enter displays a test mode and the associated parameters, however, none of the parameters can be changed. Selecting a VBE mode, including the one shown in the MAME.cfg file, displays a test mode without the parameters. Only the VGAline modes may be edited, and the 320x240 mode seems to give the best results. : : Also, I have been trying to set up two vertical modes in MV using the 320x240 setting (224x256, and 224x240). I want the games displayed vertically in a horizontal monitor with no scanlines and with the displayed fully stretched vertically and with correct aspect ratio horizontally. I can adjust the horizontal size and spacing perfectly, but when using h and shift h (total y dimension) to resize the vertical dimension, the closest I can get is ¼ inch from the bottom of the screen (H 267 is this dimension, H 268 is smaller, H 266 is off the screen on the top and bottom.) Is there any way to work around this??? Or do you simply adjust it to this point and use fractional resize to adjust it further? Would turning off doublescan help? : : Any help will be greatly appreciated!

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