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I have WolfMAME 106 on a Sandisk flash drive. When I boot up Mario Bros. the screen is a little too far to the left, but the several other games I play all center properly.

When I take this same sandisk and plug it into a different system I have that uses an LCD monitor and boot up WolfMAME 106 the image vertically narrow for all games.

Any help on how to overcome both problems would be appreciated.

Thanks.

D_Harris

Is MAME set to change resolutions when it goes fullscreen (it is by default)? If Mario Bros. is using a resolution different from the others, then your monitor could be using different adjustments for that mode. Use -verbose to see what resolution that it's using. Also, there could be different settings set up for mario specifically, in the folder defined by the -inipath switch (or in mame.ini), 'ini' by default. Again, -verbose will tell you what ini files are being looked for, and which are loaded.

For LCD monitors, I'd recommend making sure that resolution changing is disabled (-noswitchres, or switchres 0 in mame.ini). This will make MAME use the current desktop resolution, and stretch the output to the screen, at the correct aspect ratio. Most arcade games have a 4:3 aspect ratio, so there will be some blank space on widescreen monitors, or with games that use vertically oriented monitors. I know of only one game in MAME that supports 16:9 output currently (Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact).

All MAME versions from 0.107 and up have resolution switching disabled by default (much more efficient).

ok, I totally chagned my post...hope someone didn't comment on it already...hehe
I make different command lines within my batch file so the games show corrrectly.
I just tested it and for mario brothers it seems the following works fine for me and looks very arcade-like...
if not familiar with batch files...just launch command line and switch to proper folder/directory where your mame is located... then copy and paste this next line into that command line and press enter.

mamep106-vc mario -record mariotest -noafs -fs 0 -scanlines -nocheat -nohwstretch -keepaspect -noallownvram -nowindow

This works for me for mario bros. I also use this for other similar games like zookeeper. This obviously won't work for other games like pacman though where mame autorotates the game.

For other games like pacman, the above will result in the game being turned by mame which isn't good if you don't have a rotating display. hehe
In this case, I can get it drawn as I want by adding to my command line

-noswitchres

This keeps mame from rotating pacman.

I think the problem for some games needing a different setup is cuz mame uses vertical x horizontal versus horizontal xvertical inconsistently...perhaps always listing the higher number first(?).

ie. mame reports mario bros as 256x224...but shows pacman as 288x224. This is inconsistent cuz pacman is a "portrait" display while mario bros is "landscape". mame doesn't differentiate as it autorotates/flips the 2 as needed. by default mario and zookeeper etc. show really skinny cuz it is thinking 256x224 but using 224x256 for scaling making it skinny. the above command line keeps mame from doing that switch.

hope that helps...and that you are feeling better.

mahlemiut wrote:Is MAME set to change resolutions when it goes fullscreen (it is by default)? If Mario Bros. is using a resolution different from the others, then your monitor could be using different adjustments for that mode. Use -verbose to see what resolution that it's using. Also, there could be different settings set up for mario specifically, in the folder defined by the -inipath switch (or in mame.ini), 'ini' by default. Again, -verbose will tell you what ini files are being looked for, and which are loaded.

For LCD monitors, I'd recommend making sure that resolution changing is disabled (-noswitchres, or switchres 0 in mame.ini). This will make MAME use the current desktop resolution, and stretch the output to the screen, at the correct aspect ratio. Most arcade games have a 4:3 aspect ratio, so there will be some blank space on widescreen monitors, or with games that use vertically oriented monitors. I know of only one game in MAME that supports 16:9 output currently (Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact).

All MAME versions from 0.107 and up have resolution switching disabled by default (much more efficient).

Ok. All this is alien to me. I have no idea what a -verbose is. All I know is what is in front of me.

And I definitely know nothing about command lines which is why I can only play WolfMAME.

If there are not incstructions for each and every step I'm lost.

The link shows what I have in my MAME folder. Then what is in the ini folder. And lastly I opened the PlayChcoice 10 configuration settings text.

http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll25 ... oblems.jpg

The LCD monitor where the images are vertically stretched is a cheap Gateway FPD1500.

Thanks.

D_Harris

Ok, since you're showing a Playchoice-10 ini, I'm going to assume to are trying to play the Playchoice-10 version of Mario Bros. I'll also try to use the GUI (I much prefer the commandline, more precise, and easier for those of us that grew up on 8-bit systems and MS-DOS).

Having two screens to show would give it a thin area to display to retain the correct aspect ratio for both screens. It's possible that it's trying to stretch when you're using the Single Monitor BIOS (set via the BIOS tab in Default Game Options...), but for me, it just displays in the top half of the area.

I notice that there are pan controls (PgUp/PgDn/Shift-PgUp/Shift-PgDn), see if those help re-aligning the screen, although they had no effect for me.

The playch10.ini file you show contains no additional options, it has nothing but comments.

mahlemiut wrote:Ok, since you're showing a Playchoice-10 ini, I'm going to assume to are trying to play the Playchoice-10 version of Mario Bros.

Better yet, don't play the Playchoice-10 version of Mario Bros. since it's an abomination!

No, I play no Play Choice games. Just the regular Nintendo version of Mario Bros..

Why there is a reference to Play Choice in the ini folder is beyond me. There is nothing there that says Nintendo.

I also no nothing about pan controls or where they are at. But the positioning of the image is not the problem with the computer I have that uses an LCD monitor. The image is too narrow, vertically speaking.

I actually have MAME on a flash drive plugged into he USB port. Could that be the problem?

Thanks.

D_Harris

My guess would be a difference in how your usual monitor handles different resolutions, as opposed to an LCD monitor. LCD monitors have a static resolution. While you can "set" the resolution, the monitor will simply stretch or shrink the image to fit its native resolution.
Try disabling resolution switching, either find the switchres option in mame.ini and set it to 0, or from the GUI, in the Default Game Options dialog under the Advanced tab, uncheck "Switch resolutions to fit". You could also try changing the "Enforce aspect ratio" option in the Display tab.

mahlemiut wrote:My guess would be a difference in how your usual monitor handles different resolutions, as opposed to an LCD monitor. LCD monitors have a static resolution. While you can "set" the resolution, the monitor will simply stretch or shrink the image to fit its native resolution.
Try disabling resolution switching, either find the switchres option in mame.ini and set it to 0, or from the GUI, in the Default Game Options dialog under the Advanced tab, uncheck "Switch resolutions to fit". You could also try changing the "Enforce aspect ratio" option in the Display tab.

Thanks. In the Default Game Options dialog under the Advanced tab, I unchecked "Switch resolutions to fit" and it worked. The image is now in correct proportion on the screen.

So this is working for now, I'll hold off on trying to figure out the Mario Bros. image offset problem on my other computer/monitor.

Thanks.

D_Harris