Using MAME with SageTV V2

[shodge]

OK,

Folks with the black screen issues upon returning to Sage from Mame... Try turning off the DDRAW setting for windows in the mame.ini file. This may slow some newer games down, but for the old ones like pacman and etc, it seems to solve my problems.

-Stan

[shodge]

Is anyone using the IRREMOTE to control the MAME application???

-Stan

[Opus4]

Originally posted by shodge
Is anyone using the IRREMOTE to control the MAME application???

Not here... but what problem are you having? Does MAME simply take keyboard input, or something else? If there is no window name to use as a [SectionName] in irremote.in, you could simply use [MAME] as the section and then use mode(MAME) to force irremote into MAME mode when appropriate, then mode(Default), mode(SomeSection), or mode() when exiting MAME.

Since I don't really know what the problem is yet, just let me know the details if you need more info.

You will probably have a better response rate by using the keyboard directly, though, especially if you need keys to repeat quickly or be constantly held down.

- Andy

[shodge]

Thanks for the reply Andy,

I've tried calling out [mame] for the application but no results. In general mame takes over the display with no window. When I forced mame to a window, it has a complicated name which imbeds the game rom as well. Needless to say again, calling out [mame] did not work (I did not try the whole name with the rom as thats not an acceptable solution).

I'm aware of the key response issue, but I'm just trying to get things like pacman to play so I think it should work. I've read most of your threads on the IRREMOTE.ini but I'm still at a loss. Any suggestions (Forcing Mame mode?)?

Thanks,
-Stan

[Opus4]

Originally posted by shodge
I've read most of your threads on the IRREMOTE.ini but I'm still at a loss. Any suggestions (Forcing Mame mode?)?

To me, this is a perfect case for use of the mode(XX) command, unless you can force Mame to always use a particular window title. The problem is getting the remote to know to switch to Mame mode when you select it in SageTV. On my MX-700, I would simply dedicate a special code to always force into/out of Mame mode, but this could be a problem with the silver remote, due to the limited # of buttons. (I always force modes in irremote.)

To enter Mame mode, make sure all of its commands are in the [MAME] section. Then, you would use the mode(MAME) command elsewhere in the ini to force it to interpret commands in the MAME section.

Then, when done with Mame, you would use mode(Default) to return to forcing the default section, mode(SageTV) to return to forcing SageTV mode, or mode() to have it return to automatic section selection depending on which app has focus.

Like I said, this will be a problem using the silver remote & starting Mame from within SageTV. If you run Mame outside SageTV, you could simply dedicate a button in the [Default] section for starting Mame & use the same button inside [MAME] to exit it.

IF you can force Mame to always use the same exact window title (does it have an option to do so?), then give it your preferred window title & use that as the [SectionName]. Irremote will then use that section automatically, as long as you don't force section mode changes elsewhere.

I don't know if I ended up explaining that clearly or if I went in circles, so let me know if it wasn't clear.

- Andy

[shodge]

Andy,

Let me see if I understand this.

1 Define all the mame keys in the [mame] section. (already done)
2 In the default section, define a key for switching to mode(mame)...
3 In the mame section, define the exit key to not only supply the end keystroke but to do a mode() to return to the default app [Sage].

This looks good, except I may loose a key from Sage [I'll have to see if I have extra]. Too bad you can't send some kind of message ti the irremote app to cause it to switch modes....

Thanks Andy... I'll give it a try in the next day or so....

-Stan

[Opus4]

Originally posted by shodge
Let me see if I understand this.

1 Define all the mame keys in the [mame] section. (already done)
2 In the default section, define a key for switching to mode(mame)...
3 In the mame section, define the exit key to not only supply the end keystroke but to do a mode() to return to the default app [Sage].

Yup, that pretty much sums it up for that solution. As long as your irremote is not currently forcing mode(SageTV) when you run SageTV, mode() is what you want to use when you exit Mame.

This looks good, except I may loose a key from Sage [I'll have to see if I have extra]. Too bad you can't send some kind of message ti the irremote app to cause it to switch modes....

Yeah -- when you define that mame-mode key in the default section, you can't use it in the SageTV section. (When a key is not defined in the current mode's section, irremote looks for it in the default section.) Actually, you could use it in the SageTV section to also force a switch to mame mode.

So, yes, the downside is a loss of a button for use in SageTV. That's why I like my MX-700 so much -- you could use a lot more codes with a JP1 remote too. The alternative is to not run Mame from within SageTV, but it sounds like you wouldn't want to do that.

Oh... and you are sending a message to irremote... you are just doing it internally with a remote button.

- Andy

[GKenny]

Stan,
I haven't used it myself, but this sounds like a good reason to use Girder to control it all. Or you could re-define all the Sage commands in IRRemote.ini to be default commands and program the MAME input keys accordingly.

-Glen

[byopvr]

Originally posted by dcannon
I was very excited to hear that MAME could no be used through Sage so I dug out my CD with all my ROMS and downloaded the lasted version on MAME. Whenever I use MAME, then exit Sage remains at a blank screen and no commands through either the remote or keyboard work. Also, whenever I try to run MAME from the Start>Run command when Sage is running, upon exiting MAME, Sage displays the same behavior. I know that no official support is being offerered, but wanted to know if anyone had any ideas. Thanks.

besides possibly not having your paths set up right, it could be that the roms themselves have changed since you last dl'd the roms. They've been consolidating and "fixing" the romsets along the way and rom sets that worked with version .36 of mame will not work (most likely) with version .81 of MAME (or whatever they are up to now). Perhaps try downloading an older version of MAME (they have most of the older versions available for download on the mame site) OR get a full new set of mame roms to match the version you've downloaded through a MAME rom burning service.

hope that helps!
###

someone else asked... about inputs/remote control etc...

MAME accepts keystrokes or joystick input (or lightgun, or mouse/trackball)... may i suggest using usb or wireless gamepads instead of your remote control for playing mame on your TV... I know you guys like controlling EVERYTHING with your remote, but come on now, pick up a gamepad =)

###
Once my new case comes in, I could write up some sort of "howto" for using MAME with sage if it would help... most of your questions seem to be more mame related than sage specific so it should be easy =)

rampy

EDIT -> oh, I almost forgot! Thanks Jeff, for including the feature to begin with! That's an awesome feature, even if it's on the downlow/unsupported.

[JelloMold]

I was just planning on building an arcade cabinet... but now, maybe not...

I've noticed quite a few times now after playing mame games that my system is sloooow. Checking the Task Manager reveals that mame is still running - using 50% of my pitiful CPU. Has anyone else noticed that sometimes mame doesn't exactly exit gracefully? Is this a Sage issue, or mame? Also, what version of mame are you guys running?

Thanks again, Jeff, for such a cool feature. Very well executed! (In the event you continue to develop this function, an 'alphabetical browse by title' feature like in the jukebox's 'search by album title' would be cool for those of us with hundreds or thousands of roms!) Sage Rocks!

[byopvr]

Originally posted by JelloMold
I was just planning on building an arcade cabinet... but now, maybe not...

I've noticed quite a few times now after playing mame games that my system is sloooow. Checking the Task Manager reveals that mame is still running - using 50% of my pitiful CPU. Has anyone else noticed that sometimes mame doesn't exactly exit gracefully? Is this a Sage issue, or mame? Also, what version of mame are you guys running?

Thanks again, Jeff, for such a cool feature. Very well executed! (In the event you continue to develop this function, an 'alphabetical browse by title' feature like in the jukebox's 'search by album title' would be cool for those of us with hundreds or thousands of roms!) Sage Rocks!

There are some options in MAME.ini that might help with that (what cpu are you using and which specific games... also note some games actually slowed down on the original hardware and MAME faithfully reproduces it... like double dragon drags down when there are X amount of baddies or action on the screen...)

Some settings in MAME.ini that might help (from the top of my head, i might dork the exact name/syntax)

autoframeskip 1
sleep 0 (I think, experiment.. it's been so long since it's been introduced I forgot what it does... it has to do with how mame deals with CPU downtime)
priority 1 <-----

... actually can you post your specs and your mame.ini?

Sometimes the old hardware stretch can slow things down too (unless you are using new DD/DX/clean hwstretch..)

*shrug* I'd still build *something* as the classics/MAME is way more fun on the original controls/arcade hardware (or you could buy an x-arcade stick or hotrod "desktop" controller for use with your HTPC)... than a gamepad. But that's just me...

good luck Jello

rampy

[ravenray]

Can someone describe to me what this mode(Default) is? I know how to edit the irremote.ini, I'm just lost at what this mode(Default) does and how it works.

[Opus4]

Originally posted by ravenray
Can someone describe to me what this mode(Default) is? I know how to edit the irremote.ini, I'm just lost at what this mode(Default) does and how it works.

The mode(X) command tells ir.exe to translate irremote.ini commands based on the [X] section specified in the mode command just given. So, mode(SageTV) forces the remote to use the [SageTV] section; mode(default) forces the use of the [default] section; and mode() puts it back to its original mode it had at startup, where it will automatically choose the mode based on the window title of the program with Windows focus -- the section will be chosen where the section name in the brackets [X] matches some part of the window title.

See also: Instructions for extending irremote.ini, where I describe more about irremote.ini... though I think I didn't go into this detail about the mode() command.

- Andy

[ravenray]

OH, ok. So basically, let me get this straight from what I read.

[Default]
go=mode(mame)

[Mame]
go=mode(sagetv)

Is this what you mean?

[Opus4]

If all you wanted the 'go' button to do is to force a mode change w/o also sending any keys or anything else, then yes, those are valid commands. The first one forces 'mame' mode, the 2nd forces 'sagetv' mode.

- Andy

[ravenray]

Well, what I wanted to do was to be able to press 'ok' and 'esc' out of mame. I will be using a control pad for the rest of the controls. I just put in a sample just to make sure I was doing it right. I know edit the irremote file for mame, but when I fired up mame to test it, it just wouldn't take it. I believe this method should force the remote upon mame.

[Opus4]

Um... I'm not sure if you were asking a question. If you were, please show what you are doing in the ini & be more specific regarding what you want to know. (If you've edited the ini, don't forget to restart ir.exe.)

shodge, above, was working on it too, so maybe he'll have comments since I don't actually have mame.

- Andy

[ravenray]

Ok, Here's the cut down version of my ini file

[Default]
go=mode(mame)

[Mame]
OK=ok
Grnpower={esc}mode(sagetv)

So the instance that mame comes up, I hit the 'go' button (which should now force to use the [Mame] section), and then I hit the 'OK' button (which should alow me to by pass the the screen in mame that ask me to type 'ok').

When I'm done playing, I hit the 'Green Power' button. It should exit out of mame and I'm back at SageTV (which should be using the [SageTV] section.

Is this how it would be setup? I have to try it out later tonight.

[Opus4]

Since your question is in this thread... are you running mame from SageTV? If so, do you already have the remote forced into SageTV mode? If so, the "go=mode(mame)" command in the default section will never get executed if that button is in use in the SageTV section & if you don't get out of SageTV mode first somehow. (You may have to dedicate a button to simply switch to mame mode.) BTW -- if a button is not defined in the current section, the it looks for it in the default section before giving up & ignoring the button code.

"OK=ok" This will only send the 'o' character followed by 'k'. Do you need "{enter}" in addition?

"Grnpower={esc}mode(sagetv)" This will return you to SageTV OK, provided that SageTV is still running & not sleeping. If it goes to sleep when mame is launched, you would have to run SageTV.exe again to wake it: "Grnpower={esc}{run SageTV command here?}mode(sagetv)"

- Andy

[ravenray]

Andy,
I redefined alot of the buttons under SageTv. I currently don't use the 'go' button anymore under Sage. That button along with the color buttons confused my other roomates when they were using Sage.

For Mame, you just need to type in 'O' 'K' and don't need to hit the {enter} key.

When using mame under SageTV, It will already be awake, so I don't think I will need to wake it up. I will test this further tonight to see what results I get from this.

All I know is when I was just testing mame alone with my pvr 250 remote, nothing will happen. Some how when you select a game in mame, the ID or name changes and there's no focus to it.