Default Options & Game Properties

The default options and game properties tabs of Mame32 are used to set the vast majority of game play parameters.  The Game Properties dialogue box, accessible from the File • Properties menu item, shares all the tabs of the Default Options dialogue box, accessible from the Options • Default Options menu item.  The Game Properties dialogue contains two additional tabs which give information on the game selected, and its current audited state.

 

*       General Tab : [only available in Game Properties dialogue] This tab provides information on the game selected, this information includes manufacturer name and date, driver status, original CPU, original sound hardware, original screen resolution and orientation, and number of colors.

*       Audit Tab : [only available in the Game Properties dialogue] This tab performs a ‘mini-audit’ on the game selected, determining its status compared to what Mame32 expects.  Status will be reported and missing files with CRC information will appear in the details view.

*       Display Tab : This tab allows the setting of numerous video options.

Run in a window : Mame32 will launch the game selected in a window on your desktop, the window can be resized by pausing the emulation and dragging the borders.  The resolution of the window can also be set in the Advanced tab.

Start out maximized : Toggling this option on ensures that when windowed mode is used, the maximum amount of space is used.  Toggle this option off to play the smallest version of the windowed game.

Enforce aspect ratio : This option is used in conjunction with windowed mode, it forces the aspect ratio to be maintained when the game is paused and the window is dragged and resized.  Turn this off to create long, thin game windows, or short fat, etc.

Throttle : This option prevents Mame32 from running games as fast as the host CPU can go.  Unless this is toggled on, a modern x86 processor will run Donkey Kong at a thousand times its original speed.

Rotation : This drop down box allows Mame32 to rotate the video output by 90 degrees in either direction.  This setting is useful if used in conjunction with a pivoting monitor, or playing games with a monitor on its side.  Doing so allows vertical orientated games to be played full screen.

Do not apply rotation : This option forces Mame32 to output the original orientation of the game being played, i.e. it will output in vertical orientation even if the output target [monitor] is horizontal.

Flip screen upside down : This option mirrors the image vertically.

Flip screen left right : This option mirrors the image horizontally.

Effects : This option allows Mame32 to attempt to simulate more closely the look of the original hardware’s monitors, which were much lower resolution devices than modern computer monitors.  The scanlines check box can be toggled on only when hardware stretching is disabled.  Horizontal scanlines can impose an additional speed penalty in games played, and RGB effects impose an even greater speed hit, upwards of 40%.

Gamma correction :  This option controls the global gamma correction in a game and can result in much brighter video output if moved to the higher setting.  A high gamma setting is particularly helpful when playing vector based games. Same setting available using the tilde menu [~] in-game.

Brightness correction : This option controls the global brightness in a game at the palette level in Mame32 and works with 99% of the games, [does not for those that go directly to RGB].  Same setting available using the tilde menu [~] in-game.

Pause Brightness : This option controls the screen brightness when a game is paused.

*       Advanced Tab : This tab allows the setting of numerous video options.

Use DirectDraw : This option controls whether or not Mame32 utilizes the DirectDraw component of DirectX with the video card.  Toggling this option off precludes the use of all other check boxes in the area.

Triple buffering : This option controls how Mame32 draws to the screen, if toggled on, it will draw to three buffers and cycle between them.  This setting when toggled on can also help alleviate tearing that sometimes occurs in some scrolling games.

Match game refresh rate : This option tells Mame32 to attempt to force the output monitor to match the refresh rate of the selected game’s original video hardware.  The majority of games in Mame32 are 60Hz, using this option and triple buffering will produce smooth scrolling in those games.

Sync to monitor refresh : This option tells Mame32 to ignore the original game’s refresh rate and sync it to the output monitor’s current rate.  This can cause the game to run too fast if the output monitor is using 85Hz for example..

Wait for vertical sync : This option tells Mame32 to wait for the refresh period on the output monitor to finish before starting to draw video to the screen.

Stretch using hardware : This option allows Mame32 to utilize the stretching abilities of the video card.  Most modern video cards allow this, some do not.  If this option is grayed out, the video card does not support it, or it is necessary to switch to 16bpp or 32bpp.  Mame32 will stretch the original game’s resolution to the nearest 4:3 ratio and output that to the screen. Most video cards perform this stretch and provide a filtering effect which can make the output appear muddy, or blurry.  Use one of the graphic effects on the Display tab to counteract this blurriness, particularly the RGB sharp effect.

Switch resolutions to fit : This option when used in conjunction with the resolution settings allows Mame32 to resize the game output to the dimensions specified.  If not toggled on, Mame32 will draw the game to the current desktop size and settings.

Switch color depths to fit : This option when used in conjunction with the resolution settings allows Mame32 to switch to the game’s requested color depth.  If not toggled on, Mame32 will draw the game to the current desktop color depth.

Full screen brightness : This option allows Mame32 to change its full screen brightness.  Some cards alter the brightness/gamma when they go into full screen mode, this allows the counteracting it.

Aspect ratio : This option allows Mame32 to change its stretched to aspect ratio, default value is 4:3.

Resolution : These settings allow Mame32 to use resolutions defined by the systems DirectX video modes, color depths, and refresh rates.

Frame skipping : These settings allow Mame32 to skip frames of animation when playing games, if the host CPU is not fast enough to run the game.

*       Sound Tab : This tab allows for setting the sound options.

Enable sound and sound CPUs : This setting toggles sound on or off in games.

Use samples : This setting allows Mame32 to utilize samples for games which do not have their sound hardware emulated, or were using analogue circuitry.

Resample if samplerate doesn’t match : This setting is utilized if the samplerate of the original hardware does not match the samplerate actually used by an integer factor. This is more faithful to the original sound, however, the sound may not be as crisp.

Samplerate : This setting tells Mame32 at what rate to output sound, the higher, the better.  Lowering this setting can also result in faster performance on lower end machines.

Volume attenuation : This setting allows Mame32 to set the initial volume level, the default is 0dB.

*       Controllers Tab : This tab allows for setting the game controller options.

Enable joystick input : This setting tells Mame32 to utilize any currently connected joysticks.  Mame32 will interrogate the game controllers control panel and use ID#1 and up.

Analog joystick deadzone : This setting controls how Mame32 translates analog input to games that require digital input.

Enable mouse input : This setting tells Mame32 to utilize the mouse in games that require analogue control methods.

Enable lightgun input : This setting tells Mame32 to utilize a lightgun for target/shooting games that require analogue control, like Crossbow, Police Trainer, Rev X, etc. 

Enable steadykey support : This option tells Mame32 to use a different keyboard handling that makes it easier to register simultaneous key presses for games that require it for special moves [Street Fighter II, etc.].  However it can produce more sluggish results in other games.

Default input layout : This drop down menu allows Mame32 to choose between multiple key mappings, including keyboard mapping for various third-party control panels.  It will also display user defined controller mappings, if created in the \ctrlr directory.  See \docs\ctrlr.txt for more information.

*       Miscellaneous Tab : This tab allows for setting additional options.

Use additional game artwork : This setting if toggled on allows Mame32 to utilize the external artwork packages available at Mame.net for display in games like Armor Attack, Discs of Tron, Lunar Lander, Warrior, etc. The artwork packages are placed in the \artwork directory.  Each element of the artwork package can be toggled: bezel, overlay, and background. 

Crop Artwork : Selecting the crop artwork toggle will shrink the scene down to the games original dimensions, cropping any available art pieces.

Artwork resolution : This setting allows selecting normal and higher resolution versions of the artwork, the high setting scales the game graphics to match the higher art resolution, best seen in Night Driver and Space Invaders.

Use LEDs as game indicators : This setting if toggled allows Mame32 to utilize the LEDs on the keyboard to match some of the in-game light flashing, seen during braking in Outrun for example, and coin/credit indicators.

Enable game cheats : This setting if toggled on allows Mame32 to use some cheats that are present in games like Defender and Battlezone to make control easier.  It also allows for the use of an external cheat.dat file which can be used to cheat illegally in games in a variety of ways, including infinite lives, level jumping, etc.

Use less CPU time if possible : This setting if toggled on allows Mame32 to be more multitasking friendly in that it does not use as much processor time.  If this setting is toggled off Mame32 will utilize 100% of the CPU for playing games.  Some machines slow down dramatically if this setting is toggled on, particularly laptops.

Use pre-0.63 timing system : This setting if toggled on uses RDTSC over QueryPerformanceCounter for
timing.  Check this if there are severe system slowdowns in laptops or older K6/7 level machines.

Error log (for developers) : This setting if toggled on produces an error log of illegal memory accesses.

 

*       Vector Tab : This tab allows for setting additional options for games that originally utilized a vector monitor instead of a raster monitor. [Asteroids, Battlezone, Armor Attack, etc.]

Draw antialiased vectors : This setting if toggled on tells Mame32 to draw vector lines with an additional pleasing antialiased look.

Draw translucent vectors : This setting if toggled on tells Mame32 to draw vector lines with a slight translucency and bright points at intersections.

Beam width : This slider allows Mame32 to set the beam width on the vector lines drawn, increasing it creates wider vectors.

Flicker : This slider tells Mame32 to artificially create a flicker effect on the vector lines.

Intensity : This slider tells Mame32 to increase the brightness/intensity of the vector lines.  Higher values attempt to approximate on a raster monitor the distinct bright glow of the original vector hardware.

 

2003-01-12 10:17 PM -0800