Mame for EasyLase

[mikkojay]

One other thing you can try is this-
Assuming you have everything in c:\LazyMame,
1) open a cmd window- start, run, cmd
2) change directories by typing: cd c:\lazymame
3) execute exe by typing: lazymame
4) select a game & go into it
5) hit esc key twice to exit game/lazymame

You should be able to see some messages in the command window regarding card status, whether the xml config loaded ok, what game you selected, etc.

That might provide some extra info for us to work with too.

[drlava]

do you know why the screen blinks twice and it tries to load the driver twice?

[decix]

Thanks mikkojay for this nice emulator-software. Good work!
First tests running fine... let's see if I can find this gamepad anywhere around here

Settings for "Size X/Y" are included, maybe you could also do something to adjust the image position "Move X/Y" so the projection can be adjusted to the canvas.

[mikkojay]

I think the section where is put the line of code in Mame to initialize the driver may actually be getting called twice. I think if you run from the GUI or if you shell from the command line and pass an argument of the rom name, i.e. "asteroid" it might not- but I wouldn't bet a dollar on that. I did notice that and thought it was a little annoyance that could get cleaned up later. Also, after I got the Mame code to compile and run, I was not in a hurry to "rock the boat" so to speak, since it was really easy to break when I tried to muttle in too many places (in the Mame code specifically). I will definitely clean this up in the next round.
-Mike

[mikkojay]

Settings for "Size X/Y" are included, maybe you could also do something to adjust the image position "Move X/Y" so the projection can be adjusted to the canvas.

Someone else mentioned this too- I think that sounds like a good idea.
I will need to take into consideration the selected size, so that points don't fall off the edge- but it should be doable.
-Mike

[decix]

some pics...

[mikkojay]

Looks good man! It is almost like staring at an arcade monitor- except these can be scanned on the side of a building!
-Mike

[rMuD]

Looks amazing, I was looking for one of my old videos for lasermame and found yours You did a great job with the optimization. As good or better than we did back in 2000. I remember the first day we did it, the next day we made a video, and it was Slashdotted within 24 hours.

I took a pacman cabinet, cut the top off.. built a PC in side, used the IPAC board for the Mouse to Spinner control, got the Aftermarket Large Single wheel rotary wheel for Tempest, made the actual layouts and got after market control panel overlays for several of the games. wanna buy it? still sitting in my garage.

But for about $75 and $100 in parts you can get the actual controls for the games. If you want to go cheap we actually did it first with tearing up a Keyboard, and/or gamepad controller and wired buttons from happs control.

The biggest we ever did laserMAME was on a 40'x60' at Darien Lake in Buffalo.. when we'd do the sound check for Asteroids even before it was dark people would come running. I think California Extreme (Classic Arcade Conference) in San Jose break it out every few years to do during their conference.

If you need anything let me know.

Rob.

[mikkojay]

Thanks Rob- the compliment on optimization means a lot, especially from someone who knows the nitty gritty! I bet 75% of the effort on that one went into optimization. I also did a bunch of duct tape type stuff- here's an example- see that BattleZone picture a few posts up? See anything missing? I clipped a rectangle's worth of "fluff info" in order to keep the point count down! The flashing on that one bugged me pretty bad.
I did a few other hairy things like identifying stars & only including ones that were above a set brightness threshold etc..
I plan on porting it over to LD2000 SDK next- hopefully that will be pretty soon (my first LD board is en route via FedEx!)
Here is the flow in the way I did it:
1) send raw vectors from Mame to custom dll
2) strip out vectors I don't want
3) convert vectors to a list of polygons/objects
4) sort the objects in a raster pattern
5) add guide, anchor, and blank points
6) send to easylase

Hopefully all I will need to modify is # 6 so some more folks can check it out too.

At the moment I seem to be consumed by the Lumia projector I am playing with, so I'll have to see what's next in the queue. I still want to incorporate the Wii remote into a laser program...

Have a good one,
Mike

[Things]

I've been trying to get Lazymame working for agggesss now, and extracted some of the samples included into the roms folder, but when I run the lazymame.exe, and select the same, it says it's missing 1 or more rom or chd files :/

How do I get these working?