[mythtv-users] mythgame xmame video and joystick

[Bill Fasbinder]

To begin with I've got to tip my hat to all of the developers of the MythTV
suite.  Everyone who's ever seen my mythbox in action has been completely
impressed. Thanks to all of you!

One of the main functions I wanted from my mythical TV box was the ability to
play my collection of mame ROMs. I was pleased to find that I was able to use
the mythgame mame interface right out of the box. There are a couple of
problems tho. The game is not rendered fullscreen and my joystick is detected.

I've scoured the mail archives for this list and have found that my first
problem does not seem uncommon.

My last problem is that, I have to restart mythfrontend in order to make
changes
in config/game take effect. This is not really all that annoying, but it took
me a while to realize that my changes were not taking effect. D'oh!

I am running on a PIII 1 Ghz, It is a Fedora Core 1 system using ATRPMS. It was
build priciply using the fine howto by Jarod Wilson. I'm using a Matrox GeForce
5600XT video card. It's got a PVR250.

I used GXMame to explore xmame performance and capabilities. I found that
xmame.xgl produces the best quality video performance. the only change I had to
make to the rendering section of the gxmame configuration was to add a .1 to
the end the the gllib and glulib library definition. I spose I could have used
a link but whatever....  

Using the refrences in the archive of this list I hit "M" (or the menu button
on
my grey hauppage remote) when in the rom selection screen to change some of the
global mame options. I selected the appropriate joystick type (i386 style for
me). I set the binary to xmame.xgl and Under "extra options" I've tried to
specify my joystick device (-jdev /dev/js0) and point to the correct libs from
above (-gllib libGL.so.1 -glulib libGLU.so.1) I've specified fullscreen as
well.

At this point, with these options, and a fresh restart of mythfrontend (all
other functions are working) I get a quick flash of a window where normally
you'd see ROM loading progress. I'm assuming whatever command mythgame is
running here is failing. Unfortunately there is no trace of failure in the
logfile for mythbackend or the console output of mythfrontend.

By changing the "Mame binary location" to xmame and restrarting mythfrontend.
(I
leave all other options the same) I again find myself with a small display and
no joystick.

Is there a way to find out exactly what command mythgame is running here? I
don't mind tweaking the command line until I've got what I'm looking for, but I
don't know how to confirm that the options I'm trying to specify are getting
passed to the command. 

-- 
Bill Fasbinder

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