Hi guys

I'm currently building a MacMAME cocktail style cabinet based around an old iMac 333. Galaga, Galaxian, Golden Axe, 1942 ect run flawlessly in OS9 - far better than in OSX. I'm mounting the unit with the screen in portrait orientation relative to the user, and have MacPortait extension installed to rotate the screen. (http://ie2.portrait.com/support/usemac.htm)

However... The problems I'm having are below - I really hope someone here can help as I've burned hours reading through forums on the web trying to sort these issues out?!

Macportrait
I want to run at 480x640 (portrait), but it seems that the refresh rate on these old Macs is too high for the extension - it gives me the option at 768x1024 (portrait) @ 75Hz, but not the lower resolution of 640x480 (which runs at 117Hz from memory)

Is it possible to run these monitors at different refresh rates than the options in the monitor control panel? Is there any way to hack them to force the different refresh rates?

MacMAME
I'm running the emulator with ATI RAGE acceleration - gives by far the best results, however, if I'm running in portrait mode (with MacPortrait), the ATI Rage plugin becomes unavailable.

I can kind-of fool it by starting MacMAME in normal (landscape), then changing to portrait mode and it works fine. However, which I escape back out of MacMame, it reverts back to landscape. I guess I need some way of locking down the resolution and refresh rate which it will always default to, and this includes orientation via MacPortait.

Phew - that's it at the moment. Hope that you can help

cheers

(n)

Have you considered building your cabinet with a portrait-aspect aperture, and mask off the sides of the CRT you're not using?

It'd solve all of your software dilemmas


B.

Thanks Brains

I've actually decided to go landscape in the end. Stretches Galaga etc a bit weirdly, but I've decided to live with it for the sake of Golden Axe

Sounds really interesting napes - any pics of your progress so far (hint: write an article?).

Have you also considered not using the stock iMac CRT - any old VGA, even LCD will work fine if connected to the monitor connector using an Apple VGA adapter?

JB

Cheers Byrd

Sure - I'll take piccies along the way.

It'll probably take a while to pull everything together, but at this stage I've the computer, encoder, joysticks and arcade buttons. I'm picking up a coffee table this weekend (for the glass top - the base will become my router table ). Yet to get is the MDF, TMolding, Router and slot cutter, wiring, vinyl and paint/graphics.
I thought about stripping the monitor out of the old iMac, but the screen just feels so 'right' - a little bit of convex, and super sharp at 640x480@115Hz

cheers

(n)