BigBox with 3 screens?

[JoeViking245]

@Ingabagovinanana  Hmmmmm.......  To start MAME, are you just double clicking mame.exe in Windows Explorer?

When I set mine up like this:

(everything else is "auto") MAME comes up and plays on my monitor #1.  If I change the "1" to a "2", it's all on monitor #2.  Now if I change it to a "3", everything's back on monitor #1 because I don't have a "\\.\DISPLAY3".   Which leads me to saying: make sure it's 'spelled" correctly.  As in the slashes are backslashes ( \ ) and not forward slashes ( / ).  And when you input "\\.\DISPLAY2", don't add "(primary)".  And also no quotes.

I recall now that the latter "screen0" etc. are for your advanced setup like when your cab uses a marquee AND you have the game_rom.cfg file setup.  (also used for arcade games that have multiple monitors) This is also where numscreens comes into play.  So for now, leave that at 1 because if other settings aren't changed and the cfg file is not setup, it'll be as if you 'mispelled' something and it WILL show the same thing on all screens.

 

After checking all that and it's still not displaying on any of the other 2 monitors, I'd say: Install a fresh copy of MAME into its own new folder.  Copy a romfile to test with into the ../newMAME/roms  folder.  Create a [new] mame.ini file {type "mame -cc" at the command prompt).  Open MAME and run the game.  Exit the game and MAME.  Now change the "Screen" line (because you haven't done it yet before this point on this fresh install) from auto to \\.\DISPLAY1.... and test as suggested before.  But ONLY for "screen".  Not "screen0" and the others.

 

If after trying that and it STILL doesn't cooperate, I don't know what to tell you.

[Ingabagovinanana]

I appreciate the information.  I have spelled it correctly, and used the correct syntax.  I'm worried that with a new Mame install I will mess up all that I have created.   What about this game_rom.cfg file?  Could I have already created one that is overriding the .ini files?  Where would I find this file if it has already been created?  

 

I like your idea of testing.  I will give that a shot soon.  This is so frustrating.  I can't wait to get it all up and running, this has been my Covid project, so it has been almost 2 years since I started.  I'm starting to wonder if the computer I built, which I included as part of the project is strong enough to handle everything.  I could not get a good GPU because of the shortage.... still can't.  I have so much more going on in this build, I'm in over my head.  Thanks again for your help.  I didn't think about installing a new one... Usually, I am good at thinking outside of the box.  So, no idea how to change the primary?   Is that something that the GPU decides and you have no say in it?

 

[JoeViking245]

7 minutes ago, Ingabagovinanana said:

So, no idea how to change the primary?

The word "primary" is just how Windows sees it.

MAME don't care.  It just wants to know where YOU want the game displayed (which is what you set on the "screen" line in mame.ini).

12 minutes ago, Ingabagovinanana said:

What about this game_rom.cfg file?  Could I have already created one that is overriding the .ini files?  Where would I find this file

They will be in your ,,/MAME/cfg/ folder.  You would have had to manually edit the games cfg file yourself.  So at this point I don't think it's an issue.   You WILL have config files in there for the games you've played, but they won't have the extra "video" sections in there that would output onto a specific display.

20 minutes ago, Ingabagovinanana said:

I like your idea of testing.  I will give that a shot soon.

Ya, do that.  Make a fresh install of MAME for testing.  Just don't go around changing a bunch of 'other' stuff.  Just stick with "the plan". 

[Ingabagovinanana]

I do have the correct display marked as my main display, but Mame doesn't seem to care because some how, it senses Display 2 as the primary.   If I didn't, most of my other emulators wouldn't work.  All of them sense the correct monitor, the main display.  There must be some settings somewhere overriding MAME OSD Per-Window Video Options. Hopefully, after work, I will have the motivation to work on it.  The only problem is I stare at a computer all day, so sometimes the last thing I want to do is continue that after work. 

[Ingabagovinanana]

It has to be all CAPS!!!  Everything else in the ini file is lower case, and this one thing is capital letters.  How messed up is that?   As you can guess, I got it fixed.  Always something stupid.  Thanks for helping and working with me on this.  We are now rocking and rolling!