Home Page Forums MAME QMC2 Image flickers and doesn't update [SOLVED]

I'm on Linux, Fedora 19, KDE. qmc/mame/mess RPMs from the RPM Fusion repo. Using nVidia card and proprietary drivers.

qmc2-sdlmess-0.39-1.fc19.x86_64
qmc2-0.39-1.fc19.x86_64
qmc2-debuginfo-0.39-1.fc19.x86_64
qmc2-sdlmame-0.39-1.fc19.x86_64

mess-0.149-1.fc19.x86_64

mame-0.149-1.fc19.x86_64

When I launch a game in qml-mess or mame it doesn't update the images (no animation) it just flickers on the first scene it shows.

I'm not sure what I could do to try and fix this or what other information you'd need for debugging purposes. Let me know and I'll provide it to you.

Thanks!

Please try disabling the option 'readconfig' (in QMC2) in order to make sure that no mame.ini/mess.ini/<gamename>.ini with probably "weird" settings is read. I can't reproduce this here with default settings at least.

Also, you should update to MAME/MESS 0.150 + QMC2 0.40 at least (aren't there newer Fedora packages?).

These are the latest versions of all the files in the repos right now.

If I disable read config, I get a blank, black screen. I hear the sound effects, but don't even get the flicker. Here's what's in my /etc/mame/mame.ini:

# Define multi-user paths
artpath /usr/share/mame/artwork;/usr/share/mame/effects
cheatpath /usr/share/mame/cheats
ctrlrpath /usr/share/mame/ctrlr
fontpath /usr/share/mame/fonts
hashpath /usr/share/mame/hash
rompath /usr/share/mame/roms;/usr/share/mame/chds
samplepath /usr/share/mame/samples

# Allow user to override ini settings
inipath $HOME/.mame/ini;/etc/mame

# Set paths for local storage
cfg_directory $HOME/.mame/cfg
comment_directory $HOME/.mame/comments
diff_directory $HOME/.mame/diff
input_directory $HOME/.mame/inp
memcard_directory $HOME/.mame/memcard
nvram_directory $HOME/.mame/nvram
snapshot_directory $HOME/.mame/snap
state_directory $HOME/.mame/sta

# Fedora custom defaults
video opengl
autosave 1

and I also have a /home/ermesa/.gxmame/gxmame.ini

which reads:

[default]
DefaultGame=btime2
FolderID=1
ShowScreenShot=1
ShowScreenShotTab=0
ShowFlyer=0
ShowToolBar=1
ModifyThe=1
ShowStatusBar=1
ShowFolderList=1
GameCheck=0
VersionCheck=1
UseXmameOptions=0
gui_joy=1
SortColumn=0
SortReverse=0
GUIPosX=0
GUIPosY=25
GUIWidth=1204
GUIHeight=945
ListMode=3
Splitters=150,784
ListFont=
ColumnWidth=624,0,61,76,47,63,50,325,63,72,72,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,63,63,0,0
ColumnOrder=0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27
ColumnShown=1,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,0,0

When you disable 'readconfig', /etc/mame/mame.ini won't be read... OK then please reenable it and try setting 'video' to 'soft' (in QMC2). Does this work?

Also, what happens when you just start "mame" from the command line?

With just mame by itself: I get the same issue with Robby Robo. If I set video to soft, I don't get any picture. With opengl, at least I get teh flickr.

Here's an interesting question - qmc2 is 64bit. I have both the 32 and 64bit SDL libraries installed. Is qmc2 smart enough to just grab the 64 bit libraries? (same with mame)

SDL-1.2.15-11.fc19.x86_64
SDL2-2.0.0-3.fc19.i686
SDL-1.2.15-11.fc19.i686

One more bit of data, the game works when launched from gmameui. Not sure if they use some other executable or just different parameters.

edit: it uses the same mame executable. (At least the one at /usr/bin/mame)

64-bit MAME and qmc2 are explicitly linked against 64-bit SDL. You only need 32-bit for 32-bit applications. (Also, MAME currently uses 1.2.15 and you don't need SDL2 installed except to run Steam and commercial games).

I'm at kind of a loss as to how -video soft doesn't work; I'd be interested to see the output of a pure command line run with -video soft and -verbose.

let me know what commandline command to run and I'll post the output

first of all, my thanks on all the help you've given me today. And all the patience. I don't normally do reboots when stuff isn't working on Linux because that tends to be way more helpful on windows than it ever is on Linux. However, I must have installed a library or something that was causing issues because until I rebooted it wasn't properly loaded or something because now everything works fine. Sorry about that.

At least now I know about the qmc forums.

Thanks again and sorry for wasting your time.

Ok, I think I know what happened, because it happened to me this morning.

- System update runs, installs new kernel, new nvidia-libs that aren't compatible with the currently running kernel
- MAME (and anything else using GLX) shows only a black screen (although -video soft worked for me)
- Rebooting fixed it, because now you're on the newer kernel

Yes, we've reinvented DLL hell ;-)