Hi,
First off I would like to mention I'd be happy to provide the patch for this, if the idea is not rejected, anyway. It's a slight aesthetic modification intended to enhance frontend integration.
Nowadays, when a MAME session is started, the window is spawned straight away, first displaying the "Initializing" message box (with an additional border outlining the game display area), then the "Loading machine" message box (with the border gone), then any optional decryption messages, and finally any driver warning messages.
This is aesthetically unappealing, to say the least. Even though it's not the case, it looks a bit like MAME is switching resolutions several times.
In MAME's earlier days - I'm talking over 10 years ago - MAME's startup sequence was different, whereby the window would be spawned after MAME is done initializing. This allowed frontends to implement their own 'loading' sequence inbetween process startup and window creation.
Well, how about this for a compromise - if MAME is started with the -console parameter (or another one, though I think it fits well with -console), MAME would go back to the old behavior (not spawning the window until it is initialized, but still retaining any rom warning messages), and instead uses stdout to print status messages.
That way, the frontend gets more control, which could be used to display a nice progress bar, or something more creative (like a cartridge insertion animation for console systems)
To avoid misconceptions; I'm not talking about suppressing the nag screens - though, to be honest, I wouldn't mind not having them in MAME's display anymore but printed to sdtout/stderr as well, I understand and see the need why they're there.
Your opinions please.
Last edited by EoceneMiacid; 09/30/16 10:27 AM.
