Problem with MAME

[Spiteface]

Right, I've realised I can get my XBox 360 Fightpad working for my PC, which inspired me to look at some emulators on my computer (some of you may be aware of my investigations into android handhelds that also do this), so I tried to download the latest version of MAME onto my PC, which is 0.155.

So I went to the official MAME site and downloaded it, but when I tried to run it, all I got was a blank screen, apart from a tiny line of red going down the left edge of the screen. No menu, nowt. Gets to the point where I have to physically press the power button to turn the computer off and try again.

I'm sure this might be something painfully obvious, like changing my display settings, but I can't think what it could be and I'd rather not do anything out of fear I'd balls it up. Any suggestions are much welcome.

[mcbpete]

Try this front end, should make things a bit easier - http://www.mameui.info/ (the  MAMEUI64 link that is)

[Spiteface]

Sadly, that doesn't seem to have worked. The only difference is this time, the screen only goes like that when I try to actually run a game on it. I tried one, and could hear the sound of the game but still the same black screen with the line on the left edge. Which makes me wonder if it's anything to do with my monitor/graphics, but I'd rather not mess about with things I know nothing about.

Oddly I have been using Final Burn Alpha for running Neo Geo roms, and one of the ones I downloaded to try out MAME, worked just fine on it, but I think for non-Neo Geo stuff, MAME should be a better option...

[mcbpete]

Hmmm yeah it may well be yer graphics card or monitor going out of sync due to the odd resolution (my lappy does that when I try native resolution DOS games - the screen goes completely black and then starts to fill with white pixels in a weird liquid type way which probably is doing some series damage to the screen). You could maybe go into the settings -> graphics menu (not exactly sure of the location as I'm away from my home machine) and see if you can set or lock it to a higher resolution to make your monitor a bit happier