Show Posts
1
General / Attract Mode Freeze / Win XP / 32 Bit
« on: September 20, 2016, 01:12:39 AM »
Hi,
Attract Mode freezes anywhere between 1 hour - 2 hours, ALT tabbing to the console window shows no info other than the initial load up and once task manager is run, attract mode can be forced to exit. The system itself is still stable and attract mode can then be re launched.
I have tried this on 5 different PC's, 4 with XP SP3 32Bit, one with Win 7 32Bit.
All fresh installs, with SP3, drivers, Mame and Attract Mode.
Originally Mame was running on it's own and is stable for weeks at a time, and I do mean that the machines are left on solid for weeks at a time.
I wanted to introduce a nice front end / menu instead of just having a single game launch on startup, hence my use of attract mode.
Other than downloading 2.1.0 and extracting it, mame paths are setup, 20 roms are scanned along with their marquees and snaps, all show, games play and games exit perfectly.
The problem arises when the PC's are idle. At some stage atract mode front end freezes.
I have tried the basic theme, cools and reflect, they all freeze within a couple of hours. (usually close to 2 hours)
Initially I thought it was the video screensaver so I disabled the screensaver (set timeout to 0) but it didn't make a difference.
Then, I thought it might be video (the video snaps) in general so I swapped all the video snaps for png images and re-enabled the screensaver, even with just images attract mode still freezes.
I then disabled the screensaver and again attract mode froze several hours later.
I've tried different layouts in Virtual PC's too just to get a better spread of results and they too all freeze within 2 or so hours.
Any idea's what can be tried please to try and track this down?
Many Thanks.
Update:
I have installed AM 1.6.2 over the top and left two machines running. One machine with no screen saver but video snap playing in the BASIC theme. The second machine is identical but I have enabled the screensaver which cycles though all of the 20 video snaps.
Both machines still froze at around 2 hours, however... a single press of any key and AM responds normally.
Machine one which is just playing snaps in the BASIC them just starts playing the snap video again after a key press.
Machine two, closes the frozen video screensaver and returns to the AM - BASIC theme menu.
Temporarily, I will have an AHK script run in the background sending a keypress "UP" if the machine is idle for longer than say 60 minutes and report back if they freeze again.
Any ideas or suggestions in the meantime would be greatly appreciated!
Attract Mode freezes anywhere between 1 hour - 2 hours, ALT tabbing to the console window shows no info other than the initial load up and once task manager is run, attract mode can be forced to exit. The system itself is still stable and attract mode can then be re launched.
I have tried this on 5 different PC's, 4 with XP SP3 32Bit, one with Win 7 32Bit.
All fresh installs, with SP3, drivers, Mame and Attract Mode.
Originally Mame was running on it's own and is stable for weeks at a time, and I do mean that the machines are left on solid for weeks at a time.
I wanted to introduce a nice front end / menu instead of just having a single game launch on startup, hence my use of attract mode.
Other than downloading 2.1.0 and extracting it, mame paths are setup, 20 roms are scanned along with their marquees and snaps, all show, games play and games exit perfectly.
The problem arises when the PC's are idle. At some stage atract mode front end freezes.
I have tried the basic theme, cools and reflect, they all freeze within a couple of hours. (usually close to 2 hours)
Initially I thought it was the video screensaver so I disabled the screensaver (set timeout to 0) but it didn't make a difference.
Then, I thought it might be video (the video snaps) in general so I swapped all the video snaps for png images and re-enabled the screensaver, even with just images attract mode still freezes.
I then disabled the screensaver and again attract mode froze several hours later.
I've tried different layouts in Virtual PC's too just to get a better spread of results and they too all freeze within 2 or so hours.
Any idea's what can be tried please to try and track this down?
Many Thanks.
Update:
I have installed AM 1.6.2 over the top and left two machines running. One machine with no screen saver but video snap playing in the BASIC theme. The second machine is identical but I have enabled the screensaver which cycles though all of the 20 video snaps.
Both machines still froze at around 2 hours, however... a single press of any key and AM responds normally.
Machine one which is just playing snaps in the BASIC them just starts playing the snap video again after a key press.
Machine two, closes the frozen video screensaver and returns to the AM - BASIC theme menu.
Temporarily, I will have an AHK script run in the background sending a keypress "UP" if the machine is idle for longer than say 60 minutes and report back if they freeze again.
Any ideas or suggestions in the meantime would be greatly appreciated!