Tom Speirs

Hi, I think your right, and that MAME is crashing. I'm working on an update now, as I stated a few days ago. This update makes Attract Mode a little more aggressive with MAME, and attempts to 'KILL' (as opposed to close) the process after about 2.5 seconds. This has no affect if the process exited as it should. One other thing I would say is that you may have some bad/corrupt roms. I have had my cab on for three-four days with a 97% Rom set running attract mode quite happily. Windows was complaining it was running a little low on resources by that time, but not a single crash. I have known certain games crash, but GameEx and MAME recovered fine. I did find one game, a version of Darius of that made me have to reboot.

1. Have you tried Arcade Mode? 2. Its happening 3. TBC 4. It should allow you to browse for all paths and the CMD. Does it not? In addition, have you tried pressing ALT-TAB in windows. It was a critical key combination in windows prior to version 95. No offence but 5. I've been running PinMAME in GameEx since I added emu support. I think I covered this in another post. If you still need help reply to that one. 6. Your follow up reply covered it and I understand now. Just had no time to really look at it yet. Thanks, Tom

Posting that log file will certainly help

Not entirely without your log and config (and much more info) In addition is gameex actually slow OR are the buttons just not responsive? Im also assuming you have.net framework 1.1 SP 1? Have you completly disabled music in GameEx? That means turn off the Juekbox and also make sure the playlist does not point to anything. Does disabling sound fix the issue? I've had these kind of issues myself a little, and it seems to be caused by audio, at least in my case. What is your sound card, and what driver did you use, and where from? Is it possible when installing WMP10 from windows update you installed some other stuff too, such as an updated driver?

Here it is: I thought I'd do something a little different. I took a video with my cheap digital camera. It shows my living room (batchelor pad), complete with 70" front projected TV and Arcade Cabinet running MCE/GameEx and GameEx shell. Its 10mb here is the link: http://tomspeirs.com/gameex/download/Tom_Home_GameEx.AVI [it's not great quality but you may find it fun to see, as it shows GameEx setup for Cabinet and also Home Entertainment]

Hi Steve, many thanks for the feedback. I get this same issue on my laptop, its deffinitly not by design or a feature! I need to research to be sure, but I think the issue was caused when I upgraded the sound driver to one windows update recommended, and not one from the Sony site. You might want to check audio (and other) drivers. Specific from the manufacturer for your hardware. Spend some time on this, and let me know how you get on. That's unless youve already done this. Then I'll make it more of priority to try and figure out why its happening on my laptop.

Hi, no it does the upgrade for you, its very simple. Just run the setup.exe its as simple as that.

Yes, but how would this be used? Just need a top level overview of when this would be used (called from GameEx) and the benefits of it. Thanks, Tom.

Ive been using PinMAME since when the emulator support was first addedd to GameEx. I think its one of the default configs? Is it not with the install anymore? maybe you overwrite the config with something else? I am sure you wont have a big problem, if you follow the default config included with the install? Maybe I blitzed the config or something and its not there anymore? Heres what I have on my MCE pc [Emulator_7] Enabled=True STARTPAGENAME=Pinball Games TITLETEXT=Pinball StartPageLogo=pinball ROMFilter=*.vpt RomsInFolders=False RomPath=c:\Pinball\Tables SnapPath=c:\pinball\snap WorkingPath=c:\Pinball\Tables MapKeys=True WaitBeforeKeys=10000 SendKeys= ReplaceDash=True ReplaceUnder=True Capitals=True RemoveBrackets=True ShowDesktop=True Debug=False MAPFile= AlsoLaunch=[apppath]\vpauto.exe Command=..\VPinball-XPFix4.exe -play -"[ROMFILE]" OLDatZip= Thanks, Tom

For me or aynone else to help you with such an issue (like a lot of other problems people have), yourll need to post the log and configuration files. There in the start menu program group

Sorry Hab. I am not quite sure what you are asking? Emulator list should already be sorted by name. Do you mean you want to sort by Country? like [J]? If so its nor really doable with the emulators as theres so many variations and also this info is not really stored in a database or text file like it is with MAME. I may add Gamebase support in the future which will allow this sort of thing, but this only supports a couple of emus at the moment.

Have you tried selecting a playlist? (All Music)

In addition, could this be extended to download IPAC codes at all in any way or am I barking up the wrong tree? If it is doable could someone give me a reminder on or say what needs to be done?

OK, heres what Ill think we will do (feel free to but in Two New 'MAME Launch' settings: CMD before Game Launch CMD after GAME Exit If you think that this is going to be cool for others how about I do the 'calculations' in GameEx and parse %[CONTROLMODE] as either 1,3,4,5,6, or 7 (along with the Res stuff for Cupid, and the existing ROM Name W/WO EXT) Now, with this in mind, of course I can enhance these new features later, but do you think this will cover it for now?

I'd have to go with Cupid for the way I'd prefer to do this and that is also something that was brought up once before. This would be like the Also Launch feature for emulators in GameEx but for MAME. With the addition of being able to send info to an app such as par.bat %[RESX] %[RESY] Toonces, can you think of a way how this would work for you? IE what info what you need passed from GameEx. This method would mean though that your controller would need a custom app or batch file to change the controls. However, I much prefer this method though as it makes GameEx much more extensible for plugins etc in the future.

Erik, yes I will at least investigate feasability when I have time. Yourll just have to be a bit patient

I use a Hantarex monitor from around the same period. I could not be much happier either with MAME or GameEx display. If the old monitor displays a real arcade game pretty good, you should be just as happy with MAME and GameEx. As Dave says the AVGA is the way. Tom

Very good call Dave, I think that will work.

Hi, I am back home from my business and vacation travels now. Thanks to the feedback from you guys, I think I have nailed down the favroties overwrite problem, and I also think I know what's going on with the MAME launch black screen problem. I'll try and get an update out over the weekend and update the site, once I synchronize my laptop and then do the work. Cheers. Tom.

I'll look into this and work with you on this a bit more when I have some time (travelling a lot at the moment), but I just wanted to say sorry if I insulted you, and you are correct, it deffinitly was not intentional.

I cant think of any reason why a custom theme would affect it. If your image directories are correctly recognised (will tell you in the log), and you have the image in the dir for the rom, it should display cabinet, marquee, flyer, panel on the lines below 'Play This Game'. Ive never seen a report or had a verified report of the feature not working until now?

Can you try using the latest version 3.47. If that does not work, just use the default theme and not the video one. I think it may be the newly implemented background video feature. Although it would be useful to me to know if I fixed this in version 3.47. There is a link to 3.47 on the forum. It IS NOT a BETA version. Please let us know your results.

Hi Dave, it sounds like your missing out some good gameex action, and have 'Show Game Info' turned off. Its under MAME update settings. Although find that a little hard to believe When selecting a game, GameEx then displays an additional page, where you add to favorites, selecte recommended games etc, and this is where the marquee etc are displayed.

You can do this I think. You need to find out the resolution MK runs add then add it to the always stretch setting. See if that helps. David, There is help available on the settings. Should I re-write it?

Dear group, Since feedback has been so important to the success of GameEx I thought I'd put the following to the group. Over the last several months I have been working hard and paying for some additional features to GameEx. These are not related to Emulation or MAME at all, but are aimed more at the HTPC/Build your own Console/Media box community. Although Cab users might like it too. I want to get some payback on these features, but in the spirit of the MAME community and the hard work of the talented people that contribute to MAME and of course other emulators, I want to keep the emulation side of GameEx free. In other words if you want the complete ultimate solution with features I am not entirely disclosing just yet, although Media/HTPC based I will be charging a small fee. Everything in the current version (and previous versions) will stay free with the exception of videos. In addition, I will still be working on the existing features, taking requests, fixing and putting up regular updates. Now I have a few questions for you all. Call it Market research if you now see me as a tycoon (which I am not!), but I believe an application is never finished, and I design apps based on what other people think as well as what I think. The questions are: 1. If you wanted to 'upgrade' to the complete solution, DVD (complete), Pictures (Including Slide Shows, and operatable from a cab or tv (like everything else)), Radio (Internet most formats), Video (enhanced and all file formats) and features I cant disclose yet. a. Would you be prepared to pay for this. b. how much. 2. The other option is to make all the features free, but have nag screens, adverts for the 'premium' version all the time. Of course the nags would be ArcadeCab and TV friendly, but slowing startup/exit down and with a constant 'upgrade' list item on the start page, until you either stole from me and cracked the software, or b paid a few buck for it. a. Would you prefer all features free with nagging unless you paid a few bucks. b. or two versions, Emulation/MAME/Jukebox (free), or full solution. 3. If you chose 2A How much would you be prepared to pay? Thanks, for your time. Lets decide the future together