Tom Speirs

It's NOT a beta and is stable, but I wont be updating the website. IE It will work as well all other releases do, but is really meant specifically for users experieincing DirectInput errors at startup, and to address that imediatly. Here is the URL: http://tomspeirs.com/gameEx/Download/GameExSetup351.exe Changes: - Should fix DirectInput failures on startup. - New setting: Joystick/Gamepad use can be turned on or off.

This has come up a few times. I really dont know what the issue is. I think its something to do with .net. Did you install the framework in a different way when you reinstalled? For example from Microsoft instead of the GameEx install? If people have the same or simular issues I would suggest reinstalling the .net framework direct from microsoft on a freshly booted system, with only ciritical processes running. It is important that you 'uninstall' the framework first and reboot before attempting a reinstall. The uninstall routine does a pretty decent job of cleaning your system of .net. It may also be that some other program is interfering, although what that is I still have no clue. It could be a Virus or Spyware app. It could also be an anti-spyware or anti-virus app. Cheers. Tom

Well, I did wonder if that was the problem, but did not say in case I insulted you. That's why it's always a good idea to say if your a newbie, or expert for that matter

Hi, I think I have found the problem. There will be another full release today that fixes this hopefully. I actually managed to duplicate the problem by accident the other day. All is good

Thanks Reuben, all that does is the same as clicking Create Snaps when in the gamelist, but I think Oxbow means the ability to press a key combo when playing a game and this would take a snap. This is not planned at the monet.

GameEx is very much influenced by feedback, but there are some things I am planning. The premium features will be available soon (maybe not all available to start). These will include. 1. RSS News Reader 2. Internet Radio 3. DVD Player (better than MCE, although am not disclosing everything yet) 3. Another feature for MCE users, which I hope will be popular. 4. Pictures and Slideshows. 5. Ability to launch Random game across all emulators. 6. Favorites for other emulators. 7. Game Info page for other emulators, with ability to view other images and add to favorites. 8. Enhanced video player. For the standard version these may be some time off but: 1. Implementing Gamebase 64 database support. 2. Sub Menus & more Start Page customization. 3. The Jukebox will likely have a few more options. 4. MAME and all free features will be enhanced based on user feedback. 5. two custom snaps for MAME in addition to Flyer, Marquee etc. 6. optimized zip support for images. EDIT 7: Key/Gamepad remaping Other than that you lot decide! EDIT: Also wanted to emphasize anything that relates to MAME I will do my best to keep free. I will also do my best to keep anything that relies on other peoples hard work such as inis and dats free. Feel free to tell me if you think I am doing something that abuses those two rules, or am doing something else a little unethical, or not in the spirit of things. Thanks. Tom.

Hey Erik, Are you doing some testing with this? Could you give me some feedback when you get a chance. I would also like to see your files (batch files) when done, and I can post them as examples for others with a little documentation. Let me know. Thanks, Tom.

7th April 2005 - Version 3.50 of GameEx available Right mouse button now does a navigate back Fixed Issue with Alpha page down not working when DirectInput is being used. Jukebox now includes a new one click feature to queue all songs for an Artist, Album or Genre. New setting, to choose whether to process a game image or video on a thread (more responsive), or immediately (faster). Maximum size of Game list is now 45000 instead of 35000 New setting to run an app or bat file before launching a MAME game and after. Game and ArcadeVGA resolutions, Rom name, Control mode and Game name can be passed to the program. GameEx now does does automatic switching of 2/4/8/49 way modes based on the selected game and controls.ini. A World First! Check the forum for more information and how it is being used.

Im running 2005. No problems here. I guess I must have a US copy.

Ant, Running on a thread will be optional in the next version (new setting). As I said before there is no delay going on.

This will fixed in the next version. Cheers

By the way, I read at MW.info that the author of controls.ini is trying to resume the project since its used in a couple of front ends directly now (such as GameEx). I know you said you were going to contact him, just wanted to make sure did. You might want to tell him how I am making full use of it. I think it may help pursuade him to carry on with the great work he has done so far. Cheers. Tom.

Thanks for that. I think that's all I need. Its very well done. Do you write up requirements/designs for a living ?

Yes, I guess I could have GameEx pick a device by its name and have a configuration setting to choose one. On the back burner though for the moment, unless others pipe up

Not too sure. Maybe its missing some other files. It sounds like its only the logos you want anyway. Try creating a copy of Default - Default as someting like Default - Reuben then just replace the logos directory in this theme with the one from video fun.

Hi Erik, To make this easy for me. Could you post a simple list of the 8 modes with a corresponding P1Controls Controls.ini setting? In three columns - The number, the control type and how P1Controls shows this. I will use this as my reference for calculting the control types programmatically in GameEx and then assigning a number 1-8. Make it easy for me Thanks, Tom.

Just wanted to quickly say, I am using the MNG videos. Its a 4GB download, but on a good pc these are like watching the 'actual' game. Basically superior quality. There is also a few more of them than the AVI's.

Make sure bak.bmp is in the dir. If not copy it from the default theme.

In the \Default - Video Fun\Media directory\ rename or delete bak.mpg

Here is another movie of just my cab running some software program called gamiey or something like that You can see the whole cab a lot better in this one. Thats why I put it up. Its about 10MB again: http://tomspeirs.com/xenon1.avi

OK. put the videos anywhere you like. I have mine off my mame directory. Then use the Video Snap Path setting in the Configuration tool to tell gameex the directory their in. This is under basic settings. The first one. To make the videos display as a background image (like my cab in the video), you need to set Background mode under display settings, to use game images as the background. If the videos play in the background slowly then turn off the Alpha blending (also under display settings). Let us know how you get on. Tom

Michael and hieule91. Can you please replace GameEx.exe with the one in the attachment. Then post the log. You may need to zip it as it will be big. This is a debug version of 3.48 that will run slow, but should hopefully log enough info to tell me where its going wrong. Thanks, Tom GameEx.zip

Tom, I've downloaded and played around with 3.48 and have a few questions / problems. I have my cabinet, control panel, marquees, and title images all saved as zip files. The help text in the ini file says the program can still recognize these as zip files (only icons must be unzipped). When I specify these as zip files in the config they do not show up in the program. When I unzip all of these artwork files they do show up. Is the help text wrong? Do these need to be unzipped in order to work properly? If so then is there any way you can fix this so the program can still recognize the images in the zip file. The snaps.zip file still seems to work properly however. [ive remove this feature temporarily unil I get a chance to 'optimize' and improve performance of the zip code. The ini file is out of date in that respect, although as I said its just been removed temporarily] Also, can you explain to me how the alpha paging is supposed to work? I have it enabled but it doesn't seem to do anything. When I use the page up / page down arrows it's not jumping to the next alphabetic letter. I'm not sure how this is supposed to function. [it does not affect normal page up/down, but adds new features for keyboard and GamePad, where if you hold down CTRL or Button 1 and then left or right it will Alpha page] Finally, when clicking on the marquee, title, etc. to make the image go full screen it'd be nice to be able to exit back to the previous screen via a left mouse click. I navigate GameEX with a mouse and I left click to make the image larger, but in order to go back to the previous screen it looks like I have to use either space bar or backspace on the keyboard. I think clicking the mouse should have the same effect. Can that be added? [Yes, I take your point deffinitly. I have already looked at this. What i was thinking was making the 'Right' Mouse button do a Navigate 'Back' in GameEx. This would be of benefit anyway i think, and will address this] Thanks! Jeff

Thanks for doing some research Erik. I appreciate this and i do plan to look at the joytokey type app you posted before. I think that would be something Id like to look into more than this kind of thing. Although this could open GameEx to the home automation folks possibly. Please be patient wating for me to implement the new features. I am a busy man Thanks, Tom.

Yes, Toonces is correct. There is no delay. Your PC is doing it as fast as it can. The Thread does the work of opening/processing the image/video. The purpose of this is two things, to make use of newer cpu's such as dual core and hyper threading, and at the same time improve 'responsivness'. In other words you should be able to select another game without the app freezing up waiting for the video or image to open. I have a dual processor machine, and dont notice a huge difference, but do notice a little. On my single core athlon XP, it was pretty rapid before, I dont notice an improvement, but theres certainly no delay. I find it hard to believe it is taking 5 seconds, but as I said there is no delay going on, and a timer is deffinitly not the correct approach for this. I would be interested to hear from Dave, and see how it works on his 800Mhz machine. If its really adverse for him. Ill look at it some more. Thanks, Tom