stigzler

How could I have forgotten that? I STILL haven't seen 1942 on that bad boy! Well, you strike me as a "full set" kinda guy. Just surprises me you haven't tackled a cab yet. I bet you'd make it with rockets. And naked women.

Fabulous setup, but no cab?

Sound like me when I'm buying jeans these days.

You betcha, baby. That Talos101 theme causes babies to be conceived. "alternative toddler interface" Flappy Bird. One button. Press...press....PRESS....WHACK..WHACKWHACKWHACK.....BOOM....press....press....press.... (ad infinitum) (go easy on him guys - he's got a toddler)

no worries. enjoy your trip

Urgh. I neeed sleeeeep! Alpha Release 0.9 But! Calling all geezers! Got it up and running for all TaitoTypeX games. Now needing a little help/feedback from the GameEx team! That means you: @Tom Speirs @headkaze @tthurman @Adultery @DazzleHP @RedDog @greatflash @hansolo77 @RIP-Felix @ClassicGMR @KRC @Draco1962 has stepped up already and is getting the stall set out as we speak! Anyways enough of the enthusiasm, it's exhausting. If anyone could help out, that'd be grand. What would be helpful: Feedback on how easy it is to use (there's a help guide built into the app) Someone have a look through the Assets directory and see if they spot any naughty files. At some point, looking to to get some project members together to catalogue good and bad exes. Any other suggestions/knowledge that I may have missed. Any bug reports/feature suggestions would be helpful posted here You can download the Alpha here Of course, a house is only ever as good as the foundations you build it from if you catch my drift. Happy for pms around other issues.

Update: Romcheck system in place: However, not going into all the support files requirements. People will have to sort that for themselves.

I've been on leave for 2 weeks and worked harder than when I'm at work!

Cheers chap. I'll have you up and running in no time. Even with Otomedius (the Japanese have some baffling cultural memes)

Update: A lot of the time/hassle in this dev has reflective of the main hassle with TTX. So many .exes. So many launch methods. So many variables (user PC etc). I've fallen afoul of lots of different types of spanners in the works and tried to control for most of them. One of the outstanding issues is around knowing whether the main .exe file the launcher (or just directly) is using is a 'good rom' or not. The name and date alone may not tell you that. So I've built in a 'known good/bad' checksum database which hopefully, once populated, will let people know whether they are using a dud or a good exe. An example below AH3: The associated good/bad rom data is the bottom table. The 'MD5' is a unique ref generated from the exe itself. Thus, once the database is populated, users will know the status of their 'rom' Of course, the true task is going to be in the database population. I very much doubt I'll be scouring and grinding for files to test. Any ideas?

@Adultery Calamity Trigger or Continuum Shift? Please say the former! I just tried that here on AMD card + still no dice, although could be the exe version. Let me know. Now incorporating an exe database based on checksums of the exes with whether they're working or not, or what things need to be considered when using them. So this kinda info invaluable, A!

Ah, yeah, no. However it does surprise me given that everything else about this system is a PITA.

You're being very obtuse, A!

And...boom! TTX Done. All greens, baby! The detail: All games but 2 up and running from 3 click process (as long as your sets are right, of course!) Blimey - it's really tedious! Some really obscure barriers to booting some and it seems that no-body has ever drawn everything together in a guide. The 3 games having difficulty with: BlazBlue Calamity Trigger - boots but severe graphics bugs. Some conjecture somewhere that it may be due to AMD cards? (i.e. GPU on my test rig) Taisen Hot Gimmick - doesn't boot. Error in Japanese. King Of Fighters - Maximium Regulation A - Boots - splash-screen then hangs. Any TypeX fanboys out there? Anyone know much about these? Oh, and those two days of coding around display management.. for one game! (which doesn't run very well, either!)

@DazzleHP - damn - I've been trawling TTX games during this dev + there are some awesome schmups on it! Shikigami no Shiro III being a fave - love this whole genre - Homura etc - 3d backgrounds with bullets everywhere! I've gotta make a dedicated schmup cab one day with vertical screen.

Flipping or rotating?

Blurgh... OK - so got displays truing on and off per game via NirSofts' excellent MultiMonitorControl. Even managed to turn them all back on again once the game has finished - re-arranging them into their pre-existing arrangement (layout, orientaiton etc) However, of course, the real problem is putting all the bloody windows back where they were before the game ran... Nightmare. Currently lost another day to going round in circles using unmanaged code to store visible windows and location and then put them all back again. Totally confused with all the pinvokes and different varieties of class names, window names, process ids etc.. What really grates is that it's only for one or two games (Battle Gear 4 and Samurai Showdown - these don't like multi-monitors!) May try without re-arranging windows and see how it fares.

Those little grey boxes took about an hour :/ Think I'd starve if I tried this for a living!

Here's what I've been doing with the past 3 hours of my life: Spiffing, huh?

As a matter of interest, what would you guys like to see in a TypeX/Nesica launcher app?

Brain Hoffman bought a small Chinese packaging firm, married a Norwegian wrestler and grew a nose beard. Tempest changed his name to "Tempest D" and purchased the sole rights to the theme tune from "Bad Taste" which he performs to passing crowds in Norfolk on his elbow trombone. bkenobi was actually NullPointer all along, although twixt between the two identities, he disappeared into an existential funk of bad faith and paradox. In short, no idea.

I do hope this one works out: Looks awesome for small maker parts. Only worry is that the resin becomes like razor blades and ink cartridges. Mind you, I'm sure 3rd party bottled resin is going to be easier to source than those..

No worries, chap. We always welcome people who look like Jesus and breathe fire.

(Dev diary) - bringing back Comic Sans! So I've had to come on here for my own sanity. I know - must be bad, right!? So I just couldn't help it, I had to make another app. It happens like this - do something - go back to my cab to carry on setting up up given the new something, then another new 'something' crops up. This time it was TypeX and Nesica setups. I remember I had difficulty with TypeX before - setup was hit and miss at best. Those who have braved it know it isn't as simple as "point the Emulator at the ROM and twiddle a few settings). Each game is a PC game in itself - made for different specs and setups. So, foolishly I thought - "meh - how hard can it be to write an app to automate all of the setup process?" I'll never learn. Well 10 days straight I've been hammering away at it and every problem solved has led to 2 more! However, I have learned an awful lot about the clandestine world of TypeX and Nesica. The aim is this - to run the app, to point it to where your game files sit, click once to scan and then another button to set all of the games up. Getting close, but the work behind the scenes to achieve this is bonkers. Few coding challenges I've had to overcome: implementing a "verified install" system to allow user to install zipped packages that have been verified as kosha (running checksums on files and keeping a database secretly tucked away in the app!) - this was because TypeXtra will not carry and illegal files. You can import modified game exes (such as HD updates and improved performance on PCs) Make an autoscan system - scans game folders and pulls out game.inf files, matching these to known games in the database. Manipulating displays - turning them off and on as the loaders don't like multi-monitor setups (and you know that's gonna be a biiig problem for me, right! - luvin those screens - wanting Wargames WOPR standards on my cab!) Other stuff that weirdly, I have no idea of at the moment (what have I been doing for the past 10 days?!) Oh, that's right - lots of internet trawling and reading french forums. >,< A couple of bits of dev that I'll keep in my bag: A new help system - dead easy to knock together using html, treevews and hidden tabs: A new Settings system - better then my usual 'crammed in' style (and realistic this time that I inevitably will be adding more settings later on - expands easily): Anwhoos, here's the features malarky from the help: And a sneaky peak screen shot: So at the moment, I'm working on: The per-game displays controls (turn off/on, rotate etc) Integrating Game Loader All Rh to allow accessing specific game config from the TypeXtra GUI. The real challenge has been sticking to the initial principle of a two click setup. This means lots of work-arounds behind the scenes to get an unruly bunch of game files looking like a perfectly co-ordinated set. It's been like herding cats.. https://magoarcade.org/wp/typextra/

But would the wife get rid of the dogs (or the dogs the wife, for that matter. Wonder what the dogs really want? Nice pad, man. Those shelves look the mutt's nuts (sticking with a theme).