bkenobi

It doesn't look like it's trying to play the video (as you said). Did you verify that the video is still in your gameex.ini file? I don't know why it would be gone if you put it in there, but some people have been experiencing problems with emulator settings being altered. Is it possible this could be a related problem? Just a thought...

Basically I don't like the number of categories in either catver.ini or genre.ini. Catver gives way too many and it makes it hard to find anything. Genre is too basic and results in HUGE lists for each item. I wanted a list that combined things into ~30 groups of no more than ~100 games per list (after clones are removed). I also wanted to combine all games that I don't have any intent to play (tabletop, casino, quiz, betting, etc) into a single group that could be filtered off in GameEx. There may already be a tool out there that does this better, but I never found it so I made my own.... So, I wrote a script using Python that can take the standard catver.ini file and an input file containing renaming categories. It then processes things and spits out a new catver.ini file and only takes a few seconds to process. I've tried to use the prebuilt tools to do this (MAMEData, RomLister, Access, Excel, etc.), but they are all very time consuming. This just plain works. I wanted to include a list of examples in the category like I had before, but unfortunately the search feature in GameEx will find text in the category too, so that made this useless (mario resulted in a list of hundreds of titles...all the platformers). Anyway, if you want to create a custom list, you might give this a try. EDIT: I cleaned up the output slightly so there's header on the file. This will make it easier to tell when it was generated and what version of MAME it covers. EDIT 2: I found and fixed a slight bug that didn't put *Mature* on the categories I deemed "CRAP". EDIT 3: INSTRUCTIONS: To run this, you need to: 1) Download and install Python 2) Download and extract "Custom_catver.ini.zip" to a directory (e.g., c:\emu\catver) 3) Download catver.ini for your version of MAME and put in c:\emu\catver (v0.125 is included) 4) Edit "Catver_conversion.txt" if desired (this is the set of rules for how the catver.ini categories are reorganized) 5) Run the script (just double click the .py file). 6) Copy/move "new catver.ini" to wherever is appropriate and rename to catver.ini EDIT 4: Category "Driving / Plane" didn't have any converted category, so these games may not have been added to the new catver.ini file. I added them to "Shooter / Flying Other". This only affects 3 games and none are that valuable IMO, but they should show up in the list now. Custom_catver.ini.zip

No, I hadn't heard of that app before. It looks like a more robust version of the MAME_Loader script though. I think I will give it a try next chance I get. It could be a good fit depending on it's setup. Thanks for the input!

It's definitely possible that other things are going on with all of these. Once you have tried the ones listed in this thread, report back and we will try to go from there. Thanks for the input chriss and Rapid Fire!

For starters, a lot of these questions can be found in the FAQ. But, here's the short answers: 1) Black screen usually means that you have "Show Desktop" turned off (or is it "Hide Desktop" turned on). 2) You can add games to the favorites list if you have the game info screen turned on. Once you have that on (for each emulator that you want to add favorites from), you can add any game you want to your favorites. 3) There is a search feature built into GameEx that allows you to search across all emulators. So if you want to find games with the word 'Mario' in it, you would end up with some arcade games, NES, SNES, N64, etc... 4) The last one requires setting up the filters correctly and then running 'Update List'. Basically any time you change settings for MAME in GameEx related to your games, you need to update the list again to rebuild things correctly.

Agreed!

If you are talking about the text in GameEx that shows at the bottom of the screen right before it goes to MAME, that can be turned off as well. I think that is under "Enable/Disable Features (3)" and called "Show Loading Screen". It's easiest to find if you just use the setup wizard and search for "loading".

The only down side to using an external emulator rather than the built in MAME one is that you lose a lot of the extras Tom put in for MAME. What you suggested would work fine, but it won't give you a single list with everything AND have the extra coolness of the MAME list.

From the video Tom posted a while back, it looked like it rotated through the different available images.

The only part that would require a lot of work would be the MAME list in GameEx. I don't know how hard it would be to add things in there on your own. And, more importantly, I don't know if GameEx leaves custom added items in the database when it updates, or if it strips them out and starts over. If it didn't delete them, you could do what you want without tooooo much grief. As far as the MAME_Loader goes, it would require a moderate effort to get each game loading correctly. However, if you already have them set up in GameEx and loading correctly, it's not completely impossible. I guess I would say if you are interested in doing this, try adding a game to the MAME list (c:\Program Files\GameEx\DATA\data.mdb), add it to the do not filter list (so it shows up without an actual rom, and update your list. If it's still there after you update, then it might be worth the effort since you won't have to do it more than once. I can offer advice on the MAME_Loader since it's not too complicated. If you know AHK at all, then it should be self explanatory!

Short answer: No Long answer: There is no way to use subfolders natively with GameEx. It is possible with Windows to link files and directories in such a way that it MIGHT work for what you want using the 'ln' command, but that would require some knowledge of the command and/or research into more details on it.

I don't know where you adjust the setting, but I know there is a way to get MAME to load in the game's original resolution by using the -resolution switch. I just saw a post a couple days ago where they had that working and they even stated what they were using to make it pop up (automatically). However, since I don't run an arcade monitor, it's not too important to me, so I didn't pay attention close enough. I want to say it's part of the ArcadeVGA drivers though.

Well, I've never tried it and my guess would be "not easily". The reason it wouldn't work well is that the Daphne titles aren't part of MAME. In order for you to get them in there, you would have to manually add them to the list. Then you could modify the MAME_Loader to include Daphne games. It's certainly possible, just a lot of work that would have to be redone when a new version of MAME comes out (I suspect GameEx would clear it out of the database, but I'm not sure). So, to answer the question: Yes it's possible, but it requires a reasonable amount of work.

You can do that or, if you are only using this computer for GameEx, you can shell the machine. There is an extensive shelling guide on the site located here.

Never mind, I found it... CatVer Link

Hmm, I forgot that you could have multiple users that want to play the same game. I suppose binary wouldn't be bad though. Bit 1 for user 1, bit 2 for user 2, etc. I like it!

This isn't too big a deal, but I think Tom will want to get it taken care of to polish things. I noticed today that when I use the search feature, some buttons don't work as anticipated. I use a GP-WizRX and have XPadder setup to remap the buttons to keys. I have things set up as follows: Accept: A Cancel: S Volume: D Paging: F When I use the search feature, pressing Accept or Volume does nothing. However, when I press Cancel or Paging, I see 'S' and 'F' show up on the screen. Seems like these inputs should be blocked like the other two are. Not too big a deal, but it would be more polished if it were fixed.

Anyone have a copy of CatVer.ini for v0.125? It looks like MAMEWorld is down ATM. I'm trying to update my stuff, but since I don't seem to have a ton of free time these days, waiting kinda kills the effort. Thanks!

I was pretty sure it was possible to just use the Admin screen in the Advanced Configuration to remove all favorites, but it appears that doesn't currently work. In case that is not supposed to do that and you want to delete the favorites data WITHOUT deleting all the other data, there is a way (provided you have a way to run a query on data.mdb). If you create an update query and add the favorites column, set criteria to 1, then put null in the update field, you will remove all 1's from the DB. Here's the SQL for those that read it: UPDATE Data SET Data.Favorite = Null WHERE (((Data.Favorite)=1)); Incidentally, I figured there might be a REALLY easy way for Tom to implement multiple favorites categories in GameEx. Currently, the favorites field contains numerical boolean data (1's and 0's). This could be changed slightly in the logic so that it's slightly extended. 0 is still false, but if you made 1 for user 1, 2 for user 2, etc then it would just be a matter of allowing for the creation of a favorites category on the fly I guess. I can explain better, but I figured a programmer would probably understand without all the words...

I believe the path is 'artwork' not 'bezel'.

Well, I won't be changing my setup for this as I just rebuilt my CP with the GP-WizRX. Man, if they had rotary built into that thing too...

I remember something about setting the volume of the internal DVD player in the settings. In the Setup Wizard, search for "DVD Audio" or some variant on that. It's probably set to 0.

Try: ### Mame CORE misc options ### artwork 0 use_backdrops 0 use_overlays 0 use_bezels 0 artwork_crop 1

post your log

Just a comment, not necessarily a fix... You are running GameEx in 640x480 and you tried to run 1942 at 352x256. Is this really what you want? It's possible GameEx is crashing due to resolution changes.