bkenobi

I haven't tried any other OS than WinXP Pro SP2 with GameEx. However, my personal opinion (not having used Vista myself more than for a couple minutes) is that WinXP Pro SP2 is the best choice currently for a stable work environment with compatibility to standard programs. Win2k3 should be nice and stable, but I don't know that it has all the components that WinXP does since it's more of a server OS. Vista crashed on me after just 5 minutes of playing with it and my wife's company abandoned it after <1 week due to too many problems. They went back to...WinXP SP2. Win2k would work as long as you can get drivers for you hardware and .net works with it (as it should). I wouldn't go back to Win98 unless I had to, but I would avoid WinME like the plague (MS wishes they never released it). Win98 doesn't support USB 2.0 (unless there was a new driver released that I'm not aware of), so that might make a difference to you. Anything prior to Win98 won't natively support USB, so that might be a problem.

I respectfully disagree with setting the video memory to maximum. Video memory is basically used for rendering frames to. In the case of MAME, you don't have any fancy textures or anything since it's all emulated and not optimized for the video drivers. As such, the video card really doesn't do much other than draw simple pictures at relatively low resolutions and maybe resize them to something bigger. You don't need a fancy card with a ton of video memory for that. On the other hand, you do need a lot of system memory and CPU power. My suggestion would be to set the video card to something moderate so that you have more system memory. HOWEVER, if you are planning on using one or more of the newer advanced emulators that do use your video card's features, you may want to use more memory than MAME can use. In that case 64mb or maybe 128mb would be a good choice. If it were me, I would set it to 32mb or 64mb and leave the rest for system memory.

Agreed (I just put together a Athlon X2 for ~$250). However, MAME would run fine on this one and it's $100 less. Plus, you wouldn't have to build it (some people don't want to...). Anyway, I was just throwing it out there for what it's worth.

Glad you got it going. Have fun with your build!

Just an FYI, if you want to get a new box for a good price and live in the states, you can get a decent machine from sears.com for ~$185 after a $100 rebate. Just FYI. Link Be aware that this includes no OS. But, if you are retiring your old rig, you could just put that OS on this one.

Wow... Actually, I've formatted machines for similar treacherous acts. Whose laughing now!!! Sometimes if you have a directory open, it doesn't let you do certain things (like delete it). Perhaps there is something accessing the directory not letting you change the settings. My best guess would be to reboot and make sure nothing is running out of that directory or accessing anything in that directory. Then you should be able to do what you want with it.

1) No. There have been rumors that Tom may be adding multiple MAME setups in GameEx at some point, but I don't get the impression it's at the top of his priority list right now. The other way to do this is to use the official build of MAME for the built in MAME emulator setup and to add an additional emulator for MAME FX (or switch them if you prefer).

That would be pretty cool for those that have special controls requiring special builds/settings. For example, I have rotary joysticks that don't work well with vanilla mame. I've heard that they work well with analog mame+, but I haven't had a chance to play with it since I know it hasn't been updated and I don't want to switch everything over to that. Same goes for track ball/mouse/gun games or even steering wheels. That could be a really useful feature although probably not for everyone. The only question would be how would it be incorporated? Would all MAME lists be combined into a single list (preferable), or would there be multiple lists (sorta like the lists for CPS, NEOGEO, lightgun, etc.)?

Hehe, I never clicked on the link cause I assumed it was the right one. Yes, the link JT just provided is the one I thought you were looking at. Sorry for the confusion

Back on target

The only way I know of to do this is to use the default MAME emulator with one and set up a second emulator with your secondary MAME settings. You will lose some of the features of the built-in MAME (like the new screen saver identifications among others), but it should work fine.

Wait...a guy with the handle "mightypeniz" is going to blackmail me over a comment about what I have in my closet and what I plan on doing with it?!

Read the thread. It's not that long and it explains everything very clearly. It tells you what to download with a link for each item, what to select when running, and what order to do things in. Seriously...it's not a big deal.

I have one in the closet, that I might be able to play with. Can it fit on a 2GB HDD? Btw, where do I get TinyXP? I only have WinXP Pro.

I don't think there's any reason you have to use the xarcade.cfg file if you don't want. That's really just a jumping off point IMO. You could just as easily go into the menu in MAME (hit TAB) and configure everything just how you want. The difference is that by using the xarcade.cfg file, everything should be configured the way the creators of the file like it, so hopefully you will too.

The problem is that if you hit escape it toggles from fullscreen to windowed when you hit escape and even if you have GameEx exit, it keeps the setting (apparently). If there's another way around that, then that would be the better solution.

Not if you hit escape and it remaps to Alt-F4 Edit: I see how my first statement was confusing

That's dangerous though since hitting ESC in GameEx will cause it to quit (because it remaps to Alt-F4). Make sure if you do that that you only have it work for specific programs. For example: IfWinActive, Fusion escape::{alt}{F4} note that the code is probably wrong and won't run as is. You'll have to get the correct commands... You might even need to use "persistent" in there and set a timer. It's pretty easy, but will make for a less frustrating experience.

There are 2 versions of MAME that GameEx allows you to use simultaneously. 1) It's assumed that you are using the official build for the basic MAME (although you can use other variants as long as they support all of the official command line inputs like -createlist). Some people opt to use another version for whatever reason (e.g., MAME32/MAMEGUI) which is ok as long as you configure it correctly. 2) The AdvanceMAME settings are specifically for AdvanceMAME. I don't know if any other build will work in it's place as it uses some rather unique settings (different video settings, etc.). You don't have to use this (I don't), but some people think it works better for certain reasons (e.g., arcade monitors, TV's, etc.).

By compiling MAME, you gain NO advantage over a standard build in performance. What you gain is the ability to customize certain things. That thread talks about a few patches that will give you some extra features as well as changing the defaults of a couple things. 1) Add hiscore.dat 2) Change the default to off for the gun sights (you can still hit F1 to toggle them) 3) Remove nag stuff (e.g., "Hit OK to continue") 4) Remove drawn boarder 5) There was one other thing I can't remember ATM...

Actually, that's something that's been requested several times, but isn't possible at the moment. Now that I think about it, I just had a friend over last weekend and when they were done with the machine, they couldn't figure out how to turn it off because the "turn off machine" item was on a different page and since there's no real queue to tell people that there's multiple pages, he had no idea he had to scroll. He ended up hitting quit a bunch of times until he gave up. If I had an "Emulator" menu, it would be a bit cleaner. Perhaps at least having something that tells people visually that there's more above/below (like grayed out scroll arrows)? As far as having to scroll so many pages, can't you just hold the alpha/page button before you press up/down? Maybe you're using a remote so you can't use multiple keys. If so, assign a page up/down button (for example if there's an up/down arrow and channel up/down, use channel as paging). Just a thought.

Good stuff. Have fun!

I can only think of 2 suggestions for you to try. 1) zip your GameEx.ini file and upload it so someone can take a look. 2) backup your GameEx.ini file and start over by copying the GameEx.default.ini file to GameEx.ini. The settings people have mentioned here should have worked, but it appears something funny is going on. I don't know what else to suggest. Maybe someone else has a better thought, but that's what I've got.

As I understand, skip_disclaimer has been disabled by the MAMEdevs. You now have to either press 'OK', hit left/right, or compile your own version as Brian said.

Go to the thread linked above and follow the directions. Yes, it's step by step.