bkenobi

A lot of video cards use the TV as a mirror of the primary display. In that case, you only have one screen as far as windows is concerned. If you can't set your video card up to use the TV as a different display, then you might need to either use a different video card or build/buy a VGA->S-Video adapter.

Yup, it's just kinda silly. I know.

It's cool as is. There's no reason to defend your programming decisions. You made the program the way you wanted it, so you should stand by it. Nice work!

I've never liked how PPJoy worked (needing to stay active the way it does). That's one reason why I've found other ways to do things whenever possible. This will be nice going forward! Btw, is there a way to use a mouse as input? I'm thinking about how I used a GlovePIE script to convert mouse movement into an analog axis primarily. Just curious.

NICE!!! So, does this more or less replace PPJoy in functionality? Thanks for the contribution!

Yes. The MAMEdevs want people to know that the games are not perfect and so they put up a message saying so. It is possible to remove this warning by compiling your own version that removes it from the code (well, it actually just turns it off). It's very easy to compile MAME if you use the compiler HK put together. You simply follow the short set of directions and within 15-20 minutes (mostly compile time) you have a new custom version. You don't have to know anything about the code either since there are patches you simply select to include.

Are you referring to the "press ok or left then right to continue" message in MAME? If so, this only happens the first time you load a game. I thought Tom addressed this many versions ago by creating a cfg file for the rom before it was run, but maybe not. Anyway, the easiest solution is to compile your own version of MAME using HK's compiler. It used to be stickied, but you can either search the forum for it or find the link listed on the main site. The process really is easy...don't get intimidated!

XBMC is an awesome project! I actually use it for my HTPC needs...because I have a modded XBox. They focus on things a bit differently than GameEx though. They are very interested in the video side of things and leave the audio and application stuff to work itself out IMO. GameEx is more about allowing the user to get EVERYTHING working. It doesn't necessarily have the best of everything, but it has a lot more options. What GameEx does have included is very nice, just not necessarily the end all be all in all situations.

Yeah, I tried to figure a lot of that stuff out a while back. I had a decent grasp on what was what and was able to convert sets at will. In the end, I decided it was easier to obtain sets in the format I preferred to use rather than converting things around. Glad you got it figured out!

FWIW, this isn't what the OP was asking about. He wanted to have MAME games appear with NES, SNES, Genesis, etc in the same list. What you have posted is an excellent description of how to make a custom game list for MAME. Useful, just not the original request.

Any program that loads a system tray icon will leave that icon when you kill the app ungracefully (task manager, taskkill, etc). There is no way to get around this AFAIK other than having the app NOT add the icon in the first place. This is really a Windows issue rather than specific to this program.

FYI...The opposite of Joy2Key is PPJoy + GlovePIE (optionally).

Are you by any chance mapping the keyboard and trying to play with the XArcade stick? If so, you are mapping your keyboard to what MAME is looking for but then trying to use the stick (a second keyboard) to play. MAME isn't looking for it, so it won't respond...maybe?

You need a space before the '-play'.

I believe that if you have the proper DAT file, you can convert a No-Intro set to a Good Set. You will obviously only have one game for each title rather than one for each region in a standard Good Set.

There is a way to use the advanced emulator config to watch more than one process. I think I remember seeing a way to kill processes in there as well, but I could be wrong. It's been a while since I've used that file, so I'll let someone else fill in the details. If nothing else, you can use 'taskkill' to terminate the offending process. I've never used VP, so I don't know if this is required or if you have something wrong with your setup.

1) This data is stored in the data.mdb file for MAME games. For other games, you can edit the system specific database file that you point to. You will need to reboot GameEx to see the changes take effect. Be aware that if you update your MAME list, you will lose all changes that you made to your MAME info. The only way around this is to update the input files (history.txt etc) rather than the compiled file (data.mdb). 2) You can edit this info for non-MAME stuff in the database file. For MAME, you can edit your catver.ini file. I created a script that helps rename the categories as you wish. If interested, you can search for my post or ask and I'll find it. You cannot add more filter criteria, but you can change the data that's available to sort on. 3) I don't think you can sort by system in the 'All Games' list AFAIK. Hope that helps!

Tom cleaned up the stickies the other day. The thread is still here, but now you will have to either search for it or go to the main page and look under downloads.

Well, this is good info. I'm not sure why GameEx is trying to update, but we now know that it indeed thinks something has changed and so it wants to update. Now we just need to figure out why GameEx thinks it needs to perform the update! Here's a thought: 1) Install GameEx to a new location with default settings. 2) Then create a new folder and install MAME with default settings. 3) Check to see if you still need to update every time. This will put you in the default state so if it still needs to update, we can consider machine configuration stuff and not GameEx/MAME stuff.

Good to know! I prefer when applications keep all data together whenever possible. Isn't it possible to just tell people to open privileges on the GameEx folder though? Seems like that would be an easy fix for those who don't want to run as admin.

MAME and the HOME layout used to use the same background. I can't remember if Tom changed that or not. If not, you are unfortunately stuck.

Is it possible VS 2008 handles registry access differently than the old version? (More a question for Tom than anything)

If I remember correctly (which is highly suspect), GameEx stores the flag for updating in the registry. Is it possible that you don't have permission to change that flag for some reason? If it were a file, you could manually change the value and set the file to read-only to verify that it's working. Dunno

As long as the game fits in to the emulator's filter setting, it should show up right away (you have to restart GameEx if it's running when you add the game).

This is probably a file name issue. GameEx can either check for the exact file name or use a best match algorithm. If the file names are too far off, the best match won't even help. If this is your issue, you might want to try FatMatch (search this forum) or one of the other available programs.