bkenobi

AHK can do pretty much anything a user could do with a keyboard, mouse, etc. The language is pretty simple to learn IMO. I've never seen a real tutorial, but there are several guides for different topics at the AHK forum/wiki (e.g., how to remap keys/mice/joysticks). I don't think it replaces a real language like C or VB, but it definitely is nice to implement high level tasks quickly. I think it's a nice language to have in your toolbox! Oh, and some people prefer AI over AHK. I have seen a few things that AI can do that AHK can't. It might be a good idea to learn both if you have time. The code from AI and AHK are nearly identical, so it might not be that big a challenge.

Sorry, yes AHK = AutoHotKey. That's one of the main languages people code in at this forum. If you see AI, it means AutoIt (a similar scripting language).

I use Namco GunCon2 lightguns for the PS2 and use WinGun to interpret the inputs into mouse movements/clicks. WinGun won't work with the RAW input system that MAME now uses (as of MAME v0.117u1), so I use the MAME_Loader script to load gun games in an older version of MAME. I didn't write a tutorial on setting it up since most of the people here have at least a little AHK experience and could understand what was going on enough to get things going. If you are interested in using MAME_Loader and you don't have any experience with AHK (or AutoIt), I can help get it going. Basically it just comes down to knowing what games you want to run in what emulator, knowing the paths for those emulators and roms, and knowing how to call the emulator from the command line. Given that info, it's not that difficult to modify the code once you've seen it done once. Let me know if you want my help!

That works too. Have fun!

Just to eliminate a silly oversight...the games you want to add to your favorites list do show up in your main list, correct?

I looked into ctrlr files originally, but it looked like there would be hundreds of entries to cover all 6 button games for instance. While Tempest's program does create a ton of files, they are all quickly recreated if something happens and you need to start from scratch. IMO, with this script, the elegant advantages of the ctrlr file are outweighed by brute force cfg file technique that Tempest has developed. The only down side that I really see is that when new games come out, the set of blank .cfg files needs updating. This is probably something that should be investigated at some point! Btw Tempest, I really am going to test this out! I've just been bogged down with getting all of my emulator extras straightened out at the same time I'm re-extracting and re-encoding my entire CD collection. Basically, I don't have much CPU time available on my main system(s) or time.

Basically, all you have to do is edit the paths in the MAME_Loader.ahk file to whatever is appropriate on your setup. Then, compile the script to MAME_Loader.exe. Finally, point AdvanceMAME to that location in GameEx. I keep the loader in my MAME directory, but I suppose it could be kept elsewhere. Also, make sure you have your txt files for the emulators you have set up in the same directory as the script or it will crash. I suggest you test the script prior to running it in GameEx. Open a command prompt and navigate to your mame directory. Type in something like "MAME_Loader.exe sf2". Standard MAME should launch with Street Fighter 2. Then type something like "MAME_Loader.exe mrdrillr" and Mr Driller should load in Zinc. Now, if you remove mrdrillr from the zinc.txt file, it should load in standard MAME again. Also, if you don't want to use AnalogMAME+ or any of the other setups I have in there, you can either comment out that code, delete the lines of code that don't apply, or delete the contents of the "rotary.txt" file. Hope that helps!

Unfortunately, the only thing I can suggest is to print your list and go through the games one at a time adding them as a favorite. The only other option would be to use a script to convert your games list into a list of rom names. If I had a list with those two and a list of your favorites, I could script it for you. It all depends on how many games you have in your list whether it's worth the effort to code something up.

Right. 2 problems here: 1) Your list is in the wrong format. It needs the MAME32 folder ini headers. Here's an example: [FOLDER_SETTINGS] RootFolderIcon = cust1.ico SubFolderIcon = cust2.ico [ROOT_FOLDER] avalnche cascade gypsyjug kick kicka peggle pegglet playball snakjack wallst 2) Your game names should be rom names. Your list should look like this: wwfsstaa wwfwfest wwfwfsta ...not WWF Superstars (US, Newer) WWF WrestleFest (US set 1) WWF WrestleFest (US Tecmo) ... I hope that helps!

So the goal was to replace MAME with this script in GameEx. The problem with replacing it completely is that you need the actual mame.exe file in order to do updates to your list. I didn't know how to code up MAME_Loader to act just like MAME, so the solution is to use it in place of AdvanceMAME. Fortunately, Tom implemented things so that AdvanceMAME works just like MAME does as far as GameEx is concerned. The actual implementation for this script is better described in this thread: http://www.gameex.info/forums/index.php?sh...ost&p=36900 Basically, you put the script and any .txt files (e.g., zinc.txt) in your MAME directory and point GameEx's AdvanceMAME path to it. GameEx will send a command like: MAME_Loader.exe mrdrillr The script will take the game's name and look for it in all alternate MAME setups you have defined. Since you want to use standard MAME for Mr Driller, it won't find it in any list so it will default to standard MAME. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that. If you mean that you renamed the roms to numbers, then that won't work. Just leave them as they are named in MAME's romset.

I'm not sure how GameEx deals with favorites from emulators, but I know if you use the MAME favorites file option, it will import a MAME32 formatted ini file. If you are trying to add favorites from other emulators, things surely will be different. If you are using a different option to import favorites, then I'm not familiar with it. Basically, to import MAME favorites, you just create your list with the correct headers on the file and tell GameEx where it is.

You need to edit those two paths and edit the zinc.txt file. Remove mr driller and you should be good. Oh, and make sure you can run a zinc game by typing "zinc.exe #" where # is the number of the game. You might have to edit the path to your roms depending on your setup in the zinc.cfg file (I think).

I have one of those in my main pc. It runs Far Cry without any problems so I would think it should be good for most emulators.

Well, that's not entirely accurate. If you use the version of MAME_Loader posted in the thread that Tempest posted, you will be able to use multiple emulators (including different versions of MAME, Zinc, Model2, etc) with the MAME rom set. I use different rom directories for different emulators since they don't all use the same version of rom (although the are all MAME roms). I don't think that version includes the Model2 code, but I can update it if you want. Basically, you set up the MAME_Loader script as your AdvanceMAME exe, remove all command line arguments for AdvanceMAME, enable "use AdvanceMAME", disable "Use Zinc", and disable "Use Model2". Then, assuming you have the script set up correctly, it will launch the appropriate emulator for you. There are certain limitations on the built-in support for GameEx. In general it works great, but if you run into one of these limitations, you pretty much have to turn it off and do something different (set it up as an emulator, use MAME_Loader, use MultiMAME, something else?).

Oh, I was confused I thought he wanted a way to use the mouse to control CPWizard, not that he wanted the mouse to show up on a label. DOH! Glad you got it going despite my attempts to confuse the issue

One option is to get a motherboard with a decent onboard video card and an upgrade slot. Then you can try the emulators you are interested in to see if there's any problems with compatibility and/or performance. If so, you can add a video card when you get to it. Or, if you have unlimited funds, you can just get both at once. Either way works

What format is your favorites list in? GameEx will import favorites from a file that's in MAME32 folders format, so if the list is structured some other way, you probably won't have anything show up. Maybe you could post your favorites file (or a snippet of it if it's huge) so we could take a look?

Bah, it's not that I couldn't do that, it's more that MAME_Loader works for what I wanted it to do. I don't have a problem with you expanding on it if you want, though! I mention MultiMAME because I think it's a better technical solution. The problem is that it's a lot more complicated to get working IMO. If MAME_Loader didn't exist, I would definitely use the other code. I wouldn't consider that beating myself up, more giving an honest opinion of the available options and my critique of them.

Well, I don't use a mouse on my cabinet, so I never checked. All I was saying is that he could try manually entering what you posted in CPWizard.ini. I've edited my ini before to get all inputs to exit rather than just one button and it worked fine. I probably could have done the same thing inside the setup app, but I wanted to do it the other way. Anyway, whatever works...

MAME uses a lot more CPU than GPU. Many modern emulators leverage the DirectX set to improve performance. Those emulators will definitely benefit from a good GPU. However, that doesn't mean that you need the biggest, baddest video card out there. Get a good video card and spend most of the money on a great CPU IMO.

Hmmm, I'd probably go with the V8 unless you want to deal with mixing the fuel and oil.

1) MAME roms get updated from time to time due to changes in the source or updates due to bad dumps. If that happens, then MAME won't load the rom at all. It's always best to keep your version of MAME and your romset matched, but it's not 100% required. In this case, you are looking at running a small subset of games in an older version. I have actually just reviewed these games on MAWS to see what would be affected. I found that there's around half a dozen that won't work. The rest *should* be fine. 2) Running multiple versions of MAME for different games has been a common request for a LONG time. This is actually the same thing that I wanted around a year ago, but there was no way to do it. As a result, I coded up a script that could load different versions of MAME for different games. Check out MAME_Loader here. The other choice is to try MultiMAME. This code is better IMO, but I think it takes more effort to set it up. Either way should work though. 3) Sorry, I don't know much about the Wii and it's accessories. Perhaps Reflex or someone else can help.

That works too, but there's no reason you couldn't edit the cpwizard.ini file as Tempest suggested to see if it works. If not, then HK would need to help. If it does work, then we know what HK needs to do to make things work better. Either way...

You might want something stronger than the window motor for that...

You could try editing the cpwizard.ini file and manually typing that in. I know manual edits work on the ini file.