bkenobi

I haven't heard of that antivirus software before. I would first check with another package to verify. I suggest Avast! as it's free and well respected (also does automatic updates automatically to stay up to date). If it also comes back with a warning, I would be concerned. Hopefully Tom didn't contract a virus on his dev machine!

I just wanted to post what I came up with for the new MAME_Loader script. This now includes Zinc. It assumes that you have the rom path specified correctly in your Zinc setup. I'll give credit to Tempest since I used a couple lines from his Zinc loader script which he modified from my MAME_Loader script MAME_Loader.ahk.txt Zinc.txt

The only thing I can really suggest is try downloading it again. It's complaining that one of the image files is not there. I don't know how to get it if it's not there though. This might be something Tom will have to take a look at if a re-download doesn't fix it.

Oh, I didn't realize this was an error you encountered DURING the install. I thought this was after you installed and were running GameEx.

I've also used WinMerge for a comparison utility. It's freeware, so you can use it on a work machine. I like Beyond Compare much better given a choice though. It matches results much better IMO.

Actually, that's just what I'm about to do. I realized that it would be a lot easier to just do that than try to make the current system work the way it needs to be done. If Tom gets a chance to fix it, then I can remove it from the script later or just turn "use zinc" back on in GameEx. I don't know if Model2 is needed or not yet as I haven't checked if GameEx hardcodes the rom path. That will be next though.

Post your log.txt file.

I'm still playing around with Zinc... I found Howard Castro's Zinc Control Config Utility 1.5 which is really cool! It basically helps configure all zinc games to their original control layout in just a few quick steps rather than manually setting up each game one at a time (which is how you would do it with ZincGUI and the WinterBlast plugin). The utility generates ini files in the ctrlr directory for each game. This is all well and good, but there is a problem. The game needs to be called as follows: zinc.exe 1 --use-config-file=zinc.cfg --use-controller-cfg-file=c:\emu\zinc\ctrlr\starglad.ini --roms-directory=c:\emu\roms\zinc So, there are 2 problems that keep this from working... 1) There is apparently no way to use the [romname] variable in the zinc options so I can't specify the controller file in GameEx. 2) The rom path for zinc roms is hard coded as the same path for MAME roms in GameEx. If this were turned off, the path could be specified on the option line or in the zinc.cfg file. This is important because the check sum could be different than what zinc is expecting due to redumps etc. Zinc hasn't been updated in years, so a separate directory for zinc roms is appropriate. Without these two options, I'm thinking I'll have to put a script together to wrap zinc. This is not a hard wrapper to build, but if these two small things could be included, it would avoid wasted effort. If this isn't something that can be addressed easily, let me know and I'll get something going.

I've been reconfiguring my input recently and decided that I could simplify things if I were to use both joystick (for player1) and keyboard (joystick -> xpadder for player 2). I have custom inputs set up for both. If I enable both custom inputs for keyboard and joystick, I can use the joystick. If I disable the joystick inputs, I can use the keyboard input (without any other changes). BUT, I can't use both at the same time. I think this is a bug that's been there for a long time, but I always just worked around it. I could script around this again, but it seems like it could just be fixed. Any input? Thanks Background: I am using a GP-Wiz for both P1 and P2 input. As a result, I have two axis (X and Y) and 32 buttons. I used to have an XPadder profile that would map P1 and P2 joystick inputs to the same set of keys, but that requires switching profiles when launching all games. Since there is no way to launch a new profile for some emulators (Zinc, Model2, Daphne in particular), I figured I would just make a single profile so I could get things working. If I use the joystick input for player 1 and the keyboard input for player 2, I think I should be golden! Only problem is that it doesn't work GameEx.ini.txt custominput.ini.txt

Well, no not really. I've been reconfiguring a bunch of things over the last couple days (I've got a HUGE to-do list). One of the things on the list was switching back to Fusion from Gens32 Surreal. Since I need Fusion for Game Gear, I might as well use it for Genesis, SMS, etc.

I've just been setting Fusion up the last couple days (again...). I'll check this out since I'm at it anyway. Thanks!

There has just been an update to GameEx that now lets you use pretty much any codec pack you want. You are no longer limited to the FFDSHOW pack on the GameEx site. The current recommendation is to use the current stable release of FFDSHOW pack. Alternately, some people have reported good results with the Vista Codec Pack (note that this does work with XP as well).

True, but then the MAME Dev team doesn't support anything but the official MAME code.

I was going to make a loader a while back, but then had some other problems that needed addressing first. I think I can get back to this now. Thanks for the info!

Ok, cool. I was just a bit put off by having guests over and not realizing it would do that. It was a little embarrassing is all No worries. I figured it was something that might still be in flux to some degree. That's the main reason I hadn't posted this yet. I was happy with the speed out of this last caching though! Thanks again

I don't think any of that hardware stretch stuff has to do with MAME. The only thing that you should need to do is go to the MAME options page (sorry, don't know which one off the top of my head) and delete all the options. By default, it has '-tripplebuffer' among others. Then, edit your mame.ini file (or whatever it's called for your version of MAME) and give it a try.

Check that you don't have any stuck keys/buttons or that you aren't hitting anything manually. The nag screen usually sticks around for 20-30 seconds, so I'm guessing that a button is being pressed and GameEx is display the info about registering. If you don't press any keys, it the nag screen will go away and you will be ready to go. This should not be a problem with internet access because many people use GameEx without web access on their cabs.

Nice work! I have a question about the Game Info page caching that was updated a couple versions back. Well, I guess about 10 at this point since you are working so quickly these days! Anyway, I turned on the machine last night to let my sister-in-laws play around and it took several minutes to perform the caching the first time. After that it was very quick. I thought it cached once only the first time it was updated, but apparently it does this every time. I forgot to grab the log file, so I started the cab this morning, but it only took ~30 seconds to cache. Why did it take so long the first time and not the second time if nothing has changed? Does GameEx recache after every update? That would explain it since I had just updated AFAIK just before shutting down last time. Anyway, just looking for some understanding. Here's a log for the quick cache... log.txt

HAHA, your joystick is a button. That won't work

It's possible to remap the keys in Daphne globally? I never found that option. Does it work with game pads as well?

I think Tempest means: MAPFile=C:\Program Files\GameEx\DATA\EMU_2.mapbecomes MAPFile=C:\Program Files\GameEx\DATA\EMU_2

GameEx calls a command line that you specify. If you specify the wrong command line, it will not display how you expect. There are only a couple places that these options can be set (command line, mame.ini). If you don't specify any options, MAME uses the defaults. If you specify something in mame.ini, that's what GameEx will use. BUT, if you specify something in the MAME options in GameEx, those will override your settings in the mame.ini and MAME defaults, so things could turn out different than you might have expected. IMO, the best way to have MAME set up is to remove all options from the GameEx command line options section and specify everything in the mame.ini. This way you know exactly what should be happening because GameEx won't be changing anything.

What are you trying to do? If you want a list of rom names or names of games or whatever, you can use RomLister. It allows you to filter the list by controls, screen orientation, etc. You can get the list out of GameEx, but it will require parsing to use for anything. Check out "C:\Program Files\GameEx\DATA\gamelist.txt". This file contains a ton of info including rom names. I don't think this would be better than using a RomLister output though. Of course, I don't know what you are trying to do, so... RomLister Homepage

Agreed. I would like to launch an xpadder profile for Daphne, but I don't have that option. Since I haven't gotten around to creating a wrapper, Daphne sits disabled. If I could just launch it like any other emulator, I would be able to die on the bridge repeatedly just like everyone else.

You could try disabling MAME in the screen saver to see if other emulators show up.