bkenobi

Actually, you can load up any theme and convert it to V4 for further modification. In fact, you can actually load in MAMEwah themes too (there's lots of them)! Agreed that it would be easiest to see an actual V4 theme to see an example of the new features.

V4 themes are new. The V3 theme that Tom showed off should be available, but I'm not sure where to get it. The theme editor will allow you to create your own custom theme in the meantime if you like.

Yup. There are a few options for that. 1) Put a USB hub in your cab either exposed or easily accessible to the front so you can just plug in game pads as needed. 2) Build USB ports right into the front of the machine somewhere to accomplish the same as 1. 3) Use wireless controllers and install the wireless portion inside the machine so you don't need to have access to the USB ports. There's many other options, but those are the 3 that I've seen implemented and would consider first. I personally have a USB hub under my CP already, so I use it for things like plugging in HDD's and testing. One of my cabinets was originally an Area51, so it had holes for guns. I use the holes to run the wires for my guns. Depending on which way you choose to go, you can either store the gamepads hanging under the CP or in a nearby drawer/cabinet (depending on how you want things to look).

But Nintendo says that wheelies make you go faster?!

catver.ini is formatted differently than the other files (catlist, etc.). The other lists are in MAME32 format. These both contain similar data, but they require a different method to pars the list. GameEx uses the old MAME format for catver, so you can't use the MAME32 formatted ones unless you convert them.

Are videos the large image or the small one?

How can flash complain....he's one of them

Ahhhh, if only I had the talent

I don't mean to send you away, but have you checked out the BYOAC forum? These questions you have been asking are EXACTLY what they do in 90% of the posts. Asking here is fine, but you might find all of your questions answered already in posts over there. If I were you, I would check them out and see what they recommend. If that doesn't clear up all of your questions you can either ask there, here, or both. There's a lot of knowledge in both forums, it's just that this one is primarily focussed on the FE software side of things (both the front end and getting the front end to work with other things). Anyway, just a suggestion.

I don't understand. All of these machines that run GameEx are standard PC's running Windows 98SE or newer. Therefor yes, you can install a USB game pad (wired or wireless) without any problem. The only issue might be if the PC doesn't have USB ports. But I can't see that as likely since I haven't seen a machine without USB ports since ~1998.

Never mind...

Just curious, but what is the advantage of the ArcadeVGA card if you are using an LCD screen?

Tivo remotes have pause buttons and when you are paused, if you hit play then it will play, but pressing pause again will do the same. Also with XBMC if you press play it will pause and play. Anyway, just a couple counter examples. Like I said though, I like the option for dedicated buttons!

HA ha, Tempest just got called out!

Just to verify, you are compiling MAME64. Is your machine running a 64-bit os and using a 64-bit processor? You need to have both on the system you run MAME on AS WELL AS the system you compile it on (if those are different).

I have personally been concerned with the 5 and 6 button games since I (apparently) mapped my CP wrong . I have a 7 button NeoGeo/SF layout with the buttons on the bottom starting with 1 and the 3 on the top starting with 5. Most people do it the other way. This is good if you like using the SF layout normally, but I don't. Anyway, to fix this, I created a couple custom folders for GameEx that contain just 5 and 6 button games so I can remap them manually. The list was somewhat surprising in that the number of games didn't look right. Do a listing in RomLister and see what I mean. It's missing a ton of games. I don't know if this is a controls.xml problem or a problem with me being inept, but either way...

Deselect all items in the options list other than "Display CP only". That should do it.

Are you using InstantSheller or the other sheller released on the forum? I tried the other one and it did have this issue with passwords. I found that sometimes it would require a login and others it wouldn't. In the end, I switched back to InstantSheller as it just worked. I lost a few features, but it didn't bother me that much anyway.

Get what you like first and foremost. I personally don't think arcade cabinets do justice to console games when using the control panel. I have many consoles set up (primarily Nintendo and Sega), but they were never meant to be played on an arcade CP. If you want authenticity, you really need a game pad. I have been planning on getting a pair of Logitech Wireless Rumble Pad 2 sticks for quite a while now but haven't done it yet. The PS3 pads might work nice if the driver support is there (haven't researched it myself). Another choice (for me anyway) is that since my XBox DVD drive recently went tits up, I may use it's wireless controllers. As far as 7 vs 8 buttons...I would just go with 7. You really only need 6, but I like the ability to have the authentic Neo Geo layout as well as the SF layout. That way, you don't have to compromise and pick which system you like better. There's really no need for the 8th button (you rarely need over 6 really). Go get RomLister and see how many games have more than 6 buttons... To make it short and sweet: * The only reason to get the 8th button is for console emulation. * Consoles really need game pads * You don't need the 8th button

So just a couple little requests to start off with?

I guess I assumed this was being used for emulators other than MAME as well. If you want to use this for MAME, then you need to use an older version (0.116 or older). There's really no need for an external script in MAME though as you can just use what Brian suggested and set the keys as necessary in MAME itself.

If you are going to post a request, you should actually do it... Tom will consider adding anything that is suggested, but just saying "make it better than it is now" is a rather difficult feature to add. There are a lot of features that are in GameEx specifically for the HTPC crowd as is, so if there's more specifically that you would like to see, post a list so Tom can consider them! Welcome to the forum!

You don't have to restart Windows, you just need to kill the script. It might be a good idea to add the following to the script: ^c::exitapp This will allow you to exit the script by pressing ctl-c (common for quitting applications). I don't have AHK installed on my work machine, so I can't decompile the script to see what Brian has done in it, but it should be really simple. It should be pretty easy to make it work.

I just noticed the other day that "Tetris The Grand Master (JAPAN 980710)" is now filtered off my list in GameEx. I know it was there before, but apparently it's off the list now. I don't know if this is a Zinc configuration issue in GameEx (meaning something changed), or if it's out because it's now listed as "imperfect" (I don't think that's changed recently though). Either way, I'm going to add it to the do not filter list. While I'm at it, are there any other games I should add as well? What do other people have in their lists? I know Brian had mentioned a few versions of Street Fighter are out, but I can't remember which ones... List: tgmj - Tetris The Grand Master (JAPAN 980710)

Running MAME through GameEx is identical to running MAME32. The only difference is that you need to change the executable path and filename in the GameEx setup from MAME32.exe to MAME.exe. Everything else *should* be the same. All support files should be the same in current versions of MAME32, so you don't need to change anything, it should just work. There's nothing wrong with using MAME32, it's just that there's no advantage to it either. Since most people use vanilla MAME, you will find better support here and around the net for it.