Stu1983

Took a bit longer than I thought but here it is my little vision of the future lol Save Game Backup BETA 1 Features: - Command Line Support for easy scheduling - Each game is stored in a single .sgb file for easy sharing - Variable directory paths are used to, hopefully, allow the same save file to be used on different operating systems - Steam user directory support, configure your Steam directory and username in the Settings|Variables - .sgb files are compressed to save space - Built in profile editor I've included 60 odd profiles for games I have installed, I haven't been able to test them all but the few I have, have worked fine... I think though that there will be problems with 'Games For Windows Live' (spits in disgust) games as they seem to go out of there way to stop you backing up your saved games. If you go to Settings|Profile Editor you can add your own games, just give it a name and add any directorys that this program uses to save settings/games All I ask is if you do add a game that istn't included then please send me the .sgb so I can import it to my collection, that way everyone can benifit I've added the following command line swtiches: -backupall This will backup all available profiles to the backup location defined in 'Backup Options' -restoreall This will restore all .sgb files that are contained in the backup location defined in 'Backup Options' -b full_sgb_path This will backup the single .sgb file specified e.g. savegamebackup.exe "c:\_savegames\my game.sgb" This could easily be used in the GameEx run after box to automatically backup your saved game when your finished playing -r full_sgb_path This will restore the single .sgb file specified e.g. savegamebackup.exe "c:\_savegames\my game.sgb" Hope someone else finds this usefull Stu SaveGameBackup.rar

I run Mame, Future Pinball, Project64, Zsnes, Nestopia, VisualBoy Advance, Kega Fusion, SSF, NullDC and pSX all happilly on Vista x64 so I don't see you having any problems on Windows 7 Stu

There is an auto update option in GameEx so maybe it is likely trying to connect. In the Enable/Disable Features section of the Configuration try setting "Enable Auto GameEx Updates" to "Disable Automatic Updates" Stu

A backup of the drive is definite must before I change but I really like the idea of a simple program that can backup my save games at any time meaning it could be put in the startup folder and backup you games every boot that way if a drive failed then you still have your save games. I lost a Half Life 2 save game that I'd been playing for weeks because a drive failed never played it again because I couldn't be bothered doing it all over. Backing up the users folder is fine but I haven't even started looking at the games that still choose to create the save game in the directory you install it... I'm looking at you Colin McRae Dirt Maybe it'll only be me that finds it handy but I made some good progress with it last night so I'm going to batter on with it and see how it goes. Stu

Problem is that developers don't always choose to use these folders Here's the locations that the 11 random games I've picked for testing use: C:\Users\@CURRENTUSER@\AppData\Local\Activision\CoDWaW C:\Users\@CURRENTUSER@\AppData\Local\CAPCOM\STREETFIGHTERIV C:\Users\@CURRENTUSER@\Documents\CAPCOM\DEVILMAYCRY4 C:\Users\@CURRENTUSER@\Documents\CAPCOM\RESIDENT EVIL 5 C:\Users\@CURRENTUSER@\Documents\CAPCOM\STREETFIGHTERIV C:\Users\@CURRENTUSER@\Documents\Codemasters\GRID C:\Users\@CURRENTUSER@\Documents\NFS SHIFT C:\Users\@CURRENTUSER@\Saved Games\Command & Conquer 3 Kane's Wrath C:\Users\@CURRENTUSER@\Saved Games\Eidos\Mini Ninjas C:\Users\@CURRENTUSER@\Saved Games\Halo 2 C:\Users\@CURRENTUSER@\Saved Games\Red Alert 3 As you can see only 4 of these actually use the Saved Games folder, it's a nice idea by Microsoft, shame the developers think they know best Stu

This is quite off topic I have an idea for a program and I'm wondering if any of you have ever came across such a program, I've scoured my side of the internet but I can't see any thing. Basically I want something that will backup all my save games from various PC games to a specified location and then, should I have to reinstall Windows for some reason... or what I'm about to do, update to Windows 7, I can quickly restore my save games and carry on as normal. I've started working on a little utility to do this but before I get too carried away with it I'd like to know if something already exists. The big problem I'm coming across is that every games stores it's saves in a different location so it requires creating a seperate profile for each game, though you only need to do this once and thats it taken care of forever. This is a bit time consuming but I was thinking many hands make light work and some way of submitting profiles created by other people could certainly help the idea if enough people were on board. Anyone any ideas? See post 9 below for my solution Stu

The only place I've found any is on the emumovies ftp, keno has been uploading them to the work in progress folder he's now up to 654 avi's... though it's been a couple of months since he uploaded any hopefully he hasn't given up Stu

Xarcade works as a keyboard doesn't it? If thats the case you'll need to get yourself joy2key and set it a virtual joypad that you can thenuse in Virtua Tennis as it only lets one player use a keyboard and expects the second player to use a joypad Stu

I done this but not through GameEx, I used 1 of the filter configuration utilities that comes with FFDShow, it let me turn them down to a nice level. This worked well for me as I have a standalone arcade cabinet it may not work so well if you use your GameEx pc for other uses like watching films as you'd have to keep reaching for the volume because changing the filter settings will change the volume of all videos played through the ffdshow codec Stu

What graphics card are you using if you aren't using the ArcadeVGA? Though I see you have hardware stretch turned on which makes me think you're not running any low resolutions but I don't see what advantage is having a multisync arcade monitor and not bothering with the low resolutions. I had trouble with my LCD Topguns when I was trying to play shooting games at low resolutions, I ended up forcing all gun games to run at 640x480, so if you are using low resolutions then maybethis would help. Stu

You say you are currently setting everything up to use a joystick but will eventually be using an ipac? This will mean going through every emulator again to reconfigure the controls, a better idea might be to use xpadder to map you current joystick to keyboard keys, set everything up then when you plug in your ipac it will just be a matter of setting it to use the same keys as xpadder was outputting, meaning you don't have to reconfigure everything again Just an idea but it's sounds like it's too late as you have everything set to your joystick already Stu

Thanks Tom I've been thinking of making the move from Vista x64 to Windows 7 x64 nice to know GameEx shouldn't give me any issues Stu

peterson65 I'm wondering if you've ever stumbles across Soft-15k over at BYOAC I just found it myself and it's looking pretty impressive, it alters the driver for all graphics cards to enable low resolutions for arcade monitors, I had a play about with it last night and on my old nvidia 8600 I can get all the low resolutions available with my ArcadeVGA down to 304x240 only problem is I can't get the six 2??x2?? resolutions The big plus though is Street Fighter IV is now hitting 85fps compared to the messily 25fps that the latest ArcadeVGA can achieve It worked on my 8800GT too but still can't get the 2??x2?? resolutions Stu

In the Input page of the GameEx config have you got 'Disable Mouse' set to "No I want to use the Mouse" Stu

This looks rather interesting, when it's released I might try and incorporate it into my cab just for old times sake snega2usb Stu

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you my carnevil chd was corrupt so I had to download it again Anyway, I just gave it a quick blast & it's working perfect with the new arcade vga Stu

I'll try and remember to check carnevil on my system tonight after work and let you know, I'm running dualcore e8500 @ 3.16ghz, 4gigs of ram and the latest arcadevga Stu

I don't think you need to be worrying about Carnevil as mame doesn't use your graphics card, how powerful your processor is, is what counts in mame, so the new ArcadeVGA will work just fine for it. It's only when you start trying to play modern PC games that you'll run into problems, and if your on Vista x64 your may have a problem with SSF for saturn emulation and random problems with Project64 for N64 emulation. Stu

The newest ArcadeVGA DOES support PixelShader 3 BUT it isn't poweful enough to get any higher than 25fps with the background turned on in SF4, which is just unplayable, using the latest ati drivers and the arcadevga I've hit 45fps but then you lose the arcade resolutions I've chatted to Andy about this and asked if he could modify the latest ati driver but from what he said it isn't going to happen anytime soon. So it was a complete waste of money upgrading my old ArcadeVGA to the newer model. There is also another issue that I haven't got to the bottom off yet, I think it's a vista x64 driver problem, SSF just opens and disappears a few seconds later, I see the File menu and then as it's about to display the black video window it just closes without error. If I put my old ArcadeVGA back in it runs perfect. Project64 will also fire the odd error when trying to go full screen, from memory it was something along the lines of 'failed to set direct3d display', I feel there is a definite problem with the latest card trying to kick in direct3d, I had been chatting to Andy about it and he's asked if I can test it on XP but I don't have an XP system at the moment. I've just noticed that the latest Nvidia drivers have an option to add custom resolutions and timings so I'm wondering if we can use an Nvidia card and add all the arcade resolutions, haven't had time to test his though, anyone else tried this? I've just upgraded from SLI 880GTS to 1 GTX295, I'd love to be able to use one of my old 880GTS in my arcade. Stu

Well done Tempest

Good work Tempest, I've had a program like this on my todo list for a very long time but like everything else fun it just keeps getting moved further down the list by real life todo's Thanks for your great work Stu

CLRMAMEPro should sort you out, you just need to get a dat file for each collection Stu

A word of warning, I haven't tried this feature in a long time but it used to only work some of the time, the rest of the time it would just capture a black screen I remember one night sitting for 2hrs running through my genesis collection only 2 discover over half the images where useless I initially thought it was just an incompatibility with Kega Fusion but I then tried snes and nes and it happen with them also I reported it at the time but Tom must have been busy with other things Stu

Haven't had much time lately I've been too busy defending my plants from zombies but I had a quick play with it the plugin last night. I alread had the buttons set to always active but I didn't have a key code assigned to them, I've now assigned a dummy code the same as player 1 start to this button even though this button is actually Return but I don't use Return in Mame. The button now stays light in the few games I tried but I'm wondering have I just been lucky as these games have also had my player 1 start button lit, so if I come across a game that doesn't have player 1 start lit will my admin buttons be turned off also? Stu

I've never managed to get this working right either, it seems that every time I update mame, GameEx will grab the scores from the 1st time I run a game but it will never update. GameEx currently shows my Donkey Kong hi score as 20k but when I run Donkey Kong my actual high score is nearer 50k Stu