Stu1983

I was quite excited there, I thought I was finally going to be able to use GameEx's Jukebox feature but it still takes GameEx just over half an hour to access my library when using the MediaPlayer option and I gave up and blew it out after an hour when it was set to the read tag mode. I'd really love a browse by folder option or some sort of generate database button so I could leave GameEx running overnight reading in my whole collection so then it would only need to parse that database rather than having to read every file again. Stu

You need a rom management tool like ClrMamePro, load the No-Intro .dat file into it and let it build you a fresh set from your current GoodSet Stu

Not sure if it's what you want but I set mine to Crop Artwork, that way the game is full screen but any space at the side of vertical games for example is filled with the bezel The downside is you don't get any artwork at the top or bottom of vertical games or at the top, bottom and sides of horizontal games in a horizontal monitor setup Stu

Yeah this is siomilar to the solution I had found for wiring the cable maually, for all that it will cost I might as well try it Stu

Yeah an HTPC would probably be the more sensible option, I've been wanting to build one for ages but everytime I start pricing the parts I get carried away and end up an all singing all dancing super htpc that'll $1000+ It would be a good christmas project though with all the overtime money I'll be getting so I might look into it again Stu

I'm looking to view my arcade on my TV in my living room so I have the option of lying on my sofa and playing a few games or watching a film. I have a network socket beside the arcade and I have a network socket beside my TV in the living room. My initial thoughts are to get one of those VGA extender thingys that take a VGA input and transmit it over CAT5 and then change it back to VGA at the other end which I can plug straight into the VGA socket on my LCD TV in the living room I'm just wondering if anyone has ever done anything like this, my main question is would there would be any lag between the the arcade and the TV The other thing I need is something that would do the same but with a USB socket, so I can plug my controller into a hub in the living room and transmit it back to the arcade. I think I've seen USB extenders before but I haven't looked recently. I've also the option of lifting the carpet from the floor above and laying a few more cables if need be. Finally I found a wiring diagram which shows how to wire a 15 pin VGA cable to an RJ45 socket, to me this seems like the best option as I can get the parts for £10 or £15 rather than pay £100 for a VGA extender but would this give me a poorer result? Surely the VGA extender does something better for all that extra cash. Thanks Stu

Just noticed a problem, the wrapper isn't very compatible at 640x480 My arcade monitor has a max resolution of 640x480 so I can raise it, some games work fine but others are having problems like Donkey Kong (and probably the other multiscreens) selects the sound ok but when it tries to click the case to open the game it misses and clicks above it Donkey Kong Jr. (Panorama Screen) starts ok but when you press 1 to select Game A it clicks the start menu the game really needs to be moved up the screen a bit before the Game buttons can be clicked Stu

lol Many thanks for your great work Brett, tested it there in Windows at work can't wait to get it setup in my cab when I get home Thanks again Stu

No problem here you go You'll need Daemon Tools Pro (I'm using 4.10) and AutoHotKey installed 1. Edit the first line of the script to point to the directory you want to output the new images to 2. Place the script in your directory with all your images 3. Open Daemon Tools and go to Tools followed by Convert Image 4. Tick the 'Compress image data' box 5. Leave the Convert Image window open and run the script 6. Sit back and cross your fingers It took me a few goes to get the script right, it kept doing a few images then bailing out but after a couple of modifications this current version of the script ran through 250+ images without stopping so hopefully it will work for you too If it detects any errors thrown by Daemon Tools it saves the name of the current image to a _Errors.txt file in the output directory and carries on to the next image so you can check them later Stu _Convert2MDF.zip

Mario 64 in my opinion is 1 of the greatest games of all time I don't know how many times I've completed it but I still keep going back to it every few months and play it from start to finish again over a few days... there's no multiplayer though so it's not really what your after I use a set of Adapatoids and my origional N64 joypads from back in the day so I've no problems with sensitivity Stu

Oh would you'se 2 get a room I can sense the sexual tension in the air lol Stu

Your wrappers working a treat Nologic... many thanks I really recommend people give compress MDS/MDF's a try here's an example of size difference PowerStone 2 as CDI is 686 MB PowerStone 2 as Compressed MDS/MDS is 256MB!! Crazy Taxi as CDI is 691 MB Crazy Taxi as Compressed MDS/MDS is 62MB!! And compressed MDS/MDS's work great for Saturn games and SSF too The only way I've seen how to make these compressed MDS/MDF's is with the latest Daemon Tools Pro and there's no batch convert method built in but I've wrote a AutoHotKey script that with convert all images in a directory for you if anyone wants it let me know Stu

Thanks I'll give it a blast a sec As for Xpadder: What I've done is made a custom exit combo for each of my joypads so for my NES pad I hold SELECT and press START for a 1.5 seconds to exit Create your config as normal, assigning all buttons as you like Now edit the assignment for the button you want as your hold button, for me this is SELECT Click Advanced followed by the Set Selector tab Now choose "Selects Set 2 while held" Close that window and the assigment window Now down at the bottom right of the main layout screen you'll see 4 numbered buttons, select number 2 All your button assinments should be blank, don't worry this is because you're on set 2 now, if you click 1 again they'll appear again... sigh of relief Now on set 2 edit the assignment for the button you want to press while holding the first button, for me this is START Go to advanced options and stay on the Assignments tab Set the Pause length slider to whatever you like and click Add Pause Now press the key you want to to send eg. ESCAPE That should be it, I've filled the rest of my set 2 in the same as set 1 so that if someone is holding SELECT for whatever reason they will still be able to press other buttons So by doing this if someone is using a NES pad for MAME games and the press SELECT it will insert a credit but if the hold SELECT and press START it will exit, though only if they hold both buttons for a 1.5 seconds to avoid accidental presses You could also have it that you need to hold SELECT, START and a third or even a forth button to exit by simply assigning the START button on set 2 to select set 3 while held and so forth Stu

Cheers, I found Brian's AutoIt script but it doesn't like spaces in the file name or path and I don't really want all my games renamed to have no spaces Yeah I have it set up for all my pads can't remember exactly how to do it though it's been that long but I'll go and check out my configs and let you know, it wasn't all that hard from what I remember once you got your head around it Stu

Guess I should've had a bit more of a play around before posting Just tried it again there and it works with the compressed mds/mdf's by mounting them in Daemon Tools and setting the GDRom Plugin to zNullGD instead of image reader, it's just the image reader that didn't like the compressed MDS's There's already a wrapper floating about somewhere for launching NullDC using Daemon Tools, I remember Brain having a posting containing 3 wrappers or something Stu

Just wondering if anyone has had any luck getting NullDC to load with any of the wrappers and using any other image types other than CDI? I'd preferably like to use compressed MDFs like I do with my Saturn images as the space saving is huge but the games just load as if they're an audio CD I haven't spent much time looking into but I thought I'd just ask incase someone else has Stu

How thicks your glass? I went for 7 or 8 mm stuff which is why I thought the glass might be the trouble, though when I think about it at the start they did still work through the glass just not as well as without it but now they don't seem to do anything at all... When I point the gun at the screen the laser just constantly flickers like it can see all the LEDs and when I try to calibrate it only registers at random spots around the center of the screen and even then I have to frantically batter the trigger for it to eventually recoil The cabs on all the time but the LEDs should be grand as I built a holster with a switch in it that automatically cuts the power to the LEDs when the gun is resting in it's place which is 99% of the time, I'd be lucky if I've used the gun for 30 hrs never mind 1000 I really must do some more investigation into it but I know it'll be a whole handling getting the glass back out so I've just bee ignoring it Stu

Maybe it's just me but neither of these posts make any sense to me... are they in relation to a previous post you've made somewhere else? Stu

Yeah I downloaded Donkey Kong Game&Watch a couple of weeks and I've been meaning to try and get something up and going to get it working in GameEx but just haven't had the time, so I'd certainly be interested in 1 of you manage it Stu

I used to be in a similar situation as this, I needed my server to be on before my main PC, so I wrote a script that was run at startup from my main PC and if it could not access the server it sent the WakeOnLan command to the server and then rebooted itself so that by the time it restarted the server was alive and kicking Stu

Yeah I think my problem is that I have a 15 degree tilt on my monitor and glass for a more natural viewing angle and this is causing the IR to refract as it passes through... the problem is I took the IR stands apart and mounted the LED around my plastic monitor bezel, melting tiny holes for each LED to poke through, managed to do a mighty fine job, it looks as if thats the way it came... just a pitty the damn thing doesn't work now and I can't remove them as the bezel will be ruined... I might try a thinner sheet of glass and see how that goes Stu

My lcd topgun was working flawlessly until I sealed my monitor behind a sheet of glass now it can't seem to pick of the infra red leds Stu

Have you installed the drivers from ultimarc's site or are you using the standard drivers from ati's site? You need the drivers from ultimarc.com I'm running the same setup at home (athlon 64 3500+ with arcade vga) without any trouble The only other thing I'd suggest is reinstalling DirectX and/or GameEx... your old GameEx settings will still be retained if you reinstall so don't worry about having to waste your time setting everything up again Failing that post your whole log so someone can see what else it might be Stu

We all love a good ramble Stu

Here you go LB11 give this version a shot, try it with a small set first just to make sure it's working ok Stu FuzzyTextMatch.zip