Quinn

Tom, I already have a license, but, I had a moment of comedic genius, and came up with this gem: "GameEx -- It's cheaper than bulk cat food at CostCo!" -- Speaking, of course, of it's price, most definitely NOT it's quality. ;-) Cheers! --Quinn

Greetings, Found the cause of this...it is one of my old "gremlins" coming back to haunt me...I have found that disabling the emulator's Info Page and clearing it's "Database" setting cause this bug to stop occouring. This was a bug that I was experiencing quite a few releases ago, it appeared to get cleared up for a bit, and after one of the 2 most recent updates it appears to have returned. Anyway, Tom, if you get around to reading this, might be something worth looking into, as this (at least for me) seems to be a recurring issue. I'll leave it up to you where (if anywhere) you want to take this. Thanks again, and sorry to have wasted all your time, Quinn

Brett, This box is running the latest version of the nVidia drivers from nvidia.com, so, drivers shouldn't be an issue (the card may be, but, I'll cover that in a moment)... Not to fault Tom at all (he has always been very good about dealing with bugs, so many kudos) but it's my opinion as a software dev myself that this may be caused by a re-emergence of the "apostrophes in filenames" bug that crept up and was "fixed" recently. To get back to my second idea, regarding the "card itself," this wouldn't be the first time in which this card has given me issues with DirectX stuff...For instance, several Direct3D games seem to have graphical corruption or BSOD'ing issues with this card (some applications run perfectly as well, oddly enough) however the card has never shown ANY reproducible issues with OpenGL apps. And, before you ask, "yes," I have actually downloaded all of the latest DirectX updates from Microsoft's DirectX page. Anyway, thanks for your input, let me know if you (or anybody else for that matter) can think of anything else that might be the culprit, or if you might have any suggestions for me relating to any of the previously mentioned possibilities. Thanks again for your assistance! --Quinn PS: As for the apostrophes in filenames issue, I will try and make time this morning to schedule a little experiment of my own to test that theory, and will post back with those results, for anybody (including, possibly, Tom) who might be interested.

Greetings, Recently, after adding quite a few games to my Nintendo 64 (Project64) ROM folder, GameEx started "reliably" crashing whenever I would attempt to load the game list. The list *would* actually load, but, a few seconds, GameEx would error out, producing the log output, which I have attached to this post. Any input into what is causing this would be greatly appreciated! Thanks kindly! --Quinn log.txt

Tom No, thank you! I really appreciate all you've done for me over the past few days. Keep up the excellent work! Thanks! --Quinn

Tom, That did the trick for me! One more (small) issue now...GameEx appears to not be honoring my "Enable Most Played" setting (I have it set to "OFF" but a list of my recently played games still shows up at the top of each of my game lists.) Any ideas? Thanks for all your help! --Quinn

Tom, I just got back from my job...I'll get you screenshots of this sometime in the next 30 minutes. Thanks! --Quinn

Amos, Thanks for the tip. I'll be sure to make use of it if things start going awry again. :-) Much Thanks! --Quinn

Interesting Findings... After playing around with the semantics of this issue for a bit, I think I understand more about what is going on... I've now found that, exiting GameEx (by pressing MCE "Start" key) within 15 seconds of starting GameEx reproduces this problem 100% of the time. Directly shadowing that is the finding that pressing the MCE "Start" key MORE than 20 seconds after GameEx has started ALWAYS results in a perfect MCE restart (IE: GameEx does what it's supposed to do 100% of the time in this case). And, the 5 unaccounted seconds seem to produce a meaningless set of results. In short, let me just apologize for wasting everybody's time with this...this really (IMHO) should be a low-priority issue... The reason I find stuff like this is due to my clumsiness (I am moderately visually impaired, and have a mild case of tourettes,) so it's not uncommon for me to fumble a bit when I use the remote. Anyway, I'm sorry to have wasted everybody's time with this, and, if Tom sees fit, he can add this to his "To-Do" as merely "something somebody mentioned." Thanks again to anybody and everybody who took the time to simply follow this thread! --Quinn

Adultery, I am having a similar problem...although it usually only shows itself AFTER I have run a game in one of my emulators. When you say that the Game Lists are "messed up" are you referring to some "Garbage Characters" that are being rendered behind the Game List? If so, this is likely the same problem I am having. Also, just as a note to Tom, I started seeing this issue after the last "Big" update (the one that introduced the "New Media Center Theme" and "Full Vista Support"). Thanks! --Quinn EDIT/UPDATE #1: I have confirmed this error occours only when loading certain Game Lists... For example, my N64 Game List will cause this crash, but my Genesis game list loads OK (after a short delay during the transition). Also, I should note that the crash with the N64 game list occours DURING the transition AFTER it is possible to see some of the Game List's items (allbeit the items aren't fully faded in yet). IE: the crash occours during the same time in which my Genesis list would exhibit the unusual "pause" during the transition. EDIT/UPDATE #2: In my case, I have found that disabling the Games Database for my problem emulator (N64 - Project64) in Emulator Setup makes this issue go away for me. This tells me that this is due to one of two things (listed in order of possibility)... 1. The "problem" database(s) are somehow corrupted. 2. There is a bug in how GameEx is parsing the Games Database (this seems almost impossible to me, but it's worth saying). I also have this hunch that something (very) stupid I did last night may be the cause...I would need to do (sigh) another re-install to test that theory out, but, I have an on-site job today, so, I won't be able to test that theory probably until after Tom figured out which of the above (if any) was the case anyway.

To keep everyone posted... Updated to 7.81, and now log shows new/different output when failing to properly release control to media center. Log file is attached. Thanks! --Quinn log.txt

Greetings all, I am now having a problem with my copy of GameEx in which it appears to no longer properly monitor for activity from my Media Center remote's "Start" key. Basically, when I press the "Start" key on the remote, Media Center (almost) immediately throws a "(video card/drivers not compatible)" error, followed by GameEx throwing an exception a few seconds later. I have spoken with Tom about this...for me, this issue appears to have gone away in 7.78, but, it appeared to come back once I updated to 7.79. Tom also says that, to him, this appears to be an issue specific to my HTPC. Any help you guys could offer getting my GameEx back up and running properly would be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to offer! --Quinn

Tom, Will do. Thanks for putting up with me thus far. ;-) Thanks! --Quinn

Tom, I may be going completely insane (or it may just be my HTPC) but, the "MCE fails to re-start properly" bug I reported in the previous Update News thread seems to have popped up again in the latest update. I wonder if it really does have anything to do with all of these updates, or, if I should be posting this in its own thread for general viewing/discussion? Thanks for your help! --Quinn

Tom, This was the first thing I checked...it's properly set to the "(recommended)" setting. Thanks! --Quinn

Tom, After further looking into the above issue, I found that GameEx only exhibits this one intermittantly... However, the "failure to properly start Media Center" issue (see my above post) still stands a constant. Just figured I'd keep you informed as to what I find out... Thanks! --Quinn

Tom, Seems there are still a few related issues after all... 1. The MCE Remote "Start" Button starts Media Center but fails to close GameEx (when GameEx is running and I want to go back to Media Center). 2. Switching to GameEx after such a failure causes GameEx to throw an exception identical to the one in the log I previously posted. Also, I don't believe this is appropriate placement for such discussion (let me know if it is and I will take it elsewhere,) but, I have seen an increasing number of issues with Media Center/GameEx interaction (mainly DirectX failures when going to GameEx) ever since I switched my TV tuner from an ATI eHome Wonder to an nVidia DualTV MCE. Just thought I should mention it here given the nature of the errors GameEx is reporting here. Thanks again for all your help! --Quinn NOTE: Edited for clarity of issue #1

Tom, Thanks ever so much...that did just the trick! I'll let you know if I come across anything else of significance... Thanks again! --Quinn

Tom, It crashes (almost) immediately after I press "OK/Select" (on my MCE Remote) on the game I want to start. It looks as if GameEx "dies" instantly, before it even gets a chance to run the necessary launch command(s). Thanks, Quinn

Tom, Just upgraded to 7.76, and, now, I am unable to launch games (at least from my NES library, haven't tested others). This wasn't a problem before I did the automated upgrade. Also, just to rule out a fluke, I backed up my config, did a clean install (including deleting the left-over GameEx folder and its contents, and restoring my backed-up config,) but still, no dice. Also, another interesting element of this new issue is that Media Center re-launches itself after the crash, and does so before I dismiss the Error Log window. Just figured I'd give you a heads-up...not sure if it's relevant to this, but, haven't seen it since before the latest version... Thanks for your ongoing support! --Quinn PS: Log file is attached. :-) log.txt

Greetings, Many thanks to Tom for his superb help getting me started with Video-Snaps yesterday. Now, I've got all of my games "snapped" except for my PC titles. The problem with those is that, when GameEx moves on to a new PC Game title to create snaps for it, it fails to kill the game it was previously "snapping." I've looked around on the forums for a solution to this, but, have yet to find a thread in which this issue was able to be solved. Once again, many Kudos for your kind help...I am thouroughly impressed with GameEx, it's creator, and it's user community, and I thank you in advance for any help or advice you may be able to offer. Sincerely yours, David Quinn Ebert Co-Owner, Beyond-Technical Innovations

Tom, I actually just figured out what's going on...the way I got around this was, I had to re-enable "Allow Window Resize" and click the Restore button to truly get the GameEx Form into Windowed mode. Thanks ever so much for your help...for your consideration, I'd say this discovery of mine may be a good pointer to add to the FAQ. Thanks again! --Quinn

Tom, Just tried it...gets me to the point where it asks for a codec selection...just for testing, I left it on the default (Uncompressed)...now, I get an error from the emulator, which is complaining about being unable to initialize DirectX. Tom, Also wanted to add that I'm not running PJ64 under RDP...I use RDP to set up the advanced config...you see, the actual box is in my Den by the TV, and that's where the actual UI gets run. Thanks for your ongoing assistance! --Quinn

Greetings, I am a recently-registered user of GameEx...and I am now trying to create Video "Snaps" of all of my games, and I am running into a problem where, when I finally go to create the snaps, after clicking "Yes - Create Video" ... all that happens is that all of the GameEx UI elements go away, except the background, until I hold down the ESC key ... at which point the emulator I am attempting to create snaps for will spurt out some sort of DirectX/Direct3D error (depends on which emulator I try.) Any suggestions or feedback on this issue would be and are greatly appreciated! Thank you kindly! --David Quinn Ebert --Co-owner, Beyond-Technical Innovations Greetings, I figured I'd also throw in the last Log note that is made before GameEx holds up at the "blank" UI... I should also note that niether cmd.exe NOR project64.exe appear in Task Manager while this "hold up" is occouring ... For your further knowledge, I am monitoring all of this via a remote desktop session (thanks to Sala's TS Patch) ... and, YES, I have enabled "See Processes from all users." ;-) Anyway, thanks once again for any help you may be able to offer! --Quinn