aldub516

hey, i wanted to bump this, and ask if anyone ever found a solution to this? currently i have gameex set as a startup program, but it insists on starting minimized, so i figured matters well shell it for the full arcade effect. I cant find anything on new shelling programs. Any success??

well, then i got some tinkering to do. mame64 is not showing neo geo games, and who knows what else.. mame.exe is. they are both in the same directory, they have never been moved or anything..

i have resolved this issue somewhat. It seems my mame64.exe is not finding or playing neo geo, where as mame.exe is.. Is the new build known to have this issue? Or am i losing some performance for not running mame64. For now, i redirected gameex to mame.exe and the mentioned games are mostly showing up. ill do some tweaking

Well, my main problem is, i cannot get these games to load up in regular mame. Meaning i open plain old mame.exe, the games and roms are there, but are telling me im missing roms or chds.. as i said i have the neo geo bios zip, and anything else i can think of. I assume they are not showing up in gameex since they are read as "non playable" due to this chd issue.. So before i even trouble shoot gameex, why am i having problems playing these games even in mame?

hello all and thank you beforehand as always. I am basically down to the last touches of my machine, and realized im missing all the neogeo games. I thought maybe it was a gameex filter issue, but now realize i cannot open them in mame either. Mame gives me a missing chd error. So my question is, what am i doing wrong? I have the neogeo.zip bios in my rom folder, and the only chd i can see that might relate to king of fighters, or anything neogeo is kof98um.chd. I cant seem to find anything else im missing, or any chds or parent roms. Is there a common issue with getting these neo geo games going? Thank you for help. Thus far scanning through old forum threads has got me nowhere.

Ok, so the title was meant to attract some attention, but I don't want to sound ignorant and demand work of you people that help me all the time. Awhile back i finished my second ever mame cabinet build, and in that process you guys helped me with all kinds of issues. Im now in the process of building a funglo style pedestal. Lets see how that goes. Anyways, i never quite finished my first cabinet which was mine, and instead finished the second, which was sold to my buddy. Im now excited and on a mission to finally finish my personal cabinet. So heres my thing. I need help building a new computer for it. Now, years and years ago when i first initially started learning about cabinet building and mame and such, i learned a somewhat non-traditional motto.."stop learning so much and just do something". By that, i mean, i spent hours reading about joysticks, dead zones, throw, undermounts, over mounts..until i just bought a damn happ joystick, routed and screwed it in..boom done. I am pretty good with computer stuff, but still cant build myself a pc. I started reading around here about graphic cards, monitors and such, and realized its like reading chinese to me. But also realized, a lot of mame enthusiasts are not only perfectionsists, but demand a lot more from their cabinet than i do, there for my needs get caught up in endless discussion of tv framerates, hrtz's, and all kinds of stuff, when in reality, 90% of stock computers i find on the curb ALLLMOST can run gameex and what i need.. So.. My budget for my mame cabinet pc IDEALLLLY is 6-800 dollars.. My 7 year old pc ran like a beast and ended up in my buddies cabinet, so if a 7 year old custom built XP machine can do what i need, im not looking for overkill.. All my friends start talking 16 gigs of ram, 2 terrabyte HDs and just get carried away. Im like dude, i was running 2 gigs of ram and 250 gigs of harddrive space lol. I am primarily going to be running gameex, running mame,and a few emulators such as nes, snes, sega, gameboy.. basically the simple early consoles. And some sort of a jukebox. I may decide to do some sort of a XBMC hook up to my tv to play my movies and shows. Infact, thats all im going to be doing. Games, and media to my big screen.. Please feel free to offer advice on single pieces.. or feel free to build me an entire machine and say "here, this is all you need".. Figured some of u might have fun. At the end of this, i will indeed be building said machine. My cabinet has room for a 19" crt tv tube i ripped out of its old plastic casing, but id like to go with flat screen. Again, i get lost in people wanting "super authentic feel", but realize ill probably never ever notice a lcd as opposed to crt. After a few threads of monitor talk, my brain is dead. I dont know if theres "square" monitors" i could use as opposed to widescreen? So guys, there it is. Feel free to explain why you would use certain things, or just post your build and ideas for others to agree or argue. Im more or less looking for the "simplest, straight forward way" to just build a sweet computer, to play all the mame games, and basically the early 90s emulators, as well as be able to run a media center. Go brand new, go 8 years old. As i said, i wouldnt of minded just cloning my old ass pc, but never listed what was in it before i gave it away. So for the 800 i spent 7 years ago, i could probably build a monster. I dont need new, updated, or rocketship status computer. Just something sweet that will let me turn on, play games, and turn off with ease, compatibility, and quickness. I want it to look great, but promise i would never notice a crt arcade monitor vs a brand new dell flat screen after 20 minutes. ps. i write a lot. im sorry.

It was worth the Money to me just to remove the mag screens lol. Coming from a Above average, but below you guys state of knowledge, gameex is god. I've dabbled with hyperspin multiple times. And realized it takes. Genius to get it to run properly. Fxck hyperspin. I reverted to such front ends such as mamewah.. Until somehow the greatest front end to elude me came.. I was happy to support gameex. the nag screens had to go for my cabinet. The community is awesome and has helped me with EVERYTHING I asked. And the features and updates are great. I'd say between its features, Future upgrades, community, And just appreciation for the creators.. I'd say register.

Ok I'll give that a try. Sucks most the themes I like are apparently too old for the YouTube function. Anything I should look for when downloading themes? Such as versions or anything? Or is it trial and error. I don't want to have to sacrifice a nice theme or YouTube function

Hey. im currently used the acidbrain theme.. But have tried 4 or 5 themes, and non seem to work with youtube. When i go to youtube, the first option is search, which just searches my game library.. then most popular, best rated, top searched and such. and as i said, all those options just give me the same list of ridiculous weird videos. Ive tried 5 themes thus far, kab.net, donkey kong, and another random few. Can you recommend a theme to try to make sure theres not another problem besides the theme?

So ive basically stripped down the functions of gameex, for my friends cabinet, as im trying to remove as many variable as i can from the machine not working properly. Dvds seem to not play, or play properly, so ive discarded all the dvd playback and ripping features. The only one ive decided to keep is the youtube feature. But when i go to the youtube app in gameex, it only gives me options to view "most popular" and "most recent" videos and such, which are the same handful of videos that never change. When i go to search, and search a term, it acts as a gameex search and just brings up roms within gameex matching whatever i type. So, is the youtube app in gameex actually a fully functioning, youtube app where i can search and watch whatever i want? Or am i missing something. Thanks for the help

Ok. So , back to frustration. I originally used cabvol, and set it as a startup program to add hotkeys to my volume. That worked, but i couldnt get it to start minimized and my ocd kicked in. I then used autohotkey, and produced a file that more or less, just installs hot keys. I set the file to run at start, and everything seemed Ok. Here is where i was stupid. I was testing it on my keyboard, not on my cp, and heres the issue. Picture this, at the top of my cp, we have 3 buttons in a row set up on my ipac as 1A(enter KEY) 1COIN (5 key for coins/credits) 1B(exit key).. I had created the hot keys to work as 5+UP = VOL UP. 5+DN= VOL DOWN. I used the coin key as a shift key because obviously it wont disturb game play when being used. So when i was testing is on my keyboard, it worked fine, because 5+u/d registers as such.. Silly me didnt think that on my cp, since 5 is shift, when i use the coin key, its shifting, not showing 5 pressed, therefore 5+u/d isnt happening. My solution to that was to not use the shift, and just set 5+u/p. The only small drawback was that when i press coin and up or down, the volume adjusts, but it also adds a coin and plays the games coin sound. I was ok with that. But now i have what seems to be a windows issue. When i adjust my volume in windows with the hotkeys, or even just up and down keys with the volume open, theres a huge lag. Meaning, i can press up which would normally just put the volume up with volume bar open... now when i hold up, nothing happens, then 5 seconds later, it shoots up, and vice versa. What can be causing this horrible lag? Its problem after damn problem. Worked for hours and hours and tests and tests yesterday.. now all of a sudden for the first time in years this pc volume lags. I cant win.

Ahhh.. silly me. I had mame set to P for pause, as well as gameex.. That was causing the 2 different reactions of pausing, or going back to the menu. I disabled pause in gameex and let mame handle the pausing. That is resolved now! Thanks all. Im learning new things every day

So sound problem is all done. I can control mame by holding COIN and pushing up or down on the joystick The resolutions, Ive decided to not be so finicky about. Im leaving my lcd at native resolution, and will toy with some scanlines and effects. Forcing AA on my pc made mame lag, which sucks. The games look normal enough for me. Ill show him the TAB button to adjust video of each game to his liking..thus also him editing his own game inis Pc backup seems easy enough. The pause button is the remaing issue. Now when I press P, It goes back to the menu to view art and such. When i choose resume game, It tries to resume, but ends up back at the game menu screen, with only "start game".. No more resume. Pause is a great feature for mame and id love to work this out. Can i bypass Pause going to the menu through some ini setting?

ive done all of that, and nothing worked.. although i have finally found a solid workaround. I found the following on this forum (please forgive me if theres some sort of policy to linking other forums and such.. http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=69901.0 there, there is a link to an application called cabvol. Basically same as volume tray. Its a small exe you must keep running. Same idea, just set a key for volume up, down and if you want mute.. worked like a charm, even on top of gameex Download cabvol.exe run exe set keys for volume up, and down, as well as any other simple options, and simply minimize the app. Obviously i added it to my startup folder to startup with windows. I set it to NUM - and NUM+. The volume goes up and down with those buttons, no matter what im doing, or what programs im in. After mapping my shift keys in winipac, Now with just holding down my "COIN" button, I can move my joystick up and down and control the volume any time i wish. Problem 1 down

update for the volume issue.. i downloaded a program called volumetray which ive read works wonders and allows you to set hot keys for volume control. I did that, and set numpad - and numpad+ as vol up and down. It work when regularly running windows, but not in gameex. my IPAC setup is as follows.. COIN is set to "5" on my keyboard.. 5 is also used as my shift key.. and joystick up and down's shift keys have been set to num- and num+. When i test my keys with 5+the joystick up, it registers as num+. I just cant get this to work in gameex as it seems gameex overrides controls outside of gameex...

Hello and as per usual, thank you before hand for all the insight and help i always get. I have a few questions in different topics and figured id compress them into one thread. Im building a cabinet/mame setup for my friend, and basically am trying to make the machine fool proof and consistant.. Turn the machine on, play games, hit the power switch, machine turns off. Here is a couple things im looking for advice on. Thanks for the help! By the way, i talk alot. I apologize for the paragraphs.. Volume: Ok. heres the volume situation. Im using 2 computer speakers and a subwoofer in the cabinet. The speaker setup is one of those that comes with an external serial wired remote/knob.. Meaning you can keep that little nifty nob device on your desktop and adjust you music and plug headphones and such easily. Originally i was thinking of a cool way to uncase the knob, and find a cool way to mount it so you can physically change the volume on the whole machine.. But figured thats extra wood work and details i dont need right now. So the next easiest was to make a shifted set of keys on my control panel to control volume. My question is, in GAMEEX, is there a way to control the main volume in mame? I can control gameex volume in the menus and navigation with f6 and f7. But can i control in game volume? Mame default has - and = for vol up/down but that only works on a few games, like mortal kombat, where the games have built in default volume control. How can i set keys to control volume while playing games? Or should i try figuring out a way to map my keyboards special "media" keys for volume and just control my desktop volume.. basically, how do you maintain volume control throughout your gameex/mame experience? Resolutions: Im using an nvidia geforce 8500 gt video card.. I know there is no simple answer or advice on this. Ive done tons of research, but im hoping for some simple easy work arounds to get my effect. Now, the cabinet has an lcd screen, "square" not widescreen.. I will provide any info on "native resolutions" or details about the monitor if needed. Anyways, for the most part im not a major stickler on resolution. Especially my friend.. Im sure hes not gonna turn on 1942 and be like "this looks a little choppy".. he doesnt care. But as i play games like Ultimate mk 3 and such, i realize i remember the game looking A LOT cleaner in the arcades. So heres my questions about games.. Ive somewhat read up on (i believe its called) soft 15khz or whatever. Is there a generally accepted method of achieving good game play images and graphics? Perhaps downloadable game.inis with proper settings? I was considering buying ultimarcs arcadevga, but ive put enough into this kids machine already, so for now, with my dell lcd display, whats your "simple" advice on the best/easiest way to edit the games resolutions? Id like umk3 to look somewhat like it did when my childhood was changed back in the day Same thing with scanlines and such. By simply editing and enabling the effects in mame.ini, it added scanlines and curved the screen..right away i loved it. Are there any generally accepted and beloved scan lines or settings people use to spice things up? In game pause problem: I have "p" set as the default in game pause in gamex and mame. When playing a game in gameex, I hit "P" And the game pauses and the screen slightly darkens, just like regular mame would do. But when i push "P" Again to unpause, the music plays for a moment, and after some seconds of lag, it goes to the menu screen where i can view art, controls, or "resume game".. Is there any way to just set it to pause and resume without going to a menu? Or if there isnt, what is the reason for that error with the pause. It doesnt go directly to the menu with "P": and finally.. PC Backup As i said, its for a friend whos paying me for my endless time in setting this up, and building him the cabinet. So i dont want him having to pull his hair out just to enjoy it. Along with making the pc error proof.. I wanted to know your suggestions on apps or methods to make FULL PC BACKUPS.. Meaning system files, documents, folders, settings. just an exact mirror of the entire pc harddrive, so if something ever happens, he can perhaps just plug a external HD in, and restore it to working order. Whats your take on that? thank you for all the help. As i said, i write way too much. The support for gameex and the community is awesome.

^^ boom. explained as i was going to. Ive actually just played around with this today coincedentally as im finishing my CP and wanted to add a set of shifted keys for volume and such.

I compiled mame .150 with the mkchamp diff.. and i seem to be in business.. as of this moment my issues are solved. onto resolutions now.. Im building a cabinet for a friend and want to make sure the rom set is perfectly playable on his setup and never give him issues. THANK YOU FOR ALL THE HELP THUS FAR.

OK!! SO FIRST PROBLEM, SOLVED! (Somewhat).. as ive stated, i knew it was something small and stupid i was doing.. And not realize it was my mame build. Awhile ago i downloaded a mame build with the built in MKCHAMP hiscore patch, as well as no nag screen, and i BELIEVE no clones patch.. when i revert back to my original mame.exe, all the 2p games show up, i delete the 4 player versions, and i am now in business.. problem 1 solved.. New problems. Can someone direct me to a suggested build of mame that i should use? Realistically the regular mame build works fine, but i was a fan of the mkchamp hi score capabilities.. and it seems i sometimes see the "this game has is not 100% perfect" warning for a split second.. What mame build can i use that will simply let me rename it as mame.exe and use it? I dont want to spend another 2 days learning about compiling, ini editing and such. The build i had worked great, although obviously wont play clones.. Thank you!

ive spent countless hours trying to install and set up hyperspin. It took massive amount of researching and forum searching to get it half running.. When i found out about gameex, my first response was.. "where the EFF has this front end been all my life"? Gameex changed the game completely for me and i cant wait to see future products.

I do.. same effect. Furthermore i cant get simpsons/clones to show up in mame itself running out of gameex.. So i feel like im just overlooking a very stupid setting somewhere that is driving me crazy.. I have a list of things i need to nail down on my machines.. resolutions is next.. but for now i need to correct these multiplayer games.. thanks for all the help thus far.

I will play with the filter lists tonight.. But as I said, I added them To the do not filter list.. Bubble bobble comes up with Japan in its name so gameex filters that automaticaly with the word Japan.. That shows up when added to do not filter. But furthermore.. Considering I deleted the parent rom, and renamed the 2p version to replace that rom.. The 4p version still Boots up. How is that possible? As I said I'll try the filter list. I was just Trying to unfilter these 2p Roms without allowing all the other junk in

Hey hows it going. First id like to say I'm new to this forum, but have been browsing and learning the art of arcade building and programming for years now. I did some research on this forum but haven't found my particular problem. I have a 2 player control panel.. 2 8 way joysticks with 6 buttons each. Naturally im trying to compile the most clean playable list of roms for that particular machine, and have recently discovered the magic of rom lister. So heres my main problem, and thanks for any help. Just to start, I decided to update the simpsons, TMNT, and TMNT Turtles in time roms. These games offer forced character selection, obviously meaning you cant just enter as player 1 and select any character. I added the 2p clones of these roms to my rom folder and updated the game list in gameex.. and I cannot get the 2p version to show up.. I then went into gameex settings and added all of the above rom names to the "do not filter" list. Nothing. Finally I went the most proactive route and straight up deleted the 4p versions, and renamed the 2p versions to the original rom name. But somehow the 4p version still loads. Is there any general advice on how to get the most correct versions for those 4p "forced character selection" games so I can play them on my 2 player machine? And furthermore, if there has already been a compiled list of these games, that would help in making sure I get them all. Thank you again, excuse me if I sound newbie-ish, or went about this the wrong way. Thank you and I look forward to learning and sharing new learned things..

yes i believe they do, i guess to distinguish life time payers from the 1 year users. even so considering i have 2 arcade machines, and 2 standalone pcs that i often work on and practice learning pc work on, i should be able to carry over my key, and not have to pay again just to install game ex on my other computers.. thank you and i will contact him!