shroud

Sorry to slightly highjack your thread, but what is the reason behind using WinUAE Loader? I am puzzled because from some other threads it sounded to me like WinUAE Loader is needed to run any Amiga games via WinUAE in GameEx, but personally I have been using WinUAE in GameEx without ever having WinUAE Loader... It's true that sometimes I find a game that doesn't start because it needs a different hardware config in WinUAE, but in general they start.

Ha! You're absolutely right, I wonder how did I always miss that

Ok, I will then wait for the updates before attempting any large permanent customizations. Looking in advance after the huge database updates, this sounds what I should be doing: remove (and backup) an SQL DB file that I am not satisfied with, and let GameEx use the corresponding MDB file for that emulator. But where are the MDB files? Should I try to create them manually? Or convert manually from the SQL files?

I think I don't have Custom Menus in the free version of GameEx...

But if I do so, will I be able to use my custom names, and how? And will I be able to customize the title of the whole MAME section?

Ok, so here's what happened I deleted EMU_1.DBCACHE and EMU_1.DBCACHEINI, but I have kept the EMU_1.MAP file with my own changes. At next start of GameEx, those 2 missing cache files were generated, BUT also EMU_1.MAP file was re-generated, overwriting my changes completely. Once again, the generated EMU_1.MAP file has a lot of missing titles, as apparently GameEx did not recognize a number of MAME games.

For example, my MAME is setup to being emulator #1. I can find the following files in DATA: EMU_1.MAP EMU_1.DBCACHE EMU_1.DBCACHEINI EMU_1_Cat.DBCACHE EMU_1_Dev.DBCACHE EMU_1_Ply.DBCACHE EMU_1_Pub.DBCACHE EMU_1_YR.DBCACHE The MAP file seems to me like it's the one that should "map" (sic) filenames to names used by GameEx. Here is where I go and change a name I don't like to something custom, and it *almost* always works. The last five contain lists of game categories, developers, year etc. apparently generated and used by GameEx for listing games of that system by these parameters. The two DBCACHE and DBCACHEINI have extensive info per game, including the long verbal description. Are these generated from the databases? Or are the titles generated from the MAP file, so that if I delete the DBCACHE but keep the MAP, will I have my custom names? The DBCACHE file in particular seems to have auto-generated names... are these names taking precedence over the names in the MAP file? If that's the case, is it safe to manually edit the DBCACHE file e.g. with Notepad? By the way, oddly enough I seem to have these name problems only with MAME (I have different problems with the Amiga list, where many games are incorrectly listed as duplicates of another game, but I think this is a separate problem).

I thought that the MAP files in DATA folder (named EMU*) were working as sort of cache files... Which are the cache files you are referring to?

I am currently using MAME as a separate emulator instead of using the integrated support. It still overwrites my names in the MAP file. I can see that the MAP file is updated only when I add or remove some games from the file system, otherwise it will keep my own name changes, but still the names shown in GameEx will be different. That's why I would like to know how the different name sources interact My guess is that, when GameEx generates the MAP files (if I understand correctly, this happens only if there isn't a MAP file, or whenever the files in the ROM folder have changed), it will enter names into the MAP file according to (I presume) the database file. But then I assumed the names in MAP are always those shown in GameEx, however that's not true... For example: - if I have the 2nd Arkanoid game, GameEx will create an entry in the MAP file: arknoid2.zip "Arkanoid - Revenge of DOH" - then I edit this name to something else such as "Arkanoid II" - as long as I don't add/remove/change any file in the ROM folder, my custom name is always there in the MAP file - still, GameEx always shows "Arkanoid - Revenge of DOH" in the UI The strange thing is that this doesn't happen with all other emulators... whatever is written in the MAP file is exactly what is shown in GameEx UI.

Could someone please explain to me what is the basic mechanism used by GameEx to display game names in the lists? I understand that there are 3 possible source of names involved: - the filename - the name in the database file - the name in the MAP file I can see that GameEx is capable of automatically recognize a lot of games and generate the MAP file with their names. But there are still cases where I don't understand why do I end up with a certain name... For example, I have setup the database name use for MAME games, but then I don't like some of the automatically generated names, so I go and manually edit the MAP file, writing the names I want. Then SOME of those custom names are shown properly in GameEx, while OTHERS are not, and GameEx still shows the automatically generated ones...

Found this one too, it was under the "Input Settings" > "Global Exit" in SetupWizard.

The original problem YES it is solved. Maybe I should start another thread for the new issues after installation?

Well I just fixed this by giving my custom logos the same names that were used by the default logos, and it works.

Upgrade done! So as it was kind of expected, there are now a lot of things to fix... the old gameex.ini generally worked but with scattered inconsistencies here and there, for example: - many MAME games don't get their names recognized (filename is shown instead) - strange duplicates in games list, or titles in strange font - logo and random snap is shown at the main menu level only for some of the emulators * - lost my custom "exit button" for closing emulators... it seems Esc is now the default for that Eventually, at least I found the reason for the problem I originally asked in this thread: I had set (for whatever reason I don't remember) the "Background snap path" of MAME in SetupWizard to an Artwork folder that had no files in it. Now I've removed the path, and GameEx shows the default blue background, as I wanted. * just noticed that this has something to do with using custom logos... I had my own custom logos, and without them now most of the emulators don't have a logo selected. Now I've copied those custom logo pics into the correct folder (they show up in SetupWizard, in the logos list) and selected them in SetupWizard. But when scrolling the emulators list, the logo and the random snaps are not displayed, if the emulator is using one of my custom logos. The weird thing is that the logo is however correctly shown when scrolling the games list of each emulator (in which case the logo is used as a replacement for missing snaps).

Thanks to both! I will try moving it under a non-system folder, something like C:\Retrogaming. The idea is just to have all the stuff (GameEx, emulators, games, assets) inside the same base folder. By the way, I guess it is not possible for GameEx to work with relative paths (so that moving everything wouldn't require to change the path settings), but it would have been handy. Also it would have been great if it didn't require any installation. I guess this would make other things more difficult to implement, but it would allow to stuff my entirely (admittedly very small) collection onto a single USB stick, and make the whole thing portable. Would be neat to just sometimes visit friend and bring it there, plug the USB stick onto their PC and start gaming right away!

Yes, I think custom menus would be nice, but to my understanding they are available only in the registered version, while I have the free version. I don't actually have that many games in MAME, therefore the additional lists (e.g. two-players games, games with different inputs...) end up being very short lists. Without the ability to customize the menus, if I use the integrated MAME those additional lists end up on the same page as the other emulators, which doesn't look good. Thus since I am turning the additional lists off, at the end I only have the "ALL MAME Games" list, on the same menu level as the other emulators. At this point the difference is only that I cannot change the title of that list, it's always "ALL MAME Games", while I CAN change its title if I use MAME as any other emulator... Yes I am aware of this... I have been reluctant to upgrade often because I am always afraid of losing some configuration work I have done over time. GameEx is so huge with so many features (90% of which I am not using) that figuring out by myself how to adjust things took me a lot of time But there's a chance that the problem would go away with an upgrade, for instance if the reason is that I have accidentally deleted a file or something like that. I will try to upgrade, but before I do it, here's a couple of questions I want to ask, so that I feel less nervous about upgrading 1) I don't think there's an auto-upgrade option, so IIRC I have to download the latest version, and manually install it on top of the previous. I presume that re-installing GameEx on top of itself preserves all custom settings, is that true? 2) I would actually like to move GameEx to a different folder in my PC. Can the whole GameEx folder just be moved (cut-paste)? I guess not, because then all paths would be wrong in Windows registry. So what I think I should do, is to install another copy (latest version) of GameEx in the wanted location, and remove the my current (older version); how can I carry all my configurations over to the new GameEx? (I presume that at least I would need anyway to update the data paths in SettingWizards). Thanks a lot for your guidance!!

Mostly because I dislike the menus arrangement of integrated MAME. I didn't notice any difference in running the games.

Thank you!! I have found all the .db3 files in the suggested folder, but there is only one .mdb there (for MAME), plus a template.mdb Is there a way to directly open and edit the .db3 files? I have OpenOffice rather than MS Access, and it seems capable of opening the .mdb files, but I couldn't find how to open the .db3 files... there's a MySQL option but not an SQLLite option, and even the MySQL seems to want a server address... Unfortunately I've never used this stuff, I just assumed these files would be editable easily like Excel files... By the way to clarify, the .MAP files seem to have the correct titles in those cases where in GameEx a wrong title is displayed. For example, I have a NES section with one game being "Kirby's Adventure". In the MAP file I can see "Kirby's Adventure" but in GameEx it shows "Gorby's Pipeline". I don't remember if I have fixed this title in the MAP file before, but the point is that GameEx still gets the title from somewhere else, not from the MAP, so I presume it's from the DB3?

Sometimes it seems GameEx mistakes a game for another, and shows it with wrong title in an emulator's list of games. I have also noticed some occasional mistakes in a game's year. For the displayed names only, I used to edit the MAP files, but these are often re-generated (maybe when GameEx detects there are files added or removed from the ROM folders?), so I would like to find a way to keep my changes permanent. If I understand right, names for the generated MAP files are automatically retrieved (when "use database names" is enabled in settings) by GameEx from a "database file" somewhere, but which files? Can I just edit them directly like I do with MAP files? Or will GameEx connect online and update/refresh those files, overwriting my changes also there? Thanks!

Hello, I have been using and enjoying GameEx (free version) for a couple of years. Recently I encountered this minor problem: whenever switching to the MAME game list in GameEx, the background becomes black, as if the background image is not loaded properly. The fact is, I am not using the MAME-specific section of GameEx, but instead I am using a section for MAME as an emulator like all others (i.e. I have set MAME to "disabled" in GameEx settings, and then added MAME back as another entry in the emulator list, so that in the Setting Wizard I can see MAME under Emulator Setup and Advanced Emulator Setup lists). Because of this, I would expect the menu of MAME to work identically to how it works for all other emulators. Have I possibly deleted an image file that was used as background here? What would be the name and folder of such file? Or do you suspect a different cause for this issue? Thanks in advance!