pavlov70

** Edit - dang it, I'm having problems attaching the file. Perhaps it's too big @ 6mb? ** OK, that was easily found. I'm uploading a RAR of the originals. They are not Photoshop files like I originally thought. They are layered .png files using Fireworks but I think Photoshop can edit them too. The backgrounds are only 4 layers and relevent parts are grouped together to make layout changes easier. To ungroup an object, the right frame for example, select it, Modify->Ungroup. You can easily create any color of this theme by making a few changes. Just remember to flatten the final graphics so as to decrease their size. Hope this helps Rob

Man with all of the cool new themes I'm surprised people are still using those old things. If I can find the original .psd files I can try and fix any layout issues you may have. Or at the very least, upload the original so others can modify it to their individual tastes.

I finally got around to fixing this. All the wmv's I have are actually stream captures from launch.com and therefore were not indexed. I found a video fixer that re-indexed them so all is well.

Thanks for the response Tom. I'll continue to play around with it. I'm afraid I broke one of my own rules and did multiple upgrades at once: GameEx and 7 months of MS patches. Rob

Hey folks, Now that winter's here, I'm tinkering with my cabinet again. Hadn't done anything to it all summer other than enjoy it. GameEx and everything else "just worked". I upgraded to 5.24 and now it appears as though my wmv music videos grabbed from launch.com won't play. The screen goes black and after hitting Backspace several times it'll return to the menu. MPG's play fine, and I'm able to play the same WMV files in WMP from outside of GameEx. Because of Tom and his crazy release schedule, I'm already several versions behind again in just over 2 weeks. I'll try upgrading to the latest version but was wondering if anyone else has had similar problems. Thanks, Rob

Glad I could help!

Yes you can. You can just add -mouse as a mame option to enable mouse/trackball support.

I just read this the other day on ultimarc.com: By default, MAME does not have these buttons assigned to any keycodes. Just go into the MAME controls menu (press tab in a game) and assign them. Button 5 is "I" and Button 6 is "K". Hope this helps

Strangely, I didn't have this problem until 3.47. Since then it's happened at least 3-4 times (all games being replaced by favorites). I went back to the previous version and will see how that works.

I'd gladly pay $30 or so for improved customization and jukebox capabilities. Not sure how hard some of these would be to implement, just throwing them out for consideration. - ability to customize/re-organize menu - improved jukebox (some of these features may already be there and I just haven't discovered them and/or know how to use them properly) * being able to go by Artist -> Album -> Title * pressing a Play button plays entire selected. For example, highlight the group "Blues Travelers" and hitting Play plays all of their songs. Highlight their album "Four" and press Play and all songs on that album play. Hitting Enter still takes you to to the next sublevel. *Playing a selection either Adds to Queue or Plays Now -ability to map controls to buttons/sticks Thanks, Rob

I'll chip in for 4 and 5 also. As for 6, perhaps he's talking about MAME Multiplayer? I don't think there's a way of disabling it. I have a few more features I'd like to see but I'll respond to your GameEx Going Shareware thread.

I haven't tried disabling waitVsynch yet, but disabling triplebuffer did the trick for me along with enabling high_priority and setting audio_latency=2. Sampling rate is back up to 44100. I'm very happy with this combination. Dave - try enabling high_priority. It's off by default and maybe that'll fix your tearing problem. Worth a shot anyway.

Woo hoo! Finally got GameEx running as the shell. Seems as though I had to add this to my registry: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer and change DesktopProcess to 1 Not sure why I didn't have to do this on my other box, but oh well.

Hi Toonces, thanks for the reply. I lowered the sampling rate to 22050, increased the buffer from 1 to 2, and enabled the priority setting in MAME and everything sound great. I think I'll continue to play around with those settings and see if I can bump up the sampling rate a bit more.

Oops it looks like I forgot to include the log file in my last message. Anyway it's promising that someone else has gotten it working so I know it's possible. The actual registry change is no problem, I've been running an alternate shell on another box for quite a while now. Not sure why I'm having problems with GameEx. I'll continue to play around with it when I get home. Thanks for confirming it works!

Hey David, Does the sound crackle and occasionally skip only in a few older games besides Ms. Pacman? So far I have it happen in the Pacman and Galaxian/Galaga games. I try them from the command line and they sound fine.

Hello again, I've noticed that on some older games (Pacman, Galaga, etc) the sound crackles, enough to become distracting. Playing the game directly from the command line, without GameEx in the equation, works just fine. It worked fine on my other pc so I realize it's probably some compatibility issue, but was wondering if anyone has any suggestions. Thanks, Rob

Hey folks, I finally finished my cabinet and am setting up my rig. I replaced the shell with GameEx. It starts to load and then errors out with the log below. Has anyone else gotten GameEx to run as the shell instead of explorer? What did you do? Thanks, Rob

I've used Mame32 and Mame DOS and can't tell the difference. On other forums I don't think there's a clear consensus on one over the other. One of the best tweaks you can make is to set up Zinc. GameEx can run it transparently and plays some of the newer games much much faster and better. You may have to customize the controls in Zinc to match your Mame controls. Using Mame, playing Beastorizer (I think that's how it's spelled) was like "bullet-time" in Max Payne. Very slow. The same game using Zinc was getting a full 60fps.

I suggest a Betson 27" multisync monitor from betson.com. It runs about $469 plus shipping (which can be a lot depending on how far you are from their regional offices. The other popular (well, most popular) is the Wells Gardner WD9200 and costs about the same. You can get it from betson.com or happ.

The default MAME setting for hitting OK is LEFT RIGHT. Just tap your joystick back and forth and it should work. I don't think there's a way of disabling that prompt....

Just thought I'd say how great everyone's cabinets look. Makes me anxious to finish up mine. Pacman or Galaga just doesn't cut it on a keyboard and LCD monitor. David, I see a bit of blue light coming from your speakers. Are you perchance using the translucent Blaupunkt speakers? That's what I've got in mine but until I get my marquee light installed I don't know how it'll look. Are the illuminated speakers evident even in daytime or simply when the house lights are dimmer?

Hi guys, I updated the BlueEx theme: - addition of matching "Now Loading" screen - addition of 640x480 resolution (appears to work at 640x288 but need confirmation) - combined MCE, Arcade, and 640x480 resolutions into one package. ** Please follow installation instructions first as it won't work/look right otherwise ** http://uploads.tomspeirs.com/files/BlueEx.zip Tom: You can delete the old BlueEx MCE and BlueEX Arcade themes. Toonces: Using the 640x480 background and GameEx set at 640x288 appears to work (at least it looks right) on my LCD monitor. As I don't have my ArcadeVGA nor Betson arcade monitor hooked up yet, I can't tell if it truly works. Can you please confirm? Thanks, Rob

I finally got around to making the now loading screen and I must be missing something. I've replaced the existing GameExIsLoading.png with my own and it still displays the old one. I even replaced the file in the default theme but no go. Thanks, Rob

I guess I was confused and thought you were referring to the background images in your earlier post. I see now it's currently just the logos. So yes, the ability to have animated backgrounds would be incredibly cool. In order to keep the video resolution reasonable, I'd just have to come up with a theme where precise alignment isn't critical, then I could get away with using a single video (say 640x480) that would work across all resolutions. Rob