TalkingBull

When I first got into MAME, I was living in an apartment and had no tools for woodworking. I looked at picking up an old JAMMA (Which is a very good idea) but there wasn't anything in my area that I could go pick up and I didn't want to pay $300+ to have one carted and shipped to me. I went to the only arcade that was left in town (I wanted a Guantlet Legends) but they wanted $2500 for it. I settled on a Ultimate Arcade II Cabinet kit from MAMEroom.com It gave me the opportunity to build a cabinet without having to cut any wood, it was pre-laminated so I didn't need to paint or anything, and it only took about an hour to assemble. Now, ideally, I would rather have built one from scratch but I thought you might want to look into one of their kits as an option. About the only customization I was able to achieve was the control panel which I designed myself and they cut for me. Now that I have a home and a garage full of tools, I make my own cabinets and enjoy it a great deal. This is just one of those options for folks are in the same boat I was in. After saying all that, the cheapest solution I have ever seen is an old Jamma with the monitor still in it. If you can get one with no guts and a monitor, you are set. The monitor is the most expensive part of the whole set-up.

Tom, I still don't know what was causing it.. I think it may actually have been MediaPlayer. I got frustrated and did a reformat/clean OS install and haven't had the problem since. I wish I could have pinned down the problem but it looks like it was more a Windows problem than a GameEx problem. I only use that PC for media files so that explains it as far as I can tell.

I would also like the option to disable this. I don't really fast-forward through movies but I would like to see it either disappear faster when it initially pops up or not come up at all. It hangs around for about 10 seconds and is rather annoying.

None of those. The problem is I don't get any info. Normally GameEx gives you an error report but instead, the PC crashes. I tested the computer first since I assumed it was a hardware/OS issue but it all checked out. The computer only crashes when I have GameEx running.

I don't understand this but for some reason, GameEx is crashing one of my computers. It gives no errors and just freezes (Like the old days of Win98). Just freezes and I need to reset it. I ran some diagnostics of the system itself and found no problems whatsoever. I also tried a reinstall and the problem persists. Anyone else having this problem?

I should have thought of that! It worked like a charm!

For some reason, when I go to view a media file, the hidden folders are displayed with the normal ones. for instance: /$RECYCLED /Futurama /Simpsons, The /SYSTEM VOLUME INFORMATION I made sure that Windows doesn't have the hidden folders/file setting on and I looked all over the GameEx config as well for a setting that would fix this. I never noticed this problem before so I don't know what it is all about.

I scanned through that and it looks like it would work for what I want to do. Unfortunately, my media pc is down and I am in the process of upgrading but when I get it up and running (Hopefully by next weekend) I will give it a try and let you know how it worked.

The easiest solution I found within Windows OS was to simply create a folder on my Desktop and have a shortcut for each folder/file in there. For example, I would have a MOVIES folder and in that I have several hundred links all to different HDD's. That works perfectly for Windows and would be fine but I really would rather use GameEx for two reasons. The first being I love the interface and really like what Tom has done with it. The second is that by using GameEx instead of a desktop to launch my files, it looks better and I can use my MediaCenter remote to play whatever I like. To do it the other way would require that I get my lazy ass off the couch, grab a mouse and click the file open! I am way too lazy to handle that!!

Tom, I have GameEx running on a PC attached to my Plasma TV and I use that primarily to play movies and TV shows that I have downloaded. My problem is this: I have over 500GB of TV shows on 2 seperate HDD's and over 750GB of movies on 3 seperate HDD's. In order to display them, I need to have my media look like this: (These are folders) Movies 1 Movies 2 Movies 3 TV Shows 1 TV Shows 2 Now I would rather have it look like this: Movies TV Shows Since I can't place all of my files on one or two HDD's, I am somewhat stuck with spreading them out. Is there a way to add the functionality of having several seperate folders under the video section wherein you can specify more than one folder within that to search from? What I mean is that you would have: Movies -C:\Movies -D:\Movies -E:\Movies TV Shows - C:\TV Shows - D:\TV Shows This would be great and I would be able to list all of my shows and films alphabetically. Thanks, TB

OK I read a bit of the sticky plugin topic and realized what I hadn't done (Configured the plugins) Got it working once I activated a plugin. BTW Tom, I love the spoken names of the games! Something I have wanted for a while and really enjoy! Thanks!!!

I had the same problem so I went and did a manual install and it worked but then when it immediately updated itself again, the problem remained. I turned off the automatic updates but I don't want that off permanently. Is there something I need to do in a plugin directory to get this to work again?

I put a working coin mech on my cab and it works in MAME like pressing #5/#6. I just put it in so it would make the machine more arcade-like and actually use it as a bank. Whenever I get quarters, I drop em in; wether I am playing or not. I really like the sound of the working mech... something lost in most arcades now-a-days with the credit swipe readers and what not.

Ijust updated and the problem is still there.

I am trying to create snaps on my media PC and whenever I attempt to do it (For video files) it simply drops back to the previous screen. For instance, if I try to make snaps for South Park Episodes, when I hit the ;Create Snaps; button, it drops down to my Television Shows directory. I have the latest version of GameEx and haven't noticed this problem before... though I was having problems creating snaps before.

Well that's the weird thing. There isn't an error log that gets generated. It simply closes. Also, I am talking about video files, not games. I am having this problem on my media center PC on my computer, noy my MAME Cab so I don't have any games/emus on it to try this with. What I mean by crashes is that is goes dark for a few seconds like it is about to start running through the files but then GameEx simply dissapears. I have to reopen it to get it running again. I tried several times. I have about 500 video files to add and I thought I might have been overloading it so I tried it in an individual directory with only a few files and it still crashed. I haven't had this problem before. Usually, I hit create snaps and it just starts playing for a few seconds and I get the images after it runs. I have added hundreds of files before and never got a problem.

For some reason, whenever I try to create snaps, GameEx crashes. It used to work fine and I don't know what the problem is. I have automatic updates on so the only thing on my syste mthat has changed is the version of GameEx...

I use GameEx in my MAME cabinet because it is the most versatile and best looking FE around. I sampled over 2 dozen before I settled on GameEx and there is no way I would use anything else. Now here's the other thing... I have a PC set up on my Plasma TV with MCE and I hated MCE so much, I installed GameEx as a replacement... but I did this because GameEx looks and functions like MCE. So I guess I both agree and disagree with you. I don't think it looks like MCE on my cab but it does on my tv... I use different themes of course and I don't have any games on the tv. I just use it to watch saved tv shows I have, listed ot MP3's through my stereo and look at the family photo album.

Yea, I am. What alternative is there?

I have set up GameEx on one of my PC's that is attached to a Plasma TV I have and I use it only to view media files. I have about 500 GB of television shows on two seperate computers that that paerticular PC is networked to so I don't have to kepe the files all in one place. Here is the problem... and it is a weird one. Whenever I turn the computer on and it boots up into GameEx, the videos section loses all of the directories. Where once was Futurama, The Simpsons, and The Family Guy, I get the "No video files" text displayed. I go into the config and make sure something didn't get erased and everything is there. The only way I can get them to show up again is to click on the browse and add button... I don't have to add anyhting, just click that and then hit cancel. Once I do that, GameEx will start back up with everything back in place. I have absolutely no idea why it is doing this. I love using GamEx on my MAME machine and I love using it on my MCE PC.. mainly because it is FAR SUPERIOR to MCE... but this is just weird! Anyone have a fix/explanation for this?

I have a Betson Multisync 27" monitor and it used to diisplay everything normally. Now, for osme reason, in GameEx, whenever a vector game is chosen or displayed via the attract mode, the screen goes black and a very brief message is flashed. It happens so quickly it is hard to tell exactly what it says but it definitely has something to do with the Hz/refresh rate or something to that effect. I don't know why it is doing this and it has for some time. The only thing I cna think of is that a setting got changed for some reason when I updated GameEx (Though I don't recall which version this started on). Has anyone had this problem or know how to fix it?

I tried to make some video snaps for N64 and they all came out to be 256+MB each! I noticed after a while when I checked the progress through another computer on my network and saw that I had used up 20GB. Did I do something wrong?

I don't care about the off-topic issue as much as you giving away the end of the movie! I haven't seen it yet!!!!!!!!

OK, I have created a theme for my cab that I would like to share. I don't know if anyone will like it but I want to put it our there for anyone to use. The problem is that it is almost 19MB and I am not sure where to upload it... lemme know and I will post it.

Tom, Is there a way to map a hotkey to tell us the version of GameEx? I LOVE the autoupdate but I wouldn't mind a quick way to confirm it was able to get online. I have a WiFi in mt cab and the signal isn't the best it could be... and it is only in there for the updates.