headkaze

CPWizard supports output to a secondary monitor. But right now it doesn't show while your playing Mame, you still have to press the pause button, but I've always wanted to implement that feature. I don't know about having 3 monitor support (probably wont happen), but I could aways add a feature to have the CP show for a few seconds then rotate through artwork on the secondary monitor. I guess the best thing would be to have a bunch of configuration options to say what is shown and for how long etc.

Check out GameEx's built in "Game Extender". It can display the artwork on a secondary monitor or even over a network.

CPWizard v1.7 Released - Improved input mapping - Enhanced preview window - Changed keywords to Layout Maps and added Constants, NumPlayers and Alternating options - Fixed moving objects with cursor keys - -exitmenu option added - Player Codes added for alpha fading joysticks and start and coin buttons NOTE: If your using the old "keywords" feature you will have to create them again using the new Layout Maps. It works pretty much the same but allows for more complex layout loading rules.

On the top right of your post you will see an "Options" drop down list. Select "Switch to: Standard" your on outline. Actually I prefer Linear+ as it has the first post at the top no matter what page your on.

12 Monkeys is my alltime fav movie. Pulp Fiction is a classic too. Blade Runner... too many good movies to mention! I used to work in a video store so I would get all the movies on "preview" before they came out for release. That was when everything was on VHS though...

Send Tom an e-mail if you've lost your key.

E-Mail Tom if you've lost your key.

I deleted my post because I thought Tom made a spelling error "assed" instead of "asked". But then I realised he actually meant "assed about" as in "messed about" or "screwed around" which is probably a closer American equivalent. Actually reading it again, I don't know which one he meant now!

Hmm strange, I think Tom is appending the two together between a '/' rather than using Path.Combine(). Naughty boy. Anyway, just note that Windows uses the '\' as a path separator not '/'. Windows doesn't always care which one you use but it might cause problems with some emulators. So I guess Tom needs to check this one out.

Whats your working directory for the emulator?

One for the FAQ Tom?

A similar question was asked recently and the guy ended up using UltraMon and switching his Primary display to his secondary monitor before running GameEx and then switching back for regular use. Doing it that way will mean all software will run on your secondary monitor even if there is no built in support for multiple displays.

Either have the full path to "mamearcade.mpeg" or copy the file to the same place as GameEx.exe.

I never liked Mr Bean, but Rowan was great in Black Adder.

I'm not 100% sure to be honest. It depends on a few things A) If it uses the same protocol as the original BetaBrite's and If they have a USB driver that acts like a virtual com port. In my experience devices like this that connect through USB do have a virtual com port driver for them. If the answer is yes to both of those then it should work fine.

Great movie! Another classic movie to look out for is "Juno".

The "M" logo psd file is available here. If you don't have Photoshop I guess I could do it for you.

Actually I have an interesting story about Google. A few years ago I sent them my Resume (yeah right like I would get a job there) anyway I had a list of unimpressive things I had created. One of them was SigScribble which was a signature to put under your forum posts where people could write stuff on. Turned out to be a bad idea because people would draw dicks and write rude words all the time lol. Anyway a few weeks after sending them my Resume I checked my SigScribble page and guess what was written on it? "Google" with each letter done with a different color like their real logo. Spooky eh, but I thought that was pretty cool if it was an employee of Google checking it out. Anyway I think the best thing about working for Google would be chatting up "Google chicks"

Actually you had me going for a sec beause when I spoke to you that day you were in the US and I even joked about Google buying you out on several occations. Not a bad one really.. if I didn't know it was April 1 you might have got me if I was the first to read the post. Brilliant really

Your welcome to set things up, like I said there needs to be a perminent bot. Setting up an IRC channel is a simple matter of /join but holding the room is something that requires a dedicated person 24/7 (or at least their bot). You have to be ready for net splits and possible channel take overs. I know op's on IRC and they spend all day logged into their clients. Personally I think it can be a bit too distracting for me to get work done. I find the forums distracting enough. Hey if you can get people going there I'm all for it. The BYOAC IRC channel has about 8 or so people in there at one time which is pretty good.

O_O Funny thing is Tom was in the US recently and wouldn't tell me why he was over there... so maybe just maybe... But would Google really purchase software written in a language developed by Microsoft? First thing they would do is port it to C++ and change the default theme Next they will buy out Mame... hmm wonder how that would go down.. Although I thought Aaron worked for Microsft, on his website his last entry under history is "The Microsoft Era (2003-present)". So would that be a conflict of interest? Incidently Aaron used to work at LucasArts porting some of their cool adventure games to the Mac! Wish I could play along but I just wish it was true so Tom can get me a job there so I can re-write the Setup Wizard and Theme Editor (and get paid lots of $$$ and hang on campus eating free food all day). Damn it Tom, damn you to hell!!! P.S My e-mail to send my shares is ...

They aren't really "mission critical" things I was pointing out but handy stuff to know. If Java is your primary language you will pick up C# easily. It takes a while to learn some of the namespaces, but soon enough I'm sure it will grow on you. When you get rolling in C# it really is a pleasent language to code in. I've coded in many different languages and C# is by far my favourite. In fact it pains me when I sometimes have to go back to something else. Not really. Lurking on .NET forums helps alot, but there is alot of new stuff that came along with .NET 2.0. I can thank you for starting the 2.0 upgrade. That's when I discovered System.Collections.Generic. Still got to be _heaps_ of stuff still to find in there and I haven't even looked at 3.0 let alone 3.5!

Can I make a few points about your code - Consider using a Dictionary instead of a Hashtable because it's stongly typed there is no unboxing so it's faster. Your also checking if a value exists using Hashtable.ContainsKey() and then your retrieving the value. That means your looking up the key twice. Using Dictionary.TryGetValue() will mean one lookup. - Note this line File.Exists("PLUGINS\\PlugInUltraStik.ini") Your assuming the current directory is GameEx. While this is true this may change during the lifetime of the program. Try this instead string appPath = Path.GetDirectoryName(this.GetType().Assembly.Location); // If it wasn't a dll you would use Application.StartupPath if(File.Exists(Path.Combine(appPath, "PlugInUltraStik.ini")))... - File.ReadAllLines() is a nice way to replace your StreamReader() code. It returns a string[] of all the lines. Then you can just loop through them all. - When splitting the values in the ini file, take a look at string[] lineSplit = line.Split(new char[] { '=' }); if(lineSplit.Length == 2) // lineSplit[0] is the name, lineSplit[1] is the value. Just a few things I thought worth mentioning. Some of it I learnt when moving from .NET 1.1 to .NET 2.0. Lot's of cool new stuff (one of my favourites being the System.Collections.Generic namespace with Dictionary<K, T> and List<T>)

CPWizard's IRC client currently connects to BYOAC's IRC channel #byoac @ irc.scifi-fans.net:7000 but you can change that in the settings. Foreverchat seems like a popular server. So if we set up a channel on Foreverchat Tom could purchase a licence for JPilot Java IRC client (which is $50 US) and we could either connect from his website or using a client like mIRC. You need to have a few full time op's in there plus a full time bot like EggDrop to hold op status and also auto-op human ops when they join the room. Bots can also run scripts like quiz questions and things like that. Another option is to update the current chat room to something like FlashChat which I think is better than the current one. FlashChat is only $5 too. Downside is it doesn't connect to an IRC server so the only way to access it would be through the website. To be honest though I just don't think many people would use it.

Some forums have a "paging system" where you can send instant messages back and forth to people. They pop up in a window. I think PM's are pretty much the same thing though. There are also things called "shout boxes" which are like mini chatrooms where people can send and recieve messages instantly but from my experience they are always full of trash.