hansolo77

FFDSHOW is just a bunch of audio/video codecs all mashed up into one program. There is a utility that comes with the stuff that lets you configure things like which codec to use for different types of files. Look in your START menu for the program. Its under the "ALL PROGRAMS" -> "ffdshow" folder on my computer.

Sure I can help you. But a lot of the help has to come from you. The number 1 rule is don't ask where to download games. GOOGLE is a great tool if you just use it. Now that being said, let me explain what GameEx does, and the process to get your gaming on. GameEx is a FRONTEND. There are no games "for" it specifically. What this means, is that you have the games already installed. You then tell GameEx where they are, and it stores their locations. This makes everything easy for you so all you have to do is pick the game you want to play, and GameEx launches it. Piece of cake. The tricky part, after getting your games, is configuring them within GameEx. There are plenty of configurations already posted from other users in THIS THREAD. Its a STICKY so it'll always be in the top section of the forum. Browse/search through there and see if any of their examples can help. Basically what you need is: 1) The program (we'll say 'Counter-Strike Source') installed. 2) The path on your computer where the program is located. (such as C:\Program Files\Steam\CS [or whatever]) 3) The "working path" or location where edited files go (typically the same as the root path where the program is installed...). 4) The name of the file which launches the program. (like steam.exe) All of the other stuff is just FLUFF to make it look nice. For instance, you may want to have a screenshot image of the ingame screen so you know what you're looking at. You can also have box art, etc. Settings such as "show desktop", "launch before/after", "database", "7z/goodname", etc are all things you may or maynot need. So lets take it one step further. Suppose you have a whole BUNCH of games for a specific system like the Nintendo NES. After you have the program installed and working, and a collection of roms to play on it, you configure GameEx to "launch" it. Just remember the primary basics: 1) The program (we'll say 'Nintendo NES' this time) installed. 2) The path on your computer where the program is located. (we'll say C:\Program Files\jnes) 3) The "working path" or location where edited files go (same folder in this case). 4) The name of the file which launches the program. (jnes.exe in this case). Ok so there's our new emulator installed. Right now though, it'll just launch the program. But whats nice about GameEx is that you can have it retrieve a listing of all the games/roms you have and launch them individually. So to do that you need to change some of the "FLUFF" settings. 5) Locate the path to the roms (C:\Program Files\jnes\ROMS) 6) Assign a filter (may not be needed) so GameEx only looks for a specific filetype. (*.nes) 7) Change the command line to= jnes.exe "[ROMPATH]\[ROMFILE]" Piece of cake! Now if you've got screenshots and other artwork for your games, make sure they all match in filename. So (for example) "SuperMarioBros3.nes" would have a screenshot called "SuperMarioBros3.png". A file like "super-mario-brothers-3-screen.jpg" may be a screenshot of the game, but unless it's an exact match (minus the extension) GameEx won't find it and won't associate it with that game. So there you go. It's not that hard to configure GameEx to work with games. The tricky part comes in picky details, but if you just remember the 4 basic things you need, you should be fine. Just remember the link above to find other examples (much of them GREATLY better than mine!) and don't hesitate to ask questions. There are no stupid questions here. I'm still a new guy myself, and without the great support of everybody in this forum, I'd still be soooooo lost! Hope that helps! - HAN ps, I'll let you in on a little secret. My good pal Adultery is hosting a website designed specifically to help new people, such as yourself, with configuring GameEx and a whole bunch of emulators. The Emulator part isn't up yet, but should be completed soon. He'll probably reply to this thread too. He's cool so you'll be alright. Just remember to ask!

Try getting the ffdshow drivers and reconfigure it to use its codec instead of the Cyberlink ones, or vice versa.

Try converting the filetype of the artwork to a PNG file instead of JPG. I remember reading somewhere that only PNG files work. I could be wrong though. But then again, it never hurts to try.

It takes a long time for me to load up a list of games on every emulator. Its like it doesn't cache any of the lists. Don't get me wrong though, once the list has been opened, it seems to work fine until I change emulators or close GameEx. The way I run it, I have MCE and access GameEx through the "MORE GAMES" option. When I'm done playing and quit GameEx, it goes back to MCE like it should. But when GameEx closes, it doesn't look like it stores any kind of cache of games. The only list/cache that DOES seem to save is the MAME list. None of the other emulators do. So for me, whenever I choose to do a random game, it takes forever for it to load up. If I decide not to play it, I usually just go back to the menu of that emulator and choose a different game or something. I've never actually tried doing a random, then going back and doing another random... So if thats a bug, there ya go. If it's not, then it's a feature that needs tweaked somehow. I'm not complaining because it DOES work the way it is, just not all fast, and definately not fast enough to screensaver all games (but that would be a really cool idea). [EDIT] Perhaps you could code a way to use the [update List?] option for all emulators. Just have it show on the main game list for each emulator. That way it stores a file listing somewhere, and only updates that list to that emulator when the user decides to update it. You could then have it save a list for every emulator to make loading that much faster. Then for the screensaver, just have it merge all the lists and work from that. I think that would be very useful. I know for myself, once I get all the roms working, and they're goodmerged/etc, I wouldn't be updating the list again. But to have GameEx refresh the list every session seems to be overkill. Don't you? [END EDIT]

Sounds like you need to have a DVD/MPEG2 decoder. If you don't have the hardware, you're SOL. One thing you can try is getting a software DVD/MPEG2 decoder like WinDVD or PowerDVD. They're not as good a hardware, but they provide you with the needed decoder drivers to play them.

Since this latest build/release, I've "seen" the vpauto's, but they disappear once you run your mouse over them. The desktop just isn't getting refreshed when you're running GameEx. Try it. [yves31] I'm glad it works for you. I was a bit weary of posting my setup because I know it works for me, but didn't know if it would work for others. The hard part now is getting all your tables. I spent a week downloading torrents with "complete" table sets. Problem is, they're all zipped. When you unzip them, they include everything; all versions of the tables, screenshots, flyers, artwork, instructions, samples, fonts, music, EVERYTHING!! So I've been meticulously going through and sorting them all out. Up to week 2 now. I'm almost done. Now all we need is Tom to take my suggestion of a 2nd Rom Filter for extracted 7zips and then we'd be set.

It would probably be possible, but highly impractical. If you have a bunch of roms (like I know you do, as do I) it takes nearly a minute to load a game when you press the [RANDOM GAME]. The screensaver would have to go through your whole list every single time to change games, and it would take a minute each and every time. Now, if there was some way to store a list of the games you have somewhere so GameEx doesn't have to refresh it's list every time, then it might not take as long.....

Pleasuredome is where I download from! ARGH!

What bugs me, is that I'll download from a torrent site a complete 107 rom set, with all games ever released. Then run it through GameEx and only have about 2000 games. Then I'll run the romset through clrmame and find that its like 90% crap. Even though people of the torrent community are all praising the release. What gives?!

I doubt it. There is special programming in the MAME part of GameEx to use this feature. Since Visual Pinball is standalone under the emulators, there's not option to use icons. Of course that doesn't mean I'm entirely correct. There may be a way to do it, but I don't know of one. You could also use the Requested Features thread an make a suggestion to Tom for a future release to have it.

Ok, here's how I have my setup, and it works perfectly now. I used to have similar issues, but not anymore. #1 - Install Visual Pinball using this program: #2 - Unzip your tables, and place the VPS, VBS, and VPT tiles in your /Tables Folder. Place ROMS (in their zip format) into the /Roms folder. CFG files go in the /CFG folder. NV files go in the /NVRAM folder. Samples and such should already be taken care of, but if you find more, put them where they make since; ie, music in music, samples in samples, HI in HI, etc. #3 - Configure GameEx to use Visual Pinball as an emulator. #4 - Configure the Emulator as this: (replace C: with D: or other drive letter as needed) (<blank> means the line is empty, don't type in <blank>) ENABLED - YES START PAGE NAME - Visual Pinball Tables TITLE TEXT - Visual Pinball LOGO - Pinball ROM FILTER - *.VPT ROMS IN FOLDERS - NO ROM PATH - C:\Program Files\Pinball\Tables SNAP PATH - C:\Program Files\Pinball\__SNAPS (create your own folder for this) TITLE PATH - <blank> (create your own folder here too if you wish BOX ART PATH - <blank> (create your own folder here too if you wish CARTRIDGE PATH - <blank> (create your own folder here too if you wish WORKING PATH - C:\Program Files\Pinball\Tables MAP KEYS - YES WAIT BEFORE SEND KEYS - <blank> KEYS TO SEND - <blank> REPLACE DASHES - NO REPLACE UNDERSCORES - NO CAPITALISE WORDS - NO REMOVE TEXT IN BRACKETS - NO SHOW DESKTOP - YES DEBUG MODE - NO MAP FILE - <blank> ALSO LAUNCH - C:\Program Files\Saitek\Software\Profiles\Pinball.bat (see below) COMMAND LINE - ..\VPinball.exe -play -"[ROMPATH]\[ROMFILE]" (cut and paste for best results) OFFLINE LIST - <blank> LAUNCH BEFORE - <blank> LAUNCH AFTER - <blank> ADVANCED CONFIG - Visual Pinball V2 EXCLUDED FILES - <blank> CUSTOM BACKGROUND - <blank> PLAY MUSIC - <blank> TREAT AS 1 PC GAME - <blank> DATABASE - <blank> 7-ZIP/GOODMERGE - NO #5 - Start Playing! ------------------------------------- INFO ABOUT THE ALSO LAUNCH I have a PC pad from Saitek. It's a nice controller, with 2 shoulder buttons. I use the shoulder buttons as my left and right flipper buttons. However, I need to program the controller to do that. That is what the bat file is for. It calls the programmer utility and maps the buttons as I had previously configured. Then it runs the VPAUTO program which detects Visual Pinball, presses the options automatically to start the table. When you press Escape, VPAUTO automatically chooses the "Exit to Editor" option, and quits the program, then terminates. Then my bat file launches the programmer again, and resets the pad to it's default assignment. Then GameEx reloads. This is what my bat file looks like: prfact -v-f"C:\Program Files\Saitek\Software\PINBALL.dat" -A "C:\Program Files\GameEx\vpauto.exe" prfact -v-f"C:\Program Files\Saitek\Software\DEFAULT.dat" -A It's a simple file that does amazing things. In most cases, however, you don't need it. In this case, you would just use the line: ALSO LAUNCH - "C:\Program Files\GameEx\vpauto.exe" (quotes important) END INFO ABOUT THE ALSO LAUNCH ------------------------------------------- I hope this was helpful. Apparently, the VPAUTO script is what is your hangup. I know it used to work with earlier versions of VP, then stopped working. VP has been updated again, and you can try to go through the whole install, then patch the install with the timer hack, etc. But the auto installer I linked above does all this automatically for you. It installs the proper paths, all of the most used VBS scripts, and gets you set clean slate. Let us know if you have any more problems.

Sorry, I had just replied to your other thread about the pause. I guess I was right about the debug mode. HEHE. Oh well, guess it shows how ignorant I am to not notice 2 identical threads. If you want to be able to switch, then you have to disable the configuration for the emulator where it asks if you want to map keys. Mapping keys means it maps buttons like ESCAPE and BACKSPACE (for the MCE remote) to exit the emulator and relaunch GameEx. If it's disabled, you can freely use the ESCAPE key without worry of it closing. As a side note though, you'll need to know how to exit the emulator then. With most, a simple ALT+F4 will close it. Others, you may have to literally go into FILE->EXIT or something like CONTROL+Q. But just so you know, it's possible to do this, you just need to know your alternate method of closing it.

Is GameEx reporting it's paused or is the Emulator running paused? If GameEx is paused, this might be because you have your emulator configured in debug mode. I don't know exactly what the message looks like on your end though. It's a very strange thing to hear about. And the fact that its happened only since an auto update is very very strange. Can you post a screenshot? [QUICK EDIT] I don't mean to sound rude or anything, but if you need help making a screenshot, just use the PrntScrn (Print Screen) button to capture the screen to your clipboard, then paste it to a new file in a painting program like Photoshop, Paintshop, etc. Then save that file and post it here.

Update to my problem: Seems to be working now. I wonder if the setting of the "Auto Exit Games After" wasn't being registered. Since I never actually went into the Configuration program since like the last 3 updates, it's possible the setting was never recognized. And because of that, the GameEx programming automatically skipped over that and assumed it was set to automatically start up the screensaver. And without a limit being set by that, the screensaver wouldn't reach a time limit for changing games either. So be that as it may, there may be a bug in there somewhere. Unless you specifically configure that feature, GameEx ignores the setting and doesn't time out anything. Now the problem with the screensaver starting up on its own while running a PC application, I've still not determined the cause. It doesn't do it frequently enough to be able to specify credentials to make it happen. Like I said before though, it only happens in games like Visual Pinball and StepMania. Any of the other console emulators seem to not be affected. I've yet to run any of the others since I "fixed" the screensaver switching games problem. It's possible it might have fixed that too. As for the other point, I thirdly suggest that is a good idea. I don't know how much programming you would have to do, but basically what you need is to have GameEx look for a solid/non-updated screen for a certain period of time. So if the game IS on pause, the screen won't update (unless it's got some crazy built in screensaver or rotating P-A-U-S-E letters or something) and you'll know to start counting down. I know for MAME specifically, you can configure a key press FOR pause... So you could program to look for that keypress. Only I don't know how well the system would work if you have MAME paused and the screensaver fires up another MAME. Up to you I guess on how you want to work it out. That is, of course, if more demand surfaces.

Ok, I just checked my config, and the "Enable/Disable Features->Auto Exit Games After" was set to "Disabled". My screensaver settings are: Attract Mode Audio: Pause playlist audio and run MAME with sound Attract Mode Timer: 1 Minute New Game Every: 2 Minutes Play Videos too: No Game to Video Ratio: Random Video's Path: <blank> Only Favorites: No Play Exit Sound: No

EEK! You've created a new bug I think. Screensaver doesn't change games.... Ok here's the scoop. I haven't updated to MAME 107 yet. I've not made any changes to the GameEx configurations since befor 107 was out. So my theory is, either the bug is only there when you're using an older outdated version of MAME, or it truely is there for everybody. So check it out and see whats up. [LATE EDIT] Just noticed something else. I was playing a Visual Pinball game, and the screensaver suddenly came on in the middle of the game. For a test, I tried a different table, and it happened again. I then tried playing StepMania, and it still happens. So apparently when a computer program is launched via GameEx, the program doesn't disable the screensaver timer. I've not tried any other emulators as of yet, but if it happens while in them too, I'll report back.

You have to remember that these roms are loading at their factory settings. For example, Mortal Kombat is usually VERY quite until you go into the dip settings and enable the editor, then manually adjust the volume. One thing you can try, though I don't remember exactly where it is, is to enable the option in MAME to have it auto adjust the volume. It's helped me a lot. If I find the setting, I'll reply post it.

Well I'm sticking to my build of 106 then until this gets sorted out.

See? We told ya. Nothing to worry about.

I use Mame32+. It's been released for 107... I don't know what the differences between PLUS and regular. I just remember reading somewhere that it's added features seemed more desiring than just the plain old version. I haven't downloaded the 107 yet, so you're on your own if you decide to get it. You can get it here: http://www3.emu-zone.org/host/mameplus/

Tom does frequent the forum too, so chances are he'll see your thread and respond properly.

Ok so you just have 2XXX files still. That how I have it, only I haven't renamed them yet. How does that tool work? I've only just begun dabbling in the whole GoodTools. Do I need to find an updated name DB everytime there's a new game released?

Ability to filter extracted 7-zip files. IE; When 7zipping cd-images (sega cd for example) in iso/mp3 or bin/cue format, have GameEx use an additional filter to only look for the iso or cue files. This would help eliminate the showing of multiple files once games are extracted. This is a difficult "bug" in that the files are extracted and displayed without their file extentions. So if we could get an "ExtractedROMFilter" that would really be great. This would also help with Pinball tables that I'm 7zipping. Some tables require extra vbs files, that are the same names as the vpt files. Telling GameEx to only look for *.vpt files after extracting would be awesome.

Hey Adultery... Are you using the GoodGBA name for you GBA's? Since they're still releasing games for it, I was going to hold off on renaming. Is this a good idea or should I go ahead and rename and merge?