Owensct

Hi all, Got a question regarding when GameEx updates the game list. I had GameEx installed on my PC and something happend and the config got corrupted so I had to nuke everything and start over from scratch. When I went into MAME it said that there were no games as excpected and asked me to update to which I said yes. So it cruises along pretty quickly and hit 55% in about 10 minutes then it stayed at 55% for like the next 5 hours and was still there when I went to bed. I checked to ensure that it was still running in the task manager and not hung. My setup is as follows: I am running MAME Plus which is on the local machine. Mame Plus picks up my games fairly fast, (when it's just MAME), plus I have no trouble streaming video over the Internet or movies from my Terastation to the HTPC. In fact GameEx is the only thing I see any sigificant performance hits from when going from my network to the HTPC. The HTPC is a Pentium 4 2+ Ghz with 1gig RAM, ( I need more I know) and a 512Meg Nvidia video card. All ROMS are located on a network drive, (Y: windows share) which is hardwired to a 10/100/1000 switch (CAT6e) which in turn plugs into the gigabit port on a 2TB Buffalo Terastation, (so no wireless in the equation), total length of cable being used maybee 25 feet, the cable tests fine. My ROM are setup on the network share as follows: MAME ROMS ROMS A-E ROMS F-J ROMS K-L ROMS M-N Etc So in GameEX my ROM locations look like this Y:\Mame ROMS\Roms A-E;Y:\Mame ROMS\ROMS F-J;Y:\Mame ROMS\ROMS K-L;Y:\Mame ROMS\ROMS M-N; Etc I have tried using UNC pathing like I did with my music and movies ie \\192.168.xx.xx\Mame ROMS\Roms A-E and it doesn't seem to work, (unless I'm missing something). I've tried just giving GameEx the top level directory ie Y:\MAME ROMS and it doesn't pickup the roms in the sub-directories. Oh and yes I am running the latest version of GameEx. What am I missing here? This is making me crazy, I'm afraid to change anything (add a rom, restructure a directory etc)because if I do I can forget about using GameEx or my HTPC for the rest of that night. I don't get it, this thing acts like I'm trying to pickup a list of roms located on the other side of the planet instead of in the next room. Sorry to vent. Any and all suggestons appreciated. Cheers, Gordon

Tom, See attached. It found all the movies I have on this test system, but it picked up none of the titles automatically, but I was able to do a manual search, but teh quality of the information returned is different from movie to movie. Cheers, Gordon Movie_search_results.doc

Tom, I will give it a go. Gordon

Hi all, As a Netflix user I wanted to be able to access Netflix instant watch programs through GameEx and I think I finally found a way. There s a site www.instantwatcher.com which links to Netflix and only lists programs available for instant play. Once you register you can pass parameters as part of the url which gives you the ability to show only those items you want. For example I have setup in GameEx a submenu called Netflix which then takes me to another menu where I can select TV or movies or both that in turn opens another menu which lists the available genres (drama, comedy etc), upon selecting one it open the instantwatch site showing only the items that met the criteria I specified. The only problem I have right now it that when I tell it to play a specific title it open up a secondary browser windows on my secondary monitor attached to my HTPC instead of on my TV. Also, the guy who created the site is very responsive to requests for support. This is the best way I have come across so far to gain access to my Netflix instant watch shows via GameEx. If youâ??ve got another way I love to hear about it. Cheers, Gordon

Tom, Yep tried the movie databae and it only sees one of my movies and returns nothing for it. Cheers, Gordon

Hi all, My album art is still showing up wrong, ie song xyz shows the album art for band abc. Is there some way to nuke all the exisitng album art and/or set a flag or something that forces GameEx to re-download all the album art? Also, when I tell GameEx to download the cover art for movies that exist on my system is doesn't come back with anything. What data does GameEx need to help it locate the correct covers for movies. It is based on name, tag data or ??? Any help is much appreciated. Cheers, Gordon

Tom, I downloaded and installed it, but the album artwork for my songs is still wrong, ie when a Queen song is highlighted it is showing the album art for The Who. How do I force it to re-retrieve album artwork? Cheers, Gordon

I saw it on youtube and also on the GameEx site under videos. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu9XXKeUrdo Cheers, Gordon

Can anybody tell me where to obtain this theme? Saw the video and it is awesome . Cheers, Gordon

Hi all, Thanks for those who answered my questions on my previous post. After resolving those issues I registered it, well worth it, (awesome product Tom) . However, I have a few more questions as I dig my way through GameEx and want to get more experienced users feedback. 1. Has anyone setup GameEx to access Netflix instant movies and if so what approach did you use? Ideally I would like to be able to have a scrollable list of Netflix movies/shows. Example you click on Netflix on the menu I it goes to menu II which shows Movies and Television, select movies and goes to menu III for genre, click on genre and it brings up a list of available genres, click on Sci-Fi and it goes to menu IV which shows all Sci-fi movies that are available for instant play, ie Netflix  Movies  Genre  Genre list  list of movies. There is a website that might make this easier http://instantwatcher.com/ Tom have you thought about seeing if you could work a deal with Netflix? They have a SDK that is available to developers. The guy that put up the site at instantwatcher worked with Netflix and used their SDK. His site has a free version and an enhanced version with more features that has a small monthly charge. Just a thought. 2. Whenever I tell GameEx to update my game list it takes forever. It will get to 55% and then stay there for hours. Is this normal? Could it have anything to so with the fact that my ROMS reside on a network drive? It is currently setup in GameEx via a mapped drive on my HTPC. I tried setting in up using UNC pathing for the MAME ROM, but this doesnâ??t seem to work, (works for movies, music and pictures) . 3. I was finally able to get GameEx to pickup all my music using UNC pathing and by changing the Jukebox mode to file audio tags, but Iâ??ve encountered an issue with album art. The album art stays the same for various artists or shows the wrong art. For example: I go into jukebox, select sort by artist/album and then select album a tribute to Glenn Miller and select a song Swinging at the Ritz it shows the album art for Smash Mouth All Start Smash Hits. Or a Rolling Stones song will be playing, but it shows the album art for The Who. This is not the case when going directly through WMP, it either shows no art, for songs/albums it canâ??t find it for or the correct album art. Any ideas as to what might be causing this? 4. I have movies in variety of formats MP4, 3GP etc, if I try to run these with GameEx I get a DirectX error and GameEx crashes. If I try to run them from within WMP is just tells me it cannot play that format. What file formats does GameEx support for video? Is there a way to filter unplayable formats so GameEx doesnâ??t crash if you try to play them as there is no way to see what format they are in from the menu, (Like you can do with MAME)? What is the preferred format for ripping movies for use in GameEx? What tool/application do you recommend for ripping DVD for use in GameEx that will give the best functionality without taking massive amounts of disk for output to a big screen television? I want to rip the movies with English subtitles, (wife likes the ST). 5. Bluetooth and GameEx. I have WMP setup with stereo Bluetooth headphones so I can listen/watch in privacy without disturbing anyone. With WMP I can pause, switch tracks etc, using the controls on the headphones is there a way to get GameEx to recognize the BT headphone controls? 6. What purpose does the resolution control serve in GameEx as I have already set my resolution for my TV display (PC to HDMI) through the NVIDIA control panel? Guess thatâ??s it for now, this is a really awesome tool and with a little more understanding and tweaking on my part I think this is going to be exactly what I have been searching for. Cheers, Gordon

Thanks for all your recommendations Thanks for the info. Based on your suggestion I setup UNC pathing to my music and movies locations. This worked somewhat, but it still wasnâ??t picking up all my songs. I in order to get it to pickup all my music I had to change the Jukebox mode to file audio tags. UNC pathing does not seem to work with MAME ROMS. Now that I can see all my music Iâ??ve encountered another issue that I hoping someone can explain. The Album art stays the same for various artists or shows the wrong art. For example: I go into jukebox, select sort by artist/album and then select album a tribute to Glenn Miller and select that then select the song to If I select the song Swinging at the Ritz it shows the album art for Smash Mouth All Star Smash Hits. Any ideas as to what might be causing this? Another question regarding Bluetooth. I have WMP setup with stereo Bluetooth headphones so I can listen/watch in privacy if its late without disturbing anyone. With WMP I can pause, switch tracks etc, using the controls on the headphones is there a way to get GameEx to recognize the BT headphone controls? My movies are in a variety of formats MP4, 3GP, for use on my wifeâ??s IPOD an on my PDA, if I try to run these with GameEx I get a DirectX error, (I do have the latest version of DirectX and video drivers for my NVIDIA card) see attached logs, (GameEx and Direct X diags). If I try to run them from within WMP is just tells me it cannot play that format. What video formats can GameEx support? Is there a way to get GameEx to not display formats it wonâ??t support? Is there a way to play these other formats through GameEx? One of the reasons I am wanting to implement a front end is so it will be simplify things for my wife, if she tries to run an invalid format type and it crashes on her, she will grow frustrated with it and not use it. When I tell GameEx to update the game list after I made some changes it takes hours and hours and frequently hangs. It will get to 55% and then stay there for hours. Is this normal or might it have something to do with the fact that my ROMS reside on a network drive? What purpose does the resolution control serve in GameEx as I have already set my resolution for my TV display (PC to HDMI) through the NVIDIA control panel? One last thing can anyone tell me the approach to take so I can access my Netflix instant play through GameEx? Guess thatâ??s it for now, this is a really awesome tool and with a little more understanding and tweaking on my part I think this is going to be exactly what I have been searching for. Great job Tom. Iâ??ll be registering it soon. Cheers, Gordon log.txt DxDiag.txt

Thanks for the suggestions/info. I have a bit of an update. I fired up GameEx last night, went into multimedia -> videos and left it to run all night. When I got up this morning it had errored out and the log file was showing on screen. Unfortunately, I had to leave for work so I didn't get to do more than take a quick glance at it. Once I k now more I will post the contents of the logfile. I am impressed with what I've seen so far as to what it is capable of, and plan to register it, but first I need to make sure it will work with my setup and can do the other things I am trying to do, most notably seamless streaming of Netflix on demand movies. I have seen general references that imply that this can be done, but at present I have to get the other issues sorted out first, learn to walk before I try to run. Cheers, Gordon

Hi all, Iâ??m new to GameEx and found out about it on the X-Gaming website and from what I can see it looks like it might be the system Iâ??ve been searching for to bring my movies, pictures, music, radio and Mame together. Of course there is always the proverbial fly in the ointment, which in this case is Iâ??m sure is a problem between the keyboard and the chair I have a couple of issues/questions and was hoping someone might be able to help with. My current configuration is as follows: I have an HTPC, (Dell Optiplex P4 2.4Ghz with 1 gig RAM, 512 video running Windows XP Pro SP3). This is connected to my network via a wireless 100 mb switch to Cat6 into a Cisco 24 port 10/100/1000 switch which in turn connects to a Buffalo Terastation 2TB NAS (in an upstairs office) with Gigabit Ethernet which is where all my media resides, (movies, music, pictures, MAME ROM etc). On the Optiplex I have a drive (Y:) mapped to my media partition on the NAS and on this drive I have various folders y:\e-books, y:\movies etc and under those folder are subfolders, for example under movies I have a variety of different movies I have ripped from my DVDâ??s, plus a secondary folder called y:\movies\disney (Disney films) another called y:\movies\Atomic Test Footage etc. Also, under y:\music I have a variety of MP3's (singles) as well as each of my CDâ??s broken out into individual albums such as y:\music\aerosmith, y:\music\classical\bach etc. The first question I have is when I configure GameEx and tell it that my movies are located under y:\movies, and music is under y:\music will it pick up the files in the subfolders automatically or do I have to do something to make it as I donâ??t think Iâ??m seeing all my files? Secondly, after I installed GameEx using basic installation and started doing some testing I selected multimedia and then videos, this popped up my folder location y:\movies, which was highlighted so I hit enter. Then up pops my first level files in the y:\movies folder, at this point the system froze, when I tried to escape, up and down arrows, nothing, although the mouse cursor moved. After about 45 minutes a DVD cover popped up next to the documentary An Inconvenient Truthâ??s title, I then tried to access the system and it was still froze. After another hour I did a ctrl-alt-del, and brought up the task manager and it showed GameEx as not responding, which I then killed. I have tried this multiple time with the same result. Also, from what I could see a number of movies were not showing up. Is there something special I need to do to get the system to respond in a timely manner when accessing files that are stored on a server/NAS? It seems like a great system, but when I click on movies I want to watch and movie now not two hours from now Also, I have no trouble accessing my files directly with my movie player or WMP (ver 11) Any help or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. TIA Gordon