Ninja Rygar

To put it simply... I use MESS for the 5600, 7800, Colecovision, Vectrex and... one other system. For everything else, I use a dedicated emulator.

Alot of my favorite Intellivision games don't really use the keypad... like Astrosmash... so I still use my controller. For everything else, I'm using the numeric keypad. It's pretty unavoidable for me...I don't have any of the original controllers, which is why I didn't really take that feature of Nostalgia's into consideration. I didn't even know they made adapters that work... I use a PS2 controller with help from the numeric keypad on the keyboard. For the colecovision I use the same controller set up... controller plus Keypad. It sucks... but there's little I can do. Player 2 uses the controller plus the number keys. It seems like using this setup is inevitable for certain systems... I mean... the Odyssey2 has a keyboard ON the console. Emulating that means you're gonna still need the keyboard. So using it for the C-vision and I-vision isn't that big a deal for me. Oh, yeah... the topic.... For the colecovision, I've never used anything except MESS. I know there are some other options, like BlueMSX can actually emulate the colecovision... but MESS was my first choice, and didn't feel the need to switch to anything else. Maybe I should do some research into it, but I don't really see any reason to. MESS is perfect for Colecovision (And for that matter, the 5200 and the 7800.)

Yes, MESS/MAME have, by far, the best possible controller configuration setup. When it comes to setting up your controller, MESS and MAME take the cake, by allowing you to map a button to more than one thing... and allowing you to configure all controller types at once, instead of having to swap them around. It's perfect, and if more emulators did that, GameEx would be much nicer. But, while I'm still on the subject of the 2600, it's like I said, the video emulation is Mess is terrible. Colors, and size are just way off compared to other emulators. The colors seem too dark, and in fullscreen, everything looks really crappy. If not for that, MESS would be the emulator of choice by far. While I am on this subject, can anybody tell me why Stella won't work at all? Here's the thing, it used to work just fine... I was trying to get it set up in GameEx, but now all of a sudden, it doesn't open. Double-click the .exe and NOTHING HAPPENS. What's the deal? It's one of those emulators that feels the need to be "installed" (god I hate those) so I unintalled it and tried again, and NOTHIN. I'm using the 32bit version. I've never heard of a program that just won't open. No message, nothing shows up in the task manager... just.... nothing happens. It blows my mind, and it really prevents me from testing this emulator out to it's fullest potential... which sucks because it's supposedly the best of it's kind. I can say, when it did run, I remember not being all that impressed. Compatability with all the different bankswitches and controller types was nice, but there was something that ticked me off. If I could open it back up, I could remember what it was. Now moving on, I can now give my two cents on the intellivision. I'll make this short and sweet, there's only one reason I can think of not to use mess. No intellivoice. So if you want intellivoice support you have to look to either nostalgia or bliss. Nostalgia sucks ass, I don't care what anybody says. It has another rom launcher frontend that just won't hide. You actually have to have Nostalgia look in a different rom folder than gameex, so it doesn't bother you about updating it's list all the time. Not only that, the thing barely works, it uses directX but doesn't seem to use it properly, which causes it to crash on alot of games. Bliss on the other hand is like, the same thing only it actually works and there's no rom launcher. in fact, there's no anything... bliss has NO OPTIONS what-so-ever besides changing the controls. Speaking of which, because of how the controller gets configured in Bliss, it can't tell the difference between joystick1 and joystick2 if you have more than one plugged into your computer. It just recognizes "Joystick" which is great. Now you have to set up player one with the joystick and player 2 with the keybaord. So in conclusion, MESS would be the emulator of choice if only it had intellivoice support. There is no other reason to use Nostalgia or Bliss.

It depends on the system of course, and requires lots of trial and error. Mess's emulation of the Atari 2600 always bothered me. Graphically... it's way off... it's too dark, the screen is too small, and messing with the options doesn't seem to help at all. I suppose it's because Atari 2600 emulation is very difficult, it not only has to emulate the system, but also the tv. So Mess's "Let's try to be like Mame" policy isn't going to work for the 2600. Stella, PCAtari, and Z26 all have much nicer emulation for the Atari 2600, but each have their own flaws... and Mess outshines them in some departments. First up, PCAtari. The biggest problem is, you can't use the windows version with GameEx. At all. It's set up to be it's own frontend, with a rom selector and everything. Jeez, why do so many emulators do that? It's pointless... let me just open whatever rom I want... but anyway, the DOS version can be used for GameEx, but it's terribly outdated and difficult to use. On the other hand, PCAtari has one of the weirdest controller mapping options I've ever seen. I hated it at first but once you get used to it, it's not bad. One final note, you can't use .a26 files with PCAtari... which is what most Atari games are. They have to be in either .bin or .pal... a simple renaming actually works so... what's the deal? Anyway screw PCAtari, next up is Z26 which is my emulator of choice. Pain in the ass to use because unlike PCAtari, Z26 is PURE command line. There are so many command line options and none of them are self-explanitory.. they're all just single letters. However, this type of customization makes things real nice for GameEx. Everything works nice, the only problem is the controller configuration... you have to set the type of controller that is plugged in, into the command line, which for the 2600, that means there are paddles, driving controlers, keypads, thumbgrips, light guns and god knows what else. It can't just do them all like MESS can. Which is a shame because there is no way for GameeX to change the commandline depending on what game you used... so all the other controller options won't work in GameEx. I've also found that while playing Z26 with music running... the music and all other sound becomes ruined. Probably just me. Stella is probably the best emulator, which is the popular opinion. It autodetects wether it's PAL or NTSC, uses all controllers (I think) and just runs really well. I hate it's rom launcher but, whatever. For me, it doesnt' work, but that's only because my computer is a piece of shit. Stella can't configure controllers as well as MESS or PCAtari though... if I remember correctly. So for the Atari 2600, the order of best to worst probably works like this... Stella, Z26, MESS, PCAtari,.... Anything else. I'll chime in later with some of my other system tests.

In "Advanced Configuration"... when you configure your emulators, you'll notice one of the options says "Advanced config" and you might see something like "[Mapping off] Process exit (Close)" That's the advanced config file, and if you press the "Edit" button next to it you'll see all sorts of interesting options in Ben Baker's advanced config editor... including what you're looking for... the gamepad exit option. You can set up different advanced config files... I usually use the same one, but had to make different ones for Mugen and stuff like that. Go for it. Also Brian, I disagree with Fusion being the best emulator for Sega CD, as I've noticed alot of games won't work beyond playing the intro. Maybe it's just my experience, or maybe it's the roms I downloaded... but try playing Time Gal, or Power Rangers. They don't work. Gens32 runs them just fine.

I think we have a thread for this already, but I'll take it seriously anyway. Well, right off the bat, you shouldn't have to worry about the Exit button mapping for ANY emulator, as that's an option you can set in Gameex itself very simply. So don't concern yourself on weather the emulator has an option for that or not... it's not an issue with GameEx. NES ----------- What it boils down to here is FCEUltra (and it's many knockoffs) vs Nestopia. Both will give you what you're looking for with GameEx... but Nestopia wins for me because of it's higher compatability rate (So in case you want to play all those shitty Sachen games, go right ahead...) Both are great in fullscreen, and sound perfect... and aren't very complicated. They're hidden well in gameEx. Nestopia also has 7zip support, with isn't an issue since GameEx adds that support to basically any emulator, but it just means it's easy to configure things OUTSIDE of GameEx, which is always nice. You don't have to extract any of your 7zips. I really can't think of any advantages to using FCEUltra... so try out Nestopia. GENESIS -------- It's going to have to be Gens32 Surreal (the latest version) vs. Fusion. When it comes to Genesis, Fusion is the way to go. Gens32 Surreal is a bitch to get running in GameEx (though I can't remember why, I just remember it being a bitch) and doesn't offer any better Genesis support than Fusion. Fusion definitely sounds better... I read that Gens32 Surreal has a customizable sound engine, but one false move and your Genesis will be sounding like a forehead banging against a piano. Doesn't mean Fusion doesn't have it's hiccups... but it does have tons of full screen options and good speed (Turn on VSync again, trust me) which is what you're looking for. (On another note, not only is the SegaCD compatability very low, but a good number of Game Gear games don't work at all either, which is why you'll want to keep Gens32 around.)

I notice that lists now loop back to the top of the menu when pressing down on the very last item in the list. It doesn't do that for pressing up on the very top item on the list... Did it do this before the update? I don't remember it doing so. EDIT: Ok so, nevermind, it only did that the first time I ran gameex after the update, and it doesn't do it anymore.

I made a Valhalla background for the MSX1. I know it's not perfect.

Is it possible to have a custom background for External Applications? If so, please let me know how.

The merge feature doesn't seem to be doing anything unfortunately. It's weird, especially with the Playstation. Do the .bin files have to be in zips, or subfolders? Would that help any? I tried subfolders, but it still acted the same way. I'd rather not keep them in .zip files, as it takes too long to extract them for my tastes. The way it is right now, the database doesn't even know what the .bin/.img files are, with or without the "Use Database Name" option. By the way, what's a .cue file? Is that needed? I've tried making a .map file, but again.... it didn't seem to do anything. What am I missing here? EDIT: Whoa whoa whoa whoa, stop the car... I think I just realized something. Well, 2 things. One is that I'm a complete noob. The second is, .bin files are used for burning images onto an actual CD... I was using them as regular rom files... which GameEx probably has a problem with... am I right? Could that be why it won't group them or display the database information? Because they're .bin files? I will look into this matter further.

When emulators are grouped in a "Group"... how exactly does GameEx determine which custom background/selection music to give the group? My concern is, it actually doesn't start playing any custom music for the group until a rom is selected. Strange! Even if both emulators that are in the group use the same folder for their selection music. This is EXTREMELY trivial I realize... but it's like, it's one of those little things I notice. It would be nice if the selection music for a group worked just the same as emulators that are not grouped. I have a few questions about CD based emulators such as the playstation. I looked around and I'm unable to find the answer... how does one group the CD's together in the menu? Take for example, a 3 CD game like Final Fantasy 7... each CD shows up in the menu currently, and I can't figure out how to have them show up on the game info page instead. Is that possible? I'm not lazy, I really did look. Databases seem to have some issues, (though they're still impressive!), like for example, if a good merged set ends with a period, various things may not work. A game like "Super Mario Bros..7z", because it ends with a period, will not show snaps, titles, boxes or anything even if the filenames are EXACT. Simple solution would be to just remove the period... but now the database can't find it. So it's either have artwork, have a database entry, but not both. Shame... And another issue seems to be with multiple entries, or just flat out wrong entries. Take for example, a game like "Dinosaurs for Hire" on the Sega Genesis. The database shows it as "A dinosaur Tale" or something like that. I guess it's the "Use Database Name" option that is a little weird. I notice that NeoGeo Pocket Color and Mono have totally different databases. Are they really treated as seperate consoles? Most emulators, and even good tools, treat those two as the same console... just because I guess it's convenient. (Same with the GBx and GBC). I seperated the roms and then grouped them in gameex so both consoles have their databases show up while on the same list, but wouldn't it be a good idea to group those two databases into one like Good Tools/Good Merge etc...? I have one PC game being treated as an emulator on my menu (Mugen as a matter of fact) but I noticed when you close mugen, it doesn't take you back to the start page, it takes you to a rom list, as if mugen was an emulator. I know I'm being annoying, but isn't there anyway to make it... not do that? The rom list for mugen turns out to be a bunch of text files, and dll files. I'm treating it as a PC game, so it doesn't make a rom list when you start it up, only when you exit it. And finally... this may be getting a little too specific... MAME, and Zinc. Turns out trying to get Zinc and Model2 games to have the right controls is a puzzle. Zinc normally gives each rom it's own controller cfg file, but can also use a default one for all games. Problem is, all Zinc games use VERY different controller schemes... or whatever... so if it's right for one game, it's probably not for another. I did some reading about the MAMELoader and gave that a shot, but as it turns out, I had no idea what I was doing. GameEx just refused to work after I tried that, so I switched back. There were some other things I wanted to bring up but... well... I can't really think of them right now.

I updated my mame list, and... yeah that worked. Huh... I guess I should have thought of that. Thanks for your help. I knew it was a simple problem.

I updated MAME recently for the first time in Gameex, and since then, all of the MAMEInfo.dat and History.dat outright REFUSES to show up on the game's information page. I don't get it, I KNOW it's pointing to the correct files, (they were recently updated as well), the information appears normally in MAMEUI32, so I know it's not the files themselves. When I verify settings in the setup wizard (thought I'd give it a shot) it definately finds them. It finds the files when I check the message log. So I'm just... I don't know. Why won't the information show up? MameInfo and History.dat: I've concluded that the files work properly. I've concluded that GameEx knows where they are... and yet.... no info. (Pretty sure the same goes for catver.ini, nplayers.ini as well) Somebody please give me an idea.