Macguvyer

Thanks DazzleHP! That almost worked. Now however VICE starts with the joystick always set to the numberpad instead of Keyset A. Any ideas how to force it to Keyset A?

Thanks DazzleHP, I tried x360ce and it looked very promising indeed. But even in their documentation it says this won't work with an actual xbox360 controller, plus I believe it needs to rewrite dlls to work (it's designed for specific games I think). In either case I couldn't get it to work. I then tried a similar program called Duranzo which also looked promising but it too did not seem to work with VICE. Duranzo is available here in case anyone is trying to solve a similar issue and it is described as "a XInput wrapper that simply sits between the controller and the game so as to allow for input customization" Also, one more thing I haven't tried yet which I read about on the X360ce site, apparently some guy from Japan has written a more advanced driver for the wireless Xbox 360 which allows much more customization etc. If anyone is interested in experimenting with that, you can read about it here. If I have time I will test this and report back. However I will say that I finally got my xbox controller to work with VICE!!!!! , and it was not difficult at all. Gamepad support in VICE Vic20 using a wireless Xbox 360 controller through Gamebase AND through Gameex. Awesome! I simply mapped the D-pad to the numeric keypad in Xpadder, then in VICE I set the joystick settings from PC joystick #0 to "Keyset A", and then configured Keyset A to the numeric Keypad. I'm sure everyone who uses Xpadder will say, "Yeah, of course", but I was having a tough time figuring it out, since I thought I could have Xpadder swap inputs from analog to dpad, etc, and I was trying to avoid using the keyboard as a middle man since I feared that I would have to spend a long time rejigging my Gamebase / VICE setup. The only thing is that when I closed Gamex and then later played the same game again, my joystick settings in VICE had reverted back to the normal joystick settings rather than Keyset A. I did have VICE set to "save settings on exit" so if anyone has any suggestions where in the Gamebase setup I need to adjust so that these settings are permanent, I would appreciate it. I'm guessing that's where the problem is.

Ah. Thanks for the link regarding your controller. Interesting that it's "compatible with practically all PC games thanks to XInput and DirectInput mode". I think that's pretty important when working with VICE. I believe it's this functionality which makes things run smoothly for you in comparison to my headaches. I think my situation is actually caused by two issues. Number one, the Wireless Xbox 360 Windows driver is not nearly as robust and flexible as the drivers for the device you are using. On the Xbox controller when I press my D-Pad left, windows gets a message reading "HAT left" or something to that effect, which is not easily understood by many emulators. The other issue is VICE itself, which appears to have a narrow code base when it comes to joystick command interpretation ( it only reads the analog stick controls on my Xbox controller). WinUAE on the other hand, with the same controller reads all the controls properly. So it seems I have three options 1) Purchase another controller, such as the one U-man suggested 2) play around with the "unofficial" VICE forks which have implemented D-Pad functionality. 3) Set VICE to keyboard control instead of joystick, and then use Xpadder to map those keyboard controls to my D-Pad. Does anyone have any tips and suggestions to implement #3, in a Gamebase 64 setup on GameEx? Much appreciated!

Great to hear! I'm curious how U-man was using Xpadder with Gamebase already, unless he wasn't going through GameEx...

Log Files.zip OK I did as you suggested, played a few games on Gamebase 64, Vic20 and Amiga. Hope the log files are of some help!

U man I'd sure appreciate some pointers to getting Xpadder working with Gamebase 64 or Gamebase Vic20. I have the Gamebases working really well in Gameex finally (took a lot of work), but I'm not totally clear on how to tie in Xpadder. The issue is that both VICE 64 and VICE Vic20 only read the analog sticks on my wireless Xbox controller (they did this without Xpadder actually), but I can't get them to register the D-pad, which is what I really want to use as my control. Now of course Xpadder can read the D-Pad just fine, but I'm not clear what the next step is to get this control method working in the emulators. Would love any suggestions, thanks! I also tried the Xpadder plugin in Gameex but I'm not sure that this is applicable since neither one of the VICE emulators showed up in the dropdown menu in the Xpadder plugin setup. Thanks for your help.

Well finally some success with WinUAE loader. I can say that getting set up with WHDLoad versions of Amiga games is well worth the effort! They start so quickly. This is much more realistic for an arcade cabinet type of setup like GameEx. Can't wait to show this to my kids. Plus the Gamepad controls are working perfect. Awesome! It was pretty damn tricky to get things working 100% though, and I've still got a few things left to figure out. Couldn't get the SPS games running for some reason. But now that I have tasted fast WHDload times, the Gamebase method of running Amiga games (although slick at first) now seems too slow for 2013 due to the load times. Just for comparison, has anyone managed to set up WHDLoad within Gamebase, instead of using WinUAE loader? I'm trying to figure out if Gamebase is preferable for any reasons to WINUAE Loader. Thanks for any feedback.

Fantastic find guys, thanks for pointing it out. Adultery, let us know if you need any more clarification. It can take a bit of time to get it all sorted but it is certainly a thing of beauty once she's set up. I'm summarizing the major steps below with far less explanatory detail than the excellent walkthrough, but perhaps it is useful as a summary. So you're installing a few items 1) the Gamebase "front end" software itself which is at http://www.bu22.com/ . You don't actually see this front end while you are using GameEx, but you do need to run it a few times beforehand to get everything set up. 2) the specific Gamebase databases. The Commodore 64 version is at http://gb64.com/downloads.php 3) the specific ROMs that match your database. 4) the screenshots and other extras (also at http://gb64.com/downloads.php). 5) the emulator that you'll be using with Gamebase. For the 64 that would be VICE or CCS64. I'm using VICE since I'm pretty familiar with it You install & start up Gamebase and if you have put the data files in the right place I believe it actually auto-detects whichever gamebase database you have also installed. If you have installed more than one (I have Amiga, Vic20 and C64), you can simply click on the icon representing which database you want to use when you use Gamebase. Keep in mind we have not done anything in Gameex yet. We want to get things working in Gamebase first. And of course make sure your paths are set correctly so it can find everything. (explained well in the walk-through) Then you can select "verify available files" in Gamebase and you will find out very quickly if it can match up the correct ROMs to the data in the gamebase database. Note: I may be explaining the next part incorrectly so feel free to jump in if anyone wants to explain more accurately. The part that was a bit tricky for me was the scripts which is how you ensure that your emulators are set up correctly. The good news is that for the most part the work has been done on the scripts already which are included with the database file. The main script you ajdust is the GEMUS script which you can edit through the GEMUS menu in Gamebase. First you need to "link" the different emulators to Gamebase by either using the emulator setup wizard, or via "manage emulators". Once the emulator(s) are correctly brought into the Gamebase, you can adjust the GEMUS script settings by clicking on the list of emulators installed which if you did this correctly, are at the top of the GEMUS tab. I am saying emulators plural because I installed more than one kind of C64 emulator for Gamebase64 but I would need to change the Gamebase database to the Amiga one to see the WinUAE settings. (You can quickly switch gamebases by selecting one from the Gamebase menu) So in the Commodore 64 Gamebase I did install first winVICE and then CCS64. The emulator in the first position will be the default one to start up with your ROMs. I am sure there is a way to adjust individual ROMs to specific emulators (Say you believe that M.U.L.E works better in CCS64, I'm guessing that you can tell Gamebase that you want to use your 2nd emulator, but I'll be honest, I'm not sure and in either case I don't know how to do it) To adjust some of these scripts, the main one is the GEMUS script for each emulator. You simply select the emulator you want to adjust in your GEMUS menu and a window opens up called "Emulator Properties". This is quite a powerful window and you can customize the way the emulator works by the GEMUS script and also specific script files. I'll let someone else comment on why there is a need to have a separate script files as well as a GEMUS script, but I focused on the GEMUS script only, and chances are the default one that got installed with the database will work fine, although if you're like me and you're trying to troubleshoot gamepads working correctly, or correct fullscreen behaviour, etc, you may have to do some tweaking. Is is important that the GEMUS script matches the version of the emulator that you are installing since they are tweaking these scripts constantly. For the verison of VICE that I have installed which I believe is the latest (V2.4), I am using a GEMUS script which is clearly labelled to work with VIce 2.4 and it has a date of April 2013 which feels nice and current. There are a lot of command line adjustments that you can make in the GEMUS script to adjust the way the emulator behaves. I wish there was a bit more clarity on what needs to be fooled around with to adress common issues, but in my experience it involved a lot of searching at different locations such as the Gamebase64 forums or GameEx etc. One other command line or script adjustment that I needed to play around with was the GEMUS "key=value" which can be selected by hitting F2 or it's under the Edit tab. I'll let someone else explain how all these scripts in Gamebase are different but I did find there were a few items in the key=value script that I also needed to tweak in order to get things like a USB pad working correctly in VICE. If you want to go really deep into the GEMUS scrips you can read up below, but changes are you won't need to change much, if anything. http://www.gb64.com/oldsite/gemus.htm Once you have the emulator functioning correctly in Gamebase, only then do you work with Gameex and it's ridiculously simple to get it to import the database into Gameex, as is explained in the walkthrough. I hope some of this was helpful even though I realize some of this was poorly explained or pure guesswork, but I did get it to work which was incredibly satisfying. And once you have it set up with all of the art and other details such as game authors and box covers etc, it's really slick. For comparison I also installed VICE directly in GameEx but I quickly realized how much more advantages exist in doing it via Gamebase instead. It's way slicker via Gamebase, with more details such as box art, screen caps, etc but more importantly the database has customized settings that are per game which allow the games to be emulated in an ideal, speciifc manner. Pretty impressive work from all parties to have this integrate so smoothly with GameEx. If I have skipped important info or incorrectly summarzied anything, please feel free to jump in! Good luck. Macguyver

Thanks for the tips, U-man! I'll try Xpadder and the plugin tonight, and WinUAE Loader as well. This has been a lot of fun so far. Having all of these systems run so smoothly with Gameex as a front end is just awesome! Talk about the ultimate setup! (But I wouldn't mind having all of the TOSEC games in Gameex, because I would just siphon off the best 40-50 and put them in my favorites list anyway. Gamebase 64 is already like 23,500 entries which is totally insane) What? No Persian Gulf Inferno in the Amiga Gamebase? Sacrilege! That was a great game. Good atmosphere!

Hi Adultery, I'm certainly not an expert on Gamebase implementation but I did manage to get Gamebase 64 and Gamebase Amiga working well within Gameex last night. Tonight I'm happy to post a summary of my install steps, if that helps. Gamebase looks somewhat intimidating but it's pretty straightforward. Part of the problem is that I don't feel like the install and usage has been documented very well in one place.

Hi U-man, I had no trouble after renaming the Gamebase folder and .mdb database file. No need to reconfigure, it just started perfectly as before. Update: I managed to get Gamebase Amiga up and running quite smoothly., including analogue and D-pad controls from my wireless xbox 360 controller! I believe this is because winUAE is more robust and can handle more information from USB controllers. I also believe that without Pinnacle Game Profiler, that my D-pad info would not be sent correctly to the emulator. Now I have to figure out how to get WHDload working within gamebase so the games load up much quicker. Currently it's quite a long wait with the standard Amiga load times. Final questions for anyone running Amiga games on Gameex: - Any suggestions on how to get WHDload working within Gamebase? - Does anyone know how to adjust the speed of the mouse in the Amiga Gamebase GEMUS setup? Currently the mouse speed is fast and jittery and impossible to accurately control. - Has anyone had success with either of these two other Amiga frontends with Gameex? I'm thinking of playing around with both, since Gamebase Amiga seems to have been pretty much abandoned as far as development. FS-UAE Amiga Emulator http://fs-uae.net/ WINUAE loader http://headsoft.com.au/index.php?category=winuaeloader Thank you for any suggestions. Macguyver

Thanks Tom for the tip on renaming the Gamebases. Nice! A tip for anyone who is trying to get their joystick detected when using Gamebase 64 and using VICE. You also need to adjust the GEMUS "key=value" pairs which is located under the edit menu. Note that on that screen you need to remove the semicolons in front of the following text: Fullscreen=yes (to get fullscreen) RealJoystick1=yes (change this to yes) RealJoystick2=yes (change this to yes) JoystickAutoConfig=yes remember to remove the semicolons on all 4. Once I did this, I was able to control VICE with the ANALOG stick on my wireless Xbox 360 controller. Still trying to get the Dpad working. I have a few ideas. Xpadder is one option to fool with although I already have paid for Pinnacle Game profiler which should be able to do the same thing. There is also apparently a special version of VICE you can download which has been customized to allow DPAD usage. See the below link. However I am somewhat reluctant to use this since it's an unofficial fork of VICE and also this version only works with the c64 version of VICE. This means I'll be back to the drawing board for getting the Dpad to work with VICE Vic20 emulation. http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=42474&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Hi folks, I'm in the middle of an ambitious plan to have Gameex control my MAME, Commodore Vic20, Commodore 64, and Amiga games. For controls I'm using a wireless xbox 360 controller. I also have been using the Pinnacle Game Profiler software which has been the only way that I could utilize all of the controls on the xbox controller within the emulators. So far I've got the controller working perfectly in MAME and that means that I can use the analog or Dpad controls, or program any of the buttons to do specific things in MAME which is just awesome. A last bit of info, I am also using Gamebase 64 in between Gameex and the emulators. I find it much more useful compared to trying to run VICE or CCS64 directly in Gameex. Here are two questions. Has anyone had any success getting gamepads to work when emulating the Commodore 64? I've tried both the CCS64 and VICE emulators and I'm having troubles with both. With VICE only the analog joystick is usable when using my wireless xbox controller, but not the Dpad. And with CCS64 I'm getting no response whatsoever from my gamepad or analog joystick. The last question I have is relating to the way the Gamebase databases show up in Gameex. The Amiga Gamebase shows up nicely as "Gamebase Amiga" because that is the name of the gamebase directly. But the 64 gamebase shows up as "GBC_v10" which is cryptic. Is there any easy way to change this to display something like "Gamebase C64" instead? Thanks very much for any suggestions on these issues. Regards, Macguyver

In regards to your comment Tom, can you confirm what is the latest supported version of MAME, or the latest version that you recommend seeing how MAME is going through many changes with the latest versions? I had trouble confirming where this information is in the documentation, perhaps I've overlooked something obvious. I think I may have the wrong MAME version installed because Gameex is updating the game list every time I start Gameex which is frustrating because it's a 10 minute process on my machine.

Thanks to both of you. Worked like a charm. Mac

Hello folks, I'm trying to make the games start up as quickly as possible. How can I eliminate the same rendered control panel screen that comes up every time I start a game? I'd like to skip this but as far as I can tell, there is no "hide" command for this screen. There must be a way to go straight to the game! Thanks Mac

(Perhaps I'm one of the rare ones running Gameex on a CRT monitor.) What I am noticing is that the picture quality of the MAME games is not what I recall from MAME in days past. The image is quite soft, and my monitor is sharp as they come. Obviously there is some upscaling going on but what can I do to get a sharper picture from MAME? I've tried fooling around with the command line options but I'm going nowhere fast. Thanks for all suggestions! Mac