Geronimo

As I wrote, I'm dealing with up to 5 or 6 PDFs per game, so using the extra paths is not a feasible workaround. I'd like to know if GameEx supports multiple artwork files per type now, and if not, if such a feature is planned.

Back at working with my GameEx setup after a long pause, so please forgive me if I'm not up to speed (; . Is it possible now to have GameEx show multiple files per artwork category? Specifically, I have "converted" a collection intended for another frontend to GameEx standards. The collection has a few games with more than one PDF manual in it (up to about 5 PDFs), all of which are relevant. I could of course combine the PDFs into a single file, but it would be much neater if GameEx would let me choose which PDF to view.

Looking nice! Incidentally, I was thinking about how to integrate GameBase data & extras into GameEx just the other day. A few question: - do I have to have GameBase installed for this to work? - how are the emulators launched? Are they launched directly from GameEx, or will GameEx launch GameBase, which in turn launches the emulator? - will all GameBase extras be visible in GameEx? For instance, many games have multiple screenshots, or additional material like walkthroughs etc. . Will I be able to see all this stuff in GameEx? - do I need to change the directory structure of the GameBase files (or rename them) in order to have the integration? I'm not a big GameBase fan, but it'd be nice if GameEx would use the data "as is", as that'd leave the option of using GameBase itself. Also, I'm curious about how the integration is implemented. I presume you're using the GameBase .mdb file directly as a data source, right? Or is the GameBase info imported into/converted to a GameEx mdb? GoTheBunnies: http://tinyurl.com/2u39xbg

You can also setup a controller "inside" MAME, with MAME functionality, by editing "ctrlr" files. The system is quite powerful and flexible and allows setting specific configs for specific games (by ROM name). You can basically map everything the way you like it, including UI commands and hotkeys. Here's a simple example cfg for my 360 controller i made a long time ago: <mameconfig version="10"> <system name="default"> <input> <port type="UI_CONFIGURE"> <newseq type="standard">KEYCODE_TAB OR JOYCODE_1_BUTTON9 JOYCODE_1_BUTTON1</newseq> </port> <port type="UI_ON_SCREEN_DISPLAY"> <newseq type="standard">JOYCODE_1_BUTTON9 JOYCODE_1_BUTTON2</newseq> </port> <port type="UI_LEFT"> <newseq type="standard">KEYCODE_LEFT OR JOYCODE_1_LEFT OR J1_HAT_SWITCH_L</newseq> </port> <port type="UI_RIGHT"> <newseq type="standard">KEYCODE_RIGHT OR JOYCODE_1_RIGHT OR J1_HAT_SWITCH_R</newseq> </port> <port type="UI_DOWN"> <newseq type="standard">KEYCODE_DOWN OR JOYCODE_1_DOWN OR J1_HAT_SWITCH_D</newseq> </port> <port type="UI_UP"> <newseq type="standard">KEYCODE_UP OR JOYCODE_1_UP OR J1_HAT_SWITCH_U</newseq> </port> <port type="UI_SELECT"> <newseq type="standard">JOYCODE_1_BUTTON1</newseq> </port> <port type="P1_JOYSTICK_RIGHT"> <newseq type="standard">KEYCODE_RIGHT OR JOYCODE_1_RIGHT OR J1_HAT_SWITCH_R</newseq> </port> <port type="P1_JOYSTICK_LEFT"> <newseq type="standard">KEYCODE_LEFT OR JOYCODE_1_LEFT OR J1_HAT_SWITCH_L</newseq> </port> <port type="P1_JOYSTICK_DOWN"> <newseq type="standard">KEYCODE_DOWN OR JOYCODE_1_DOWN OR J1_HAT_SWITCH_D</newseq> </port> <port type="P1_JOYSTICK_UP"> <newseq type="standard">KEYCODE_UP OR JOYCODE_1_UP OR J1_HAT_SWITCH_U</newseq> </port> <port type="P1_BUTTON1"> <newseq type="standard">JOYCODE_1_BUTTON1</newseq> </port> <port type="P1_BUTTON2"> <newseq type="standard">JOYCODE_1_BUTTON2</newseq> </port> <port type="P1_BUTTON3"> <newseq type="standard">JOYCODE_1_BUTTON3</newseq> </port> <port type="P1_BUTTON4"> <newseq type="standard">JOYCODE_1_BUTTON4</newseq> </port> <port type="P1_BUTTON5"> <newseq type="standard">JOYCODE_1_BUTTON5</newseq> </port> <port type="P1_BUTTON6"> <newseq type="standard">JOYCODE_1_BUTTON6</newseq> </port> <port type="START1"> <newseq type="standard">KEYCODE_1 OR JOYCODE_1_BUTTON8</newseq> </port> <port type="COIN1"> <newseq type="standard">KEYCODE_5 OR JOYCODE_1_BUTTON7</newseq> </port> </input> </system> </mameconfig>

Yeah, i've let setup download everything when installing the new version this morning. Is there a way to check which version of the viewer i have installed? Maybe it's an overwrite problem or something like that. If you have a CRC or MD5 i could checksum my file.

OK, here's two logs. What i did: copied the offending .txt (3D Pool.txt) to the "normal" manuals directory, because i thought the problem might be connected to the file being in an extra artwork path. Then tried to view the file in GameEx. The log for this session is "log01.txt". As you can see i get a "Error: eBook/Game Manual viewer not installed." message. Then tried to view a scanned PDF manual, which worked perfectly well. The log for this sessions is "log02.txt". Weird isn't it? (; Oh, and i've installed the latest GameEx prior to testing, of course. LOG.RAR

I'm seeing this too, sometimes even when starting GameEx. GameEx will try to "maximize" its Window and suddenly minimizes itself to the taskbar, without displaying anything. When that happens I usually end the GameEx task and try running it again, which works after a few attempts (or after enabling windowed mode in the config file).

Here's an exmaple, the same file used to create the PDF in the first post. The file had Unix linebreaks originally but has been converted to DOS linebreaks by UltraEdit. GameEx doesn't display the file in either format. 3D Pool.txt

Weird. The text file i've been testing with is < 79 chars in width because it's designed to be viewed in a terminal window. Nothing special there. I've tried a few different encodings (UTF-8, ANSII/ASCII) but GameEx just won't display the file. Ninja Rygar, would you happen to have an example of one file that shows in GameEx and one that doesn't? I'm a lazy person and maybe you can provide examples without too much trouble (; . Anyway, this text thing is one matter. What about the other one, the PDF rendering problems? Is this something that can be/will be fixed in a future GameEx version?

I've downloaded the most recent GameEx and let it download all the components during setup, including the manual viewer. GameEx still won't show the text file though.

I'd like to *bump* this topic because it probably describes a GameEx bug. Tom, any comments on the behaviour i've described?

It does?! I was assuming text files aren't supported because the help texts in the config app mention images and PDFs explicitly. Anyway, i've just tried with a simple ASCII TXT file in the artwork path (by exchanging one of the former PDF files with a text file) and GameEx doesn't display it. The path is configured as a "custom art path". I can see a navigational entry for the doc, but when i select it all i get is the "selected" sound effect but nothing else happens. Do i have to configure anything for this to work? Btw, thanks for the speedy reply Tom (; .

I was looking for a way to integrate text manuals, docs and guides/walkthoughs into GameEx. As GameEx doesn't support text files the only solution was to convert the text to PDF. I finally found a tool called "Free Text To PDF Converter v1.5" which is freeware and can be used from the shell. The conversion works very well and the resulting PDFs look great in FoxIt Reader and Acrobat Reader. The PDFs are not rendered correctly at all in GameEx though. The rendering looks horrible and makes certain parts plain unreadable. Tom, could you please look into this? I'm attaching an example PDF, please let me know if you need more info. 3D Pool.pdf

I've found one instance where a game is missing from the gameslist when "merge" is active. I've created a number of CMD files (batches) for starting WHDLoad games. Created a new emulator with the advanced setup app, pointed the ROM dir to where the batches are stored, set the file spec to "*.cmd", selected the "[PC] Commodore Amiga.mdb" database and activated merging. There's three batches for games in the "Abandoned Places" series (and lots more for other games of course) in my ROM dir: Abandoned Places.cmd Abandoned Places (German).cmd Abandoned Places 2.cmd "Abandoned Places (German)" isn't displayed in the game list, no matter what i try. I've deleted all "EMU_*.*" files in "c:\GameEx\DATA\" in order to force GameEx to rebuild its indexes/caches. The game still doesn't show up. I expected it to be merged with "Abandoned Places", but it doesn't show up in the main game list and the details page for "Abandoned Places". Happens with the latest GameEx version (10.72) as well. Renamed the file to "Abandoned Places (Ger).cmd", deleted the index/cache files, and it still doesn't show up at all. Same with "Abandoned Places (DE).cmd" and "Abandoned Places (D).cmd". Renamed the files to "Abandoned Places - A Time for Heroes.cmd" and "Abandoned Places - A Time for Heroes (German).cmd", as that's how the game is named in the mdb - still not showing up in the game list. Looks like GameEx doesn't like this game (; . This problem is rather unsettling. The number of WHDLoad games is not very large so it's relatively easy to spot missings. But what about large TOSEC sets with thousands of files? Please tell me if you need more information. I can provide the emulator config and all batches if it helps in identifying the issue. EDIT: spelling

This is a very nice feature indeed, especially for those huge TOSEC collections with their multitude of alternate versions. I've seen some problems with grouping ROMs together, resulting in an empty "gameslist" (the screen where you are supposed to choose a single ROM). I couldn't yet identify a pattern that creates the problem though, i'm going to report on this when i can supply more info and examples. A small issue i've noticed: the "[a]" tag, which is commonly used to denote an "alternate", is resolved to the "Australia" region by GameEx. I believe the agreed-upon standard is to have country/region tags enclosed by round brackets (-> "(" and ")") and more "special" stuff in square brackets (-> "[" and "]"). Tom, what are your thoughts on this? Would you change the current behavious in a future GameEx version? And a suggestion: how about showing the number of ROMs in a group in the games list? Something like "<ROM Name> (5)" or "<ROM Name> (5 items)" would be most useful.

As i'm working through setting up all of my emulators and games in GameEx i'm noticing more and more things. I'd like to share some ideas and thoughts that could make GameEx just that little bit better than it already is. I'd love to read some feedback on the idea(s). I'm numbering the post for easy reference as i'm expecting more things to pop up while i learn my way around GameEx. Observation: While configuring GameEx the windowed mode is a great help, as it allows me to have GameEx open and still work on editing textfiles, moving files around, etc. . There is a quirk however: GameEx will sometimes register keystrokes even though it's not the active window. This leads to situations where the navigation in GameEx jumps wildly around, or games are suddenly started. I also have all the "hide OS" features disabled while setting up GameEx. This is helpful while working on the config. It doesn't however make a "real" preview (=how would GameEx and the OS look like when launching stuff?) easy to do, as i have to start the config app, re-enable the "hide os" features, start GameEx, check how it's looking and then possible disable the "hide os" features again. I guess i also have to check the "hide desktop" settings for each emulator at some point, but i've left those disabled for now. This means i'll have to go over each emulator again to check how it's best started. Suggestion: I'd like to have some kind of "debug" command line parameter for starting GameEx. That parameter would temporarily disable the "keyboard hooking" functions and make GameEx accept input only when it's the active window. It would also temporarily disable all "hide OS" (and maybe "hide desktop" too, for the emulators) features. For "normal" users setting up this stuff would stay like it is now (=setting up the features via the config app), but for "power users" working on setting up GameEx would be much easier and more efficient.

Cool, thank you very much for the info!

Tom, could i please get some short feedback on this? Is this a bug or maybe a config error on my part? If it's a feature (which it doesn't seem to be according to your answer above), are you planning to change/extend it?

I think so. I've uninstalled the old version (can't remember which version number it was) and did a complete install of v10.67 to the new default dir. I've also let setup download themes etc. IIRC. I've double- and triple-checked: i'm definitely seeing the publisher for all emulators i have installed. The .mdb files are timestamped 2009-11-13.

OK, thanks for the info. I'll keep the feature requests thread in mind. Guess i'll collect more questions/requests before posting there (; . How about that text viewer thingy? Any ideas/comments on that one?

I love the database feature. It's what makes GameEx complete IMO. The more i learn about it the more questions arise though (; . First: the german translation is a bit confusing. In the GUI where you can choose a game it says "Nach Entwickler". "Entwickler" translates to "Developer", but GameEx is actually showing the "Publisher" info. A better term would be "Hersteller", which is german for "Manufacturer". And that brings me to my main point. In all themes i've tried so far GameEx is showing the label "Manufacturer" and the info from the "Publisher" database field. Is it possible to change this so GameEx will show the Developer info, or (which i'd prefer) both fields? I'd like to be able to filter by both fields as well. Another solution would be a combined field that shows all publishers and developers. Reason: publisher info is next to useless for many (if not most) systems. A publisher is just a company which markets a game. Many games are "defined" not by the publisher but by the company that did the actual developing. Example: "Magic Carpet". Published by EA in most regions, developed by "Bullfrog". In GameEx, I'd like to be able to search for games developed by Bullfrog (=relatively small number), not published by EA (=huge number). Another example would be "Nights Into Dreams", which has been developed by "Sonic Team" and published by "Sega". Again, same problem: there's only a relatively small number of games developed by "Sonic Team", but a huge number of games published by Sega. Another point: often there's multiple publishers for a single game, one company (or more companies) per region. Re-releases are published by other companies, etc. . But the developer will always be the same company (or companies).

Sorry for double posting, but i'd like to bump this up and add some thoughts. From what little experience i have in configuring GameEx, it seems it supports only one artwork/manual file per game. If this is true, may i suggest adding support for multiple files? I guess this could be implemented by checking the filenames for "grouping" files. For example: "<game_name>.jpg" (main/first file), "<game_name> 2.jpg" (2nd), "<game_name> 3.jpg" (3rd), and so on. In the GUI, a nice blend/crossfade effect (maybe with a configurable delay) would look very cool i think. Another solution for displaying the artwork would be to show some kind of "marker" when more than one artwork file is available (like some sort of "plus" symbol or an arrow) and let the user switch the files manually. Slightly off-topic in the context of this thread, but somehow connected: could you consider implementing a simple full-screen text viewer with controller support? I'm playing lots of retro games, and i'm occasionally making use of walkthroughs to get around annoying parts in a game. Most of these walkthroughs come as ASCII files. It would be nice to be able to view those in the GameEx GUI as part of a game's "artwork", and possibly during playing a game. With that kind of functionality we could access ASCII readme files etc. as well. I'm not sure how a "view ASCII while a game/emulator is running" functionality could be implemented. In a perfect world i could hit a controller/keyboard combo which would bring up the viewer, and then return to the game/emulator to resume playing. If this is done multiple times the viewer would remember the position in the text it was at when last returning to the game. Of course the ASCII files could be converted to PDF for viewing with the currently available functions, but it's a lot of work to convert everything and ASCII formatted for 80 chars per line looks downright ugly when converted to PDF.

Tom, i'd like to wrap this up by reporting that with recent GameEx versions the problems i was reporting are completely solved. GameEx is running smoothly on my system, even with all my gizmos (G13, gamepad, USB mouse and keyboard, etc.) connected. Everything is working as it should. Thanks for listening to my complaints and fixing the problems. And now, on to the monumental task of configuring everything... (;

The difference is that "old" games are using Dinput, and modern games are using Xinput. Both API's are part of DirectX, but they are not 100% compatible. It's anyone's guess why MS decided to switch to Xinput. My theory is that they wanted to push the 360 controller (which is Xinput exclusively unless you're using XBCD) as the standard controller for Windows gaming. I love the 360 controller but this move is a bit harsh IMO (they could have provided more compatibility at least). A bit off-topic but perhaps interesting: a 360 controller will give you the best of both worlds. The XBCD driver is Dinput-based, thus providing stuff like force feedback for most emulators and old-ish games. With XBCD you can basically configure each and every aspect of the controller, like button/axis mappings or deadzones. In Vista and Win 7 you can change easily from XBCD to the standard MS driver (Xinput) for newer games, without having to reboot. XBCD is an unsigned driver, meaning it can't be installed on x64 OS's without setting the OS to "test mode". I did this on Vista x64 and Win 7 x64 and it worked great.

Aaaaaand another post, i'm on a roll today... (; I don't have a Credit Card/PayPal account, but would like to wish to donate. I have friends that would do the donation for me. But if the reg is "named" (=registered name shows up in the application) i'd like my name to appear there, of course. If the reg is "named" is there a way to have it set to a name different from the payer's?