jck_strw

It's definitely some sort of flaky hardware error. Just running normal applications, Firefox, Disk Check, whatever, causes the CPU to spike to 100% and stay there for awhile. This box had been running fine for quite awhile and nothing changed with the system (except being in a powered off state for a couple of months [i moved]). I'm still running at Mame v.106 and everything runs great now on the new hardware. I only use GameEx for MAME, Daphne and some PC games, so redoing the config isn't that big a deal to me. Moving the 15GB of ROMS, reinstalling Lego Star Wars I/II, NFL Blitz, WinIPAC, etc. were bigger hassles.

Found it.

I threw in the towel on that machine. I was able to scrounge up a Pentium 4-2.6ghz box. Same RAM, vid card. Different HD. Things are much better. Now that I'm working with an major update to GameEx, I've lost a few things. Where can you specify an intro video? I haven't setup my PC games yet, but I'm sure I'll have a question on those. Thanks again to all for the tips.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Here we go: 1. No blockage in the fans. Not overheating either. The case is wide open in a big open cab (typically; right now it's on my desk while I troubleshoot) and there's a fan on it. No dustbunnies clogging things. 2. I thought the pagefile as well and tried that. Still no dice. 3. Checking for virii and malware now. I don't think that's it, but it helps to cover all bases. 4. No bad ram. Ran memtest (13 tests, no errors). POS Dell (it was one of those el cheapo $300 boxes from about a year ago)? Possibly. I can't figure anything else out.

I don't think it's a virus or spy/malware. This machine is never on the network (except when I update something). This system used to work great. All my games ran perfectly (any Mame game, Lego SW I/II, Daphne, NFL Blitz 2k [PC]). Memtest didn't show any errors in the RAM, so I can rule that out. I ran defrag last night (all night), so I'll check that when I get home. I guess the HD could be going--just running a simple Disk Check spikes the CPU to 100% as well. Sigh. All I want to do is play games again.

Ok, sorry about this. It looks like it's a bigger problem than just GameEx. Most other applications I'm noticing are running at 100% CPU as well. Mame from the command line though still runs like a charm. But Lego SW I and II are really really choppy all of a sudden. I'll have to dig deeper (running memtest now on the RAM, etc.), but it doesn't look like it's related to GameEx.

I updated the drivers to the latest. Still choppy. I did notice this re: the CPU--I ran 1942 for awhile (5-10 fps as usual) and then I quit the game, quit GameEx. I had task manager already running, and there was a long section (in the performance chart/graph thingy) that showed the CPU was pegged at 100%. It seems that GameEx runs fine, but when it launches Mame, it pegs the CPU to 100% for some reason.

I created a new pagefile, no change. I also turned off the bezel option and no change there either. I changed the mame options to use either -d3d or -dd. No change. I'll run the defrag tonight because it looks like it's going to take awhile. Updating video card drivers now. Is there some sort of debug mode I can turn on to generate more detail? Everything looks fine until it actually launches the game. Then, in 1942, I'm getting like 5-10 fps. Like I said earlier, launching Mame/Mame32 with the same command line switches has everything running silky smooth. Thanks again for everyone's help.

Here's my logfile. I'm going to recreate the pagefile and do a defrag. I was hoping something in here would make someone go 'aha!'. log.txt

Yup, I definitely had the same choppiness in my previous version of GameEx (but only starting last night; before that I had it running for months with nary a problem). And since it was so old, I figured the first step would be to upgrade. I'll post my logfile when I get home this evening. Thanks for your assistance.

Yeah, nothing changed on this machine (no windows updates, no new hardware, etc.). I did run install the latest GameEx update (which required 2.0 .NET). I did notice after the 2.0 .NET install that I have two version of .NET installed (1.1 I think and 2.0). Should I remove 1.1? I'll check the RAM and recreate the Windows pagefile (and do a defrag) as well. I also noticed that GameEx tends to take up all the CPU on the box when it's running. I can't remember if that's normal or not. I'll fire up GameEx and alt-tab out and check the task manager and the CPU is pegged. Is that normal? This system has been tweaked to turn off all unnecessary programs, services, etc. so it's not competing with anything.

Hi I've been using GameEx for years now. Until last night I had been running GameEx v6.x. I haven't used my cabinet in awhile, but when I fired it up last night, I noticed that GameEx menus might've been a little choppy, but when I launched a Mame game, the games were extremely choppy. I was getting maybe 10-15fps for any game (Centipede, PacMan, Robotron, whatever). Very unusual. I shutdown GameEx and fired up Mame from the command line and the games ran silky smooth as expected. I fired up Mame32--same deal, everything worked great. So something in GameEx I guess. Since I was about a year behind in versions, I updated to the latest version (v.8.63). Same deal though. All my Mame games are stupidly slow. But if I run them directly from Mame or Mame32, everything works as expected. So my questions are--what could the problem be? Does this sound familiar to anyone? What can I check? I can post the GameEx logfile that gets created if that would help shed light on some things. Thanks for any help.

Very cool, thanks. And thanks for the tip. Once I have more than one PC game, I'll give that a try.

Not sure where I should be doing this. I have Lego Star Wars that I would like to run through GameEx. Should I put it under External Applications? I'm not sure what the Emulatar>PC menu is for, maybe PC games? I tried configuring Lego SW under External Applications and it works, however, the problem that I'm seeing is that I need to use the ESC key during the game (to skip cut scenes, get to the config menu, etc.). When I hit the ESC key, it exits the game and goes back to GameEx. Is this something I need to reconfigure somewhere? Thanks.

I would like to reconfigure the controls that are used in the GameEx menus. I looked in this config folder and I don't see custominput.ini. I also didn't find a scancodes.txt in any of the GameEx sub folders. How do I create these files? I did enable the custom keyboard controls under the Configuration>Input menu. Thanks. It almost never fails. As soon as I post a question, I usually just figure out the issue. I needed to be hit with a clue hammer on this one. I was looking at the wrong GameEx directory. Nothing to see here.