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Oops! the funny part is that I meant to post my response in this thread (which is related I think). That's why the above quote doesn't match the custominput.ini seen here (and doesn't make much sense in the context here). To me this is sounding more and more like a GameEx bug, given the diverse users experiencing the same issue. I gonna go ahead and post that response in the thread I originally intended to ...

I checked into that thread as I was curious. I think there's a lot of good stuff there. It got me thinking, if I were to recommend a programming language to a complete novice, I would probably take into account the availability of a good IDE. A good IDE is going to go help out a lot in getting over that initial hump of understanding with features like auto-complete, help documentation, error highlighting, step-through debugging etc. I'd also go so far as to recommend a strongly typed language (although this is likely due to personal bias). Seems like you'd want to learn the rules of strongly typed variables before you learned how to break all those rules. This would come in particularly handy when the new programmer starts delving into concepts of Object Oriented development. /my2c Wow - this has delved pretty far from discussion of Marquee Magician. Sorry about that!

So your custominput.ini doesn’t look too bad, other than the keys specified within aren’t the keys you indicated above (which corresponds with your comments). I don’t use the global exit key functionality, so I have a couple questions for you. Does this seem to be an issue with the Setup Wizard? (i.e. Is the Setup Wizard incorrectly recording your key combination in the custominput file?) -OR- Does this seem to be an issue with GameEx interpreting keys incorrectly? (i.e. The keys are stored correctly, but GameEx doesn’t seem to interpret those keys correctly when pressed).

So there are a couple of things I see here, based on your log. It looks like you still have two instances of MAME in your list. One is the GameEx MAME demo, and one is an instance of MAME setup as an emulator (more on that in a sec). Is it the MAME demo that’s correctly displaying videos? My guess is that the MAME version that’s setup as an emulator is having the same trouble as the rest of the emulators. While it doesn’t hurt to have multiple emulator slots pointed at the same emulator (I have several emulator slots which all point to a single instance of Mednafen for instance), those DEMO slots aren’t really doing you any favors, you could probably overwrite them with actual emulators FWIW. Beyond that it’s still a bit of a mystery as to why the videos won’t display in the emulator list. The log doesn’t indicate any glaring errors, so I think you should be good to go there. Please make sure that your videos are actually contained in the video snap directory(s). The other file that could help provide some insight would be your GameEx.ini (In your case it should be found in E:\GameEx\CONFIG). Posting your GameEx.ini will also help to provide some insight into your global exit issue. (By the by – typically you’ll want to post new separate issues in an entirely new and different thread. You decrease your chances of someone actually seeing and addressing your issue if you introduce it into an existing thread in progress ). In addition to your GameEx.ini, it might be helpful to post your custominput.ini. I’m away from my GameEx machine at the moment, but I think the custominput.ini is located in the same directory as your GameEx.ini. On the other hand there have been some users reporting similar issues with Global Exit. Perhaps one of them may chime in with some ideas. Getting back to your MAME configuration, you’ll have far fewer headaches with MAME if you actually configure it through the MAME section in the Setup Wizard (rather than as a generic emulator). In addition to just being easier all the way around, the MAME section contains quite a few settings unique to MAME.

I just wanted to chime in here to reiterate on Draco’s request. Marking an issue as [RESOLVED] really makes a difference to the troubleshooter, and helps future users who may run into the same issue. Otherwise it can become a game of “waiting for the other shoe to drop” so to speak – (Did the troubleshooting steps resolve the issue for the user? Is the user still struggling!? What the hell is going on!? WHERE AM I!? - This typically leads to hugging my knees in a closet for half an hour or so while I regain my bearings ) In the same way that ‘liking’ a project helps to motivate GameEx contributors, marking an issue as [RESOLVED] lets the troubleshooter know that they’re making a small difference, and not just putting words out into the aether. Gracias!

I’m going to jump right in uninvited here. I certainly don’t have the plug-in writing experience of either Adultery or Tempest, but I do work with code on a daily basis. Choosing the correct programming language really boils down to choosing the right tool for the job. Java is a great language for enterprise solutions. One of Java’s great selling points is that it’s not dependent on any one platform. The exact same java program can be run on Windows, Linux, whatever. That’s because Java applications run inside a virtual machine (a JVM). So for business that’s a great asset. “Write once, run anywhere,” means that the business only has to pay once. The trouble with Java is that platform independence means that it’s not optimized for any one platform, and thus can suffer performance issues (although this is not as much a universal truth as many would have you believe). So getting back to the question, GameEx is written on a .NET (pronounced Dot-Net) platform (i.e. Windows), and thus many plugins are also written in a .NET language. The two main .Net languages are C# (pronounced C-Sharp) and Visual Basic. Both of those languages are great languages to start with and basically go as deep as you want to take them. I believe Adultery writes most (all?) of his plugins in Visual Basic. It’s a bit older than C#, but it’s still a perfectly valid language (and the syntax is a bit more like English in many cases). Also remember that Adultery put together a GameEx plugin template written in Visual Basic, so that would probably be the best place to start IMHO. Tempest on the other hand has written several good plugins using AutoHotKey which is a scripting language. Scripting languages can be niche languages, but as you can see from Tempest’s work you can really produce some great results with a little ingenuity (and AutoHotKey is fairly robust at this point). TLDR: Use C# or Visual Basic for GameEx plugins. If you go this route you'll want to pick up a good IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for the job. Here you go: Visual Basic Express 2010 or Visual C# Express 2010

I must be in the tiny minority here, but I actually think it’s pretty cool looking. Maybe it’s a nostalgia thing. When I was a kid, my buddy had one of those Coleco mini arcade games of Donkey Kong. It had a really dodgy LED screen, and if you played for too long your eyes would start burning. So there you go: burning eyes from intense LED display = nostalgia.

I've been seeing this a few times lately. Your directory separator is pointing the wrong direction (you're using UNIX notation there ) So instead of "[ROMPATH]/[ROMFILE]" It should be "[ROMPATH]\[ROMFILE]"

Hi cnells, Just to clarify, you mention that your shortcut leads to a folder (rather than the game executable). If that's truly the case, it won't work. Your ROM directory should point at a directory containing shortcuts (.lnk files). The shortcuts themselves should point at the actual executables which launch the game(s). Your command line will be something along the lines of "[ROMPATH]\[ROMFILE]" Protip: The Verify Setup output from the Setup Wizard isn't all that helpful for troubleshooting emulator issues. In a case like this your GameEx.ini (or single emulator config) would probably be a bit better in terms of seeing the underlying issue.

Happy birthday DJ Infinity! It's been a while buddy! Where you been? Come back we miss you!

Krak, just wanted to reiterate how great this is looking. I particularly like what you were doing with the cartridge images on the Atari 2600 and some of the other legacy systems. Keep 'em coming!

The master craftsman returns! This theme looks great! I really like what you did with the selector bar.

I think Stub is on to something, but a little more detail might be in order. First, you pass in parameters to a batch file in the same way you pass parameters to (most) emulators. Your 'Launch Before' command will look something like this: Then your batch file will look something like Stub suggests. Bear in mind that your batch file will not see the "[ROMPATH]\[ROMFILE]" parameter as two parameters; it will be read as a single parameter. So that gets you something like this (where the %~1 represents the "[ROMPATH]\[ROMFILE]" parameter): If your SSF command is working currently (most of the time), it should be fine as is. Now that your mounting your images as a Launch Before directive, you'll probably want to unmount them as a Launch After directive (if you're not already) That can be something as simple as this. Note that I'm using a SCSI virtual drive in the above commands. The 'scsi' parameter could just as easily be replaced with a 'dt' parameter (although I can't recall off the top of my head if SSF will work correctly with a a virtual dt drive ...)

Glad to hear you got everything resolved!

Nice source Bigby! Thanks for passing it along.

Don't write off the GameEx snap generation tool though. It's saved several users a substantial amount of time, and is alot easier than trying to create everything manually.

I think that part has been commented out ... for now. Rather than answering MAME questions we'd have to answer questions about being maimed. </terriblePun> I can just imagine it now:

Well a couple things stand out at me. Your log contains this: Whereas your GameEx.ini contains this: Still and all that's a bit unusual. I guess what I would try is to go into your GameEx.ini and manually specify the locations of the following files. I believe the default GameEx locations I've listed for these files are correct, but by all means if someone sees an error here, please correct it (I'm away from my GameEx machine). Lastly you'll want to be sure that the following files are correct per the version of MAME you're using. catver.ini - [C:\GameEx\DATA\catver.ini] history.dat - [C:\GameEx\DATA\history.dat] nplayers.ini - [C:\GameEx\DATA\nplayers.ini] command.dat - [C:\GameEx\DATA\command.dat] MAMEinfo.dat - [C:\GameEx\DATA\mameinfo.dat] Naturally after entering this information you'll want to rebuild your game list. Please bear in mind that the above solution is a bit unorthodox, and there may in fact be a better solution available. Edit: There was also this rather unusual situation in which the user was unable to get his MAME categories working until he disabled touchscreen support and rebuilt his list. I've never utilized touchscreen support in GameEx, so cannot verify this solution at all. I did notice that you're using touchscreen support though, so it could definitely be worth a try (although you'll still need to point GameEx at the above files). So it may be worth getting the file location thing ironed out, disable touchscreen support, rebuild your MAME list, and re-enable the touchscreen support. Seems like a long shot, but appears to have helped the previous user.

Hi orlac, Would you mind posting your GameEx.log (and possibly your GameEx.ini)? It definitely sounds like something strange is happening here, but your log and your GameEx config (GameEx.ini) will likely provide the most efficient means of troubleshooting this issue. Please refer here if you're unsure of how to retrieve the above information.

Hi orlac, and welcome to the forums! As an end product, the Download Service Utility is the result of a partnership between GameEx and EmuMovies. Accordingly, that's the only artwork source it pulls from. It would be awesome if someone were to write up some alternate artwork scrapers for GameEx (or just in general). It does make me a bit curious ... the RomCollectionBrowser is open source. Someone with the appropriate know-how could probably reverse engineer that badboy so as to store images locally rather than as XBMC metadata. Hmm ... This is not the first time the lack of Japanese/Brazilian/Other artwork at EmuMovies has been discussed. Basically what it boils down to is that Circo (the EmuMovies admin), does about 90% of the work over there. Accordingly he can only do so much, and only has access to so much. Naturally real life doesn't help matters. He is always looking for contributors though. </hint> I don't have a huge number of Japanese ROMs, so I simply created the images manually through the GameEx snap generation function. At the very least you can use this method to generate Title and Gameplay snaps. If you'd like to follow that route, but feel unsure of how to do so, please feel free to post back!

I had to laugh at this, since you're also the "pussy" who basically twisted a beer bottle in half. Also great work stickin' it to the man! Enjoy that frosty goodness! (unless you're one of those wierdos that goes in for 'room temperature' goodness, in which case, well, enjoy that too ... I guess ).

I certainly can't put it any better, so I'll just quote Draco. Great job Headkaze and Adultery! (and Tom naturally)

I was wondering whether it might be the corporate filter in action. I'll give it another shot when I get home. Thanks for looking into it!

Thanks for passing this along ClassicGMR! Wait a tic ... no Android love from Atari!? Thanks for nothing Atari!

Adultery - I think the zip archive may be corrupted in some capacity. I tried re-downloading the file, but the results stay consistent. I'll also try it out on a separate machine when I get home. 7-Zip spits out this: Whereas Winzip gives a bit more information: WinZip Help Text: