nullPointer

It certainly never hurts to dream big! It's definitely asking for a lot, but even if all that functionality doesn't get implemented, maybe this will be your 'gateway drug' into full time theme building. You may or may not remember, but vsilvalopes was working on a theme similar to this called MetroEx (I'm not saying it was identical or anything, but it incorporates some similar themes and ideas). I don't know if he's been around here a whole lot lately, but it would be cool if you guys were able to work on something jointly together.

AlphaUMi and Draco1962 told you how to do it right here, There's also instructions here. See if that works for you.

NEW FEATURE REQUEST - The ‘Create Snaps’ function allows users to generate snaps automatically or manually. If the user opts to create snaps manually, the ESC key is the default key in GameEx for taking a screenshot. The trouble is that this causes problems in a fair number of emulators in which ESC is also an action key within the emulator. Oftentimes you simply end up with a blank screen shot. As near as I can tell this key is not configurable within GameEx. Would it be possible to make the snapshot key configurable within GameEx? Even if full configuration is not an option, I think a different default key might be preferable. Thanks as always! EDIT: Added the 'New Feature Request' flag

Thanks for the cool app Adultery! I’d been meaning to congratulate you on this for a while. I haven’t added Nintendo DS to my system yet, but I had neglected to consider that a map file would be necessary to work around the silly scene naming conventions. One less thing to worry about now. Thanks! Pretty soon you’re going to need your own thread in the Pinned and Hot Topics section (like our esteemed colleague Mr. Tempest), just so we can keep up with the virtual cornucopia of great tools you’ve been producing lately!

So I was just about to make a feature request but figured I should ask around in the event that the functionality I’m looking for already exists. The ‘Create Snaps’ function allows users to generate snaps automatically or manually. If the user opts to create snaps manually, the ESC key is the default key in GameEx for taking a screenshot. The trouble is that this causes problems in a fair number of emulators in which ESC is also an action key in the emulator. Oftentimes you simply end up with a blank screen shot. I’ve taken a look around at various input settings and haven’t found anything in regards to altering this key. So, is the screen shot key configurable within GameEx? If it’s not configurable, I think it would be a nice feature to have. Even if full configuration is not an option, I think a different default key might be preferable. Edit: Received a fair number of views, but no replies. I went ahead and submitted this as a feature request here.

Sounds like a winner to me! Option B sounds pretty neat in that you could share common code between the two components (I'm thinking about the modules responsible for moving files around), but either way would be pretty sweet. Thanks for considering this program!

Hmm . . . I'm not thinking that a filtering tool should add content to the GameEx.ini at all; I'm hoping it could do quite the opposite. I envision that the filtering tool would parse a list of excluded ROMs from GameEx.ini. From there the tool could move or delete the ROMs in the excluded list along with any associated artwork. When it finishes transferring files the tool could update GameEx.ini to remove any listings for ROMs which were previously excluded from GameEx, but which now no longer exist at all (having just been moved or deleted). This comes around full circle to the elephant in the room. The filtering tool can’t (or at least shouldn’t) transfer any parent set where the user still wishes to retain a clone of the parent set. And even that only holds true where the end user is utilizing merged or split/merged sets. If the user has unmerged sets a filtering tool can remove parent sets unencumbered by interdependencies between ROM sets. Artwork gets even more convoluted since sometimes it’s named in relation to the parent and sometimes it’s named in relation to the clone set. Once again though, it’s not my pig, not my farm (as we say out west). I’m confident that Adultery can/will come up with something great. So I’m certainly not saying, “Hey write an app exactly like this,” just throwing out some ideas for consideration. Edit: Wrote split or split/merged when I meant merged or split/merged

That’s sort of what I was getting at too. Here’s what I envision for the ideal standalone app, which I’ll call AwesomeSauce Filtering Tool (since you know that’s clearly what Adultery would like to call it </sarcasm> ). The Awesome Sauce Filtering Tool filters ROMS and artwork based upon catver.ini and MAME.xml (this last part is important for recognizing parent/clone relationships). Maybe it even has settings so that the user can specify the structure of their set (split, merged, unmerged). Heck while you’re going this far, why not throw in some artwork renaming while you’re at it (heh . . . gotta love that scope creep) AwesomeSauce Filtering Tool also has an open modular plug-in architecture. In point of fact it comes with a GameEx oriented plug-in. To be clear I mean to say that the plug-in is for the filtering tool, not a plug-in for GameEx. So it looks like this AwesomeSauce Filtering Tool < --- Plug-in --- > GameEx Filtering Plug-in But Not This: GameEx < -- Plug-in -- > Filtering Plug-in The GameEx plugin would parse GameEx.ini to further filter ROMS and artwork based upon GameEx data (excluded ROMS and whatnot). That’s sort of what I was getting at above. For myself I’d be more interested in the GameEx plugin for the purposes of this example, but I'm sure that I'm in a relative minority in this case. That way someone from say the HyperSpin community could run with the AwesomeSauce Filtering Tool and develop a plug-in tailored to HyperSpin which parses HyperSpin data. All this is of course up to Adultery’s discretion and vision for the project, but I think something like above could be the ‘one filtering app to rule them all,’ which oddly enough conjures visions of Adultery sitting in a darkened room quietly muttering about ‘his precious’ as he codes this thing (but maybe that’s just me).

Honestly I was just thinking of your first suggestion. As has been pointed out, there are already apps out there that can filter by catagory, but there's nothing at all to address artwork for all the roms I've filtered manually in GameEx. I have to admit that I use that feature alot for MAME to remove oddball stuff (japanese and korean games, gambling games, identical clones, hacks, plus a lot of stuff that is simply missed by catver.ini). In the end my excluded roms list ends up being fairly huge, and one needs to get a bit creative in order to filter out the associated artwork. Even [Arcade] MAME.mdb doesn't account for excluded ROMS (although it would be awesome if it did IMHO). So yeah . . . that's sort of laying my cards on the table: I'm more interested in something tailored to GameEx than for general usage (since I'm mostly covered by other apps in that capacity). Housing everything under one roof would sure sweeten the deal though. And if you can piggyback on some additional GameEx functionality, well that just sweetens the deal even more. Also sort of weird that I'm the OP now. Really I'd just like to see artwork filtering implemented in GameEx as a feature request. I would guess that GameEx has 80 - 90% of the data available at runtime to accomplish artwork filtering already. Even if it just worked for MAME it would be awesome. Having said that, I absolutely support and applaud any additional development projects devoted to making the emulation world a better place. So . . . Huzzah!

Yeah for the most part I think that's primarily what the OP is interested in (I'd really like to see something on this front too). It boils down to a question of, "should I manage videos by auditing my ROMS, or should I attempt to simply remove unwanted (or uneeded) videos manually (or semi-manually)." For practically any other emulator I think it's easier to remove videos based on an audit of your ROM directory. For MAME I definitely think it's easier to audit videos (rather than ROMs) due to the way MAME creates dependencies between ROM sets. As a result I put in a feature request here to see whether Tom can coax GameEx into making that process a little less painfull. It's (a bit of) a tough question whether to target an app like this at the common user or specifically tailor it to GameEx. It would be cool to create an app that utilizes catver.ini and XML output from MAME to audit and remove ROMS by category. On the other hand ROMLister can already do that (it can create batch files based on generated ROM lists). I think it would be awesome if the app were able to utilize the GameEx.ini to further target ROMs excluded from GameEx for filtering, but at that point the app is specific to GameEx. Who knows, maybe the 'core app' strictly utilizes catver.ini and XML from MAME whereas you could include a plug-in functionality for further usefullness. You could include a plug-in for the app which further utilizes GameEx.ini (and would serve as an example for those wishing to write additional plug-ins). Now that would be a pretty sweet deal. If you open up the plug-in structure, who knows maybe someone over in the HS camp (or yourself) would be interested in developing a HS plugin as well. (Not that I'd necessarily endorse that option, but let's face it - if you're targeting this app at the common user it certainly couldn't hurt to cater a bit to everyone) Whatever happens, I'm sure it if you write it, it will reflect your usual high level of quality and attention to detail.

Yeah I definitely agree that adding a huge video list to the GameEx.ini is certainly not an altogether savory option. The other option that occurs to me is that GameEx could simply use the MAME.mdb itself as the All MAME Games video list. That probably makes the most sense. From there GameEx could simply apply any excluded ROMS to that list on the fly (or -possibly- better yet simply cache the compiled list at startup) to determine whether to display any given video in the menu. I'm definitely getting into hypothetical territory here as it would be up to Tom how best to implement this feature, or indeed whether to implement it at all. So yeah, there I go trying to get all armchair quarterback again.

Hmm . . . I'm not entirely convinced that filtering at the ROM level is the best approach for this particular issue. Even still it would be pretty handy to be able to do so. Here's what I would envision for a ROM filtering plug-in / standalone application in relation to GameEx. I think the application would need to use the [Arcade]MAME.mdb database as a starting point. MAME.mdb gets rebuilt each time you rebuild your MAME game list. It incorporates any ROM filters you've put in place via the setup wizard (including Adult, Mahjong, and all the other available filters). The app would need to build a list based on both the MAME and MAMECloneOf columns in the database. The MAMECloneOf column would be necessary here so that the app wouldn't delete a parent set in which you'd still like to include the clone. That part is all pretty straight forward so far (for the most part). Next the application would need to parse the GameEx.ini to determine what ROMS to exclude from the list. This is where the app needs to be a little bit tricky. The app needs to be smart enough to determine if the excluded ROM is a parent of a clone that we do want to display. It can't get rid of parent sets where we'd like to keep the clone around (otherwise it would necessitate unmerged sets, which I think are rarely used). This last bit brings up a good point though the app may need to know how the MAME sets are configured (merged, split, or unmerged), in order to determine how best to filter the ROMS. From there the app can use the final list to determine all ROMS we'd like to include in our Game List. Everything else could be moved or deleted by the application (probably at the discresion of the user). It would be super slick if the app went ahead and automatically rebuilt your GameEx MAME list at that point (although this probably the assumes that the app be a plug-in, and rebuilding the MAME list is an available hook in the plug-in architecture / API) It could all get a bit convoluted, but I think it's possible. Now I think the issue seen here may be better addressed in the form of a feature request. Essentially all that would need to happen here is that GameEx would build a video list for the All MAME Games menu in addition to the lists it already builds for the Golden Age, Light Gun, Atari, Neo-Geo and all the other MAME catagories. Then only display videos from the list for the All MAME Games menu. That's my two cents. I'm sure someone else will be able to add to what I've suggested, or come up with an entirely better solution altogether.

NEW FEATURE REQUEST - This request is carried over from this thread Currently I believe that the various emulator menus in GameEx display video snaps at random according to the configuration of the associated emulator. It seems that the videos displayed reflect the entire contents of the video snap directory, rather than strictly the game list for that emulator. Essentially I'd like to request that the various emulator menus in GameEx menu display only videos actually appearing in the associated game lists (after filters and excluded roms are applied). I realize that this could potentially complicate issues for Non-MAME emulators in that it might require rebuilding game lists (similar to MAME) in order to determine what videos to display for the parent emulatormenu. If that turns out to be the case, I'd like to narrow this request to strictly apply to the MAME menus in GameEx. Thanks for your consideration! EDIT: Added the 'New Feature Request' flag

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one bugged by this. This is the same issue I brought up in this post. I considered making a feature request at that time, but I tend to hesitate in making a request in which I'm (seemingly) the only user interested in the change. I'm glad I'm not alone here. Essentially I'd like to make a request in which the GameEx menu only displays videos that actually appear in your game list (after filters and excluded roms are applied). In other emulators this is fairly easy to manage since in that situation your video names are an exact match to rom names (thus making it fairly easy to generate a batch file for moving videos around). MAME complicates the issue in that video names are not an exact match to rom names once parent/clone sets and file name matching are taken into account. Any hoo, I'll put in the request once I can get my kids soundly into bed (unless someone beats me to it - the request that is - I can probably manage with my kids).

JSNES Fullscreen settings can be found HERE, (read the whole thread - although I'd probably just do like the OP and make the switch to nestopia) ZSNES Fullscreen settings can be found HERE (check out both the Full Screen and Video Modes sections - although again, I'd just as soon recommend something a bit more modern - if not bsnes then at least Snes9x). As far as configuring your emulators goes, it's a very good thing to become familiar with. The bad news: most of them handle configuration in widely divergent fashions from one another. Good luck man!

Thanks for the update Tom!

Cool Adultery! I’ve been thoroughly impressed with the prolific nature of your work lately. You’ve really taken to development work like a duck to water! Great job!

It’s sort of a tough question in that it’s a bit general. Here’s some additional information regarding config files as they pertain to GameEx. In the context that fReq describes config files, you already are using config files for the purposes of GameEx (in the form of your GameEx.ini). Every emulator you set up in GameEx will have a corresponding configuration section in GameEx.ini. If you export your settings for any given emulator from the Setup Wizard, it pulls that information from the GameEx.ini. Another term you’ll hear around here from time to time is an advanced config file. This is different from the GameEx.ini file seen above. An advanced config allows you to pull off custom functionality for any specific emulator set up through GameEx. It’s here that you can instruct GameEx to watch a specific process (so that it knows when the emulator process is running and when to return to the frontend), or modify the keys used to exit an emulator, etc. I’m forgetting/not listing at least a dozen other things that can be accomplished with advanced config files in GameEx. They are very powerful in the context of GameEx. Ultimately the answer so far is that if GameEx is responding in a way that you’d expect and you’re satisfied with the results, you’re doing it right. Having said all of that it sounds like you might be talking about the settings you adjust at the emulator level (i.e. controller mapping, the resolution at which to display games, emulator plug-in settings, etc.). In that context config files can mean any number of things and will vary from one emulator to the next. Some emulators use config files and some do not (I wish they all did). Some emulators store config files in the same directory as the emulator, whereas some store settings in your AppData directory. Heck some emulators store settings in the registry (eww . . . ). So in that context, the question is a bit too general, and would need to be addressed in a fashion specific to what you’re trying to achieve.

Thanks Circo, that sheds some light on the topic. I’ve been meaning to update this thread, but it was looking like an issue that only I alone had any interest in. As I’ve been thinning down my MAME artwork, my initial questions have been answered somewhat, but I’ve altered my approach. Here’s what I’m doing now (as if anyone cares but me). It’s a bit convoluted. As bkenobi pointed out the easiest way to accomplish my goals would be to have a rom directory consisting of only the games I want to display in GameEx, and build my artwork directory from there. The catch is that I really only need a directory containing files matching the rom names of the games I display in GameEx. I don’t actually need that directory to house the roms themselves. So here’s what I did (this gets ugly): I used the MAME.mdb generated by GameEx to populate a batch script which creates one empty file for each rom entry in the database in a temp directory. I also could have simply copied roms into this directory, but I really only needed dummy files, and it was just as easy to go that route (as well as less HD intensive). Next I used the same database list to create a separate batch script to move my MAME artwork into a new directory. This script moved all artwork with an exact match to a rom named in the GameEx list. This directory will become my ‘GameEx artwork’ directory containing artwork only for the games I display in GameEx. Then I used Tempest’s awesome SkinnyMatch application to generate a list of missing artwork for the directory containing the empty ‘rom’ files. Using that list it becomes a manual process of moving artwork from the ‘master’ artwork directory to the ‘GameEx artwork’ directory. I only did this for video snaps since that’s primarily what I’m concerned about for this functionality (this gets back to GameEx displaying videos not displayed in my game list when selecting MAME, or All MAME games). Like I said, pretty convoluted but it worked for me, and I’m happy with the results.

ROMLister is a great little application designed to do exactly this. In order to extract the mechanical games using ROM Lister it might be easier to filter on what games will work, and subsequently remove those that don't by process of elimination (Interestingly I don't think ROMLister has a filter setting for mechanical games, but I've never tried). There are some tutorials over at the BYOAC wiki that may help to get you started: RL Tutorials Also on the administrative front: please do be aware that discussion of downloading roms is strictly verboten around here. I think your post is probably OK (I'm not a mod), but it never hurts to mention it.

Great! I’m glad it worked out for you. Game on!

I think your issue may be that you're using UNIX directory notation rather than the Windows variety. So this: fusion.exe -scd -fullscreen "[ROMPATH]/[ROMFILE]" Should be written like this: fusion.exe -scd -fullscreen "[ROMPATH]\[ROMFILE]" Other than that your command matches the one I use for Sega CD (Fusion 3.64)

To be honest this looks like nothing more than an automated response telling you that a support ticket was created. Most corporations these days like to push the personal one-to-one support angle, so if you’re dealing with an actual person they often include a first name, email, and (maybe) a phone number. The message you got seems to translate as Typically this message is followed up by a response from an actual person in x days / weeks. I dunno, seems like pretty typical tech support to me. Certainly not saying it’s great or anything, but what can you do?

That's awesome Gimpper! I really like the steampunk feel you embued into the project! So kudos also to your wife for planting the seeds of that stylistic vision!

Please post your GameEx log. It may provide a good indication of what is happening here. Ideally you should reproduce the error you’ve described here, and then post your GameEx log here before starting GameEx again. No need to apologize about language barrier, we’re a pretty diverse crowd around here. I always have a lot of admiration and respect for the multi-lingual folks we have in the community. Thanks, and Welcome to the Forums!