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Dangit! I meant to pick up Pinball FX2 during the Steam Summer Sale. Totally slipped my mind. Guess I'll wind up springing for straight up retail price. Thanks for reminding me of this!

Logitech F710. I love it. I lean a bit more towards favoring PlayStation style controllers, or else I'd probably be using a wireless 360 controllers as well.

Thanks fReq! Thanks guys! I got to share double (triple?) billing with my kids on Fathers Day, since it was our twins birthday as well. I was more than happy to take a backseat and (I think) the girls had a great time. Monster Trucks!

Cool thanks Adultery! It's always beneficial to see what's going on under the hood, especially for those inclined to add functionality to the frontend by way of super-cool plugins!

Happy Birthday Draco! So I spent about half an hour looking for a good quote to commemorate this occasion, Something witty yet pithy. Something sagely without being glib. And I failed. But this seemed OK, and fitting considering all the work you do around these parts. By some guy named T.S. Eliot (I'm guessing 'T.S.' stands for 'Totally Stoned' ... but you know how those writer types are ...). Any hoo, Happy Birthday and thanks for not being decrepit buddy! (at least not yet!) Here's hoping for yet another great and decidedly not decrepit year!

More like frickin' awesome-sauce! Great job dude!

Heh ... sounds like you're quite a bit more ... uh ... accomplished than I am as a musician. But yeah, I'd totally be game for some interwebs jamming. It's been quite a while since I actually played with a live person (as opposed to recordings). The only issue that gives me pause is that my internet is very spotty in terms of latency. I live clear out in BFE - the boondocks if you will. As a result my internet is ostensibly a broadband connection, but in reality it's only just barely. It comes in over wireless connection (as in radio signal) rather than a copper cable to the home. This is also the primary reason that online multiplayer games are not really an option for me. So yeah Rocksmith. I've been having a blast with the game, as someone who is still learning various techniques and whatnot. Having said that, more experienced musicians also seem to have a great time with the game as well. For those guys (and likely yourself) it's probably less of a learning tool and more a matter of, "Hey I'm going to learn a bunch of new songs, and basically PWN the game" The only knock I've heard skilled musicians give the game is that it's not going to teach you Music Theory. I mean it really is monkey see, monkey do, but all the same I mean ... who doesn't like monkeys? As near as I can tell the DLC pretty much caters to all skill levels, and there's certainly some very challenging material available. In terms of guitar the Megadeth (OMG starting about 1:40!) and Pantera stuff seems very challenging (or for that matter the Allman Brothers stuff and the juggernaut that is Freebird - the endless soloing starts at 5:05). In terms of Bass there's a whole Rush DLC pack which would keep me personally occupied for weeks before I could even string together a loose approximation (Geddy Lee as a bass player = rock god. Although Geddy Lee as a singer = ... meh ... not so much - well except for The Trees - I could listen to that jam all day long). At any rate the game is definitely worth a look IMO, and if you've already got a guitar the cost of admission is that much smaller (also remember that the Steam Summer Sale is just around the corner). So yeah ... Palm Muting. My time in formal lessons is a bit of a funny story really (and not really one fit for public forums believe it or not), but let's just say I only took lessons for a brief time and spent years attempting to play by ear ... to varying degrees of success (with minimal knowledge of various techniques that might have better facilitated the journey - I'm quite sure all the bad habits I've picked up over the years are as multitudinous as they are egregious). So there are a few songs I tried to learn that featured palm muting on bass (or what I would recognize now as palm muting - at the time all I heard was a percussive plunky sound). What I did was to finger pluck but only let the note ring out very briefly. The sound was an approximation of palm muting though probably not very good (and my left hand was continually busy muting all those notes!). What a mess!

You will only be able to configure individual games as ROMs if BlueStacks is actually capable of running individual games directly from the command line. Otherwise it's a lost cause (unless someone has written a loader or wrapper to automate loading individual games).

Thanks for rapidly addressing the issue Tom!

Hmm ... if you followed those instructions you should see that Advanced Emulator Config in the appropriate dropdown on the Advanced Emulator Setup screen. If you copied the above text into a file called BlueStacks.ini (or whatever you would prefer) in the ...\GameEx\CONFIG\EMULATORS (where '...' is wherever you have GameEx installed), you should see it as an available choice in the following field on the Advanced Emulator Setup screen: The easiest way to see what's happening will be to take a look at your current settings. When you have a moment please post your current progress in the form of your Emulator Config for BlueStacks as well as the BlueStacks.ini file you created above (if that's what you called the file). Thanks man!

They look awesome KRC!

I'm pretty excited about the new forum features, particularly the downloads section. I can confirm that the Zend Optimizer issue still occurs when you access My Settings, but as Draco pointed out I'm sure this is more a case of fine tuning the server. Great job Tom!

Hi Rochabian What are the specs on your PC? Are you running a pretty modern system? I noticed this information pulled from the help text which leads me to believe that depending on your system this behavior may not be a bug, and may not be fixable as such

Hi helpman A small clarification may be in order. So you mentioned that zinc games appear OK in your MAME list, but not as a stand alone emulator. Does this mean that: You've integrated your MAME list with Zinc, and Zinc games appear OK in All MAME Games, but not when you select the Playstation games list within MAME menu. - OR - You've configured zinc as a standalone emulator in addition to having zinc games within your MAME list, and zinc games appear OK under MAME, but not with the standalone emulator.sYour GameEx.ini would probably provide the best insight into these questions. Depending on the answer to these questions it may mean that you need two sets of the same videos using different naming conventions stored in separate directories.

I gotta say I kinda like the other background a bit better. IMO Draco kind of did the definitive theme with circuit boards, digital readouts and the like. Pac Man is always good, although if you keep Pac-Man in, you'll probably want to add other system (or category) appropriate characters/graphics to the other screens as well (= more work). On both accounts it comes down to whichever you prefer ultimately.

I hear you about the money thing. I was probably stretching our budget a bit when I sprung for my new bass, and even that only got me into the 'good entry level instrument' category. Playing music is by no means a cheap hobby, and when you add the cost of a new game and a specialty instrument cable it starts to add up. Besides which, UbiSoft has been making noise like they're going to have a big Rocksmith announcement at E3 next week. Speculation is that they might be introducing Rocksmith 2. If that's true then it might be a good plan to wait for the sequel anyway (either that, or wait for the price to drop on the first game and swoop it up). At any rate real-life always always takes priority. I still think it's pretty cool that you're getting that Raleigh all fixed up. Should be a pretty good source of transportation! And the health benefits certainly can't be scoffed at either.

Looks like the migration has been successful! Great work Tom! I can confirm the Zend Optimizer glitch, but I'm guessing that server configuration might be a bit of an ongoing process.

Uff Da! That's a lot of information to sift through with out a lot of direction insofar as what problems you're experiencing. I hate to ask, but would you mind elaborating a bit on the problems you're experiencing with each of these? Are they all running OK outside of GameEx? When setting up an emulator in GameEx it is a fairly crucial first step that you get it running outside of GameEx prior to setting it up in GameEx. I may split this post into multiple threads so that we can take a divide and conquer approach, but let's see where this goes. What problems are you experiencing with each of these? Thanks Paul!

OK, this is good progress. I'm going to incorporate some of Han's advice, but I'm going to take it a slightly different direction. Here's what I'd like you to try: First do like Han says. Launch your game, open up Windows Task Manager, and find the name of the application that your launcher starts up (i.e. the application that's running your game or whatever) Open up notepad and paste the following contents into it. Save the file as BlueStacks.ini (or whatever you like) in the following directory: ...\GameEx\CONFIG\EMULATORS Locate the following section of your file and modify it like so (Remember to follow the instructions - this is only the name of the executable. Do not include the extension.): This is what's known as an Advanced Emulator Config around these parts. You can edit your Advanced Emulator config through the Setup Wizard. At this point you will need to configure GameEx to actually use your new Advanced Emulator config for BlueStacks. Do the following: Open the Setup Wizard and navigate to the Advanced Emulator Setup screen for your BlueStacks setup. On that screen you'll see a field called Advanced Config. Your new advanced emulator config (BlueStacks or whatever you called it) should appear in that dropdown list. Select your new config and exit the Setup Wizard. (Optional) After selecting your Advanced Emulator Config, you can also edit the contents by clicking the '...' button. This will open up a GUI editor for the config which is quite a bit more user-friendly than editing the config with notepad.Good luck Paul, and let us know how you're getting along with this.

Thank you for being a part of our community Paul! As you may have noticed GameEx is updated fairly regularly to include even more awesome features. Tom is exceedingly crafty at figuring out ways to make GameEx even better than it already is, and the regular update schedule really bears that out. Several of us here feel that this is in stark contrast to pretty much every other frontend out there - which are either very seldomly updated or haven't even received updates in a very long time. The stylistic goals for GameEx vary slightly from most frontends out there today, insofar as GameEx should feel equally at home on a cabinet as well as an HTPC. There are several fantastic themes available should you feel like spicing things up a bit (our theme competition is a great place to start). Having said all of that, remember that GameEx is constantly updated. Stick around, and you might be surprised at just how far GameEx is capable of going on the graphical front! Glad to have you here Paul!

Man I tell you what Han, if you like Guitar Hero / Rockband and have any sort of interest in picking up a guitar or bass, I bet you'd get a huge kick out of this game. I've been lurking a few different Rockband forums, and that really seems like a fairly common entry point into this game; someone who has mastered the intricacies of clicky guitar games and is looking for a new challenge. The only issue is the initial cost of gear when you're starting from scratch. If there's some good news here it's that you only need an electric guitar in order to get into the game (i.e. one that you can plugin to something - it can still be an acoustic-electric). You don't need an amp for the game since the game outputs your sound. There's actually even an 'Amp Mode' that lets you just jam within the game (no backing track), and lets you apply all of the amps and effects pedals you've unlocked in game to craft your own tones (as well as save them). Good Times! Sometimes I actually use Amp mode through my real amp: Bass -OUT-> Rocksmith Instrument Cable -IN-> Laptop Running Rocksmith -OUT-> Thru headphone jack with a Y Splitter -IN-> Auxiliary Input on Amplifier --> Crank it! Eventually you might want to pick up a real amp, but its not required for the game. There's actually a starter set for the game that comes with everything you need to get started (an Epiphone Les Paul copy, instrument cable, and the game itself). The cost isn't exactly peanuts, but it's certainly no more than the full Rockband set cost when it came out (it might even be less if memory serves correctly). I'm a bit worried that I sound like an advertisement for this game, but I've been having a blast with it. It's actually not just me though, a recent study concluded that Rocksmith is actually one of the fastest ways to learn guitar. I've just started messing around with custom tracks in game, and I have to say it's pretty neat. The official DLC and content on disc is excellent and covers a bunch of genres, but sometimes you've just got a hankering to learn something specific that's simply not available elsewhere. That's where custom tracks come in exceedingly handy.

This is awesome! Thanks Tom! Hopefully the transition will go smoothly and that downtime can be kept to a minimum. (Keeping fingers crossed). Any idea how this will affect Tapatalk compatibility? Will we have a new URL?

Ooo ... nice! I think I like this one best of all. Thanks Draco!

So after I graduated from high school I worked at a lodge near my home town for a couple of years (this one actually). I was a year round employee (or as close to it as possible given the seasonal nature of the job with a couple months off between seasons), but during the summer we would get an influx of employees from all over the place. Frat boys from Maine, Southern hippies from Tennesee, Disenfranchised burn outs from everywhere, one year we had a bunch of Newfoundlanders work there, heck one summer we even had a refugee from the then current Bosnian War come to work for us - given the perspective of history I always wonder what happened to that guy. Any hoo I'm digressing (a lot). The point is that it seems like everyone who came to work there inevitably came with an acoustic guitar strapped to their back (and more often than not a milk crate full of Grateful Dead and/or Phish bootlegs). So often times we'd do employee campfires after hours, and these folks would sit around jamming on their acoustic guitars. It was an awesome time and I've often wished I'd had my acoustic bass at that time (I was still tooling around on my first electric at the time - basically worthless without an amp and electric outlet nearby). Getting to my point - I've always loved the sound of just strumming away on an acoustic guitar. I always wished I could have sat around jamming with those guys; it just seemed so cool at the time. So maybe one day (with a little help from Rocksmith) I too can be a disenfranchised burnout with an acoustic guitar playing Dylan tunes. A guy can dream right?! At this point I'm really thinking that I'd like to get an electric guitar for the purposes of transferring those skills to an acoustic. And that's where the Rocksmith thing comes in. You do need a guitar with an output jack so you can use the instrument cable, but beyond that I think it's fairly wide open. I had some trouble with my acoustic bass but even that did a somewhat serviceable job, and I think any problems i was having were the fault of the instrument moreso that the game (there are a good handful of YouTube videos of people using acoustic guitars with the game). I'm a firm believer in pawn shop guitars, and if I get a guitar for the purposes of playing the game, that's likely where I'll be checking first (as well as Craigslist). You've got a birthday coming up Draco! If you've got a burnin' desire to get down on that git-fiddle maybe now is the time to pick up some gear! Even if you don't go the Rocksmith route maybe a couple of lessons of lessons would be just the ticket (in this case you could definitely use your current guitar, not to mention that some would say this is the better route anyway, although in my case using Rocksmith to "gameify" my practice has been huge in helping me stay motivated - not to mention the almost endless availability of new material to work on)