nullPointer

You bet. I just need to get my little ones in bed first. Quick note though, you'll need to set your working path to the directory containing the wrapper. Remember that it's acting as the emulator in this case.

Hi Felix! In this case your Launch Before parameter should be SwitchDisc (if you're using it) or nothing (if you're not). The wrapper is acting as a surrogate for the emulator, so it is the emulator as far as GameEx is concerned. That's why you're getting the black screen. The wrapper needs to have some sort of parameter passed into it.

Wow that’s awesome! Thanks Circo for the generous increase to the daily download cap and thanks Tom for making the necessary adjustments to the auto download functionality. You guys rock!

A couple of things I notice (although if I've thought of it, I'm pretty sure it's occurred to you as well ). It looks like a DirectX error in your most recent log. Have you double checked your video drivers and DirectX version? Just the other night I had to update my Nvidia drivers, so it might be worth a look. Also does the same error occur when you're using different themes?

Great looking cab MNMax21! The side art, t-molding, diamond plate kick panel, and all the other details make this a fantastic looking build. That bottle opener is classic! Nice work. Howard Casto has posted some really good information on this subject over at the BYOAC forums. Specifically the information he provides in the linked post is related to using Glovepie to configure your Wiimotes. Howard is pretty responsive to questions should you hit any rough patches.

Awesome! Congratulations man, you won't regret it. Splitting out artwork for merged sets is functionality that's been discussed before, but currently it's not possible. That is one trade off to using merged sets. For me the trade off is worth it in terms of having nice clean game lists, but others may feel differently natch. I've completed work on a wrapper for ePSXecutor for use in GameEx. The wrapper can be found right here for those that are interested. For those that have been following the whole sordid tale, this wrapper should make it a bit easier to use SwitchDisc in combination with ePSXecutor through GameEx. Even if you're not using SwitchDisc, this wrapper will allow you to use ePSXecutor in GameEx without the need for an advanced emulator config. Thanks!

Here's a wrapper for ePSXecutor. That's right, this is a wrapper for a frontend for an emulator of a game console. So why on earth would one need such a thing? Well ... hmm ... good question ... um ... you probably don't? Among other things this will enable you to run ePSXecutor in GameEx without having to configure an advanced emulator config. This in turn should make it a bit easier to use SwitchDisc in combination with ePSXecutor through GameEx. Usage details can be found in the readme. Hopefully someone gets some use out of this. Thanks! Change Log 1.0.1 Minor enhancement to better support (and simplify) SwitchDisc integration 1.0.0 Initial public release ePSXecutor_wrapper-1.0.1.7z

Let me preface this by saying that the ePSXe team has done a great job with the 1.8 release. It’s a solid emulator, and easily one of the best for PlayStation emulation. Having said that, many of the perceived problems with earlier versions of ePSXe persist here (i.e. storing settings in the registry, no way to manage game specific plug-in settings without a third party tool, etc.). I was hoping for more changes to the core functionality of ePSXe whereas the 1.8 changes seem more like incremental improvements. Once again though, I’m not saying 1.8 isn’t awesome, I’m just saying I had pretty high expectations for this release.

Happy birthday DazzleHP! I'm not sure what status is being referred to above (nor am I sure that I want to). I just wanted to wish you the zazzy-est birthday ever. Enjoy your day man.

Start Menu > All Programs > GameEx > Configuration > MAME Emu Maps

I'd recommend having a look at Mame Emu Mapping Magician, an application written by Tempest for this very purpose (registered feature).

It looks like your chd file is invalid (it’s either corrupt or it’s not a match to the corresponding rom and/or MAME version you're running). You’ll want to be sure that both the rom and the chd match up with the version of MAME you’re running (CHDs don’t get updated all that often, so 90% percent of the time you’re good to go even if the chd is not a strict match to your version of MAME. It looks like this time it’s the other 10% )

Thanks for your hard work on this Tom! I’m really looking forward to (further) enjoying the benefits of GameEx and XBMC integration.

Awesome! Thanks Tom! I was a Media Browser fan for quite a while, but I've been using XBMC exclusively for about a year now and I've never looked back. I'm really pumped about this plugin! Can't wait to take it for a test drive. Edit: Works great so far! Thanks again.

Happy Birthday, vsilvalopes!

I've got the i5 650 in my HTPC overclocked at just shy of 4GHz (very stable and no serious heat issues). I've only made adjustments to memory timings insofar as to accommodate the OC on the CPU, and I haven't touched the GPU (for some reason mine gets pretty hot when I'm running Crysis so I don't want to push that envelope too far - maybe I need to double check my settings). I get pretty good performance from PCSX2 except for those games with known compatibility issues or major speed problems. Over on the PCSX2 forums they keep a running benchmark test for PCSX2 (they use FFX-2 for the test). I've always thought it gives a pretty good indication of the requirements necessary to get good performance from PCSX2.

The day has arrived! ePSXe 1.8 has been released and is ready for action! I won't have a chance to put it through its paces until much later tonight, but I can hardly wait to do so.

From my experience I've found PCSX2 to be a bit more power hungry than Dolphin. If I had to choose between spending a bit more on CPU or GPU, it's going to be CPU every time for the purposes of these emulators. That's not to say that the GPU isn't important, but great looking graphics aren't going too mean much if they're running at 30 FPS. Having said that, Draco is absolutely right that using onboard graphics will likely cause a bottle neck with these demanding emulators. Here are some guides that might be helpful. I tend to use PCSX2 system requirements as the benchmark since as I mentioned it seems to require a bit more horsepower than Dolphin. Both emulators have similar recommendations in terms of supported CPU instruction sets, so beyond that it becomes a question of how much power you're pushing through the CPU (The number of cores is a secondary concern since PCSX2 is only going to use three cores at max and even then only when you're using a specific speed hack. Most of the time it will only use two cores). Maybe this is your opportunity to get into some overclocking. Will PCSX2 run fast on my computer? Does (PCSX2) support 4 cores? Dolphin Requirements (I couldn't find more current requirements than this as the Dolphin web site seems to be a bit flaky ATM)

Man I feel like the wind just left my sails. Ninja Rygar was an earnest, humble, knowledgeable, and all around good guy. In some cases it's easy to say those things in hindsight, but in Rob's case it is the absolute the truth. He always had a positive outlook, and never made a big deal about his illness despite the serious nature of what he was dealing with. I honestly don't know that any of us knew just how serious it was. Not to put too fine a point on it, but in my early days here Ninja Rygar was one of those members that made this place seem like a second home (to me at least). Rob we miss you buddy. Hope you're getting your game on up there. Draco despite the fact that this is very sad news, I really appreciate the update. I had often wondered what became of Ninja Rygar. It's good to have some closure rather than wondering, and to have the opportunity to properly honor his memory. Thanks again.

Yep. May I direct your attention to PCSX2. If you intend to try it out you'll want to use relatively beefy machine.

So much for the quick and easy fix! My first question is whether MAME is still running fine outside of GameEx? (It would be preferable to test via the command line for this purpose) If not it may mean that something has gone wrong with your MAME build/configuration settings. If everything seems to work fine outside of GameEx, I'd recommend rebuilding your game list within GameEx (start GameEx, go into the MAME 'categories' section (the top level of the MAME section) and select the last option > Update List). If that doesn't fix the issue lets' get serious. In that event I'd ask that you follow the steps listed in Section 4B of the How to Ask for Help thread and post the results here. Here's the steps I'd like you to try if nothing else works (specifically section 4B)

Cool blog posts Tempest, thanks for the share! I’m with you, sometimes it’s easy to get lost in the technical details of emulation, and lose sight of all the memories (personal and shared) that these games hold for us.

Hi BHoffman and welcome to the GameEx forums! Also thanks for being so forthcoming with troubleshooting materials. The first thing I notice as I'm looking at your files is that it appears that you have MAME configured as a 'standard' emulator in GameEx. You don't want to do that (unless you have a really compelling reason to do so ). I would highly recommend going back through the Setup Wizard and configuring MAME through the dedicated MAME section. GameEx has a lot of functionality devoted specifically to MAME, but in order to 'unlock it' you must set up MAME through the dedicated MAME section. Please refer here for information on how to do that.

I would agree that using Task Manager would be problematic in this capacity. There are a couple other useful tools that may provide some better analysis though. Performance Monitor allows one to view memory usage over a configurable duration (this enhancement seems to be primarily available for Vista and above). Possibly the best solution here is to use Resource Monitor which seems to be a descendent of the old school Performance Monitor and is available in Vista and above. So there are a couple options anyway. I’m relatively sure you can even generate a report from one of the later two tools, but I have never done so. Here’s a decent article detailing the strengths and weaknesses of these tools. Windows 7 memory usage: What's the best way to measure?

The answer to that question can be found in my name. It's a generic error message which indicates that there’s a variable being held in memory which hasn’t been initialized to any value (the value is null). Some module of code has attempted reference the value held within the variable, and unsurprisingly has freaked out. Take the following pseudo-code for example: x = null; 1 + x = y; // Bad things happen! Put another way, there is a pointer in memory which contains a null value also known as a null pointer. So there you go, a bit of trivial knowledge with nary a troubleshooting suggestion to be found. Actually I’m wondering if Tom or Ben will need to have a look at this. It appears to me that the screensaver would attempt to find a specific video, but the video encountered an issue which in turn led to a null pointer exception. It appears a few different times in your log. After failing to find a video it looks like it would return to GameEx, timeout, start the screensaver, and play a bunch of videos until the same thing happened again. Purely the opinion of a shade tree mechanic mind you. Do the following videos play alright otherwise? 23:36:08.1 11/5/2012: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. 23:36:08.1 11/5/2012: Failed Opening Video: h:\users\boxoawesome\documents\screensavervids\cachat.mp4 23:47:38.8 11/5/2012: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. 23:47:38.8 11/5/2012: Failed Opening Video: h:\users\boxoawesome\documents\screensavervids\bowlrama.mp4 02:58:59.5 11/6/2012: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. 02:58:59.5 11/6/2012: Failed Opening Video: h:\users\boxoawesome\documents\screensavervids\darwin.mp4 07:44:41.2 11/6/2012: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. 07:44:41.2 11/6/2012: Failed Opening Video: h:\users\boxoawesome\documents\screensavervids\soccer mania.mp4