GoTheBunnies

The links in your sig lead to a LOT of threads and subjects. Anyone in particular I should be looking at?

Thanks - I did set the controller paths via the front end, but it didn't really work properly. I can't actually test it via the front end (only via GameEx) because my roms are 'numbered' and not 'named', and the FE doesn't recognise them (but GameEx does). Bit of a pain really. One question about your button set up (which may help me with my 6 button set up) - how many buttons do you have on your joystick, and how have you got them set out and mapped? Thanks

Thanks for that. I thought a bunch of people on here had Zinc up and running ok? I say 'ok' and not perfect, because I think the controller config worked with some games, but not necessarily all of them (some would be a start....).

Hi guys, I know this has come up before, but trawling through the posts I couldn't find a definitive solution to my problem. Have been messing around with Zinc for a while, and now have the games running nicely through GameEx. Problem is that I can't map the controls, at least not with any consistency. I used ZincFE because it uses Winterblast's Controller Plugin (which seems to be the recommended way to go). Attached is a screenshot of the Plugin GUI. First problem I had is that I'm using a 6 button, 2 player set up. My Mame config for Player 1 for example is 123456=CVBNZX. Winterblast GUI was giving me (at least) 9 possible mappings for my 6 buttons, so I took a stab at what I thought made sense (as per screenshot). Now when I test in the games, some only use keys NZ&X (or 456), and some don't recognise any (except Coin and Start, which seem to work in all games tested). But perhaps my problem starts before the Contoller Plugin stage? My GameEx settings are - Use Zinc = Yes Zinc Path = C:\Emulators\[Arcade]Zinc Zinc Exe = Zinc.exe Zinc Options = --use-config-file=zinc.cfg --use-controller-cfg-file=controller.cfg You can see my file structure in the background of the screenshot. GameEx setup ok? Figured it must be close - the games run. If it is ok, how are other configuring the Controller Plugin for 6 buttons (or less)? And why wouldn't the games be recognising the changes I make? (I've noticed that the controller.cfg file does update everytime I make a change). Thanks

Brian, following up on Draco's question, can you talk us through the steps of incorporating this into GameEx? According to the download thread, it's already incorporated in GameEx (??), but despite me having hi files, nothing is accurate in the GameEx High Score menu item? Thanks

Where are Headkaze's instructions? (found the compiler tool download, but no instructions??).

Just wondering if anyone is using anything other than a compiled version of Mame to get their hi-score support (ie another Mame GUI)??

So it doesn't automatically create the NVRAM file when the game is played like it does a STA file for example? (this is becoming more complicated...... )

Ok, seems I'm sillier than I thought - I've had a look at my folders under my Mame_133 directory, and I already have a 'hi' directory populated with files. So I must already have a compiled version right? (all the files were copied onto a hard drive for me, I didn't download, so didn't actually know what I was getting). So if the 'Hi' directory is there, and the hiscore.dat file is in the same directory as mame.exe - I've got everything I need right? So how can I tell if it's actually working for the gmaes supported? Do I need to do anything else? Next question is GameEx related - take Galage for example, where I know the high scores are being saved - where does GameEx get the scores listed under the menu option 'High Score' (because they're not the same as the real high scores). Do I need to configure this somewhere??

Thanks Brian - that does indeed help. If I decide to go down the route of using a UI that supports hi-scores (ie MAMEUIFX32), will it create any additional problems for me in GameEx?

Thanks Adultery. Been doing some reading on the whole hi-score issue, and wondering why it wouldn't be better to download a UI with hi-score support (like MameUIFX) rather than go through the steps of compiling my own version?? I'm sure there must be a good reason (or else everyone would just do that right?), but am curious to know what it is. I assume if I went down the MameUIFX path then all my GameEx config settings would have to change (so there's one negative for starters....). Cheers

Hi guys, I know this is a MAME question, but from reading some of the other threads you guys seem to be on top of it, so thought I'd ask the question here. I also know the subject has been done to death, so apologies for going over old ground - but I just don't get it. I'm running Mame .133 with the Mame32 GUI. It works perfectly and is running great through GameEx. Problem is that not all of my High Scores save. The games that have 'Automatic Save States' enabled save the scores - unfortunately that's obviously not all the games. No Sega games, for example, have Auto Save States. So from what I've read it seems that I need to compile my own version of Mame. I haven't looked into doing that in too much detail yet, and wanted to ask some questions before I start. The obvious one I suppose is why is it that what I would consider a basic functionality (saving high scores) is so difficult to achieve? I'm really surpised it doesn't come as part of a basic package? Am I right in saying that some front ends now have this built in - ie they save the scores independently of Mame? Anyway, that aside, if I go ahead with compiling a version myself - - will it cause any issues with my current set-up (ie will any GameEx config paths need to be changed etc) - do I need to compile a version of the same one I'm running - ie 0.133? - I'm guessing that if I do compile the same version it will save any issues with updating roms - they all should still run as they do now? - what are the risks? Can I stuff anything up that will interfere with my current set up? And once it's done, is that it - never needs to be done again unless I update my Mame version. What about my GUI - will it still work with the compiled version? That's about it for now I think! Thanks

Thanks - that's what I've done. I'm having some other issues with it, and have posted them in someone else's thread.

Thought I'd post my problem on this thread as some of my issues seem to be common to Ninja's..... Decided to set up Zinc today - reading through the posts it seems to make sense to use the GameEx integration rather than set up a separate emulator (correct?), so I did the following in Advanced MAME settings - Use Zinc Yes Zinc Path C:\emulators\Zinc Zinc Exe zinc.exe Zinc Options --renderer=.\renderer.znc I moved all my zinc roms (which have numbers as names) into the same folder as my Mame roms. Went back to GameEx and Updated my Games List - a new menu item called Playstation appeared, with games behind it. So far, so good. Go in and play a game and most seem to run ok. I get an error message when I exit some of them - but I'll get to that later. My main problem is that my input keys don't seem to be mapped correctly on all the games. Some keys work on some games - but there's not a lot of consistency and I can't really see a pattern to work out what's going on. So a couple of questions - do the keys have to mapped for each individual game? I'm using ZincFE2 - but I can't actually run any of the games directly on the emulator (ie without GameEx) because it doesn't recognise the roms names (because they're numbers). I'm missing something obvious here? What is it? Is there a guide to setting up Zinc on GameEx (I couldn't find it....). Thanks

Oh ok, so I can actually set it up to run in GameEx without it running in the emulator itself? Interesting......Ok, I'll give that a go instead!

Hi all, With most of my emulators up and running now, I thought I'd have a go at getting Zinc going so I can play Streetfighter, Tekken and the like. As I've done with other emulators, I wanted to get the games running outside of GameEx first, before I considered the GameEx config. Having a lot of problems with these games, and there doesn't seem to be any basic tutorials on the Internet? I've tried a couple of GUI's - Zinc and Zenith, but when I map either of them to my Roms folder - it doesn't see them. I have about 30 roms, but instead of game names, they have numbers as the .zip file name. Is that why the emulators can't see them - do I need to rename each of the files? Thanks

Problem fixed! I couldn't find ANY video settings in the BIOS, but decided to remove the video card drivers and reinstall. It's now fine. The thing I don't get is that I already installed the latest drivers the last time I had the lagging problem. Anyway, whatever it was, it's now fine. Thanks for everyone's input!

Here's a potentially stupid question - what is GameBase? Is this something I should get??

It IS a HP - the only things I've upgraded are the Hard drive (to 500gb) and the RAM (to 2gb). The video card is an AGP card - when you say adjust the settings for optimal use - that basically means playing around with the settings until I see a difference, right? I'll download the Process Explorer program when I get home and will have a look at the results. What am I looking for? A discernable difference in the CPU usage when I run GameEx?

Yes, we have discussed it previously, and I thought I'd fixed it (until after this update ). I didn't change the video aperture settings in the BIOS - I couldn't find it in there (and after a few other tweaks the problem was fixed so didn't see the need to persist). Perhaps now I better have another look.

Tom suggested defragging the pagefile - I was responding to that suggestion. I'm using a NVidia Geforce FX5200 128mb graphics card - but thinking now I might need something bigger.

Thanks for having a look at this Tom - I've tried a few of your suggestions, without success - BUT I can confirm that I don't have the lagging problem when I run it through runitgame.bat, nor when I play it directly via Mame. What does that tell you? Looked at drefragging my pagefile, but it only has 1 fragment, so doesn't look to be the issue.

Hi Tom -.ini attached. Games lag in GameEx - for example, moving the ship across the screen in say Space Invaders, the ship will stop a few times along the way, just for a micro second. Play it in Mame and it's fine. I had the problem with this PC in the past, changed a few settings (cant remember what), and it was fine until this update. Thanks GameExconfig.txt

I'm happy to rollback a couple of updates to solve the problem - is that an option?

My log follows Tom - CPU usage gets to 100% when I go into GameEx, but normalises pretty quickly. Seems to jump to 100% again whenever I go to play a game 12:22:00.0 18/12/2010: GameEx: Version 11.44: Starting Log 12:22:00.0 18/12/2010: Operating System Platform: Win32NT 12:22:00.0 18/12/2010: Operating System Name: Windows XP 12:22:00.0 18/12/2010: Operating System Version: 5.1.2600 12:22:00.0 18/12/2010: Checking for versions of .net Framework installed 12:22:00.0 18/12/2010: .net Framework 1.1 Installed 12:22:00.0 18/12/2010: .net Framework 2.0 Installed 12:22:00.0 18/12/2010: .net Framework 3.0 Installed 12:22:00.0 18/12/2010: .net Framework 3.5 Installed 12:22:00.0 18/12/2010: Intel® Pentium® 4 CPU 2.80GHz, 2047MB 12:22:00.0 18/12/2010: 2.8Ghz 12:22:00.0 18/12/2010: Running Randomize() 12:22:00.0 18/12/2010: Loading PlugIns 12:22:00.0 18/12/2010: Checking for applications to Launch On Startup 12:22:00.0 18/12/2010: Running Misc startup tasks 12:22:00.0 18/12/2010: Setting Menu types 12:22:00.0 18/12/2010: Opening Configuration File 12:22:00.0 18/12/2010: Getting Configuration Values 12:22:00.0 18/12/2010: Using Theme: Default - BlueEx - MCE1024x768 12:22:00.0 18/12/2010: Checking for alternate Image Directory for Theme: Default - BlueEx - MCE1024x768 12:22:00.0 18/12/2010: Launching HideOS.exe 12:22:00.0 18/12/2010: Initialising Video/MNG DLL's 12:22:00.0 18/12/2010: Hiding Taskbar 12:22:00.1 18/12/2010: Is Media Center running? 12:22:00.1 18/12/2010: Checking/Creating LCD Registry values 12:22:00.1 18/12/2010: Check Media Center Exit/Start Mode 12:22:00.1 18/12/2010: Media Center Mode 2 12:22:00.1 18/12/2010: Video previews on. Warning: Only recommended on modern systems 12:22:00.1 18/12/2010: Custom Keyboard Input enabled: Getting custom codes 12:22:00.1 18/12/2010: Snap Delay set to: 2 12:22:00.1 18/12/2010: Get other settings 12:22:00.1 18/12/2010: Desktop set to Hide ICONS and set Background to Black 12:22:00.1 18/12/2010: SlikStik support enabled 12:22:00.1 18/12/2010: Using DirectInput for keyboard input 12:22:00.1 18/12/2010: Start work for Form 12:22:00.1 18/12/2010: Getting Original Screen Size 12:22:00.1 18/12/2010: Opening Database Connection 12:22:00.2 18/12/2010: Initializing Component 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: Retrieving resolution setting 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: MAME Path is: C:\Emulators\Mame32\Mame_133 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: daphne Path is: C:\Emulators\Daphne 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: daphne EXE file is: Daphne.exe 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: Use daphne on. Daphne.exe will launch games 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: MAME EXE file is: mame.exe 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: ROM Path is: C:\Emulators\Mame32\Mame_133\roms 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: Catver.ini is located at: C:\GameEx\DATA\catver.ini 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: controls.ini is located at: C:\GameEx\data\controls.ini 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: History.dat is located at: C:\GameEx\DATA\history.dat 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: nplayers.ini is located at: C:\GameEx\DATA\nplayers.ini 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: command.dat is located at: C:\GameEx\DATA\command.dat 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: MAMEinfo.dat is located at: C:\GameEx\DATA\mameinfo.dat 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: Loading Controls.ini map file 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: Snap Path is: C:\Emulators\Mame32\Mame_133\snap 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: AVI Snap Path is: C:\Emulators\Mame32\Mame_133\Videos 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: Flyer Path is: C:\Emulators\Mame32\Mame_133\flyers 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: Cabinet Path is: C:\Emulators\Mame32\Mame_133\cabinets 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: Cabinet 3D Path: Not Found 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: Title Path is: C:\Emulators\Mame32\Mame_133\titles 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: PCB Path is: C:\Emulators\Mame32\Mame_133\pcb 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: Artwork Preview Path is: C:\Emulators\Mame32\Mame_133\artwork 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: Panel Path is: C:\Emulators\Mame32\Mame_133\cpanel 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: Manual Path: Not Found 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: Icon Path is: C:\Emulators\Mame32\Mame_133\icons 12:22:00.4 18/12/2010: Marquee Path is: C:\Emulators\Mame32\Mame_133\marquees 12:22:00.5 18/12/2010: Loading Custom Emulators 12:22:00.5 18/12/2010: Using 2D Animations 12:22:00.5 18/12/2010: Using General Font: Trebuchet MS 12:22:00.5 18/12/2010: Using Title Font: Joystix 12:22:00.5 18/12/2010: Initialising Direct3D 12:22:00.6 18/12/2010: Applying GameEx is Loading Image 12:22:01.2 18/12/2010: Setting Resolution to 1024x768 32 bit color 12:22:01.2 18/12/2010: Creating Surfaces 12:22:01.4 18/12/2010: Creating Primary Surface - Full Screen Mode 12:22:01.4 18/12/2010: Creating Back Buffer 12:22:01.4 18/12/2010: Loading graphic Surfaces 12:22:01.5 18/12/2010: Display is running at: 1024x768 32bit color, 75hz 12:22:01.6 18/12/2010: Creating Surfaces Flags 12:22:01.6 18/12/2010: Creating Surfaces Misc and Dialogs 12:22:01.7 18/12/2010: Creating Surfaces Volume 12:22:01.7 18/12/2010: Creating Surfaces Arrows 12:22:01.7 18/12/2010: Creating Surfaces GameEXlogo Text 12:22:01.7 18/12/2010: Creating Surfaces Toolbar 12:22:01.7 18/12/2010: Creating Surfaces Backgrounds 12:22:01.7 18/12/2010: Creating Surfaces Toolbar Controls 12:22:01.7 18/12/2010: Creating Surfaces GameEx Logo 12:22:01.7 18/12/2010: Creating Surface Unselected 12:22:01.7 18/12/2010: Creating Surfaces Home & Exit 12:22:01.7 18/12/2010: Creating Surfaces Snaps 12:22:01.7 18/12/2010: Creating Surfaces Menu and List Bars 12:22:01.9 18/12/2010: Creating Fonts 12:22:01.9 18/12/2010: Creating Game Font 12:22:02.1 18/12/2010: Creating Game Font Faded 12:22:02.2 18/12/2010: Creating Title Font 12:22:02.2 18/12/2010: Restoring Title Font From Cache 12:22:02.5 18/12/2010: Creating Menu Font 12:22:02.6 18/12/2010: Creating Font Black 12:22:02.7 18/12/2010: Creating Font Black Small 12:22:02.9 18/12/2010: Fonts Created Succesfully 12:22:02.9 18/12/2010: 3MB Video Memory Used 12:22:02.9 18/12/2010: Initialising Bass Audio Library 12:22:02.9 18/12/2010: Creating instance of global keyboard hook 12:22:03.6 18/12/2010: Attempting to load game list 12:22:03.7 18/12/2010: Applying Language/Text 12:22:03.7 18/12/2010: Text/Language: Custom 12:22:03.8 18/12/2010: MAME CMD options: -nowindow -hwstretch -joy -skip_gameinfo 12:22:03.8 18/12/2010: Loading last used Game List 12:22:03.8 18/12/2010: Creating DirectSound Device 12:22:03.8 18/12/2010: Trying: Primary Sound Driver 12:22:03.8 18/12/2010: Loading Sound Files 12:22:03.8 18/12/2010: DirectSound Device Created Successfully 12:22:03.8 18/12/2010: Creating ICONS 12:22:03.9 18/12/2010: Recreating ICONS 12:22:04.6 18/12/2010: Initialising DirectInput for Gamepad support 12:22:04.6 18/12/2010: Unable to create a joystick device 12:22:04.6 18/12/2010: Initialising DirectInput for Keyboard support 12:22:04.7 18/12/2010: Initializing MCE Remote 12:22:04.7 18/12/2010: Playing intro sound file 12:22:04.7 18/12/2010: Initialization OK! Starting GameEx! 12:22:04.7 18/12/2010: Testing Main Loop Once: Processing Frame 12:22:05.4 18/12/2010: Testing Main Loop Once: Main Loop ran successfully 12:22:48.7 18/12/2010: Exiting GameEx! 12:22:48.8 18/12/2010: Saving Settings 12:22:50.1 18/12/2010: Disposing Plugins 12:22:50.1 18/12/2010: Closing database connection 12:22:50.2 18/12/2010: Checking for applications to Launch On Exit