[NEWS] GameEx 12.21

[Tom Speirs]

Some profling has been performed on GameEx and various code speed optimizations have been made. GameEx now starts up and runs quicker. There is also less logging at startup. When ROMS are unzipped they are now placed in the users temporary folder rather than the emulators ROM path.

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[mesk]

Awesome Tom,thanks! but on a side note what are the chances of GameEX supporting history.dat,mame & mess info.dat? I do know of a few people who may have passed on GameEX as their FE of choice because of its lack of supporting those 3 files.Alot of people (usually people just getting into MAME\MESS) seem to like reading all the history and trivia (myself included)!!

[fRequEnCy]

Thanks Tom!

[wubble]

Thanks Tom, these updates are much appreciated.

Unless I'm mistaken, I think a recent update has caused a problem though. I've set up screensaver mode to show a game/retro advert every 3 games, but when they've finshed showing the advert, it freezes on the last frame and doesn't close the video These videos are generally MP4 and FLV I've collected from Youtube. When loading the next game in the screensaver problems arise, with almost every emulator having errors pop up. Removing videos from screensaver mode solves the problem. But those retro adverts were pretty cool.

[Tom Speirs]

I cant duplicate this issue in the current version. It sounds like you have a codec issue.

[wubble]

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. It appears to be fixedby uninstalling / reinstalling a codec pack. Sorry for doubting the new release.

[Tom Speirs]

Just wanted to let folks know. I can get 1000 FPS on my i7 with this release. You wont be able to do that yourselves though as GamEex sleeps so it does not make you feel like you are on munshrooms.

[Adultery]

I used a lot of drugs in my days as a house/dubstep/jungle DJ. Munshrooms is a new one on me though. Life in 1000 FPS sounds kinda fun!

Now for business... any chance of letting us customize the "touch screen to start" crawler in attract mode? I would love your new features on my cab but it looks like I'm an idiot with a touchscreen message on a monitor that doesn't support it and is behind glass.

I could change it to press a button to continue. No reason I should miss out on time and weather just because I use a more traditional setup.

[Tom Speirs]

There was supposed to be a setting for that. I must have missed it.

[Adultery]

No worries.

Looking forward to adding it to my rig!

[Tom Speirs]

No worries.

Looking forward to adding it to my rig!

Its done.

Now back to the Nshrums

[Tom Speirs]

Here is an updated Setup Wizard XML that adds the setting. Will be in the next release too. Place in the config folder.

SetupWizard_en.7z

[Adultery]

Nice! Thanks Tom! Can't wait to add this!

[Draco1962]

I just tested and it is not saving the text to the GameEx.ini file.

[Tom Speirs]

Are you sure about that? Its working here. It saves it as AttractText under General.

[Draco1962]

Yup. I had to manually edit the Gameex.ini file for the text to show. It now shows my edit in the Text field when I load Setup Wizard again.

EDIT: I made a subsequent edit and this time it edited my edited text as entered. Weirdness!

[Krakerman]

One thing I have been noticing is the mouse pointer is still showing. It looks like it's working in reverse when you change the settings under the touch screen .... hide mouse pointer to no it then hides the pointer, but when you have it to yes then it shows the pointer. Shouldn't that be the other way around in the setup wizard?

[Adultery]

Very cool! Can I get this screen to go to my 2nd monitor in GameExtender while the old MAME attract mode runs games on the first? Like a hybrid of both screensavers for the ultimate in GameExtender sexiness?

You could even drop the seconds on GameExtender and refresh won't be an issue! Is possible?

And btw: does this use my bak.PNG or does it have it's own? You know me, customize everything and what not.

[Tom Speirs]

Just for kicks here is a compiled version of GamEex without the sleeps in it. See how fast it runs now. I can get up to 1500 FPS if not playing a video preview and a 1000 if playing one (HQ). I dont think anyone can complain about GameEx not running on old hardware now.

GameEx.7z

[Tom Speirs]

One thing I have been noticing is the mouse pointer is still showing. It looks like it's working in reverse when you change the settings under the touch screen .... hide mouse pointer to no it then hides the pointer, but when you have it to yes then it shows the pointer. Shouldn't that be the other way around in the setup wizard?

Is that relaed to this release? Are you using a touchscreen? That setting has no effect unless you have touchscreen support turned on?

[Adultery]

I won't be anywhere near 1k but I'm still gonna try it! I'll post the FRAPS count.

I did notice that this morning the load time was alot faster and the logo fade-in was nice and smooth. I usually get a little hiccup at the end of my introsound.wav and that's gone as well. She's a lot cleaner and smoother!!

[Tom Speirs]

Do you notice any speed increase when GameEx loads cached emulators and databases? There should also be some improvements there.

[Adultery]

Wait, you expect me to actually play something? Lol!

It only took 3 seconds before, but now that you mention it... The only time I really see any slowdown is when it queries the Arcade DB.