emulators wont load in GameEX

[aikido2u]

All,

Hi still kinda noobish here but I beleive I undersatand the basics of how to get emulators working through gameEX. So far I have setup my NES, genesis, and Mame all are working. A few other emulators are giving me some trouble. ZNES for instance when trying to run a game will go to a black screen and then just back to GameEX again. I have verfied I can run the emulator itself and I have tried different video settings. I am not sure if I am missing something. Also epsxe wont load games it just sits at a black screen with a controller at the top left corner. I have to exit out of it and get back to gameex by hitting "ESC". I have also confirmed that this emulator is working correctly so far this process has been a pretty big pain. Thanks for any suggestions you can provide!

Thanks,

Aikido2u

[aikido2u]

To clarify the emulators work fine on their own.. outside of gameex..

[fRequEnCy]

Can you please export your configs for these emulators and post their contents so we can see what is going on?

[aikido2u]

Please let me know if you need anything else.

Console Nintendo SNES (ZSNES).ini

Console Sony Playstation (ePSXe).ini

[aikido2u]

Just in case the log file will help too

log.txt

[nullPointer]

Hi aikido

I’m glad you were able to get some emulators set up in GameEx (by the by, you might want to go back and mark that thread as [RESOLVED]). So I’m afraid you’ve hit two of the more ‘troublesome’ emulators to configure correctly in GameEx. The forums here are rife with problem reports for these two emulators.

You mentioned that you’re a noob, so I’m going to take a slightly different approach. We can get definitely get you going on ePSXe and ZSNES, but if you’re not intrinsically tied to these emulators; I’d propose that you try out different emulators for these purposes.

In place of ePSXe, I’d recommend having a go with pSX. It’s a lot more noob friendly than ePSXe. For that matter it’s a lot more frontend friendly than ePSXe. I love ePSXe, but if you use it you any length of time, you will run into a plugin issue. This is clearly not ideal for a frontend setup, as the goal tends to be to hide the fact that you’re running an emulator. pSX has no plugins to worry about, and it’s easier to run from the command line.

In place of ZSNES, I’d recommend Snes9X (in point of fact I’d recommend bsnes, but it’s not nearly as noob friendly). ZSNES is historically significant, but at this point it’s been surpassed by most of it’s contemporaries. Snes9X shouldn’t give you headaches trying to deal with giving focus to the emulator.

So do with these recommendations as you well. If you’d like to pursue ePSXe and/or ZSNES, we can certainly do that. I’m just making recommendations based on the emulators that I myself used when I was a noob. Both of the emulators above can be downloaded through the Setup Wizard.

Let us know what you decide.

[aikido2u]

I may be a Noob when it comes to GameEX I am very familiar with getting the emulators themselves working correctly. I can try your reccomendations and see what comes of it however have you been able to review my logs and config files I posted? Does anything stick out which I should change? Just let me know if you see anything out of the ordinary for be to try before going the route of different emulators.

[nullPointer]

In regards to ePSXe, do you have DaemonTools Lite installed? The [-VIRTUALDRIVE-] flag in your command is not going to work unless you do. And even then there’s a good chance it’s not going to work. ePSXe requires that the virtual drive be a virtual SCSI drive to work properly (or at all). You may be able to get a disc mounted to a virtual DT drive, but ePSXe is not going to be able to read it. Unfortunately the [-VIRTUALDRIVE-] flag will default to a DT drive if more than one virtual drive is found. Some users have reported success if they install DT LIte with only a single virtual SCSI drive. That might be worth a go.

So short of using the [-VIRTUALDRIVE-] flag for ePSXe you’re left with the option of using a Launch Before command to mount your disc image and a Launch After command to unmount it.

Going that route you’d end up with something like this:

Launch Before:

start "" "C:\Program Files (x86)\DAEMON Tools Lite\DTLite.exe" -mount scsi, 0, "[ROMPATH]\[ROMFILE]"

Launch After

start "" "C:\Program Files (x86)\DAEMON Tools Lite\DTLite.exe" -unmount scsi, 0

To be honest it’s a bit of a PITA. I currently use both pSX and ePSXe (with a little Xebra thrown in for asian flair), but ePSXe is hands down the trickiest PlayStation emulator to set up for the purposes of a frontend.

So that’s what I’m seeing for ePSXe. I’ll take a look at ZSNES. It’s been quite a while since I rode around on that dinosaur.

[nullPointer]

One quick observation. On the surface there doesn’t appear to be any glaring issues with your ZSNES config, but your log is showing this:

23:55:11.2  8/2/2012:  Running: cmd.exe /c C: snesgt.exe -f "C:\Roms\Nintendo SNES\Roms\A.S.P. Air Strike Patrol.zip"

I thought I better confirm for certain, are you running into problems with ZSNES or SnesGT?

Edit: Just an FYI since it's not readily apparent to new users. The GameEx log only contains information regarding the last time you ran GameEx (it's overwritten every time you run GameEx). So in order to see the ZSNES issue in the log, you'll want to generate the problem in GameX, exit GameEx, and re-post the contents of the log.

Edited August 3, 2012 by nullPointer
Additional logging info

[aikido2u]

Im having issues with ZSNES. So if use PSX instead of EpsxE I will not need to run a mount and unmount command? I did download it and configured the bios and such. I am going to try it out when I can physically be in front of my main PC as I am remote at the moment. I however have confirmed that PSX does work.. so like I siad ill try GamesEx when I can... thanks for the suggestion on that part... let me know if more configuration is required..

[nullPointer]

The advantage pSX offers is that it’s so much more easily compatible with frontend use. You won’t need to explicitly mount images in pSX since it handles it internally (actually ePSXe can also do this by way of the -loadbin flag; I probably should have mentioned that earlier). So you can just pass in the full ROM path and pSX will load it up through the emulator like so:

psxfin.exe -f “[ROMPATH]\[ROMFILE]”

The trade off with pSX is that you lose out on the graphical enhancements offered by ePSXe. That’s worth some consideration if that’s important to you. Essentially it boils down to this: pSX is the clear choice if you’re looking for a “set it and forget it” approach in terms of GameEx configuration. ePSXe is also an excellent emulator, but will likely require some additional tweaking and testing to get everything just right in GameEx.

[aikido2u]

where would I insert the command you mentioned "psxfin.exe -f “[ROMPATH]\[ROMFILE]”"?

[nullPointer]

That would be your entry for the Command Line field as seen on the Emulator Setup screen of the Setup Wizard. You shouldn’t have to worry about it a great deal though. If you select the proper emulator from the Emulator Selection screen and add it to an available emulator slot, the command line should be pre-populated for you when you navigate to the Emulator Setup screen (which is the next screen if you're going in order)

[aikido2u]

ok cool I will test all of this when I am physically in front of the computer. Like I said the emulators do work I downloaded the new ones you suggested. I will get back to you on this! Oh and I will have tons more questions LOL I hope you dont get sick of me LOL Thanks so much!

[nullPointer]

Answering questions is why we’re here! Otherwise we just sit around staring at a browser screen pressing F5 every so often. It’s always cool seeing new users getting excited about GameEx! With any luck, you’ll be the one helping out new users before you know it.

[aikido2u]

You guys are great the snes emulator works great. The PSX one works correctly but one follow up question. I am playing everything on my 55 inch led tv and I dont see any option to make it full screen for that emulator specifically. Do you know if this can be done? Its not a huge deal but I am just curious...

Thanks,

Aikido2u

[nullPointer]

You guys are great the snes emulator works great. The PSX one works correctly but one follow up question. I am playing everything on my 55 inch led tv and I dont see any option to make it full screen for that emulator specifically. Do you know if this can be done? Its not a huge deal but I am just curious...

The answer here will depend on what you mean by full screen.

If you mean ‘not in a window,’ adding the -f flag to your pSX command should start the emulator in full screen. You can also toggle full screen mode in pSX by pressing Alt+Enter (this actually works on several emulators).

The other possibility is that you’re talking about aspect ratio. If you use the correct aspect ratio for PlayStation you will see ‘black bars’ to the left and right of your gaming screen. If you stretch the aspect ratio to match your TV the graphics will be somewhat distorted since they’re being, well … stretched. Ultimately the setting you prefer will come down to personal preference. All things related to aspect ratio in pSX can be located under File > Configuration > Graphics [TAB]. Primarily, you’ll want to have a look at the resolution settings (under NTSC and PAL), and the Aspect Ratio setting (which will allow you to either preserve or stretch the aspect ratio).

[Draco1962]

You will need to check your command line - should be psxfin.exe -f “[ROMPATH]\[ROMFILE]”

[aikido2u]

thanks and yeah I meant aspect ration I should have been specific.

Thanks