ePSXe not working

[Mreitz775]

I know you guys must be really sick of me and I apologize for posting every day with a new question. I promise I really do try to figure this stuff out on my own before posting.

I seem to (crosses fingers and knocks on wood) finally have things stabilized and running smoothly. I am in the process of installing all of my emulators which has led me to my newest problem...

ePSXe is working perfectly outside of GameEx. My roms are in bin/cue format and within ePSXe I am able to launch them with no problem. Inside GameEx, however, when I go into my playstation menu and select a game to play the screen goes blank like it's about to launch the game but then within a couple seconds gameEx comes back up as though nothing was going on.

My log (as posted below) states "Unable to mount ISO. Did you install ISO Support when installing GameEx?". To which my reply would be yes, I did check the little box next to "install karaoke and iso mounting support" during gameEx installation.

I've tried a couple different command variations from my searching for answers but have had no results. Perhaps worth mentioning, gameEx told me that it couldn't find daemon tools lite when I installed it but i have daemon tools lite installed (just not in the default place, I installed it to F:/Applications)

Thanks again for your help, I promise to wait at least 24 hours after this before posting any more problems...

log.txt

[nullPointer]

No problem about the questions Mreitz775, that's what we're here for. The following line in your log lists two separate ePSXe commands, and I'm not sure which one is actually being executed (or if it's trying to run both commands in one shot)

23:58:41.9 1/23/2013: Cache Diff: epsxe.exe -nogui -loadbin "[rompath]\[romfile]" - epsxe.exe -nogui[-virtualdrive-]

The first command will load a disc image directly in ePSXe. The second command will mount the disc image using DaemonTools Lite. Note that this second method assumes that you've configured ePSXe to read from your DaemonTools virtual drive. Do you have DaemonTools installed? Also please note that these two commands are mutually exclusive.

To get to the bottom of this I would ask that you post a copy of the emulator config you're running for ePSXe (note that this is different than your full GameEx.ini). If you want to go for the full Monty you could also post your runitgame.bat after attempting to run ePSXe through GameEx. Here are the instructions (if you need a refresher).

Thanks man!

[Mreitz775]

Thanks for responding so quickly.

Yes I have Daemon Tools Lite installed, it IS NOT installed to the default directory though (I put it in a "applications" folder on my secondary hard drive).

My runitgame.bat is completely empty. I even went back into gameex and attempted to launch a psx game to no avail, then immediately exited and the runitgame.bat was still completely empty.

My ePSXe config is attached below.

Thanks again.

Console Sony Playstation (ePSXe).ini

[nullPointer]

Oh yeeeah ... I almost forgot. There are some issues with running ePSXe in GameEx using the [-virtualdrive-] parameter. Essentially it boils down to this: ePSXe needs to be run through a virtual SCSI drive using DaemonTools. By default DaemonTools drives are virtual DT drives. If you have a virtual DT drive installed it seems that GameEx will favor that drive over the virtual SCSI (meaning that ePSXe won't run). I myself have had success with this when I simply removed the the virtual DT drives (i.e. I only have virtual SCSI drives). Other users have had decidedly mixed results using this approach. Here's some reading material:

SCSI vs DT Virtual Drive
[RESOLVED] Launch After Command Running Before Emulator Fully Loads

Feature & Enhancement Requests

If you're fairly comfortable working with batch scripts, it's a fairly arbitrary operation to handle manual mounting of disc images using Launch Before and Launch After parameters. If that sounds like a pain in the butt, you can always just go with the -loadbin option and forgo DaemonTools altogether.

[Mreitz775]

The -loadbin option is something I attempted unsuccessfully. It seemed as though GameEx didn't accept it for some reason or it reverted back to a default command line.

Maybe you can help me get that to work?

And I only have a DT virtual drive, there's no SCSI installed.

Also, I am not married to ePSXe if there is a better or more stable psx emulator.

Thanks

[Mreitz775]

Here's an update:

I decided to uninstall Daemon Tools Lite and reinstall it to its default location on the C drive. Interesting results.

Now when I launch a psx game, the screen goes black and an image of a psx controller appears in the upper right hand corner of the screen, and it just remains like that indefinitely until I hit escape and return to gameEx.

My log file now shows that it manages to mount the image so I think we're making progress but now I have no idea where the problem is.

06:08:47.9 1/24/2013: Validating: Emulator_6: Manual Path: F:\Assets\Sony Playstation\Manuals
06:08:47.9 1/24/2013: Warning: Emulator_6: MAPFile Does Not Exist
06:08:48.0 1/24/2013: Restoring Emulator from Cache: 1
06:08:48.1 1/24/2013: Restoring Emulator Database From Cache: 1
06:08:48.2 1/24/2013: Restoring Emulator from Cache: 2
06:08:48.2 1/24/2013: Restoring Emulator Database From Cache: 2
06:08:48.3 1/24/2013: Restoring Emulator from Cache: 3
06:08:48.3 1/24/2013: Restoring Emulator Database From Cache: 3
06:08:48.4 1/24/2013: Restoring Emulator from Cache: 4
06:08:48.4 1/24/2013: Restoring Emulator Database From Cache: 4
06:08:48.4 1/24/2013: Restoring Emulator from Cache: 5
06:08:48.4 1/24/2013: Restoring Emulator from Cache: 6
06:08:48.5 1/24/2013: No Database Data: 6
06:09:17.4 1/24/2013: Creating instance of global keyboard hook
06:09:17.5 1/24/2013: Mounting: F:\Roms\Sony Playstation\Roms\Final Fantasy Tactics (USA).bin
06:09:17.5 1/24/2013: Mounting: F:\Roms\Sony Playstation\Roms\Final Fantasy Tactics (USA).bin
06:09:23.3 1/24/2013: Running: cmd.exe /c C: ePSXe.exe -nogui
06:09:23.5 1/24/2013: Shutting down display
06:10:20.5 1/24/2013: Exiting Game
06:10:20.5 1/24/2013: Closing Process
06:10:24.0 1/24/2013: Unmounting Image
06:10:24.5 1/24/2013: Writing Stats
06:10:24.5 1/24/2013: Plugin: Game Exit
06:10:24.5 1/24/2013: Plugin: Process Commands
06:10:24.5 1/24/2013: Refreshing Keyboard
06:10:24.6 1/24/2013: Initialising Audio
06:10:24.7 1/24/2013: Relaunching HideOS
06:10:24.9 1/24/2013: Restoring Window
06:10:24.9 1/24/2013: Reinitializing Graphics System
06:10:26.0 1/24/2013: Reloading Game Info Page
06:10:26.1 1/24/2013: Returning to GameEx

[nullPointer]

Progress! Based on your latest developments, did you also go into ePSXe and configure it to point at your virtual drive? You’ll notice that in your latest command line that there’s no ROM specified:

06:09:23.3 1/24/2013: Running: cmd.exe /c C: ePSXe.exe -nogui

That’s because this command simply assumes that ePSXe has been configured to read from whatever is mounted to your virtual drive.

In terms of PlayStation emulators ePSXe is one of the better ones, but it’s certainly not the easiest one to use. It seems that all PlayStation emulators have little eccentricities when it come to running them (IMO). If you reach a point where you’re ready to throw in the towel on ePSXe I can recommend pSX (sometimes know as pSXfin). It’s probably the most user-friendly PlayStation emulator out there.

[thechadisgr8]

you shouldn't need daemon tools for psx games unless you have games with multiple bins, and i have a workaround for that too

http://www.gameex.info/forums/topic/12269-playstation-cue-with-multiple-bins-tracks-fixed/

[nullPointer]

you shouldn't need daemon tools for psx games unless you have games with multiple bins, and i have a workaround for that too

http://www.gameex.info/forums/topic/12269-playstation-cue-with-multiple-bins-tracks-fixed/

I think he's been having some issues with the -loadbin flag. To wit:

The -loadbin option is something I attempted unsuccessfully. It seemed as though GameEx didn't accept it for some reason or it reverted back to a default command line.

Maybe you can help me get that to work?

Having said that -loadbin is a perfectly valid option, and chadisgr8's solution for multi-bin games seems like a winner under that circumstance. The appropriate command under those circumstances should be something to the effect of:

epsxe.exe -nogui -loadbin "[rompath]\[romfile]"

If GameEx seems to be overwriting your command line settings, there may be an issue with your cached data. Under that circumstance you may want to delete all files with cache in the file name from your \gameex\DATA\ path. All those files will be rebuilt when you start GameEx. That may (or may not) address the issue of the 'phantom' command line settings.

Once again you might consider giving pSX a try. It's sooo much easier to use. You may decide to never go back!

[jperkins79]

epsxe.exe -nogui -loadbin "[ROMPATH]\[ROMFILE]"

That is the command I run, and it works for me. Here is the line from my log file:

23:23:56.2 1/25/2013: Running: cmd.exe /c G: epsxe.exe -nogui -loadbin "G:\ROMs\Sony Playstation\Castlevania - Symphony of the Night (USA).iso"

Can you post your log file when trying to use the -loadbin option, instead of mounting the ROM via a virtual drive?