GameEx won't launch WORKING ROMS (but I can launch them from MamePlus! no problem)

[Damon]

Hi guys,

I'm away from my gaming rig right now but will upload my log / ini files later, just thought I would pre-ask to see what the crew thinks. Maybe there's an obvious problem I'm missing.

First off, really new to Mame + GameEx, so apologies for noobishness.

I have an X-Arcade dual stick controller, and I've set up Mame Plus! (recommended by X-Arcade) as my mame engine of choice. After some tinkering, I have most of my roms working with MamePlus, and the X-Arcade stick is working flawlessly. SO, just mentioning that to say that I know my mame install and the controller are not the problem.

So I installed GameEx and it has a much easier configuration interface than most of the front ends I've used. Everything seemed to go groovy until I got to the Select / Import Emulators part.

So, I'm assuming I don't need to select any because I already have Mame installed...... And when I start up GameEx and do a scan for games.... well.... it sees the mame install (i am pointing it to the MamePlus directory and the executable) but the list of games doesn't update. I read in the forums that Mame Plus! was formerly not supported well, but now GameEx says (on its site) that it is.... so I'm assuming I am doing something wrong.

First question: Am I doing something obviously wrong by not selecting a Mame during the select/import emulators part, since I already have MamePlus? Or is this problem due to some other issue?

Second question: Is there a way to make a menu of just games (regardless of emulator)? I think its weird to have to navigate to an emulator and THEN a list of games from that emulator. Makes no UI sense. I just want a list of my games, period, i don't care what emulation engine they are running.

I'll attach the files a bit later on, but hoping folks know a little about this even without the files!

-D

[Adultery]

Sorry but not much can be done here without at least a log file.

Let's get that going before we try and tackle the custom menus.

[Damon]

No prob. I'll get to it quite soon!

[nullPointer]

Hi Damon and welcome to the GameEx forums!

Sounds like you've got a pretty sweet rig there. Yeah, MAME Plus! should work just fine with GameEx, so I'm thinking there may need to be some additional configuration in GameEx that needs to take place. Hard to know without seeing your GameEx.ini. I'm a bit confused given the title of the thread whether the problem is that you see your games but cannot launch them (as the title seems to indicate), or whether the issue is that you cannot see your games within GameEx (as your post seems to indicate). Seeing your GameEx.ini and log will help to determine which scenario we're attempting to troubleshoot. Feel free to report back in the meantime to clarify.

Second question: Is there a way to make a menu of just games (regardless of emulator)? I think its weird to have to navigate to an emulator and THEN a list of games from that emulator. Makes no UI sense. I just want a list of my games, period, i don't care what emulation engine they are running.

Yes there are a number of ways to accomplish this depending on what your goal is. If you really want a list of All Games, GameEx does provide a list of All Games (which I believe appears under Emulated Games in the menu structure, but I'm away from my machine ATM). If you have several emulators all emulating the same system (let's say ePSXe, pSXFin, and Xebra) and you want all of those games to appear in the same list, you can group all those games under the same list using the Emulator Groups function. If you're displeased with the menu structure altogether, you can always concoct your own using the Custom Menus tool (potentially using any combination of any of the above). Choices!

[Damon]

Hi nullPointer!

Thanks for the feedback, yeah let me clarify. So yes, the menu sometimes doesn't update but I do have one or two games showing up. THOSE games, I can not start through GameEx, though I can start them native from Mame.

On the menu: I'm looking to only show games that I have personally installed as roms, but i want a unified game list as opposed to a list sorted by each emulator. So instead of Nintendo>Mario Bros and Mame>Contra, I just want: Contra, Mario Bros etc.

I will upload the config stuff!! Promise!!!

[Tempest]

I wouldn't want to do what you are saying. Even if I only had Mame and Atari Jaguar setup, I would have 2 Tempest's in my list. One being the best video game ever seen in an arcade, and the other a really bad port to a home system. Looking at the list I wouldn't know the difference.

Just my $.02.

[DazzleHP]

I wouldn't want to do what you are saying. Even if I only had Mame and Atari Jaguar setup, I would have 2 Tempest's in my list. One being the best video game ever seen in an arcade, and the other a really bad port to a home system. Looking at the list I wouldn't know the difference.

I'm with Tempest on this, the more systems you add the more duplicate entries you will have without knowing which entry belongs to which system. Just like Tempest's example if you had MAME and NES as one list you'll have this:

Super Mario Bros.

Super Mario Bros.

Which is MAME and which is NES? The only way to tell is to launch one If you are sure this won't be an issue for you (not everyone hoards thousands of roms like some of us ) then there is another option besides nullPointer's great suggestions:

Go to Display Settings in the Setup Wizard, scroll down to Interface Mode and change this to "Gamelauncher"

This will give you one game list but bare in mind that a lot of features are disabled in this mode. I can't tell you exactly which ones as i don't use it but it's a lot! Infact i think most Basically all you can do is launch a game as far as i know.

[Tempest]

I'm with Tempest on this

I'm glad you agree that Tempest is one of the best video games ever seen in an arcade.

[DazzleHP]

I'm glad you agree that Tempest is one of the best video games ever seen in an arcade.

lol I'll let you have your fun as you're not let loose often . Who was it who let you out again anyway? null? You had the key last right?!

[Tempest]

Damon - Another feature of GameEx that you may not be aware of is 'Enable other systems'. If you enable both 'Show Game Information' and 'Enable other systems', you will be shown a list of systems you have setup in GameEx that also have the game that you are playing. In my example above, If I was looking at Tempest with the Jaguar, it would show me that I could play Tempest in Mame as well.

[Damon]

OK guys, I did a fresh install and started from scratch. I'm going to replicate the issue, but before I get going, let me start with a fundamental question:

In the setup wizard, where you specify the MAME path and executable:

• When I update the mame path to point to my MapePlus directory isntead of the default Mame32, the other paths (for art, etc) all stay the same. Right now I am not interested in displaying the art, so is it ok to have thos pointing to an invalid path, or do I need to have them pointing to an existing directory?
• When I get to emulator selection, I'm confused. First, it's asking me if I want do download emulators. I am saying NO, and not downloading them since I already have MamePlus installed and working. THEN I get to the Emulator Selection page. Here it says Copy the Emulators you want from the right list to the left. So since I only want the MamePlus that I already have installed.... I don't select anything here, right? I tried selecting Arcade Mame once, and it started downloading files, so I am assuming that would be a whole different Mame install. This time I am selecting nothing. Is that right?
• Then I get to Emulator Setup. Ok so now I am confused. If I already have MamePlus specified in my initial selection, so I need to specify an Emulator here? The interface is asking me to choose from an emulator that I would have selected ont he Emulator Selection page, but I didn't select one so..... now what?
• If I skip this step and fill everything else in, then startup GameEx, my games are nowhere to be found.

Am I doing something wrong here so far?

[Draco1962]

When I get to emulator selection, I'm confused. First, it's asking me if I want do download emulators. I am saying NO, and not downloading them since I already have MamePlus installed and working. THEN I get to the Emulator Selection page. Here it says Copy the Emulators you want from the right list to the left. So since I only want the MamePlus that Ialready have installed.... I don't select anything here, right? I tried selecting Arcade Mame once, and it started downloading files, so I am assuming that would be a whole different Mame install. This time I am selecting nothing. Is that right?

Correct since you are already using the "embedded" MAME emulator selection within GameEx as opposed to setting it up as another emulator. Clear as mud?

[Adultery]

First of all... you need to set up mame in the mame settings section, not as an emulator. Mame has an entirely different section for it.

You gain tons of advantages by doing it that way, but you could set it up as an emulator if you wanted. It's just a lot more work.

[Damon]

OK, got it.

I did not SELECT EMULATOR and instead configured mame. Now when I startup Gameex, i somehow found the Update List option accidetnally (where is that located by the way, in case I need to find it again). And my games loaded, YAY!

OK, so now to the original problem:

All my games are showing in the list. I am using MamePlus (latest) as the embedded MAME system. I have tested each game (only have 30 ) natively in MamePlus using the mamep.exe program (which is also what Gameex is pointing to) and they all work. EXCEPT ONE. =) A very important one, namely Street Fighter Alpha 3 (euro version).

SO, this game works perfectly when I start it up natively in MAME. Under GameEx I get the loading % screen and then, just before the load finishes, the screen goes black, a few seconds laps, and I'm back at the Game Info page. No matter how many times I tryr to launch the game, the same thing happens.

All other games work fine under GameEx, and launch as expected.

Any idea why this one game might now be working for me? And how can I fix it. SO CRUCIAL to my game cabinet since the whole thing is street fighter themed

Thank you for the help!

[nullPointer]

• When I update the mame path to point to my MapePlus directory isntead of the default Mame32, the other paths (for art, etc) all stay the same. Right now I am not interested in displaying the art, so is it ok to have thos pointing to an invalid path, or do I need to have them pointing to an existing directory?

That is correct. If you're not interested in displaying artwork within GameEx, you do not need to adjust the artwork directories. It's OK if they point at invalid directories. If you felt like being thorough about it you could nullify those paths, but it's up to you.

• When I get to emulator selection, I'm confused. First, it's asking me if I want do download emulators. I am saying NO, and not downloading them since I already have MamePlus installed and working. THEN I get to the Emulator Selection page. Here it says Copy the Emulators you want from the right list to the left. So since I only want the MamePlus that I already have installed.... I don't select anything here, right? I tried selecting Arcade Mame once, and it started downloading files, so I am assuming that would be a whole different Mame install. This time I am selecting nothing. Is that right?

Correct. If you're only interested in MAME you only need to configure the MAME section.

• Then I get to Emulator Setup. Ok so now I am confused. If I already have MamePlus specified in my initial selection, so I need to specify an Emulator here? The interface is asking me to choose from an emulator that I would have selected ont he Emulator Selection page, but I didn't select one so..... now what?

This is just part of the GameEx screen flow. Basically it asked you if you wanted to download any emulators, and you said no. It would be poor design if GameEx required you to download emulators, in order for you to configure anything, so it still navigates you to the Emulator Setup screen so that you may configure any emulators you already had prior to running the Setup Wizard, or which don't appear in the Emulator Selection list. YOu can ignore that part. So far so good.

• If I skip this step and fill everything else in, then startup GameEx, my games are nowhere to be found.

OK, so let's get back to your first question. You configured your MAME directory, but it doesn't sound like you configured your ROM directory on the MAME Setup screen. You'll need to do that before GameEx knows where to find your MAME ROMs. I imagine that should get you some results.

Good luck man! If you continue to have any issues, upload your GameEx.ini and I bet we can get you the right track.

[Damon]

Here's is my GameEx.ini

So where do I find that rescan/reload list option again? =)

At least I accidentally found it once!

Still no luck on getting Street Fighter to launch!

GameEx.ini

[Adultery]

It's at the bottom of the mame select category list.

All the other games work though so run the game once and post your runitgame.bat for us please.

[Damon]

Is it a problem if it is at the bottom of the list?

When you say run the game, do you mean run it through Gameex or just through mame?

[nullPointer]

Hi Damon. Please attempt to run the game through GameEx, as that will generate the runitgame.bat. Thanks!

[Damon]

Here you go! Thanks again!

runitgame.zip

[Damon]

I'm not sure if this matters, but I just tested all my games under Maximus Arcade as well, and same thing: all work except for Street Fighter Alpha 3, which also loads up to around 80% then goes black screen, then drops back into the front end. Just like Gameex.

[Adultery]

But you say it works outside of GameEx just fine using the same version?

It's starting to look more like a problem with the rom itself. Did you update your mame build and not update your rom set?

[Damon]

I'm so amateur at this that I'm not sure what you mean. [REDACTED] mameplus install I used is just the latest 0..148 This is the first and only version of Mame that I've used to run this particular rom.

Both the Mamep.exe and Mamepgui.exe that come with that Mameplus distro can execute the rom with no problems (actually very responsive). But apparently there's some issue when coordinating with the GameEx and Maximus front ends? Literally see the loading screen, then black screen, then dumps me back to the GameEx front end.

If I could find a version of SF3 alpha that worked with gameex I'd just do that instead, but this is the only copy I've found that works at all. No ideas on the issue here? There must be something wonky that happens during the handoff from the front end to the actual mame executable? Maybe something about screen control?

Thanks again!

Edited March 25, 2013 by Draco1962
Please refrain from discussion on how or where ROMs are obtained. Please refer to the Forum Rules and Guidelines or contact one of the Mods or Admins with any questions regarding.

[nullPointer]

I think Adultery's on to something. It would be good to run your ROMs through a ROM auditing tool (like RomCenter or ClrMamePro), to make sure all the components are in place per your version of MAME. It may also be helpful to try the troubleshooting steps described here:

4. "Run Last Game",or "RunitGame.bat"
It is important that the last emulator run in GameEx is the one that you are having problems with!

B. Troubleshooting with "Run Last Game"
Follow the instuctions above to open "runitgame.bat" It will look something like this, however, the contents will vary depending on the last emulator that was run in GameEx.

@ECHO OFF
C:
CD "C:\Program Files\Mame0127"
mame.exe 005 -rompath "D:\Mame 0.128 roms"

One way to troubleshoot a problem is to add the word "Pause" at the end of the Runitgame.bat file. When Windows asks "Do you want to save the changes..." Click on "Save". Next, double click on the "Run Last Game" Icon in the Start Menu. This will send the commands again, but the command window will remain open. It may show an error that will help you to understand what is wrong.
If you get this error:
'Emulator name.exe' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
It means that either you have the incorrect name specified for your Emulator.exe, or your working path is incorrect.
If it gives an error that you don't understand, please let us know that you tried this method, and let us know what the error is.

[Damon]

Apologies for not understanding but: So if the ROM works in mame, but not in GameEx, why would that mean the Rom is broken? Or is it just something slightly off?

I know we are not supposed to talk about where we get roms, but I could appecaite some hints as to how to locate a specific rom (generic) that would work with a specific version of mame.... I'm not sure where to start on that.

Also, still can't find that Reload Game List command again in GameEx... hm, any hints? I feel like it must be under my nose.