My first post. Some small queries...

[shbon]

Hi guys

First of all, thanks to Tom for all his hard work. I've donated already and probably will again in the future. The GameEx front-end is a very professional piece of work (from one programmer to another) and will round off my MAME cocktail cab project nicely.

A few small queries:

1. When GameEx is launched, it attempts to read my floppy (A:) drive twice! I've checked through the GameEx ini and can't find any references to 'A:'. GameEx also attempts to read the A: drive once when exitting aswell? Why is this? Can I configure it not to?

2. I have 'show no bracketed text' set to Yes, but the GameEx list still shows bracketed version info for the MAME games. Am I missing something?

3. The small wait period after you exit a game to return to GameEx on my old 500mhz laptop is about 9 secs. I believe my new sparkly MAME PC (when I eventually build it) it will reduce it to about 4 secs. Is there scope for reducing this further, in DirectX, in the future or is it a software limitation?

4. My old PC will run all the MAME games I frequently use, but I'm speccing my new MAME PC higher than I'd planned to make full use of this excellent front-end. Will a graphics card supporting DirectX 9 help in presentational speed? Also, will it mitigate point 3 at all?

5. One killer additional feature for me would be the ability to rotate the GameEx interface using a hot-key. Something a bit like AdvanceMenu which rotates 90 degrees each time you press pad 0. Very useful for multi-sided cocktail cabs!! Any chance?

Thanks

Shaun

[Tom Speirs]

Hi guys

First of all, thanks to Tom for all his hard work. I've donated already and probably will again in the future. The GameEx front-end is a very professional piece of work (from one programmer to another) and will round off my MAME cocktail cab project nicely.

A few small queries:

1. When GameEx is launched, it attempts to read my floppy (A:) drive twice! I've checked through the GameEx ini and can't find any references to 'A:'. GameEx also attempts to read the A: drive once when exitting aswell? Why is this? Can I configure it not to?

2. I have 'show no bracketed text' set to Yes, but the GameEx list still shows bracketed version info for the MAME games. Am I missing something?

3. The small wait period after you exit a game to return to GameEx on my old 500mhz laptop is about 9 secs. I believe my new sparkly MAME PC (when I eventually build it) it will reduce it to about 4 secs. Is there scope for reducing this further, in DirectX, in the future or is it a software limitation?

4. My old PC will run all the MAME games I frequently use, but I'm speccing my new MAME PC higher than I'd planned to make full use of this excellent front-end. Will a graphics card supporting DirectX 9 help in presentational speed? Also, will it mitigate point 3 at all?

5. One killer additional feature for me would be the ability to rotate the GameEx interface using a hot-key. Something a bit like AdvanceMenu which rotates 90 degrees each time you press pad 0. Very useful for multi-sided cocktail cabs!! Any chance?

Thanks

Shaun

1. I don't have any idea why it's doing that, but Ill look into it.

2. You need to update the list again.

3. Yes this is scope for improving it, in fact it's already a lot better than it used to by.

4. No, it wont help, a Geforce 5200 or Radeon 7800 on say an Athlon 2000+ should always run full speed. .

5. Yes I saw your feature request, I like it!

Yes! you should see a huge improvement in speed, if your running a 500Mhz at the moment.

500Mhz is even below the minimum gameex reqs.

[shbon]

Thanks Tom.

If you are considering the hot-key rotation option for supporting cocktail cabs:

Might be even more useful to map a key to each rotation, (N)one, +, -, (U)psidedown, for instance. You could then map a button at each console position, hit that button and have the GameEx interface pointing straight at you!

Also, specifically useful to me would be the following 'relaxation' in current GameEx behaviour:

MAME has settings: norotate, ror, rol, autoror, autorol for controlling rotation both at global and game level ini files. I would like to have autoror=1, as this turns vertical games the required 90 degrees automatically. I would also like to explicitly set certain game ini files to autorol=1. This is useful if you have a cocktail cab with modular control panels. Then you can direct Arkanoid, for instance, to the player 2 position where a dedicated paddle panel might be currently installed.

At the moment, GameEx is *explicitly* setting a rotation, potentially in addition to one set at the MAME ini level. In this situation, autoror=1,autorol=1 games get rotated 180 degrees or nothing! It would be nice to have an option: Game Rotation='let MAME decide' (i.e. GameEx does nothing).

In addition, by allowing 'show all games' in vertical mode, you would gain an significant ergonomics advantage in being able, from any console position, to select your *next* game from the menu in front of you and *then* move to the required playing position. At the moment, to play the next game, if it's a horizontal orientation, you have to re-orient GameEx, move to required position and then select from the list. This is subtle, but ergonomically, makes a big difference. (Also, consider a new guest at your cocktail cabinet who's just finished playing Galaxian and then remembers a game she used to play called 'Ghouls'n Ghosts.' She wouldn't find it on the list...)

Just my 2 pence worth (I'm in the UK, BTW!)

Shaun