[RESOLVED] HideOS behavior has changed

[Gildahl]

For the entire time I've been using GameEx (a few years), I been using Windows sleep to "turn off" my cab with no ill effects. I'm currently on Windows 8.1. Anyway, after one of the last few GameEx updates I noticed that after a sleep and resume cycle that screen blanking now stops working. Everything else is fine, but I see my desktop whenever I start or stop a game. If I close GameEx and restart it, screen blanking starts working again. I've tried doing a few full restarts of the computer several times but this new behavior persists.

Anyone else seeing this??

[edit 1] An observation. If I alt-tab within the game, I can still see HideOS running in the background even though screen blanking is not working.

[edit 2] Another way to "fix" it (temporarily) is to alt-tab while the GameEx frontend is displayed and to select it (HideOS is not running at this time). A sleep/resume then breaks it again.

[edit 3] edit 2 above reminded me of a similar and long standing issue I've had with Taito Type X games breaking screen blanking as well (i.e. that screen blanking always stops working for all games after playing a Type X game). So on a hunch I tried playing a bit of Raiden IV (which broke screen blanking as expected), but then managed to "fix" it by performing the same alt-tab trick. So this gives me hope that if this issue can be fixed for sleep, maybe it will fix the Type X game issue too.

[nullPointer]

I think the standard advice applies here; please post a copy of your GameEx.ini and your log.txt after having experienced the error. These files may provide some clue as to what's happening here. Thanks man!

[Tom Speirs]

Yes, really need the ini and log.

[Gildahl]

I am still having the HideOS issue in 14.31. Attached are my GameEx.ini and log.txt file. I created the log file after loading GameEx, running a short session of DK. Interestingly I don't see the entry for having run the game in the log. In the past I know I've seen it there.

I also have another relatively new issue. I run nomousy.exe using the "Launch on Startup no wait" option (and run it again on exit to make the mouse reappear). I've noticed lately that nomousy this doesn't work reliably any more. So it looks like something is going on here too.

Finally, I should note that all of my upgrades from one version of GameEx to the next are done using the in-situ updater, not the stand-alone installer.

GameEx.ini

log.txt

[Gildahl]

Just an additional piece of information. I noticed that when comparing my log.txt with one from a few revs back, the new one never contains the shutdown items listed at the end (which you can see are missing in the log I attached). On a hunch I did a ctrl-alt-del to look at the running background processes and noticed that after turning off GameEx (using Esc), its process is still running. I can shutdown the process or reboot to get rid of it, but it doesn't fix the issue. This seems to happen all the time now, and probably explains why Launch on Exit isn't working.

[Adultery]

It has nothing to do with instability. That was part of the latest release. If launch on exit isn't working that's something related to the feature where GX runs in the background for GameEx Online.

This is a setting and is configurable as noted in the release notes. It should probably still execute that command though even if it's only sleeping.

@Tom: Also it looks like Emu 1000 is causing a crash looking for an invalid mdb (missing the file name). Which emulator is 1000? Daphne? Likely unrelated but it's there none the less.

[Gildahl]

Splendid support as usual (and fast). By turning off "run in background" from GameEx online, my "launch on exit" program now seems to get executed and I see the shutdown items in the log. Thanks for the pointer.

The HideOS issues still remains though :-(

I have no emulator 1000 (list only goes to 255).

[Draco1962]

The emulator numbers after 255 refer to the integrated emulation areas (MAME, DAPHNE, etc.). Others include:

801 - GameEx Arcade (web games)

1002 - Steam (Valve)

1003 - Origin (EA)

1004 - Uplay (UbiSoft)

[Adultery]

Just to fill out the list: I'm pretty sure that

MAME=0

Daphne=1000

GameBase=500-550.

I can't remember offhand what 1001 is...

[Draco1962]

Not to further hijack the thread, but these would be good to document somewhere on the wiki.

[Tom Speirs]

Hi,

Obviously the hideos thing is a big issue for you but I don't remember changing anything with the behaviour for a long time. Which version did you upgrade from?

[Gildahl]

I pretty much do an update whenever a new one comes out. Unfortunately, I don't know exactly which update introduced the problem, but it's relatively recent. I actually wouldn't put it past some Microsoft update as being the culprit either. I'm curious whether you or anyone else has been able to duplicate this or whether the problem is specific to my system. The reason its an issue for me is because the normal way people use the cab is to just turn it on from a sleep state, pick a game, and play. They now always see the desktop. Not a huge deal, but since it looked like a possible regression, I wanted to report it.

[Gildahl]

I was just notified of a new update being available (14.34), and it looks like it fixes the HideOS problem I was having after putting the computer to sleep. When putting the computer to sleep and restarting, the screen blanking is now working again. Not sure what you did, but whatever it was it worked.

Taito Type X games still break the screen blanking function until GameEx is restarted, but that's always been that way.

So I guess this can be marked resolved. Thanks!

[Adultery]

Your Taito Type X issue is probably more of a side effect of how the games hook your display driver than a GameEx issue tbh.