Force rescan of systems?

[kicker75]

It's an issue I remember having a few years back. Never found the problem, so I remember resorting to erasing all emus, and redoing the emu setup.

However, I don't really feel like doing it again this time.

What happened is I used the sort emulator in the setup wizard (the same thing I done back then)... because I didn't added the emulators in any particular order, I thought I could sort them when I would be done.

However, the problem is, when I go back to gameex, the emulator lists are all wrong. They are showing up the roms of the previous system a given emulator slot was mapped to.

For example, my emulator 10 was the system sega genesis. It's now something else. So when I go to genesis in gameex, I'm seeing the listing of another system.

I tried to delete the dbcache, map, and everything emu_ something in the cache folder, and now all my lists and empty.

Any way I can fix that without redoing all my emulators setup?

Thank you very much in advance!

edit: forgot to link a similar thread that wasn't resolved: http://www.gameex.info/forums/topic/7918-force-rescan-of-emulator-roms/?view=findpost&p=58364&hl=%2Bdeleted+%2Bdbcache

[Draco1962]

Delete the cache and map files as noted in the thread you linked (which, by the way, was resolved, just not to the user's satisfaction wanting a rescan button). You will also need to redo any advanced emulator configs. Not much else can be suggested unless you were to leave them as-is and utilize custom menus to put them and other items in the order you choose.

[kicker75]

I delete them, but they keep on coming back.

If I delete the emu_* files, and load gameex again, gameex will regenerate them just as they were.

I have even went as far as deleting all my emus in the setup wizard, making sure to clean the gameex.ini of the stuff left behind, removing all the emu_ entries over there too, and making sure to remove anything left in between the [emulator] definitions.

Then I opened gameex, and made sure to have an empty system. (Except mame)

After that, I opened my backup copy of gameex.ini and copy and pasted emulator 1 to 32 into my new empty one, replacing the blank definition of emulator 1 to 32.

Loaded gameex, and was stunned to see that it somehow still list my systems wrong, showing the very same wrong games...

It's like, when I re-ordered my systems in the wizard, it didn't took care of renaming the emu_ cache file... and that's where the problem is.

Actually, I cannot see how the other thread has been resolved, you might want to show me where, cause he starts by saying that he deleted his emu_* files, and end up saying he had to delete all emulators and start over anew... I dont see this as a solution to a problem as simple as this.

I have vague memory of finding the files that gameex hides, and pull back to do that trick... it cannot regenerate cache files out of thin air... there is some place it stores stuff and I cant remember where.

But why is it that we can't rescan systems?

[Tom Speirs]

I am not sure I follow you and understand exactly what is wrong.

Please post your support files.

Thanks.

Tom.

[kicker75]

My native language is french, so my english might not be as good as a native english.

The problem is simple.. the way GameEx deals with the emulators list is a bit "fragile" to say the least.

If you set it right, and know what you are doing, it goes well. However, if you either make a mistake, or want to change something once it's set, right or wrong, then you might be running into troubles.

My support files won't be any helpful, as I re-installed GameEx and starting from scratch.

However, I'm still having ghosts from my other installation. I have completely deleted the gameex dir and re-installed at the same location. I configured everything up to mame, all was good. Then I set up my first emulator, which is mame again (to have a full list without any filters), and I see that gamex tells me that there is 32k something roms in it, but when I click to enter, its empty. I have found this registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\GameEx\Emulators... and the number of games in each systems are cached in the registry. So again, they probably haven't followed the re-order change as the emu_* files.

Here is something else I tried. After I re-installed fresh the first time, I copied all my .db3 to the new installation, and copied my old gameex.ini to the new installation (with no remaining files from the previous.. entirely deleted)... and yet, I end up with the very same problem as my other installation. (the attach is this ini)

The re-order function in the setup wizard was what started all this.

I remember having this issues a few years ago... same thing happened... I set up my emulators, with no specific orders, and fiddling a bit to get them all to work. Then once I was done, I wanted to clean up the emulator list in the wizard, even tho it had no real benefits... and it screwed up my config.

Another problem... Any software that scans media, and builds a database... if you delete the database, it will either be re-create automatically, or you will scan your folders and it will come back anew. Why is that feature not possible within gameex?

I mean, its possible for the mame list, why not for the others?

As the thread I linked in my op points out, when you delete those emu_* files... you are pretty much screwed up.

I believe what happens is... when you re-order, and, for example, emu 5 becomes emu 10. When you will go to gameex, you will see the same list you usually see, the re-order doesn't affect it, but I guess that emu #5 in the list displays the list of emu #10... showing the wrong number of games for the systems, and the wrong games..

So, in short, when you re-order the emulators, it seems as if the emu_* files (and maybe entries in the ini?) aren't following the changes... on top of what's in the registry.

GameEx.ini

[Draco1962]

We need your log.txt file as well. Thanks!

[Tom Speirs]

It should just rebuild the lists if you delete the cache files as far as I know and 99.9% of the time GameEx will detect changes and you don't need to. That is why there is no option to do it. Unless of course you specifically specify a map file. Is that what you are doing?

The other thing it may be is you set the emulator to use "Database Names". That can make the game names wrong.

We need your log file to investigate further.

Its possible it may show the wrong number of games, yes. Although it should correct that on a rebuild.

I tend to use custom menus or have the emulators sorted by name so have not tested much else though.

[kicker75]

I have the feeling that GameEx doesnt "re-create" the emu_* cache files. When I delete the emu_* files, gameex doesn't start any slower, and if I check the log, I see that gameex is actually telling me that it's pulling out the databases out of cache.

Attached, is my log of my new installation, with only 1 emulator. I mean, I've set up 32 emulators on my previous setup, I should be able to setup mame right on a new install.

As you can see nearing the end, it tells me this:

Not Restoring Emulator Database From Cache: 1000

So it's telling me that it's not restoring the emulator 1 (which seems to be called emu_1000 in the cache?)... but if I delete the emu_* files, it will tell me that its restoring databases from cache.

But I'm deleting the cache! It makes no sense!

Like I previously said, this very issue happened to me a few years back. I remember having to redo all my emulators because I re-ordered my emulator list in the setup wizard.

Please note, I didn't re-order the list in the wizard thinking it would re-order them inside gameex. I knew it was sorted a-z... I just wanted to have a cleaner list inside the wizard.. the same reason I did this years ago too. My ultimate goal for the real list inside gameex was to use the custom menu as you said, and create myself some categories to sort out my list, like Arcade, Hand-Held, Consoles, etc... also have thought about sorting them by generations... but anyway..

I also have vague memory of finding the files that gameex pulls "from the cache" to generate the emu_* files... but I haven't managed to find it back.

log.txt

[kicker75]

For the record, here is the last log file from my previous installation (that was fully setup)

log.txt

[kicker75]

I have just done a test... and it confirms my belief... On my new installation, I added a second emulator, the atari 2600.

I should have around 600 roms inside this dir, yet GameEx tells me I have 51 games in this system (from the main menu) and upon entering, I see an empty list again.

I have gone to the setup wizard, and I swapped emu #2 with #1. When I went back to GameEx, the listing was still MAME #1, Atari 2600 #2 as expected, since its sorted by name. But MAME was now showing 51 games (still empty once inside) and atari was reporting 32k some games... still empty from inside.

There is something very wrong somewhere...

[kicker75]

The numbers that gameex pulls off from the main menu are the old numbers of my systems on my first install, prior to re-ordering. My emulator #2 had 51 games, etc... so it looks like the registry key aren't deleted upon uninstall, and aren't modified when re-ordering either.

But, as much as I looked at them, it only seems to be some cache values for the number of games, it doesn't seems to be used for anything else, so I doubt deleting those will actually make the games appear... but what do I have to lose! I just deleted them to see if GameEx would say, hey the values are missing, lets do a rescan... but it didn't...

Now on the main menu, I see no number of games reported, and my two lists are still empty...

EDIT: I have looked in %appdata%, my documents, programdata, did a search for gameex and emu_* on both my c: and d: drive to find any clues as to how gameex is keeping my first install in memory like this... but I haven't had any luck. Think I will have to resort to use disk usage from sysinternals and see which files are read when opening and closing gameex... I believe that's how I managed to find out back then...

EDIT2: The sysinternals tools I meant was procmon, and it doesn't seems to run on windows 10 yet. Diskmon runs, but it doesn't show up filenames, only raw data... useless for me in this case...

[kicker75]

Made some progress.... but I must say that my patience is wearing thin...

I like troubleshooting, but when the devs can't even recognize there is a problem somewhere, one can only go so far to prove there is actually an issue somewhere.

I uninstalled gameex (yet another time)

I then deleted the gameex registry entries, except the key and pass one, and I found emu_* files in %appdata%\Local\Temp... so I deleted the whole temp dir since there was also some directory created by gameex in there as well.

Reinstalled gameex, set up the first emulator right away, to mame, and was greeted yet again to an empty list. Then I assigned an emulator map... that I downloaded because I never used one in my very first install (the only that ever worked as it should, until I re-ordered), and the games appeared.

I loaded my old gameex.ini with all 32 emulators setup, and the mame list was still showing, but all others were not. I started to assign map files to consoles, and the games started to show up in gameex.

I never used map files, except on systems that had rom names like mame. All the other console were setup without a map and only a database and it worked.

So, even after clearing all I cleared before reinstalling, I'm still having the feeling that something is wrong... why I didn't needed map files before, and why I do now?

edit: I just tried to remove the mapping file on the colecovision system (as it was the one selected when I got to advanced emu config screen), and the games list was still showing in GameEx... I don't understand. I had to use one to make the games appear, and now its not needed anymore...

[nullPointer]

Just out of curiosity, where do you have GameEx installed? It's easy to say "the devs can't recognize there's a problem," but if the problem is unique to you and your setup, what is there to recognize when 99.9% of users have never seen anything like what you are describing? (Especially when it's been less than 12 hours since Tom responded to your question?)

This is the only time I've ever seen an issue like this, and to be honest some of the stuff you're doing seems a bit "out there" in terms of what it's going to take to resolve the issue. I've never seen (or recommended that) someone clear GameEx entries our of the registry or clear temp files from the appdata directory in an attempt to redress issues within GameEx. I'm 95% certain that these actions are both wasting your time and increasing your frustration level.

To be honest, I think it's a problem with your gameex.ini. It's the only factor that's been consistent through all of this. If I were you I'd start creating new emulator slots using the old settings to see if it resolves the issue. I know that you've been trying to avoid that, but again, your INI is the only consistent factor in all of this. Again, I'm not necessarily suggesting that you start over fresh, but just copy your old settings into new slots.

[kicker75]

I already tried that... I don't need to add all my 32 emulators to find out that something is wrong. I mean... I installed it fresh, installed one system by hand, and there is still a problem remaining.

I already sent my log and config file, by looking at them, one can figure where my gameex is installed... d:\gameex. nothing fancy there.

Well.. try this out... create a new gameex install, add two emulator, and in the emulation selection screen, swap them... and see what happens in gameex... I doubt that I'm the only one having this issue, as I could probably find quite a few topics similar to this in these forums... and the one I linked in my op is a good example.

I could link quite a few post about this issue... and I have had it years ago...

Check this one out...

http://www.gameex.info/forums/topic/9237-strange-problem-with-emulator-lists/?hl=%2Bsort+%2Bemulator+%2Bsetup+%2Bwizard#entry68700

yeah, deleting the emulators and redoing it again, because you used a function that is broken and shouldn't be there, and for years... yeah everything is fine and the problem is only on my end... how stupid must I be...

and as you can see, i'm far from being a computer illiterate... I can only imagine what it would be if I would be "green"...

edit: look at the date of this post...2010... that must be around the time I built my first setup... likely 2009-2010... or so...

[nullPointer]

OK, I just tested it out and everything worked fine, save for one minor niggling issue. Do you use emulator groups? When I resorted my emulator list in the Setup Wizard it correctly recognized the modifications to emulator groups, except it added a "0" to the end of each emulator group.

6;5;4;2;3;0

That "0" will be recognized as MAME by GameEx and thus will add your MAME list into the applicable emulator group, and thus will be added into the game list for that group. Once I removed the "0" everything was good to go again. That doesn't sound like what you're experiencing, but it is noteworthy.

Other than that though everything worked as one might expect.

How did you re-sort your emulators? Did you use the "re-sort" button in the Setup Wizard? What method did you use to sort? (i.e. "by name", "by system", "by emulator")? Also you didn't mention where you had GameEx installed or if you had ran GameEx as administrator after deleting your cache files?

Look, I'm not saying that there isn't a problem somewhere, and I'm certainly not saying you're dumb by any means. But I am saying that taking an increasingly adversarial tone with the forum staff and (especially) the development staff won't do you any favors in getting the assistance you seek. Just some friendly advice.

[kicker75]

The two posts I linked are exactly what happened to me... here is another very similar, that clearly shows again that there is something wrong going on with sort emulator function... 2011 this time...

http://www.gameex.info/forums/topic/9936-resolved-emulator-sort-conflict-with-custom-menu-app/?hl=%2Bsort+%2Bemulator

[kicker75]

OK, I just tested it out and everything worked fine, save for one minor niggling issue. Do you use emulator groups? When I resorted my emulator list in the Setup Wizard it correctly recognized the modifications to emulator groups, except it added a "0" to the end of each emulator group.

That "0" will be recognized as MAME by GameEx and thus will add your MAME list into the applicable emulator group, and thus will be added into the game list for that group. Once I removed the "0" everything was good to go again. That doesn't sound like what you're experiencing, but it is noteworthy.

Other than that though everything worked as one might expect.

How did you re-sort your emulators? Did you use the "re-sort" button in the Setup Wizard? What method did you use to sort? (i.e. "by name", "by system", "by emulator")? Also you didn't mention where you had GameEx installed or if you had ran GameEx as administrator after deleting your cache files?

Look, I'm not saying that there isn't a problem somewhere, and I'm certainly not saying you're dumb by any means. But I am saying that taking an increasingly adversarial tone with the forum staff and (especially) the development staff won't do you any favors in getting the assistance you seek. Just some friendly advice.

I'm not using emulator groups for the moment. I used the re-sort in the setup wizard, and did sort it by mistake by systems, thinking it would sort it by arcade, console, handheld that kinda stuff, but it didnt produced the result I wanted (which is really alphabetical when I gave it a second thought).. so I re-sorted it alphabetically.

But on this new test install I installed mame and atari 2600... I only used the arrow up on the 2nd one, raising it 1st... and that's it.

Then the number of games were reported wrong in gameex.

If you used emulator groups, maybe that's why you haven't had the exact same result as I did...

If I have to record a video of me, installing gameex from scratch, installing two emulators, swapping them, without settings anything else in the config... then I will do it.

[Tom Speirs]

@Kicker75, take a break and have a snooze buddy. I guarantee you it will feel a whole lot less important tomorrow. So, a tiny bit of text is showing the wrong amount of games. I will look at it when I have a chance and fix the bug. Nobody is calling you a liar but in the big scheme of life, the universe and everything is it that important that it requires a new update to GameEx immediately?

[Draco1962]

Thanks Tom. You beat me to pretty much the same response. I think it is an issue, but not one we have seen commonly or have been able to replicate. These types of issues can take a bit of time to fix.

[nullPointer]

But on this new test install I installed mame and atari 2600... I only used the arrow up on the 2nd one, raising it 1st... and that's it.

Then the number of games were reported wrong in gameex.

If you used emulator groups, maybe that's why you haven't had the exact same result as I did...

If I have to record a video of me, installing gameex from scratch, installing two emulators, swapping them, without settings anything else in the config... then I will do it.

I only use two emulator groups; one for Sega Genesis (combining one config for 3 button games and another for 6 button games), and one for N64 (combining several different N64 emulators). All the rest are single emulator slots. I don't think the groups would "correct" the sorting behavior (if anything I expected that to be the part that got messed up ... which it sort of did, but only a little).

I think I would advise against resorting emulators as you're adding them, before you've ever run GameEx, but I've also never done that ... so who knows. That might be a contributing factor to the issue?

As I mentioned, it's not that we're debating whether there's an issue (it appears that there is), only that if we can't duplicate the issue, it makes it that much harder to discern.

So, a tiny bit of text is showing the wrong amount of games. I will look at it when I have a chance and fix the bug.

If it helps (and if I understand the issue correctly) it's not that GameEx is showing the wrong number of games, but rather it's showing the entirely wrong list of games (correct me if I'm wrong Kicker75). So if emu_1 is Nintendo NES and emu_2 is Atari 2600, when he re-sorts the order of emus in the Setup Wizard emu_1 is now labeled as Atari 2600 in GameEx, but it still displays the NES game list when he navigates to it. Does that properly describe the issue you're seeing Kicker75?

Edit:

Actually as I re-read the last few posts you are correct about the misreported numbers in the game list(s) being the most recent issue. I was still thinking it was the issue reported in the OP.

Edited December 16, 2015 by nullPointer
Reading Comprehension. Whoa.

[kicker75]

I only use two emulator groups; one for Sega Genesis (combining one config for 3 button games and another for 6 button games), and one for N64 (combining several different N64 emulators). All the rest are single emulator slots. I don't think the groups would "correct" the sorting behavior (if anything I expected that to be the part that got messed up ... which it sort of did, but only a little).

I think I would advise against resorting emulators as you're adding them, before you've ever run GameEx, but I've also never done that ... so who knows. That might be a contributing factor to the issue?

As I mentioned, it's not that we're debating whether there's an issue (it appears that there is), only that if we can't duplicate the issue, it makes it that much harder to discern.

If it helps (and if I understand the issue correctly) it's not that GameEx is showing the wrong number of games, but rather it's showing the entirely wrong list of games (correct me if I'm wrong Kicker75). So if emu_1 is Nintendo NES and emu_2 is Atari 2600, when he re-sorts the order of emus in the Setup Wizard emu_1 is now labeled as Atari 2600 in GameEx, but it still displays the NES game list when he navigates to it. Does that properly describe the issue you're seeing Kicker75?

Ah ok, I use rocketlauncher to deal with that... as you can assign some games in the list a different emulator than the default for the system, as well as different parameters for the emulator in question...

Yeah, I will of course never use the sort function again That much is certain!

As for duplicating the issue... like I said, when I did the two emu test, I went straight to config the emu, left everything else by default. I had erased the registry settings, cleaned up temp, did as much as I could to have a clean install and still, pressing the up arrows did it again.

And yes, you have understood the problem correctly. GameEx is set to sort emulator by name by default. So the list doesn't change in gameex. I still saw mame first, and atari 2nd. However, mame now reported to have the number of games the atari 2600 had, and the atari now was displaying 32k games.

But both lists were in fact empty. In my first install, when it screwed up, there was a few systems displaying games in their list, however, it wasn't the right games, it was the games of another system.

So yeah, to keep it simple, let say we have emu1 that is mame, and emu2 that is atari 2600, is I make emu2 become emu1 in the setup wizard, the list displayed in gameex becomes wrong, and don't match the change in setup wizard.

Everything points me to think that when the sort function is used, gameex forget to take care of the emu_* files, and the registry settings it keeps for the number of games... so it breaks everything apart.. thats my feeling...

edit: and likely the emu_* part in the gameex.ini file (that looks like some sort of cache)

edit2: I wanted to proceed and add map files and try to get myself out this way... but I couldnt find a map file for the atari 2600 system... so I thought about using the one I made for the mame software list, and it did displayed the 1500 or so games in this list. However, after removing the map file in the config, the list still displayed the 1500 games... and of course, none of them works.. I know its not the kind of things you will usually do, but nevertheless, it shouldn't happen. I only tried this because I'm stuck all I can do is try stuff...

[kicker75]

You wouldn't believe what happened. I uninstalled gameex, cleaned everything I could again (cause if I dont do this... let say I had mame as emu #1, and had 32k games in it, then when reinstalling, and setting emu #1 to atari 2600, it would report the number of games mame had in the other install)... and set out to record a video.

I did this:

Installed gameex, configured display to change fullscreen from window to be able to record it, change the background setting cause it messes up the config at times, reverting any changes made to it... since the background process seems to keep a cached copy and restores the config file when it detect changes or something like that... and set up mame and atari 2600 system.

When I got to gameex, both systems were shown empty. I then exited gameex, added a map file for mame, and none for atari 2600 since there is none... then gameex showed mame properly. Atari was still empty.

I decided to add turbografx-16 system since it haves a map file for it. When I got to gameex, now both mame and tg16 had games in them, atari still empty.

I then went ahead, and swapped mame with tg16, leaving atari in the middle. When I got to gameex, everything was fine, the sort worked. I was like, you are shitting me right... I cancelled the recording, and was literally pissed... but at least, for the first time, I took notice that it does work at times.

So I went ahead, and swapped atari with tg16... and then things screwed up... atari showed tg16 games, and tg16 still was showing tg16 games too.

I wish I would have kept recording... but I wouldnt mind doing it again.

[kicker75]

Well, I might be on my way to success now. I rebooted my computer... must have had an uptime of 3-4 weeks, uninstalled and cleaned gameex, and started over anew.

I tried to set my stuff as much as possible as I originally did at first. The two main differences between this time, and my previous times, I put no file extension in as anyway, there is only zip files in there... and I set map keys to no.

There are many obscure settings in gameex, and lots of time, the title and description of an option is cryptic at best. Map keys, I thought it had something to do with the esc key being able to exit out the emulator. That was my first guess, and since I use rocketlauncher, I set it off without thinking much.

In my previous attempts, I let it enabled, as I figured it wouldn't matter anyway, and I was only setting the bare to get going faster in gameex.

So I set up 10 emulators on first setup. And all of them now works as expected.

Since it's working again fine, I'm scared of trying to find what was my problem (like the console stuff not working without a map), by turning map keys back on, and adding a file extension filter (this one I highly doubt it affects anything, as it was something I later added in my configuration... but map keys always been off...)

Could be the fact that I rebooted my computer as well... who knows.

Like I said, dont really want to find out. However, I'm sure that, by playing with the order in my setup wizard list, I could screw things up again. This should be really looked at...

Now that the heat is off, let me explain why I might have been "harsh"... I spent weeks downloading roms, setting my emulators, rocketlauncher, etc... and gameex.. I was close to almost call it being done (at least for a while), when I did a screw up and overwrite my roms with the software lists roms. I found the no intro romset and downloaded it. I was adding my last few systems, and since I'm probably a bit OCD like most involved in this OCD hobby.. my unsorted emulators list in the setup wizard bugged me... I added the systems at first, as they got downloaded... so pretty much by size they were, and time it took to get them

Then you know the rest... it brought back memories of old times, and I remembered having had the very same issue, and about in pretty much the same circonstances... after I was done adding my emulators with no fixed order, I wanted to clean things up and bam...

I was a bit ticked off to see the issue remained after all these years... by now, I should be having fun, not having an headache trying to fix my usage of a function that is present in the setup ui but should require some attention or temporary removal.

Here are a few other glitches I noticed:

Sometimes, when resizing the setup ui windows, with the handle at least, it resets you back to the beginning and also clear your selection to the window about setting up the 3 paths. And also clear your selection of custom and resets you back to basic. This happened to me twice, while I wanted to make the standard window larger in the emulator selection screen to see it all.

I've installed gameex a lot of times today, and 2 or 3 times out of them all, I had one option in the many checkboxes in the first screen... there was download demo at the end... most of the time it doesn't show up, but I dunno why, it showed up a few times...

And another, even if you don't select steam support files in this same checkbox list, by default steam is enabled in the options, and if you forget to set if off, when you fire gameex, you realize that steam works even tho you didn't ticked off the steam support files... not a big issue, but clearly something not working as it should.

I'll report back once I'm done. At least, I have my sorted list, and I'm adding them sorted now.

edit: all my consoles are setup with no maps and its working fine. I do have recorded a video after I wrote my previous post here... its not encoded and online yet, but I will likely do that tomorrow or in the days to come so you can at least see the screw up with sorting.

[Draco1962]

You hadn't rebooted at all during these changes the last few days? Something like this should be a cause to reboot and clear all memory!

[kicker75]

You hadn't rebooted at all during these changes the last few days? Something like this should be a cause to reboot and clear all memory!

Well... yeah My computer is now rather stable (changed power supply because it blew two months or so ago, and the motherboard blew up as well), so I changed ps+mobo, and re-installed windows, now using 10. I reboot my computer every month or so... more likely when something ask me to.

Since I lost the habit of rebooting my system, I didn't thought to reboot before

I'm happy to say tho that I have installed all my systems back. Using rocketlauncher is so easy... nothing more to remember than rocketlauncher -s "system" [ROM] ... pretty easy stuff once its configured over there... a huge time saver. I can't recommend it enough. I even planned up ahead my next few ones and added them already so they dont end up messing my ocd later, and disabled them for the time being!

Some observations tho:

GameEx seems to be horrible at maintaining its gameex.ini file. Clearly, plain text doesn't cut it.

The file is too big, it becomes messy quickly, and that is without editing it by hand. Even if you organize your emulator section, and even gameex itself, will keep on changing the order of the lines that makes up an emulator definition. For example, sometimes the paths are near top, near [emulator], and sometimes it's near the end. Play with your settings, and it changes again.

To give you an idea, my 32 emulator config was at an heavy 500kb+.. the one I messed up re-ordering. This new setup right now, have 44 emulators already added, and weight in at only 210kb. GameEx is also a lot snappier and responsive. (Not like moving the mouse around etc, this is the same, but I mean, loading a menu, itself, categories... etc.)

So there is really a benefit of setting it right the first time, and not playing with it anymore. But it shouldn't be this way.

The config file should be broken down into sections, and different ini files. Each [section] should be split into different ini... and each emulator should have its own ini... then managing the main config file would be a lot easier.

[Emulator 1]

config=emulator1.ini

But I believe the best thing to do would be to use xml... as size doesn't really matter with it... an xml of the size of gameex.ini would likely be a lot faster, more stable, wouldn't ever change (except the values)...

The cache part of the config should also be in a separate file.

Some cleanup of the setup wizard, grouping of options, better naming, description... consistency... like in display hide desktop isn't yes or no, its hide operating system... confusing. Later, you have hide/show taskbar... yes or no... again... yes or no for what? hide or show? you pretty much have to try it out to figure... common sense would lead you to think that yes apply to hide since its first... but it could be labelled and have a better description, cause even the description isn't helping. Hide Taskbar: Yes/No would have done the same job, more efficiently. And again, grouping.... putting it next to hide desktop would make sense. A lot of things like that could be improved in the setup wizard.

But that's out of topic!

Like these topic usually end, with the user redoing everything... its now resolved, yes, but the problem still remains... I hope you guys are going to seriously look at it, and consider my suggestions for the config file... this behavior needs to be fixed... redoing stuff because of your own mistake sucks enough... but its a lot easier to accept and get over it then when you use a function and that it instantly messes up hours and hours of work.

Sorry if I did come across edgy...thanks null