Karaoke Won't Load

[Theo]

Hiya, i've recently got back into Game Ex and have purchased lifetime access, 1.to help the development and 2.I liked the idea of karaoke on it, i've managed to get through most of the emulator set ups without issue but this Karaoke is really annoying me as it seems it should be simple.

Files show up, preview shows up, click the file and goes black then comes back to menu, i've read a few threads including this one 

What are karaoke modules? i installed Game Ex then upgraded and used code to activate, don't remember any option and wondered if this is anything to do with it?

 

also the thread i've pasted a link to, i'm unsure on re-installing as i've done a good solid few weeks of tweaking all my emulators and such.

 

advice welcome  ta

[stigzler]

A million people in a million pubs across the world are presently wishing the topic title...

[Theo]

Trust me, it's for my wife and her friends for their partying, I will be far far away

 

[stigzler]

My god, man. That sounds hellish. My condolences. 

[Draco1962]

@Theo - Please provide us with a copy of your gameex.ini and log.txt files in reply to this thread. Click on the GameEx How to ask for help link in my signature for instructions on how to locate and submit the files for us to review your settings. Thanks. 

[stigzler]

My apologies - Draco is a lot more sensible and helpful than I am. If there's a man that can, then Dracon, errrr...can.

 

[Draco1962]

I don't know about being sensible. Been there. Done that. Pain and nashing of teeth usually follows. But I will give it a shot.

[Draco1962]

@Theo - I am going to refer you to this post which includes instructions for making this work with GameEx. You will find the Karaoke for DirectX module mentioned in the Windows Control Panel > Programs and Features.

[ricoaus]

I seem to have the same problem, Karaoke files just flashes a black screen and exits. I'm on windows 10 and this appears in the log

22:45:08.4  27/03/2016:  Playing Video m:\karaoke\test.cdg
22:45:08.4  27/03/2016:  Open Karaoke m:\karaoke\test.cdg
22:45:08.4  27/03/2016:  Unable to open video

If I select karaoke for directx setting to have "use Microsoft video rendering 9" and then launch gameex and try a karaoke file it just cause Karaoke for directx to then have the setting unticked?

Wondering if its a directx9 windows 10 issue?

Thanks for any help.

[Draco1962]

Yeah, going to need your gameex.ini and complete log.txt files too, @ricoaus. Thanks!

[ricoaus]

Hi Draco, Attached as requested. Thanks for your help with this

log.txt

GameEx.ini

[Draco1962]

Karaoke for DIrectX required Directx 9 when it was released in 2004. The version of DirectX in Windows 10 should be directly backwards compatible with the DirectX 9 calls. I have this installed on my Win 10 PC and it works just fine. I would not recommend installing DIrectX9.

I noticed that you are loading the videos from m:\karaoke\ . Is it a safe assumption that you are loading from a networked drive? Not that it should matter, but one thing you could do is test by copying a few of your karaoke files to c:\karaoke\ (ensuring that you have full admin rights to the folder\subfolder\files) and set your path in the Setup Wizard | Karaoke Settings to this new path to see if this makes a difference.

[ricoaus]

Hi Draco,

Thanks for the reply, m is a USB drive. I'll move the files to the c drive and point gameex to it and see how it goes (I'm away until Thursday so will give it a go then). One thing to note is I have been loading videos and music off the same usb drive fine it's just the karaoke for some reason.

thanks again

rico

[ricoaus]

hi @Draco1962

Moved it to c: however same issue... actually should double clicking on a CDG file in windows load up the karaoke file okay? it seems the file association works for it however it gives an access error when trying to run the CDG file (loading in directly from media player works fine)  I'm wondering if its a setup thing?

[Draco1962]

Can you give more detail as to the exact access error? 

[ricoaus]

Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the file.

 

I get that if I double click on an CDG file.

[ricoaus]

The file association setup in windows is to %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe /Play "%L"

This the same for you?

[Draco1962]

I will have to check but it could be that the file association is suspect as there have been some changes with Windows 10 and how WMP is accessed. Have you tried downloading the latest GameEx build and installing over the top yet to see if this makes a difference? If you try this, be sure to select the Karaoke for Windows option while clicking through the options.

You may also need to look into the folder's permissions to see if the application is listed and what access rights it has to the files. 

[ricoaus]

Hi Draco,

I gave up on Windows 10 - went back to Windows 7 and it worked first go.

rico

[mviars]

I have been wrestling with this issue (playing karaoke on windows 10) for a while now and it does seems to be something with windows 10 and/or possibly windows media player. It would appear that karaoke-DX is not supported with wins10's media player. I too was getting a permission error as some stated above but was able to correct that by associating the .cdg file extension to any app as windows now calls them. I assigned them to windows media player which corrected the permission error however windows media player says it cannot open this file type. When I look at any .cdg file property it shows it as an unknown type.

I decided to try and find a different but similar program that would work with windows media player and came across Power Karaoke's -  Power CD+G Filter which is a DirectX system extension (ActiveX plug-in) that will allow you to play CDG and BIN files using any DirectX-aware file players, like Windows Media Player unfortunately this is a paid program($10) but they do have a trial version which I have tried for testing proposes. Now that I have it installed my .cdg file properties now show that they are a Karaoke CD+G File and have a microphone type icon. when I double click the .cdg file it does start windows media player and the karaoke video lyrics which is great however when using GameEx I still have the same problem as before where after clicking a song it starts to switch out of GameEx to I am assuming windows media player as it never quiet gets there after a few seconds it returns back to the GameEx's karaoke menu. I now notice that I no longer have a song preview of karaoke song in the list that did use to play the song with the lyric graphics in the preview window(although not in sync) which it did before trying the power CD+G filter. 

[Draco1962]

I do not have the same problem. I can play the karaoke files just fine via GameEx using the Karaoke for DirextX. I cannot see the previews as I could before upgrading to Windows 10. Likely this is due to the changes in the media player schema for W10.

[mviars]

5 hours ago, Draco1962 said:

I do not have the same problem. I can play the karaoke files just fine via GameEx using the Karaoke for DirextX. I cannot see the previews as I could before upgrading to Windows 10. Likely this is due to the changes in the media player schema for W10.

Damn that's crazy. Before I tried the new   Power CD+G Filter  driver instead of karaoke DX I did have the preview just no Karaoke. Draco are you using Win10-64? 

 

Also when you right click on a .cdg file and look at the properties what does it show as type of file?

[Draco1962]

W10 x64. I looked at the properties but do not recall what it said for the file type. 

[mviars]

Draco I wonder if the Karaoke DX  you have is the difference. I could not get the karaoke DX link on the setup wizard to work so I just did some google searching and came across Karaoke-DX which I assumed was the same the author stated " This project is no longer supported. The developer has moved to Troubadour Karaoke company". 

 

I decided to removed the    Power CD+G Filter  I was using and downloaded a karaoke DX 3 beta 3 and I now have my previews back and can double click a .cdg file and have it play as it should so it does look like it works however I still have no luck in GameEX it just tries to start then freezes for about 10 seconds and returns back to GameEx. unlike setting up emulator the karaoke feature does not seem to have as much configuring options. 

[Draco1962]

I think this is a break in the functionality due to changes with Media Player within W10 which I believe is called by GameEx to create the previews tapping into the latest non-beta version.