[RESOLVED] Wrong Mame game information shown in GameEX

[magenois]

Hello all!

I am currently rebuilding a new computer for my cabinet as everything in it is currently 6 or 7 years old, including GameEx. To make a long story short, I installed Gamex and configured it and I have a small issue. When I browse the MAME game list and select a game, quite often but not all the time, the game information shown is totally wrong and not related to the game.

See the screenshot attached as an example. The description says that the game "Gunmasters" is a "F1 Racing game". Some games will show the right information but many are just wrong.

I downloaded the latest "history.dat" from the link (http://www.arcade-history.com/) provided in the download section of the gameex web site and placed it in the DATA folder and then rebuilt updated my game list.

Anyone have a fix for this problem?

thanks very much!

 

[B2K24]

 

 

 

My setup is showing correctly. Do you have the latest mameinfo.dat ?

Also, please consult the setup wizard and make sure it's pointing to the correct files.

[magenois]

Hello! Thanks for the quick reply.

I do not have the latest mameinfo.dat.

When I tried to download it from the link provided in the support file section of the Gameex website, (http://www.gameex.com/support-files/) then link was invalid so I went on and forgot about this.

I will try to update it tonight when I am back home and report back.

thanks

 

 

 

[magenois]

I downloaded the mameinfo.dat linked above, copied it to my Gameex\data folder (C:\Gameex\Data) and rebuilt my game list in GameEx. Same issue.

My GameEx config for the mameinfo.dat location is "DATA\mameinfo.dat"

what else should I try?

 

[RedDog]

Hey magenois, please post your GameEx.ini and log.txt file.
It never hurts to provide these files...and often helps.  

[magenois]

Attached. Thanks!

Let me know if you want a log file of a game list rebuild

log.txt

GameEx.ini

[B2K24]

15:39:59.6  2016-03-22:  Catver.ini is located at: C:\GameEx\DATA\catver.ini
15:39:59.6  2016-03-22:  History.dat is located at: C:\GameEx\DATA\history.dat
15:39:59.6  2016-03-22:  nplayers.ini is located at: C:\GameEx\DATA\nplayers.ini
15:39:59.6  2016-03-22:  command.dat is located at: C:\GameEx\DATA\command.dat
15:39:59.6  2016-03-22:  MAMEinfo.dat is located at: C:\GameEx\DATA\mameinfo.dat

Can you make sure you have updated versions of all these files?

 

 

 

[RedDog]

I believe the way Gameex builds its list is to take data from the dat files and then create a gamelist.txt file in the DATA folder. It then reads that gamelist.txt file when it needs to display info for a game.

I suggest working with the mameinfo.dat file first since this is where the descriptions come from - maybe try a different one (old or new) and rebuild.

Personally, I have only seen this sort of thing when dealing with map files, but GameEx does not use mapfiles for this.

[magenois]

Confirmed. I have the 0.171 release of all those files. My mame version is also 0.171.

Here is a list of the files on my hard drive and also below a screenshot of the source I used for the files.

 

Quote

2016-02-28  06:36         1,783,548 catver.ini
2016-02-24  09:30        24,920,814 history.dat
2016-02-27  17:43           567,569 nplayers.ini
2016-03-15  18:05         3,650,492 command.dat
2016-02-24  06:55        15,515,128 mameinfo.dat

 

[magenois]

Hello

I deleted those 5 files (catver,history,nplayers, command and mameinfo) and re-installed GameEx. The versions of those files contained in the gameex installation package are somewhat older but I wanted to start from scrath. I rebuilt my game list.

The issue is still present, however less widespread than with the previous files. By randomly browsing in the game list, it took me about 20 hits to find an occurrence. See below. "lasso" is being described as "crush roller"

 

 

[B2K24]

Can you try with the default theme and what kind of binary are you using?

Can you try with MAME version 0.171 from mamedev.org ?

[magenois]

I am already using MAME 0171 from mamedev.org. I will switch to groovymame when the PC will be in cabinet but for now I am still using a "stock" mame.

I would be very surprised that the theme would have any influence because if I look in the gamelist.txt file that is built by GameEx I can see the bad entry, ie. for the example above I see the line for "lasso" but with the description of "crush roller"

 

[magenois]

I did some more research and troubleshooting.

The game description displayed is coming from the file history.dat.

What I found is that all of my roms that don't have corresponding description entry in the file history.dat will show a random description in GameEx.

The issue do not happen at the display time (ie. when gameex display the game info) but rather when the game list update process happen. If I look in the gamelist.txt, I can see the line for the rom and the wrong description beside it.

Can anyone else try to repro the issue? find a ROM you have that doesn't have a description in history.dat and see if you have a good description for it in gamelist.txt or in GameEx MAME game list menu?

I don't know what else to try. Looks like a small bug in the game list building process to me.

I don't remember having this issue on my "production" PC in cabinet which is running GameEx 11.xx

thanks!

[tthurman]

Have you double checked your extras paths to ensure they're accurate?  Are you using the most recent set, I believe for those it's 0.170

[magenois]

13 minutes ago, tthurman said:

Have you double checked your extras paths to ensure they're accurate?  Are you using the most recent set, I believe for those it's 0.170

yes I did double and triple checked everything. I tried with the most recent version of those files and went back to the ones that are shipped in the gameex installation package.

 

[tthurman]

Quote

 went back to the ones that are shipped in the gameex installation package.

GameEx installation package comes in at 30mb currently, so it doesn't include a full set of extras.  What little media it contains is for demo purposes only.  I would recommend deleting the contents of those folders, and copying the content of 0.170 extras to each of them from scratch, then update.  At worst it's a bit of an exercise, with the flip side being that perhaps it's your solution.

 

[magenois]

I noticed the issue first when I was using the latest files of the "extras". The files I had were "0.171" release. I can try again with 0.170... what are the right sources for these files, there seems to be multiple sources, some "official" some less official?

[B2K24]

Have you tried reinstalling GameEX itself? Perhaps this issue will be corrected if doing an uninstall and then a reinstall.

[magenois]

I'm going to try the uninstall/reinstall method later on today. Will report back. If it doesn't work, I will simply disable this feature and move on.

thanks again for the help

 

[tthurman]

The latest MAME version is 0.171, but since it is on a rapid release schedule items such as the cabs, images, etc. lag behind a release or two.  Still they are generally relevant enough to work.  

Please refer to the forum rules 

[millerbrad]

I see this occasionally.  Curious if the specific build of MAME you're using has any effect on the list that's built in GameEx?  i.e. if you let MAMEUI build its own gameinfo.txt or equivalent, does GameEx just grab info from that for its list?

I'm using MAMEUIFX64, for what it's worth...

[magenois]

I did a full uninstall/reinstall of GameEx. The only thing I kept was my .ini file to preserve my settings. I see the same issue with the latest release of the 5 files discussed above.

The vast majority of the ROMs will show the right information but some of them will show game information from a different game.

At least I am not the only one seing this

I will just keep on moving on configuring my new PC and wont bother with this issue anymore.

[MacMahoun]

Had the same problem with wrong game descriptions and wanted to let you know what fixed it for me.

I deleted the file "[Arcade] MAME.mdb" in folder gameex/DATA/emulators and the file gamelist.txt in gameex/DATA and then updated the gamelist.

After that there where no descriptions at all, but after restarting GameEx all descriptions seem to be ok.

Hope this helps some of you.

Bye!

[tthurman]

Nice first post MacMahoun, thanks for taking the time to share your solution.

Welcome to the GameEx forums!  

[magenois]

Thanks for sharing! I'll give it a try.

Will this resets my favorites (I cant remember in which database they are stored)?